UC'SB LIBRARY Proceedings in Commemoration of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the First Congregational Church Williamstown, Massachusetts OCTOBER THE 9TH AND 10TH 1915 THE REV. JOHN DfiPEU, Minister SUN PRINTING COMPANY PITTSFIELO MASSACHUSETTS 1016 INTRODUCTION In the year 1765, the Town of Williamstown, Massachusetts, was incorporated by act of the Governor and General Court of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and in the same year the First Church of Christ in the town was organized. In the annual town meeting of 1914, a committee was appointed to plan, if it deemed it advisable, for a celebration of the sesquicentennial of the incorporation of the town. As no general interest in the subject was manifested, the committee reported without making recommendations to the annual meeting of 1915 and the matter was dropped. In the church there was manifested a more lively interest in the anniversary, and a proper wish to do honor to the founders of the town and church. In the annual meeting of the First Church, on January I, 1915, on motion of Deacon Franklin Carter, it was voted: That a committee of five, all legal residents of Williamstown, be appointed by the pastor, three of whom shall be members of this church and three of whom shall be members of the parish and one of whom shall be a professor in the college, which committee shall determine the date and arrange for the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the formal organi- zation of this church, and shall have power to appoint subordinate committees, if they may think such necessary, in order to carry into effect the plans devised for the celebration. Page three The pastor appointed as such committee: Mr. Charles S. Cole, Mr. E. Herbert Botsford, Mr. N. Henry Sabin, Deacon Perry A. Smedley and Mr. Henry D. Wild, all of the members of the committee being members of both church and parish. The committee met on January 20 and elected Mr. Charles S. Cole, Chairman, and Mr. E. Herbert Botsford, Secretary. At this and subsequent meetings various suggestions were received and plans considered for a celebration, more or less elaborate. Sub-com- mittees were appointed as follows : Invitations: Miss Grace Perry, Chairman; Mrs. Samuel F. Clarke, Mr. Carleton G. Smith. Entertainment: Mrs. E. Herbert Botsford, Chair- man; Mrs. Percy A. Chambers, Mrs. Charles S. Cole, Mrs. George E. Howes, Mrs. Frederick E. Moore. Music: Mrs. Willard B. Clark, Chairman; Mrs. Garabed S. Azhderian. Decorations : Miss Ruth M. Sabin, Chairman ; Miss Alma J. Brookman, Miss Lucy F. Curtis, Miss Alice C. Doughty, Miss Estelle Pulsifer, Miss Viola S. Walden. Historical Collection: Mr. Perry A. Smedley, Chairman; Dr. Vanderpoel Adriance, Miss Alma J. Brookman, Miss Lucy F. Curtis, Miss Susan S. Hopkins, Mr. George B. Waterman. Finance: Mr. N. Henry Sabin. Ushers: Mr. Carleton G. Smith, Chairman; Mr. Ralston Doughty, Mr. Charles M. Galusha, Mr. G. Newell Galusha. Printing: Mr. William F. Cameron, Chairman; Miss Grace Perry, Mr. Frederick C. Ferry. Programme : The Rev. John DePeu. Page four The various committees took up their work ener- getically. The historical collection was notably rich. The weather was propitious, the leaves being still green upon the trees and flowers still blooming in gardens on October 9 and 10, when the programme finally agreed upon was carried through with much enthusiasm. There was a large attendance at the informal reception on Saturday afternoon, many former members of the church, representatives of the old families, and friends from neighboring towns being present. The supper was served by a professional caterer. Large congregations on Saturday evening and on Sunday listened to the addresses which are printed in this volume. Stenographic records of the unwritten addresses were made by Miss Helen M. Netherwood and Miss Stella H. Netherwood. Rejoicing over the one hundred and fifty years of the Right Hand of the Most High thus celebrated, the church looks forward hopefully and prayerfully to more earnest and fruitful service in years to come. "And in the name of our God we will set up our banners." JOHN DEPEU, Minister. Page five Copy of the Invitation: 1765-1915 THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL, CHURCH \VILLIAMSTOWN, MASSACHUSETTS CELEBRATES THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF ITS ORGANIZATION SATURDAY AND SUNDAY, OCTOBER i- NINTH AND TENTH NINETEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN SATURDAY 4.OO P. M. KECEPTIOW AJ."I> SCPPER 7.3O P. M. ADDHKSSKS FOKMKH PASTORS OF THE CHl'RCH SUNDAY 1O.30 A. M. MOHXIXO -W-OKSEII' AND HISTORICAL ADDHES8 TBE REV. JOHN DB PEC, MINISTER 4.00 P. M. THE Cf)I.LE(iK AXD THE CHURCH DB. FRANKLIN CARTER YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO BE PRESENT. Page six Copy of the Programmes: Saturday Afternoon at 4 o'clock Reception and Supper ORDER OF SERVICE Saturday Evening, 7.30 o'clock Service conducted by the Minister, The Rev. John DePeu Organist, Miss Rosalie Smith (Organist of the Church from 1882 to 1895) ORGAN PRELUDE SCRIPTURE LESSON, Psalm 91 PRAYER HYMN 21, "How pleased and blest was I," The Congregation ADDRESSES BY FORMER PASTORS OF THE CHURCH : The Rev. Austin B. Bassett, 1887-1891 The Rev. William Slade, 1891-1897 The Rev. Willis H. Butler, 1898-1003 The Rev. Francis T. Clayton, 1903-1909 LETTERS AND REMINISCENCES HYMN 177, "I love Thy Kingdom, Lord," The Congregation BENEDICTION ORGAN POSTLUDE Page seven ORDER OF SERVICE Sunday Morning, 10.30 o'clock OKGAN PRELUDE, Mr. Douglas A. Shepardson INVOCATION, The Rev. Austin B. Bassett OUR LORD'S PRAYER, The Congregation ANTHEM, "My soul longeth," Marston Miss Florence Van D. Smith Mrs. George E. Howes Mr. William H. Doughty Mr. Leonard Maier PSALTER, Selection 23, Psalm 103, The Rev. William Slade and Congregation HYMN 174, "Glorious things of Thee are spoken," The Congregation SCRIPTURE LESSON, Is. 61 :i-3, 63:7-9; Rev. 7:9-16, The Rev. John M. McLaren Minister of the Second Congregational Church, Williamstown PRAYER, The Rev. Thomas P. Haig Minister of the Church of Christ in White Oaks, Williamstown OFFERTORY SOLO, "Fear not ye, O Israel," Buck Mrs. George E. Howes DEDICATION OF OFFERINGS, The Rev. Willis H. Butler HYMN 176, "Oh, where are kings and empires now," The Congregation SERMON, Text, Proverbs 8 :2, The Rev. John DePeu HYMN 425, "For all Thy saints, who from their labors rest," The Congregation PRAYER AND BENEDICTION, The Rev. Francis T. Clayton ORGAN POSTLUDE, Mr. Douglas A. Shepardson Page eight ORDER OF SERVICE Sunday Afternoon, 4.00 o'clock The Minister of the Church, The Rev. John DePeu, Presiding Organist, Mr. Sumner Salter, Organist of Williams College Double Quartet from Williams College Choir ORGAN PRELUDE DOUBLE QUARTET, "Veni Creator Spiritus" SCRIPTURE LESSON, I Corinthians, 13 PRAYER HYMN 405, "Fling out the banner ! let it float," The Congregation GREETINGS FROM THE WILLIAMSTOWN CHURCHES : The Baptist Church, The Rev. Ralph H. Tibbals, Pastor The Methodist Episcopal Church, The Rev. John Duffield, Pastor St. John's Episcopal Church, The Rev. J. Franklin Carter, Rector DOUBLE QUARTET, "O, send out Thy light," Buck GREETINGS FROM WILLIAMS COLLEGE, President Harry A. Garfield, LL. D. HYMN 173, "The Church's one foundation," The Congregation ADDRESS, "The College and the Church," Franklin Carter, Ph. D., LL. D. President of Williams College, 1881-1901 Deacon of the Church from 1910 HYMN 78, "O God, our help in ages past," The Congregation PRAYER AND BENEDICTION ORGAN POSTLUDE Page nine ADDRESS OF THE REV. CHARLES G. SEWALL The Rev. John DePeu, introducing the Rev. Charles G. Sewall: This evening is to be devoted to reminiscence. Tomorrow, the addresses will have to do with the more ancient history of the church. Tonight we are to hear from living pastors who have served here and who are now serving in other fields. The earliest of these pastors who are still living is the Rev. Albert C. Sewall, who served this church and brought to it abundant blessing, and to the town equal benefactions, from 1872 to 1886. By reason of the infirmity of the flesh, he is unable to be with us tonight, but we have the joy of having with us his son, the Rev. Charles G. Sewall, of the State Street Presbyterian Church in Albany, New York. I shall have occasion to mention tomorrow morning what the early settlers or surveyors of this town thought concerning "gentlemen from Albany;" but we extend to Mr. Sewall a more cordial welcome than was given to earlier visitors from the Hudson Valley. Mr. Sewall speaks to us as a son of the church and as his father's representative. The Rev. Charles G. Sewall: I wish to thank your pastor very heartily for his cordial introduction. I am one of two gentlemen from Albany who have been welcomed here today, and since the Governor has succeeded in arriving in Williams- Page ten THE REV. ADDISON BALLARD THE REV. HENRY R. HOISINGTON THE REV. ALBERT C. SEW ALL THE REV. MASON NOBLE THE REV. PERCY MARTIN town and departing in safety, I shall approach you with less fear and trembling than I otherwise would have done after Mr. DePeu's mention of the ancient feeling toward Albany. I am very glad that this service has been spoken of as a service of reminiscence, for that has been my own mood all today, as it doubtless has been yours. I suppose that there are few of you here, perhaps none of you, who knew the old Congregational church better than I did. For some years my father had his study in the church and I used often to come to visit him, to do an errand, or to see him while he was studying here. Later, I remember that there was a convenient cellar window, through which a boyish body could very easily wriggle, which at all times admitted me to the secret interiors of the church. With the exception, therefore, of the small spire which stood to the east near the entrance, I think there was no accessible portion of the building which at some time or other my inquisitive eyes did not investigate or my feet tread. Consequently, as I come here today it is with a real confusion of spirit so many of my early experiences and my present dreams are clustered about the familiar structure which stood on this spot. They tell me that this is the same old church that always stood here; and yet, as I look about me and try to realize that this is the building where we used to worship and at times play, methinks my eyes deceive me. I begin to understand what St. Paul meant when he spoke about the glorified body which one day should be our portion. If this is the same old church, it is certainly a glorified body which it now wears and I am sure that those of us who love it should be proud that it has been so glorified. Page eleven As I have been gazing upon the portraits which are displayed upon the wall in the other room, very precious and tender memories have come to my heart. I can remember Deacon Smedley and Dr. Sabin and Dr. Hopkins and Mr. Smith. I cannot recount all the names, but the faces come to me. I can remember the pews they used to sit in, and just how the backs of their heads used to look during sermon-time that long, tedious time while father was preaching. Now they too have their glorified body, and yet I think their spirits are with us rejoicing in what this church was, and what it is, and what it shall be. And that suggests another thought which has been uppermost in my mind as I contemplate the changes which have taken place, typified by the pictures of the various edifices in which this church has worshipped, which appear on the order of worship, and as I think of this last change which has so glorified the material edifice, namely, that, despite these changes of body, the spirit lives on. There is only one thing on earth, after all, that approaches the immortality of the human spirit, and that is the immortality of an institution. In this human life, men come and men go they do their work and then pass on but the institution abides and its spirit is permanent; and through these one hundred and fifty years this church, moved from the old site on the hill to this site, occupying its successive houses of worship, has still gone on doing its goodly work for God and the world. What a noble army have entered and left these doors! What wide waves of influence have broken even on the farthest shores of this benighted world, as the men and women who have gone out with the light from this church have carried their message of life and salvation wherever they have journeyed! Page twelve I suppose some of our friends and neighbors who are used to the more ornate services of their denomin- ations sometimes look with sentiments akin to pity upon the severity and plainness of our Congregational structure. (For I speak of myself as a Congregation- alist. This is the only church I have ever belonged to! I have worshipped in a Unitarian church, and sung in an Episcopal choir; for some years I was Reformed; I married a Baptist wife, and I am now a Presbyterian minister, but I have never belonged to any other church than this, for when I left the member- ship of this church I became a member of a Presbytery and have never since been a member of any church ! So I have the right to speak in the first person of the Congregational denomination!) But when I think of the simple structure of the Congregational church and the Congregational worship, typified by the sim- plicity and yet the beauty of this material edifice, I am reminded of a remark which was once made of Galileo's telescope; I have been trying to recall the exact language, and I am sure I have not recalled it correctly, but the description ran something like this : that the little telescope was "a simple contrivance, crudely constructed, but mightily directed to the observing of the heavens. As a man watched through it, there fell upon him the shadow of God." And I think something similar might be said of the old Congregational meet- ing house. It was a simple structure, often seeming crude, and yet mightily adapted to scan the heavens with. And that after all is the main part of the business, is it not ? Some of us in the other room have been interested shall I say amused? to read some of the hymns that were perpetrated for the use of children about a hundred years ago and we have been smiling at the crudities of the theological expressions which Page thirteen those hymns contained, typical of the theological thought of the times. And yet, my friends, through those old theological notions, as well as in those crude old meeting houses, they knew how to observe the heavens, and so they were mighty, for as they watched, there fell upon them the shadow of God. I come here tonight, not for my own sake, but in the stead of another whose name I am proud to bear, and I wish that the mantle of his spirit might also descend upon us. Many of you remember him as pastor. He was the only pastor that I knew for the first sixteen or seventeen years in my life and I can say of him what can be said, I think, of few men, that as a father his example and influence were no less saintly and perfect than as a pastor. I have known many good men intimately, but I think I have never known one who was so consistent in his devotion and in his piety, and in the practical fruits of that piety. His fourteen years among you, many of you remember with affection and gratitude. He gave of his best to this church and this church gave of its best to him, and I am sure that I speak for him when I say that with all his heart he sends his love to his old friends in this church. It is a great privilege to speak for him here in this presence and I could wish only that he were here to speak for himself. May God add His blessing to this honored and beloved church, its members present and to be. May its work and life for the next hundred and fifty years be worthy of the noble record of this last century and a half. May young men and maidens continue to come here to scan the heavens ! May they go hence with the vision and be not disobedient to it ! Page fourteen ADDRESS OF THE REV. AUSTIN B. BASSETT The Rev. John DePeu, introducing the Rev. Austin B. Bassett: This church has reason to pride itself on its sons whom it has sent forth into the Christian ministry. It is pleasant to have had the living proof before us tonight. Somewhat early in my service here I attempted to make an address to children. A member of the congre- gation, alluding to the address, said: "You ought to have heard Mr. Bassett preach to the children. He knew how to preach to children." It is a joy to me that I may perhaps learn how, by hearing Mr. Bassett speak to the children of the ancient church. The Rev. Austin B. Bassett: I find myself, dear friends, the representative of a rather distant past in appearing before you so early in this pageant of pastors. It is hard for me to feel very old as I come back to the spot where I was a student and where I began real life as a young minister, but doubtless I have reached the age of reminiscence, at least I am in that mood tonight. The bridge across the years is very real to me so real that this afternoon as I came along the valley from the south there were perfectly fresh in my memory the emotions, that is not too strong a word, of which I was conscious Page fifteen twenty-eight years ago as I came by the same route to take up the pastorate here. They were mainly pleasant emotions. People used to say to me as I began my ministry here and went on with it: "It must be quite dreadful to preach, not to say live, in a college town, used as the people are, to the best of oratory ; and good and wise as are many of the men and women among whom you must daily move." I answered that that was the least of my troubles. Why should I fear the people among whom I had come to live and work? Had not their last minister been with them fourteen years and so lived and taught and loved as to make the very name of minister a most gracious word, so that anyone coming under that name was sure of a welcome and confidence and affection? And as for the others, the wise and the eloquent, were ever men more considerate of deficiency and error, more appreciative of the least excellence of plan or word or influence than some who sat in pews here or greeted me from across the campus and blessed my life in those few years with their friendship and their wisdom ? No, the emotions which I was conscious of that day and which are fresh with me now were rather of a great anticipation. I already loved this place. I knew many of the people by name and face, some scraps of family history, and other factors in the interests of a town of this kind. To be again in contact with college life seemed very good to me. I was glad to come back to scenes so congenial to myself, so hospitable to any lover of nature and the beautiful in it. Of course I felt such misgivings as to methods and message as are becoming on the threshold of a young man's ministry. But I was chiefly conscious of great anticipations of the joy of the work and fellowship in it, and of the response to any message which should echo the divine mind. Page sixteen Now those things I found here, and the people did me good and not evil all the days of my abiding among them. As the years went on I simply carried out, as leader, the habits of work of the church. There was very little necessity for reorganization. The skillful hand of Mr. Sewall had shaped the forms of the church life. One or two of the organizations yielded to other agencies during my years here. The only things I remember to have formed were several successive pastor's classes and a little club of boys. A dozen or so of those lads used to gather in my study or in the house of some one of them. We read together Edward Everett Kale's "In His Name." What else we did I hardly recall. I have in my pocket, however, a half- sheet of paper which shows in the rather cramped handwriting of the secretary, a beautiful boy, with wonderful black eyes I wish I could see him as a man the list of members and the pledge to make their society a success and helpful to others. One of those boys lately helped to reshape this house of meeting to its present rare beauty; and another is at the head of Phillips Exeter Academy. The organizations were so well led that the minister could only find comfort and not care in being pastor of them. The Sunday School was under the efficient superintendence of one who has guided it much of the time since. The youngest children met in a plain upper room, replaced now by the attractive auxiliary parts of this building; and there one well known and held in affectionate honor here cheerfully and tenderly taught those little children to truly know the One who was wont to meet his first disciples in another upper room. The societies of women were under very gracious and wise influence and leadership, that, for instance, of Page seventeen Mrs. Griffin, and of Mrs. Lincoln, so profound, earnest, judicious, devoted; and of more than one Dorcas, Priscilla or Persis besides. What could a young minister add of counsel or of plan when such as they were shaping that part of the work? I feel rather guilty at not having tried harder to stir up the men of the congregation to more concerted influence and activity. I suppose I did not know how; at any rate not much was done on that line. But I tried myself to know the people about here, and to get close to them, one by one. Early in my ministry I came upon this remark of my predecessor, Mr. Sewall: "Our springs are in the hills." It was in one of his annual reports to the church. He had in mind for the moment the welfare of this church, its continuous support and upbuilding; but its mission also lay partly in that direction, and so I was confirmed in my own impulse to be a house-going minister to our farthest bounds. Part of the time I had the help (honor to whom honor is due) of a very good horse. No road was too long for her or for me when on her back. Well did she play her part in the coming of the kingdom here and elsewhere, and it came at no slow pace so far as she was concerned, I assure you. Afterwards, people would say: "Mr. Bassett, don't you drive a rather showy horse for a minister?" My answer was that, according to Deacon Smedley of Williamstown, she came straight from heaven and ought to step high. For that affectionate man, lifelong lover of the college and of this church, being reluctant to lose his pastor and a little biased toward me as a classmate of a favorite grandson, had said: "You ought not to go away from Williamstown; the Lord has given you a good horse to help you do missionary work among these hills, and it is flying in the face of Providence to Page eighteen go to that huddle of Ware, where she will not be needed." I am happy to recall some instances in which that representative work for the church was not wholly in vain. A number of people came to our services and some into the membership of the church, thanks partly to Dolly and to me. Some allusion has been made to the children and what was done for them. What a joy it was to have them about us, to know them all and to feel that they were not afraid of the minister, perhaps even loved him, at any rate listened to him with apparent willing- ness. I see now at the other end of the church a man who sat without visible pain through many a children's sermon, with a row of brothers beside him right down here in the old seating arrangement of the church. A good deal of emphasis was laid upon the Children's Day service and the recognition of their place in the church by baptism and by the giving of Bibles. It was my privilege to receive a good number of the older boys and girls into church membership. As for the formal services of the church, there I had trouble not from my hearers, but from my own mind. The bell rang often. We had preaching services twice on Sunday. But I found relief in various directions, and the congregation too. I was frequently invited by neighboring ministers to exchange with them. Usually they preached better than I. A few times I was told they did not preach so well. "We ought to get something to boot," was the phrase. One well-wisher gave me this sage advice : "Exchange often ; you are a beginner and are doing a great deal ; and you need not take pains always to get a better preacher than yourself." There were other forms of relief. Sometimes the morning preacher in the college pulpit would favor us of an evening. Once a year we had a Page nineteen meeting of the Williamstown Bible Society. I remem- ber my inward confusion on one or two of those occasions. Fancy my state of mind when Professor Perry was speaking before me and Dr. Bascom was to speak after me, or when Professor Tucker, then of Andover Seminary, was also on the platform. There were some great occasions. The church was fullest, as I recall it, on a certain Commencement Sunday morning when Phillips Brooks addressed the Christian Associa- tion of the college. As I met him in the lecture room he said: "I am going to read a sermon this morning, and I have arranged the pulpit a little." Going into the church I found that a wondrous tower had been built of foot-stools and books with a seemly red cloth over all. I had to stand at one side for my part of the service or else be quite invisible, and to beg him to read the Scripture lesson. He obligingly raced through the fifteenth chapter of John, and then held the congregation breathless with his noble sermon on the "Light of the World." There was an evening when the humorous Mr. Puddefoot spoke. The church was full, the students having got a taste of him in the forenoon. There was present in the congregation an elderly woman who spent a number of years here. She was an Episcopalian, but she came frequently to our services. She was immensely interested in Mr. Puddefoot's stirring story of church planting on the frontier, and made a contribution to constitute herself and perhaps others, members of the American (now Congregational) Home Missionary Society, of whose work she had known little or nothing until that day. Some years later she met a tragic death in England, and it was found that her will provided a bequest of $10,000 to that society. So the lot of our church- going people was lightened. But still first and last Page twenty they were patient with numerous sermons of mine but poorly adapted, as I well knew, to persuade or cheer or edify. Yet I would like to say for the encourage- ment of the church that has so long maintained the ministry of the Gospel here, that it did something after all through its agent in those years, of which a few little signs have since come back to me. A few months ago I was at a Williams dinner in Springfield and sat next to a graduate of the college who had been a student during my pastorate. He asked me if I remembered a sermon preached one Sunday evening in his Freshman year on "Hannington, the Martyr Bishop of Uganda." I recalled it as one of a series of missionary lectures. We had something of the kind once each month. "Well," he said, "that is the one sermon I remember from my youth; and it impressed me so deeply that only two years ago I sent for the Life of Hannington to give to my sons who are now in the high school." Such a thing is properly gratifying, as an indication of what a church is all the time unconsciously doing for one or another who may enter its doors. Our relations with the college during those years were most helpful to me. There was a Bible class of students in our Sunday School, taught for several years by some member of the college faculty. The boys lent a hand in our young people's work. I liked going with some of them to hold religious meetings at White Oaks and in distant school-houses. The minister was invited to the college pulpit now and then; and remembers gratefully a prompt and cordial welcome by the college pastor to "the whole opportunity here." Our social meeting on the Day of Prayer for Colleges comes to my mind vividly now as one of the most impressive and interesting of our contacts with our Page twenty-one college neighbors. The influences of a personal kind which I was conscious of draw from me most affectionate and grateful reference. In mentioning one or two names I do not forget others who have passed beyond our sight, or some still living whose friendship and whose counsel have been real forces with me. How could one say enough of the stimulus of the presence in the congregation and social meetings of Dr. Bascom ! I fancy that powerful man was about at his best when sometimes in his prayer-meeting remarks affection rose with intellect into a union not always visible in him. I can see his eye flash in the movement of his thought, and then glisten with devout feeling. Once more his firm tones soften to a note of sympathy. The elevation of his thought lifts me again, though memory may have lost his words. His breadth of view beckoned our thoughts outward and his stalwart faith strengthened our sense of spiritual realities. I recall this cogent hint of his to others : "A prayer meeting, far from being a burden, ought to give the minister half his next Sunday's sermon." Full generously he made his contribution and without the least air of domination. I shall always treasure a certain mental photograph of the courtly figure and gracious countenance of the Hon. Joseph White as he stood at my door early one morning. He had come to make amends for some words of his which he feared might have hurt my feelings. It was the slightest matter I cannot remember what. But to have a man so full of years and of honors and of graces of character come to me with an apology was quite overwhelming. Do you wonder that my heart was bound to him, and that his tender, humble prayers still illustrate certain of the beatitudes to me? Page twenty-two Now I think it is a good deal for any church to part with a minister without having taken from him any of his zest, or weakened his confidence in his fellowmen, or in the least embittered his spirit. I went from you here, from those who were the you of those days, with only affectionate and pleasant memories, with the sound and echo of only friendly and sympa- thetic words. Those memories and expressions were of a kind to cheer and spur me on as I went to a more populous community and, as I thought, to a work in which I could count for more. So I am thankful to God for you and those who before you or with you made up the people who called me to the ministry here; wrought with me and bore with me; and then gave me good will and God speed for other service. Page twenty-three ADDRESS OF THE REV. WILLIAM SLADE The Rev. John DePeu, introducing the Rev. William Slade: Mr. Bassett speaks of the sorry plight of a man who had to speak with Professor Perry speaking before him and Dr. Bascom to speak after him and Professor Tucker also on the platform; but think of poor Mr. Slade's plight with Mr. Bassett speaking before him and Mr. Butler to speak after him and Mr. Clayton also on the platform. Just to ease the situation and to give a moment's rest which these young ladies who are taking notes will probably appreciate, we will introduce here a hymn that is not down on the programme. We will sing hymn No. 355. The Rev. William Slade: Let us talk together as if we were around the evening fire. There is one institution dearer than the church. It is the home and here our home began. The woman who has been the joy and crown of my life came here and we built the home together. Here with your constant love and interest we set out upon the journey together. This is the first delightful memory that comes to me tonight. Here our boy was born, who is now six feet in length and a Junior in college. How fast the years go on and how fast the boys and girls grow ! That is evident from the boys and girls we left here. Can you believe it! They have here and there a gray hair upon their heads. Page twenty-four From my home I went to your homes over the hills and into the valleys, all kinds of homes opening their doors to me. And from everyone I received expressions of good will, instruction from human life, light from human experiences, that have been for me better than books, finer than philosophy. The church has for its encouragement the passage in the letter to the Corinthians, "All things are yours ; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours ; and ye are Christ's." These names, Paul, Apollos, Cephas, represent to my mind the variety of life that is fashioned into the church and it is from that standpoint that I wish to speak in memory of this church as I knew it in the six years of my pastorate. Let me call to mind the contrasts in individuality and gifts that were bound together in the bundle of this church. Mr. James White met me at the station when I came here for my first sermon. He was a shrewd and honest man. He watched my work and was frankly my adviser and freely my brother. At Whittier's death I endeavored one Sunday evening to recall his contribution to American life, reading here and there a poem ; and from his practical view of life Mr. White informed me that it was one of the poorest things I ever did. I have no doubt it was. I had a silver watch that weighed a good deal and was not very reliable. Mr. White thought it was not the kind of watch for me to carry, so he brought me, one Christmas day, this watch which has reminded me of his affection ever since. How much that man did for this church we do not readily realize. He was the sort of man that every church needs and to him this church is especially indebted. Page twenty-five One of my good friends came to my house and found me sawing wood. It seemed to him quite beneath the dignity of the preacher to saw wood. Down from the hills a few days afterwards came a fine old Scotch farmer and found me swinging a scythe, endeavoring to keep my grounds in as good order as those of my neighbors ; and he said : "I am glad we have a minister who can work." You remember Mrs. Smedley, the good old white- haired woman. She had not heard a prayer for many a day and much to my confusion she asked me to offer prayer into her ear trumpet, which I reverently did. You remember the Catholic woman who came, all earnestness and enthusiasm, into the membership of this church. I went to call on her one day and found her bundled up in bed without a spark of fire in the house and she wanted me to pray for her. I knew that was the side of her life that was exaggerated, so I said : "I am not going to offer prayer here today, I am going to saw some wood and build you a fire and make you comfortable." You see how I went this way and that, staggering along amidst the variety of life which I found here. At the prayer meeting one night a brother, over- burdened with physical weakness and old age, arose and told us, speaking especially to the young people present, not to build our hopes too high, not to expect too much for we would be so often disappointed. Dr. Bascom sprang to his feet and began : "Young men, pitch your tents far out into the unattainable!" Then he went on as he was able to do, defending the great buoyant, hopeful, and invincible life. Dr. Bascom interpreted to us all the fundamental principles of Christianity. I cannot express to you how much I owe to those deep interpretations of life that is life indeed Page twenty-six which sprang so naturally to his lips in those evening prayer meetings. And then there was the fervor of Dr. Woodbridge, a flame that burned itself out so irresistibly and so early. Nothing seemed to stop him and his ambition to retrieve the world from evil. How sacrificially he and his wife ministered to us all and especially to their beloved charge, the district of White Oaks. What contrasting brotherhood we had in those days ! What eager devotion to those ideals of life that sprang to their minds and from their hearts ! You have all gathered fruit from these honest and noble lives and blessed be the tie that has bound them all together in the history of this church. Let us not forget the choir, offering to us, under Mrs. Seeley's leadership, on those Sunday evenings the musical service that did us so much good. Nor shall we forget those gifts to worship from the field and the garden presented here to our eyes constantly by the deft fingers of the woman who still serves the church in this way. The pastor knows so much more about his people than you do. He has a revelation of the variety of human life; he sees its intellectual worth, its emotional value, its consecration of talent, its service in common forms. There was no man who more profoundly perceived the value of variegated human nature than Henry B. Curtis, the carpenter. He had no faculty at making money. He had good faculty at building churches. He told me he had built seven. When I came here the pulpit had "horns" which interfered with the preacher's freedom, and I said to Mr. Curtis: "Cannot the desk be made more convenient and still attractive ?" He said : "I think it can;" and he went to work with saw and Page twenty-seven hammer and so skillfully did he put the pulpit in shape that the congregation did not realize that any change had been made, but the pastor found himself in a much more comfortable place to read and speak. How he cheered me with those quiet words of his! How he looked through the theoretical and sometimes bookish life of this community, deep into human nature as it is, believing in its fundamental goodness, trusting it with brotherly hopefulness the power of common sense in the church. Nothing is more valuable to the pastor, especially in his youth, than the counsels of the common man speaking out of his common sense in an understanding of human life as it is. He is the man who gets at reality, the very thing that the pastor and preacher needs beneath his feet. The President of Williams College, who still serves this church, though his presidency has ceased for the college, was a good friend to me. His wise words and kindly sympathy helped me much. I will not go on further in memory. I wish, how- ever, to say one thing to the young people* for a minister must keep at his business of talking straight to men's hearts and consciences. I see as I go about the streets that the trees have grown fast and stretched out their branches. Other trees have been set about your homes, the shrubs have grown luxuriantly. You are in danger of shutting off the view of the mountains. I miss the vistas. You remember on Greylock some twenty years ago there was a point to which you might go and look away and away through what was called the Vista. That is what we need here always from this beautiful village out upon the mountains and the distant valleys and out upon the stars at night and that, young people, is what you need as you look forth from the luxurious modern life of the present hour. Move aside Page twenty-eight all the comfort and luxury of America, sweep away all eulogy and praise, however much deserved, and look ahead across this world. See the stretch of your opportunity. One hundred and fifty years can do much but the future calls you to do more. Let no present attainment, no wealth of talent or beauty of investiture or accumulation of comfort in human life blind your eyes to bare places in the distance, the smoke and fire of war, to the needs of men everywhere. If history amounts to anything, it is simply to lift us up where we can see further and do better work. Is not this our hour for outlook from the advantage of past experience into the spacious hungry future? What would these men say to you tonight if they might speak? They would say : "Forgetting the things that are behind and stretching forward to the things that are before, press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Page twenty-nine ADDRESS OF THE REV. WILLIS H. BUTLER The Rev. John DePeu, introducing the Rev. Willis H. Butler: Among the stories in verse that are dear to child- hood and maturity is that one which narrates how a certain wedding guest was held up by an Ancient Mariner and so missed the wedding. Mr. Butler, the next speaker, took no such chances as that wedding guest. He brings the proof, in his button-hole as you will see. He knows that the holding power of this ancient church in Williamstown is mightier than any that was ever possessed by any ancient mariner, and has already attended the wedding. It may not be known to all that the ladies of the church nominated Mr. Butler for the pastorate. In 1898 there was a departure from the fixed customs of the church and the committee that was appointed to seek a new pastor was composed with a majority of its members women. They selected Mr. Butler and the men were fully satis- fied. Our pro-suffrage friends may use the illustration at will. The Rev. Willis H. Butler: In one of Saint Paul's letters the Christians who lived at Ephesus are referred to as "Members of the household of God." The church is likened to a family. Whenever I think of the First Congregational Church of Williamstown it is more as a family than as an Page thirty ecclesiastical organization.. The ideal Christian church is a family on a large scale. Its members are connected one with another not merely by their vows, but by the relationship which they sustain to the great Head of the Church. For His sake, if for no other reason, they should bear with one another's failings, help one another's weaknesses, sympathize with one another's sufferings and rejoice in one another's successes. Wherever these conditions exist in other words, wherever the Spirit of Jesus makes men forget their circumstantial differences and causes each to contribute gladly his own gift to the common service there you have the foundation of a Christian church. Without such a foundation it cannot stand for any great length of time, no matter how perfect may be its organization. On an occasion like this, one might appropriately recite some of the facts which are connected with the history of the church whose one hundred and fiftieth anniversary we are celebrating. With these facts some of you are already familiar. With one or two possible exceptions, its life has been marked by no extra- ordinary events. It has done its work quietly and steadily, adjusting itself to continually changing conditions, both social and intellectual, and it has successfully ministered to the religious needs of the community. Instead of reviewing the external way- marks of its history, suppose we consider the interior spirit which has animated its members and character- ized its life. i. The missionary spirit has always been promi- nent. Translated into everyday speech, the missionary spirit means generosity. An institution exists, a family lives. That this has been and continues to be a live church is accounted for by the fact that it has not Page thirty-one lived for itself alone. The unusual record of gifts to the missionary agencies of the denomination, especially to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, as well as the assistance cheerfully given to sister churches, to noble causes and to unfortunate individuals, furnish indisputable evidence of this fact. 2. The life of this church has also been marked by a democratic spirit. In some of our colonial churches, a person's position in the community was indicated by the location of his pew. The place of honor was given to the aged; the size of one's estate was the next thing to be considered, and in assigning the seats which remained the committee appointed for the purpose was instructed "to have some regard for men's usefulness." Regardless of the location of their pews, it has always been the purpose of the members of this church to make people feel that while worshipping here they are "no more strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God." It was with no little fear and trembling that I came from the theological seminary to minister to a church made up of college professors and students, summer residents and townsfolk, but I soon discovered, to my great relief, that the distinctions which separate one from another were overlooked and ignored when we met together in the sight of Him who is no respecter of persons. 3. One who reads the records of this church cannot fail to be impressed by the loyalty of its members. They have been loyal to the truth as they have perceived it, and as it has been formulated in the doctrines of our faith. They have been loyal to their leaders, whom they have faithfully supported, with whose work they have heartily co-operated. They have been loyal to one another. Individual differences of Page thirty-two opinion have never been allowed to injure the welfare of the whole family. This church has been singularly free from factions which, in too many cases, have brought disgrace upon the name of Christ. A people's loyalty to the church is proven when it is without a minister, and in such periods, which have been frequent and sometimes of Jong duration, the members of this church have bravely stood the test. The men and women who one hundred and fifty years ago set up this altar, would find many changes in faith and practice were they to return today, some of which they might not approve. But I believe they would soon feel at home among us, for they would quickly discover that the same spirit which character- ized their work animates the life of this church today a generous, democratic, loyal spirit. And may God grant that among the changes which the future is bound to bring, these may continue to be the marks by which the members of this household of God shall be recognized. Page thirty-three ADDRESS OF THE REV. FRANCIS T. CLAYTON The Rev. John DePeu, introducing the Rev. Francis T. Clayton: Somehow we have a way of reckoning time by tens and hundreds and are not surprised if history repeats itself in some fashion as the centuries come around. The first pastor of the church whose installation fell in the nineteenth century, was Dr. Joseph Alden, who was released from the pastorate to connect himself with Williams College. The pastor who was first installed here in the twentieth century was also released to engage in collegiate work; but the affection in which Mr. Clayton was held in Williamstown did not cease when he went to the ends of the states on the Floridian peninsula, and something of the grip of New England must have still held on him, for it was not long before he returned to continue in New Hampshire his work as a teacher. Remembered here eminently for his work for the boys, all were glad when they knew that he was to be at the head of an academy for the young. Mr. Clayton is the next speaker of the evening, and the last of the former pastors who are present with us. The Rev. Francis T. Clayton: Dear friends : As I come once more to share with you the joy of a special service, there comes to me a sense of deep gratitude similar to that which, I fancy, Page thirty- four took possession of the Pilgrims when they were welcomed by the Shepherds who pastured their Flocks on the Delectable Mountains. You doubtless recall the passage so tenderly written by Bunyan: "They went then till they came to the Delectable Mountains; ***** Now there were on the tops of those mountains, Shepherds feeding their Flocks, and they stood by the Highway side. The Pilgrims therefore went to them, and leaning upon their staves (as is common with weary Pilgrims, when they stand to talk with any by the way) they asked: Whose Delectable Mountains are these? And whose be the Sheep that feed upon them ? To which, the Shepherds replied: These mountains are Emmanuel's Land, and they are within sight of His City : and the Sheep also are His, and he laid down His Life for them. Then said Christian: Is this the way to the Celestial City? And the Shepherds answered: You are just in your way. ******* Then asked Christian : Is there in this place any Relief, for Pilgrims that are weary, and faint in the Way? To which the Shepherds responded : The Lord of these mountains hath given us a charge not to be forgetful to entertain strangers, there- fore the good of the place is even before you. I saw also in my dream, That when the Shepherds perceived they were wayfaring men, they also put questions to them, * * * * as, Whence came you ? And how got you into the Way ? And by what means have you so persevered therein? * * * * Page thirty-five But when the Shepherds heard their answers, being pleased therewith, they looked very lovingly upon them, and said, Welcome to the Delectable Mountains." One hundred and fifty years may be a short or a long period according to the point of view one takes. For the geologist it is an insignificant measure of time. As the life measure of a human being, it seems an incredible measure of time. For the historian, much depends upon the place in the chronology of the past that a period of such length occupies. One hundred and fifty years of ancient Egyptian development is not so significant for the historian of today as one hundred and fifty years of modern Europe. Accord- ing to one's special interest then, do we generally consider the time long or short. A day may be as a thousand years : or a thousand years may be as a day. The one hundred and fifty years whose span measures the life-time of this church's organization, records political, social, economic and material changes which no dreamer of dreams would have even wildly guessed one hundred and fifty years ago. Since this church was organized, the great eighteenth century revolution has had its rise and has wrought political, social and economic changes of mighty significance not only in Europe and in America, but even, in a measure, in remote Asia. Continents once separated by thousands of miles are now nearer to each other than were New York and Philadelphia a few score years ago. Science has remade the earth's surface. We are today nearer to the scenes of the Armenian atrocities, than were the inhabitants of New York to Bunker Hill. Space has been in large measure annihilated and it almost seems that the day is about to come when time shall be no more. And this, yes, and much more has been accom- plished in the lifetime of the Williamstown Church. Page thirty-six We no longer measure age by time. In these days of incredible change we use new measures. It may be we have not yet ascertained the actual age of this church which is now celebrating its one hundred and fiftieth birthday. There is quite as much philosophy as pleasantry in the remark : "He is eighty years young." The signs of youth are prompt physical, intellectual and spiritual reactions to the ever changing outer world. Old age has overtaken one when he can make no adequate response, either physically, intellectually, or spiritually to the stimuli of his environment. Youth is character- ized therefore, by a certain alertness, a certain recep- tivity to influences in a mobile universe. One may have seen many years and yet remain young: or he may have lived only a few years and yet show all the marks of decrepitude. Age is therefore fundamentally a matter of reactions and not of years. And then there follows a corollary, namely, the thought, the literature, and the art born of these reactions are pervaded with the spirit of eternal youth. We have received from the past two inheritances which fully illustrate the facts to which I have just alluded, namely, that age is a matter of reactions, and that the accompanying products in thought, literature and art, of these reactions partake of the spirit of youth. There is first our splendid inheritance of Greek culture. No race today is quite as young as that ancient people. The Greeks reacted at once to one of the fairest environments it has ever been the lot of man- kind to enjoy. The very freshness of the "incense- breathing morn" pervades their daily life. They made a cult of physical perfection and their bodies became beautiful. They could run with almost incredible Page thirty-seven fleetness. They could engage in every form of athletic activity and with grace and power perform the feat well. The composite impression of their physical man- hood is that of a youth with singular grace, ready to respond to the severest test that may be placed upon him. Greek literature, Greek thought, and Greek art are forever young. Youth today in all lands is stirred by the Homeric tales, whether they be the tales of Troy or of the return of Odysseus. In alert responsiveness to the wonders of the physical universe, our modern philosophers have hardly exceeded the philosophers of ancient Greece. In art, which in some respects seems to have been their religion, the Greeks are still the world's masters. The world will never grow weary of this splendid inheritance, for it has partaken of that quality of eternal youth. Whenever man makes the most complete response to his environment, either physically, intellectually or aesthetically, he does not fail to recognize in this inheritance from ancient Greece ideal reactions and the quality of eternal youth. Our second great inheritance is that which has come to us from Palestine. The Hebrew possessed the genius of reacting to his spiritual environment. A wanderer through dry deserts, a dweller in tents, the shuttle-cock of mighty empires, he never failed to respond to the voice of God in the world. Whether we read the Old Testament or the New, whether the por- tions we read show non-Hebraic elements of style and origin or not, one overwhelming fact is clear, the writer has heard the voice of God in his world and he has at once replied, "Lord, here am I." The Bible is a very ancient book, but it is the first book to which we turn if we seek accounts of first-hand, spiritual reactions. Page thirty-eight The remarkable quality of newness which characterizes the Bible can in no small measure be attributed to the fact that from beginning to end it is the record of a people reacting unfailingly to the realities of the spiritual world. We think of Jesus and his disciples as young men. No span of years, however great, will ever efface that impression, so long as man reacts to the unseen realities of the spiritual universe. If Christianity as expressed in the Master's life fails us in these critical days and there are those who rashly declare it has already broken down it will be not because it is old, but rather because we have failed to react to those fundamental appeals of the religious life, which consti- tute in fact the very essence of Christianity. Christian- ity is the name we give primarily, not to intellectual reactions like the reactions of those who phrased creeds and dogmas, but rather to those spiritual reactions which are in even the slightest degree like those of Jesus Christ. It is not pressing the analogy too far to say that likewise the age of a church is determined not by the number of years it has been in existence, but rather by its reactions to an ever-changing world. And more than this, its reactions must show spiritual selection. There are churches that are regular bee-hives for action and reaction. They are always doing things. Every plausible cause receives a response. But here lies a great danger, if, in this day when so many agencies are at work for social and material better- ment, the church fails to respond to those unseen, primary forces of the spiritual world. I love that beautiful parable of the good Samaritan. It is divinely human! But I am sure it is not the whole of the Master's teaching. It is true that there Page thirty-nine are times when all the world needs this message and this only. Our charitable and benevolent societies, our municipal improvement leagues and reform organiza- tions, social settlements and public betterment clubs, have all learned this parable by heart. But what impresses me as an unheeded cry which Christianity alone can answer, is the great cry that issues from a bloods-stained world. "Father, I have sinned and done this evil in thy sight!" It is the God-dependent sense which the church should unfailingly quicken. If the church fails to react to this reality of the spiritual life, no matter how young it may remain otherwise, that church has grown old. Perhaps we are tempted to say, "This is a very old church, for it is celebrating its one hundred and fiftieth birthday." A church may become as old as that. It may react only to a world which does not exist but which was the world one hundred and fifty years ago. It may not be able to read the signs of the changing times and so fail to see the imperative needs of the man of today. But, if on the other hand, it sees through the clouds, if it keeps its eye on the things that are of eternal value, if it reacts unfailingly to the life of God, and helps us men and women to react likewise to the unseen realities of the spiritual life in God, then we may say : "No, this church is one hundred and fifty years young." Page forty LETTER OF THE REV. PERCY MARTIN The Rev. John DePeu: As the evening has been assigned to reminiscence, will you permit one more? In the early spring of 1909 there came to me in Bridgeport, Connecticut, from a friend who was then the minister of a church here in Northern Berkshire, the proposition that I exchange pulpits, houses and parish duties through the following summer with an English clergyman who wished to visit America. It was impossible for me to fall in with the suggestion. My friend then sought to make arrangements elsewhere, and they were made with the then pastor of the Williamstown church, who has just spoken to you, and the Rev. Percy Martin was intro- duced to what became afterwards his Williamstown parish. I often think of the strange ways in which our feet are led, as I sit in the house that was the home of that minister of God's word from across the sea. He has sent a letter to be read at this time, which I will now read: Letter of the Rev. Percy Martin: "Most ministries, it may be hoped, involve, as between pastor and people, a continual interchange of help in those things that pertain to life eternal. As I reflect upon my brief ministry at Williamstown, I see that an exception to this rule has to be recorded. Responding to a most hearty invitation, I came to a devoted and earnest people, hungering for the Word Page forty-one of Life, in a condition of impaired health, and found myself wholly incapable of realizing the ardent hopes that inspired me. I have happy recollections of the services I was privileged to conduct, both in Williams- town and in the schoolhouse at Hemlock Brook. Always I was listened to with eager attention; and that my ministry was not fruitless is evidenced by the appreciative words and letters I received and by the fact that a few were led to join themselves to our Living Lord in the fellowship of His Church. These things I recall with joy and gratitude. But the great feature of my ministry was the sympathetic kindness showered upon me by all whom I came to know. If I contributed little I received much. It is no exaggeration to quote the Apostle Paul and say, as he said to the Galatians, that I was received as an angel of God. Not only is it true that no obstacles were thrown in my way; but long patience was shown in respect of my manifold fail- ings; and faults, which are only too conspicuous in retrospect, were covered by that love which thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, which beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things; which never fails. In the love shown to my wife and myself (especially in the last sad days of my stay at Williams- town) through human kindness it was permitted to us both to acquire a new understanding of the Love Eternal." Page forty-two ADDRESS OF THE REV. CHARLES S. STODDARD, D. D. The Rev. John DePeu, introducing the Rev. Charles S. Stoddard, D.D.: The lateness of the hour forbids our hearing from many, as we would like to, under the last item of the evening's program ; but we are honored by the presence of one representative of our old families, and a long- time friend of many of us, from whom we must hear. Will Dr. Stoddard speak to us ? The Rev. Charles S. Stoddard, D. D.: I am thankful to the pastor of this church, for giving me a chance to say a word tonight, in view of the fact that my grandfather, Daniel Noble, was a member, and all of his family were brought up in childhood here. In mature years all but one (a faith- ful daughter who stood by her venerable mother till she died and was buried in Cemetery Hill) drifted away to distant parts of the United States and even to Scotland. My great, great grandfather was also a member and officer of this church. As a boy I spent many summers in Williamstown, in the ancestral home, when my mother came from Boston for an annual visit. So I became familiar with the old church upon the hill and its ministers while yet I was a boy. My mother had been converted under Dr. Gridley's preaching, and she taught me the Page forty-three same kind of religion. I used to go to the prayer meetings at Mrs. Benjamin's house on Saturday evenings at "early candle-light," and to Albert Hop- kins's house at other times. I sat in the pew with my grandmother during my college course, which probably saved me from much temptation and gave me a chance to become acquainted with the pretty girls of the congregation, whom the other students, who sat in the galleries, could only contemplate at long range. I recall the Rev. Mr. Savage; Dr. Absalom Peters, who always ended the long prayer, "Let thy banner over us be love," to which we all responded "Amen;" Dr. Addison Ballard, a finished scholar and an eloquent preacher, and others. The college by agree- ment supplied the preaching for a portion of the year, and we students were all glad when Dr. Mark Hopkins and "Dr. Joe" Alden, and "Prof. Al." Hopkins preached. To the old white meeting house at the head of the street, the students marched to Junior and Moonlight and Adelphic Union exercises, and there I heard Rufus Choate and Edwin M. Stanton, who afterwards became Secretary of War under Lincoln, and other great orators. There I won some prizes and received my degree in 1854; and one of the first sermons that I ever preached was on a summer Sunday in place of President Hopkins, at his request. I wonder at my daring; but "youth climbs the ladder leaning 'gainst the cloud." I have known all the pastors since my college days, and preached for all of them. Looking back over nearly eighty years I am thankful to this church for many good influences and gifts to my ancestors and myself, and am happy to have been able to join with so many friends and Christian people in celebrating this memorial. Page forty- four LETTER OF THE REV. HENRY R. HOISINGTON The Rev. John DePeu: From 1853 to 1856, our church was served faithfully and efficiently by the Rev. Henry R. Hoisington, whose earlier years had been given to missionary work in the foreign field. A letter has come from his son which will be of highest interest to the older members of the church : Letter of the Rev. Henry R. Hoisington: MOORES, PA., October 4, 1915. Rev. John DePeu: Dear Brother: Having received an invitation to be present at the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the First Congregational Church of Williamstown, Massachusetts, I send to you my regrets that I may not be present on that occasion. I am, this day, seventy-nine years old, and, while hale and hearty, the trip to Williamstown is somewhat long, * * * * and there are but few likely to be present who would remember me. Could I be with you I would feel myself encom- passed by a great cloud of witnesses, who would be present from the cemeteries there and elsewhere, into whose midst I was introduced in 1842 a waif from Ceylon, India. How my memory recalls them: the Whitmans, who received me into their home as one of their own; the Lasells, Hopkinses, Sabins, Deweys, Benjamins, Perrys, Tatlocks, Mathers, Smedleys, Sanderses, Browns, Temples, Footes, Curtises, Horsfords, Cooks, Nobles, Bridges, Noah Porter in his drab suit and powerful in prayer, the Page forty-five Lathams, Bardwells, Stones, Shattucks, Coles and Pennimans. Other names too would doubtless flash out brightly could I walk over those old hills. How the old white church on the hill with family pews below and galleries above and its tall spire from which went forth the bell calls to Sabbath services, to fires, and when agile collegians found means to pull its rope, stands out before me ! The tall pulpit with double flight of stairs, occupied for many years by Dr. Absalom Peters with his fine writing, and afterwards by my father for a short time, and then by Dr. Addison Ballard, while at times we heard President Mark Hopkins, and his brother Albert, and by exchanges the ministers of Adams, Dr. Dana and Dr. Crawford, this picture is before me. Also the Sabbath School, between the two day services, having printed books with questions and answers for munitions. Ah! some of those teaching there from college as well as town went forth to teach the far off heathen the love of God in Christ Jesus. I had as teacher a Mr. Brewster, who went to China, and soon died there. We also recall a Mr. Ford, who took with him to Syria Miss Mary Perry of the church. Then we forget not the Sanderses, father and sons, children of the church and town, who were also missionaries. I recall also the Saturday evening prayer circle in the house of Mrs. Benjamin, and that on Tuesday evenings at Mr. Seymour Whitman's, and the Sunday evening meeting in Latham's Hall above the store. I can almost hear the jingle of sleigh bells and the voice of Deacon Caleb Brown calling out as he drew near with his box sled one door and another: "Pile in boys and galls, we are going to have a rousing meeting in the old stone school house at White Oaks." Another picture stands out before me as repre- sentative of a feature of the activities of the old church. The scene is in the home of Mr. Bridges. The circle of mothers there are gathered for their monthly meeting for prayer. There I am sitting and Page forty-six a child from another family, on stools in the center of the group, to be prayed for ! And those sweet earnest prayers gained their answer for many a child. I can remember that, once at least, the church engaged Dr. Lowell Mason to give there a course of instruction in congregational singing, and the people were there. I also recall a season of grace when the church was filled with earnest souls : then proud hearts were so touched by the Holy Spirit that, men and women, they knelt in the aisles asking the prayers of God's people. It was in that church that I took my vows to be the Lord's servant. It was from its membership that I received such gracious helps and loving advice, as well as witnessed such true Christian devotion that I have been helped along the way of a Christian life; and remember that I am but one of a host of others that were so touched and aided. So my prayer is that that dear old church may hold fast to the tested traditions of the past and be ever ready to hear Him who walketh in the midst of His Golden Candlesticks, as He says, "Hold that fast which thou hast that no man take thy Crown." My heart is stirred at the thought of this anniversary and * * * * I shall remember you all who engage in its exercises. Yours fraternally, H. R. HOISINGTON. Page forty-seven HISTORICAL REVIEW, 1765-1915 The Reverend John DePeu: Proverbs 8:2 On the top of high places by the way, where the paths meet, she standeth. That is the place for wisdom and understanding, on the top of high places where that which is afar off can be seen as well as that which is near; at the crossing of the roads where various and conflicting currents meet and commingle, the place from which diverging influences proceed. At such a point, wisdom is increased by large inclusions. From such a vantage ground, her influence spreads most easily and widely. She holds a strategic point like railroad centers on modern war-maps. In the first half of the eighteenth century, north- western Massachusetts was one of these strategic points where alien and antagonistic forces came face to face. Back and forth through uncounted years hostile tribes from what we now call New York and New England had threaded these valleys and crossed these hills seeking each other in warfare. Here the red man and the white tracked and slew each other. Here France and England fought out a side issue of the conflict that was devastating Europe, as today in South Africa English and German forces are engaged. The beginnings of history here were baptized in blood. However much we may preach peace, we owe our heritage to warriors. Page forty-eight THE REVEREND JOHN DE?EU The Deerfield massacre of February, 1704, taught the settlers in the Connecticut valley the wisdom of advancing their defences from their doorsills to their outer gates. A line of forts was pushed forward to the north over the New Hampshire line, and through Shirley and Colerain to the extreme frontier west of the Hoosacs. This far corner of the territory that the Colony of Massachusetts Bay claimed as its own in what the Indians called Hoosac, "The Land Beyond," was first officially surveyed and two townships laid out in 1739. The Colony of New York contested the claims of the eastern Colony, and the activities of the surveyors were opposed, as the surveyors reported, "by sundry gentle- men from Albany." In later years, other gentlemen from that neighborhood have made ample amends for this opposition, and we owe to one of them this beauti- ful House of God in which we are today worshipping. A second survey, in 1749, superseded the first and determined the lines of the townships as they have continued until the present except for the western boundary, concerning which Massachusetts and New York came to final agreement in 1787. These were first known as East and West Hoosac, or simply as the East and West Townships, the eastern being later renamed and still later divided into Adams and North Adams, the western being also renamed but remaining entire. The committee in charge of the survey reported to the General Court that it did "deem the west township the most valuable," the value of land in those days being determined chiefly by its fitness for agriculture. During the interval between the two surveys, Fort Massachusetts was built in 1745, destroyed by the French and Indians, who took its garrison as captives Page forty nine to Canada in 1746, and rebuilt in 1747. Soldiers from the fort, passing back and forth on scout service over the western township, saw the land that it was good and desirable and sought to acquire title to some portions of it. In the spring of 1750, "the Needle of the surveying instrument" was again brought into use under the direction of a third committee of the General Court. A street, fifteen rods wide and one mile and three-eighths long, was laid out as public land, crossing the four hills from Green River to Buxton Brook. The land on both sides of this street was laid off in sixty-three ten to twelve acre lots, sixty-two of these having a frontage on the street of thirteen and one- third rods and a depth of one hundred and twenty rods, the other lot being set lengthwise between the east end of the street and the river, the ownership of each of these lots to carry with it the right to one sixty-third of the township remaining outside of the house lots, such remainder to be equitably divided by and among the proprietors. One of these lots, the one on the corner of Main and North Streets, where the Greylock now stands, was set apart with its rights to be given to the first minister. The lot next east with its rights was set apart as an endowment for the ministry. Later demands for an accounting of this endowment seem to have caused some strong feeling, and, unfortunately, the endowment was not maintained. The lot on the southeast corner of Main and North streets was set apart with its rights for the mainten- ance of schools. The committee was authorized to convey title to the remaining lots on condition: "That each settler pay the Committee on his being admitted 6. 135. 6d. lawful money, for the use of the Govern- ment, and that he shall within the space of two years from the time of his being admitted build a house Page fifty eighteen feet long, fifteen feet wide, and seven stud (some of which "regulation houses" are still standing and in use) and shall fence five acres of his said house lot and shall bring the same to English grass, or fit it for ploughing and raising of wheat or other corn, and shall by themselves or assigns remain on said house lot five years in seven from the time of their being admitted, and that they do settle a learned orthodox minister within the term of five years from the time of their being admitted." These rights were first taken up by men to whom they appealed as a business adventure promising profit, being advertised for sale in Boston and elsewhere. Field's History of Berkshire, published in 1829, speak- ing of the original proprietors, says: "Only a few of them seem ever to have been actual settlers; and of these, no descendants retaining the family name, and a very small number of others, are now inhabitants of the place." The rights were early and repeatedly bought and sold, and soon fell into the hands of men who made their homes on house lots along the Main street and on the various allotments north and south. The earliest actual settlers were men who had served in the garrison at Fort Massachusetts and old neigh- bors of theirs from the eastern settlements in Massa- chusetts, or from the middle and western parts of Connecticut. The names of some of these are still found adorning the church rolls, and more of their blood, but with other names, are with us today carry- ing forward the best spirit and traditions of their ancestors. With this settling of West Hoosac another meeting of paths came to view. Fort Massachusetts, as rebuilt, barred the Indians from invading the settlements by way of the old Mohawk Trail ; but they knew the ways Page fifty-one of the valleys. They had but to keep to the south instead of turning eastward when they came to the Greylock group, and by that way fall upon the settlers in the valley of the Housatonic, as they did in 1754, committing their ravages even as far as Stockbridge. That raid had important influence on the future of the West Township. It supported the claim of the few settlers here to have larger aid from the colony in defense of the strategic point. Another effect was of more importance. This raid opened the eyes of men in Connecticut to the fact that West Hoosac was the gateway to the valley of the Housatonic as it was the gateway to the upper valley of the Connecticut, and so stimulated the interest, particularly of Litchfield County men, in the new settlement concerning which they had already heard from those of their own neighbors who had served at Fort Massachusetts. As the early years sped by, Connecticut men with their families settled in the new township in larger numbers than came from the older colony. In the early affairs of the town, these men from Connecticut exercised a preponderating influence, and gave to the town a distinctive character that it has never lost. A discerning eye can still trace the old influences, as you can still trace over the hill the old section of North Street that was abandoned and given over to grass eighty years ago. If time permitted, a long and interesting chapter might be written concerning the meeting of those conflicting currents from the two colonies. It is a safe guess that this conflict had something to do with the long delay in securing the settling of "a learned and orthodox minister" in the town. Unhappily, we are obliged to move through the years in this review, as many of our present day motorists pass through places Page fifty-two full of interest and charm, at such a speed that even the signboards at the crossroads can scarcely be read. We can only note that some of the first settlers here brought with them from the middle and eastern part of Massa- chusetts traditions and theories from which the early settlers of Connecticut separated themselves, and from Connecticut came other men with their distinctive traditions and theories to outvote the Massachusetts men in town and church affairs. The strife was old between aristocratic and democratic principles, and more recent between Old Lights and New Lights. The Williamses, and other kindred of Col. Ephraim, who got his name perpetuated here, drove Jonathan Edwards from Northampton and sought to drive him from Stockbridge. But Hopkins, of Sheffield, and Bellamy, of Bethlehem, Connecticut, carried forward Edwards's teachings, and from the Edwardeans the early ministers here got their training for the ministry. The first pages of Seth Swift's records show that in- fluence. The broad and easy way into the church which Edwards's grandfather, the Rev. Solomon Stoddard, his predecessor in the Northampton pastorate, held open for all whose lives were not patently profligate was not open here, for on February 19, 1779, the church met and "Voted: that no person be admitted a member of this church but such as appear to a Judgement charity to be true Christian and a real friend of Christ. Voted : that a letter of recommenda- tion is not sufficient grounds upon which to receive persons from other churches into church relation and, therefore,that the same methods for acquaintance with their beliefs and knowledge doctrinal and experimental ought to be taken by the Brethren and members of the church with them as others who are received into church relation." When this action was taken, the Page fifty- three church was without a minister, so that the action clearly shows the judgment of the members on a subject that was widely, and often rancorously, debated at that time. We have noted that the fifth of the conditions on which the original land titles were granted was that the proprietors should "settle a learned Orthodox minister in said town within the term of five years from the time of their being admitted." That condition, as you can see, was loosely drawn. "Five years from the time of their being admitted," it says; but just when would the five years begin to run? Would it be five years from the admission of the first settlers? or five years from' the taking up of the sixty-third right ? Evidently the point was not pressed, nor even the more lenient requirement enforced. The settlers were not in a hurry in the matter, and no one drove them. It is a common habit to exalt the piety of the Fathers, and we are often told that their first concern was to establish a church and a school wherever they settled. Unfortunately, there is indisputable evidence that this was not a universal rule, and it certainly did not hold in West Hoosac. There was no early demand, probably no early need, for a school, and no mention of school or schoolhouse is found in the records until 1763. The first necessity and the first concern of the settlers was for the clearing of the streets first laid out, the division of outlying lands and the laying and making of roads to "convene" these out lots. Until 1759 the minds of the settlers were much occupied with the danger that threatened them from the Indians and French, and the records show that they were more concerned with fort and stockade, swivel guns and ammunition, the supply of pork and rum, than they were with getting a minister and having the gospel preached. Page fifty-four In May, 1757, in a letter to His Majesty's Council of Massachusetts Bay, Seth Hudson, the commanding officer of West Hoosac, having prayed for artillery and ammunition for the block-house, added : "And if a Chaplain shall be appointed this summer for Fort Massachusetts, we beg we may likewise have the privilege of his preaching with us, a favour we have not hitherto enjoyed though but four miles distant from Fort Massachusetts." That was seven years after the beginning of permanent settlement of the township, and no steps had been taken up to this time toward securing the settlement of a minister. Apparently the obligation laid upon the settlers in the matter had fallen from their memory, as Hudson's letter has a tone of complaint as though the province were responsible for the religious well-being, as well as the physical security, of the settlers who were "living in a huddle," as they complained, upon their hilltops. On October i, 1760, the proprietors seem to have recalled their obligations, but still allowed themselves abundant deliberation, as they "Voted to hire preaching for Six months Beginning at the first of May next." That put the matter off for seven months more; but there must have been some who demanded more of haste. At a meeting of the proprietors on November 20, 1760, Gideon Warren and Thomas Train were chosen "to Hier a Good orthodox Preacher for s'd Propriete." These were Massachusetts men from Brimfield and Watertown. These two went on the quest, but without result. At the meeting of September 24, 1761, their bills were allowed for 2. 55. and for I2s. "for Going after a minister." Massachusetts men having failed, Connecticut men had the next chance: Josiah Horsford and Samuel Kellogg were appointed "to Hier a good orthodox Preacher." This Page fifty-five committee was no more successful than the other. Both elements in the community having been allowed to make the attempt and having failed to secure a good orthodox preacher and minister for the town, interest in the subject flagged, or else too much friction had developed, and in the records of the meeting of March n, 1762, we read: "3. article of raising money to hire preaching tryed voted in ye Negative." This you note is twelve years after the first settling of the town. There had been serious distractions through part of this time on account of war and rumors of war. The settlers were still too busy providing for defense, clearing their lots, dividing the land and making roads, to give much attention to things of the spirit. A century and a quarter before this there had been towns settled in Massachusetts and Connecticut, like Springfield, Windsor and Hartford, on a distinctly religious foundation ; in some cases a church migrating with its full organization intact and carrying with it its own minister; but times had changed. In the second half of the eighteenth century, the settlers of West Hoosac were not sinners above all others. In 1774, the General Association of the Colony of Connecticut, "taking into consideration the State of ye Settlements now forming in the Wilderness to the Westward and North-westward of us, who are mostly destitute of a preached Gospel, many of which are of our Brethren Emigrants from this Colony, think it advisable that an attempt should be made to send missionaries among them," and took measure "for obtaining support of such Missionaries." The subject recurs from year to year in the records of the Association. Various Connecticut pastors from time to time obtained leave of absence from their charges to spend some months in missionary work in these Page fifty-six destitute settlements in Vermont and New York. The reports made by these and later missionaries in the same or similar fields give a vivid picture of such conditions as existed here during the years we are now reviewing. The records of the meeting of the Association in June, 1791, are of special interest to us. At that meeting it was "Voted that it is hereby recommended to the several Associations to express their views concerning the most proper and feasible mode of sending missionaries to the new settlements, and to communicate them to the next General Association;" and at that same meeting, among those returned to the Association as candidates for the ministry, the first one named in the list is Ebenezer Fitch, who was already engaged as Principal of the Free School in Williamstown and began his service here in the following October. But that is thirty years ahead of our story which we left with the meeting of March, 1762. One wonders how much longer the settlers in the new township might have gone without a minister and a church, if it had not been for the final condition of their title to their lands and the provision that non- fulfillment of the various conditions would forfeit their titles. That must occasionally have come to mind. By 1762-3 there was more of an effort made in this line. It was definitely "voted to have preaching for the future." Various committees were appointed, and bills paid for "going after a minister." A call "to preach on probation" was given to a Mr. Warner, who either declined it or was not approved, and a proposal to call a Mr. Strickland "on probation" was voted down. They worked at the problem for two more years. On March 6, 1765, they "votted there be Nine Shillings of money Raised on Eaich Proprietor's Right Page fifty-seven to Sopor t the Gospel," and at last, on July 26, 1765, "Voted and a Greed to Give mr. Whitman Welch a Call to the work of the ministry in this town, Voted to Give mr. Welch Eighty Pound Settlement Lawfull money one Half to be paid the first year and the other Half to be Paid Second year. Voted to Give mr. Welch for his Sallary Seventy Pounds a year forty Pounds the first year and forty Pounds the Second year then to rise three pounds yearly till it comes to Seventy Pounds and the use of the ministry House Lot Exclusive of the Remainder of the wright, Voted and chose Samuel Kellogg Benjamin Simonds James Meacham Commetree men to treate with mr. Welch Concerning His Settleing in this Town." October 22, 1765, the proprietors "Votted and chose Richard Stratton Josiah Horsford and William Horsford a Commetree to Provide for the ordination," and on July 14, 1766, payment was authorized for "Expence of the ordination Vittels and Horse Keeping" and otherwise "Providing for the ordination." Beyond what was provided by these votes, Mr. Welch, as the first settled minister of the town, received the "Minister's lot" with its right to one sixty-third of the land in the township. Mr. Welch was probably ordained as pastor of the church in November, 1765, and so, at last, West Hoosac, or "West Hoosuck" as it was commonly called, secured its good, learned, orthodox preacher and minister of the gospel in the same year in which it changed its name and entered on its career as Williamstown. Mr. Welch was born in Milford, Connecticut. Owing to the early death of his father, he was brought up in the home of an uncle in New Milford, Connecti- cut, where he also found his wife, Marvin Gaylord, the daughter of a deacon in the New Milford church. Page fifty-eight She was a woman greatly beloved in this town and in her early home to which she returned after her husband's death. Deacon's daughters make the best ministers' wives, if the judgment of two pastors of one church may be trusted. Each year the air of our hillsides is made more fragrant by roses sprung from the old stock that Marvin Gaylord Welch brought hither and planted in her dooryard. So long may the gracious influence of a sweet and modest woman continue through the changing years. Prof. Ebenezer Kellogg, writing in 1829 when men were still living who had themselves seen and listened to Mr. Welch, describes him, in Field's History of Berkshire County, as "a man of intelligence and activity, attentive to the duties of his office, and serious and earnest in the performance of them. * * * * He always wrote his sermons, and delivered them with animation and propriety of manner. He was social in habits, fond of conversation, in which he was often sportive and shrewd, and sometimes, perhaps, too gay and jocose. In person he was rather short and light. He was fond of athletic exercises and excelled in them whenever the manners of the day allowed him to join in them." The description calls before the mind a man sure to win the respect and affection of the sturdy pioneers who seek out and settle new lands. There was fighting blood in Whitman Welch and he joined the Colonial forces under Gen. Benedict Arnold in the winter of 1775-1776 and was with them through their terrible experiences in the Maine wilder- ness and under the walls of Quebec. The patriots of '75 and '76 felt that in the fight for their liberties they were engaged in a holy war. In Williamstown not a single Tory was to be found, and the church accepted as right and proper the decision of its pastor to go Page fifty-nine with the troops. Other churches in New England made similar surrenders. The church in Norfolk, Connecti- cut, gave up for a time its first pastor, the Rev. Ammi Ruhama Robbins, who was one of the first trustees of Williams College, that he might accompany the army that moved against Canada by way of Lake Champlain. Both the eastern and the western armies were ravaged by smallpox. Parson Robbins was invalided home; but Parson Welch died of smallpox under the walls of Quebec in March, 1776. The coincidence has more intense interest for one who has served both of the churches in which these two held their first and only pastorates. Not "peace at any price" men, not inclined to neutrality when great issues were at stake, willing to fight for their faith, ready to cast in all their fortune, even life itself, for the cause in which they believed, and to shepherd the men entrusted to them even through all hardship and peril, these were the men to be preachers in the wilderness and first pastors of frontier churches. They molded and quickened the young communities to noble life. The church in Williamstown was probably organ- ized the same day on which Mr. Welch was ordained, all earlier action concerning securing of preaching and a minister having been taken by the proprietors. The number of charter members must have been small. Three years later, there appear to have been only twenty male church members in the town. We have no list of these charter members, nor any records of the church previous to 1779, up to which time sixty-one had been enrolled. Having secured their minister, the next necessity was to provide a proper place in which he might preach. Thus far such religious services as the com- munity had were held in private houses, in Benjamin Page sixty Simonds's tavern, or in the log school house which had been built on the minister's lot. Now there was a demand for a meeting-house. And here we come to another crossing of paths on the high places. From 1750 to 1765 the township was held as a "Propriety" the sixty proprietors controlling all public affairs. In 1765 the General Court incorporated the town, and cross currents at once manifested them- selves. January 14, 1766, the proprietors turned down the proposal to build a meeting-house ; but two months later, March 17, they met and organized at the school house and then, for reasons unknown, adjourned to Lieut. Benj. Simonds's tavern, which then stood on the site of Mr. N. Henry Sabin's present home, and there "Voted to Build a meeting House also voted that said meeting House be forty feet in Length and thirty feet in Breadth Voted to finish Said House in two year Voted said House be Studed and Bracesed Voted to plaister as far as is Needed Voted to lay the uper floer on the top of the jice and Laith and Plaister on the under Side of the jice Voted and chose Nehemiah Smedley Samuel San ford Richard Stratton Commetree to finish Said meeting House Voted to Raise three Pounds on each Right to Build Said meeting House Voted to Leave the Rest of Said work of sd House to the Discrestion of Said Commetree." In March, 1768, Benjamin Simonds was appointed to this committee "in the room of mr Samuel San- ford." This change may possibly be accounted for by what later transpires. Difference of opinion arose as to the proper location of the building, and at the end of the two years which were to have seen the house completed it had not been begun. Men of influence had settled "in the South Part," and there was strong demand Page sixty-one that the meeting house should stand on the Stone Hill road near the center of the township. At a meeting in the school house April 18, 1768, "to See if the Proprietors will appoint a Place where to Sett a meeting House or to Com into any measures for the Same; to See if the Proprietors will agree with the town to Chuse a Place for the meeting House or to chuse a Commete for the Same; to See if the Proprietors will forbid the Commetee to Raise the said meeting House till such time as there is a Place legally appointed for the Same ; to Give Instructions to the Commetee of the meeting House that they may know How to Proceed concerning the Charges for Raising Said House," it was voted that the proprie- tors should proceed without allowing the town to have a voice in the matter. Voting according to the acreage of their holdings, nine thousand eight hundred and eighty acres voted to set the building on the Square, now Field Park, five thousand thirty-five acres voting against this location. It was also "Voted to Leave it to the Discression of the Commetee to Provide for the Raising of Sd House." From a review of these votes, certain things appear which hold our attention. First is the conflict between those who held the first proprietors' rights, and those who had bought lands, either on the village street or in the other allotments, without acquiring these initial rights, and so could vote in a town meeting but not in a proprietors' meeting. It was a state of affairs that would make in itself the subject for an interesting study by one competent to handle it. The second point that engages attention is the way the vote was taken on the locating of the meeting- house. Here the old English rule of property voting was followed. The votes were counted by acres and Page sixty-two not by show of hands. Apparently this was an excep- tion to the common rule in the proprietors' meetings, and was not consistent with the later laying of rates "on Eaich Proprietor Right," and not on land holdings. It looks as if a clever trick were sprung on the meeting. And finally, the vote, though nearly two to one in favor of the ^location on the Square, shows that there were strong differences of opinion and antagonisms of interests among the proprietors themselves. They were not all saints in those days, but men of like passions as ourselves. There is no contemporary picture of that first church building extant; but its plan and general appearance are known. As already indicated, it was forty feet by thirty on the ground, the greater length and the ridgepole running north and south. There was but one door, and that was in the middle of the east side. There was one broad aisle leading from the door to the pulpit, which was high up on the west wall. The seats ran east and west, so that the congregation sat facing the middle aisle and must turn sidewise to look toward the pulpit. The seats rose in tiers from the aisle to the end walls. There were galleries in the gable ends north and south and under these were box pews. The building, which was completed probably some time in the late spring or summer of 1770, was so strongly put together that it was moved a few rods further west when the second meeting-house was erected, and was used as a school house in the summer- time, becoming through neglect more and more of an eyesore to the neighbors until in 1828 someone, acting perhaps on the suggestion of one of these neighbors, set fire to it, and probably no effort was made to extinguish the flames. Page sixty-three It was a hard blow to the small and struggling church when it lost its first and much beloved minister. It remained without a pastor through the next three years. Those were years in which the older churches in the colonies as well as the new suffered much from the disturbances caused by the war. Still the Church of Christ in Williamstown was loyal to its covenant obligations. On the first page of the oldest records now in our possession, we read that on February 18, 1779, the church being then without a pastor, Sampson How and Nathanael Sanford were appointed a committee to visit a certain brother and "enquire the reason of his absenting himself from communion." The church members were not wholly dependent upon a learned, orthodox minister to keep them to a sense of their responsibilities, but could maintain the discipline of the church without teacher or pastor. Possibly during this time they were prosecuting the search for a minister with the same discouragements they had met before they secured Mr. Welch. In Connecticut an association made record in 1779 of "the dark Aspect upon our Churches in the Discourage- ment lying upon Candidates entering into the Ministry and the present distress and difficulties of them that are already in office from which we fear these Churches may be left without Lights in the Candle- stick." But patience was rewarded, if patience was required, and a light was found for the Williamstown candlestick. At that meeting of the church to which reference has just been made, February 18, 1779, it was "voted to call Mr. Seth Swift to settle in the work of the gospel Ministry in this town." On April ist, the church met and "voted that the Association of this Page sixty-four County be the ordaining Council and that Isaac Strat- ton, Samuel Kellogg and David Noble be a Committee to write letters missive to the pastors and chhs for their assistance in ordaining the said Mr. Seth Swift on the 26th of May next." Mr. Swift continued his ministry here for nearly twenty-eight years, "much esteemed, dearly beloved, * * * * verv faithful and laborious," received two hundred and seventy-three into the membership of the church, and on Sunday, February 15, 1807, after a short illness, "died in the midst of great usefulness, while God was pouring out His Spirit here and giving him many seals of his ministry." Mr. Swift, like Mr. Welch, was a Connecticut man, a native of Kent, the town adjoining New Milford. It is quite likely that Mrs. Welch, who had returned to her New Milford home, may have had some influence in the choice or consent of her husband's successor in office. Mr. Swift was a graduate of Yale College in the class of 1774. He is described as "a little above medium stature, with a strong frame and large features, not at all studious of the graces of dress, manners or conversation, warm and open in his temper, evangelical in his religious views, serious in the general tone of his intercourse with his people, zealous in the labors of the ministry, decided in his opinions, and prudent and energetic in his measures." He was withal of quite a different type from Whitman Welch. All desirable qualities are not given to any one man, and Seth Swift was an able and faithful minister and under him the church went forward from victory to victory. Near the middle point of Mr. Swift's pastorate we find another of those crossings of the ways which are engaging our attention. No years in all the history of Page sixty-five the town have been as momentous as those from 1791 to 1796. The events of those years gave Williamstown its distinctive character, differentiating it from the other towns then coming into being at this end of the state, and opening here springs of worldwide influence. At this time there came into the life of the church a new current which for sixty years dominated its whole life and still largely affects it, though less directly. The history of a hundred and twenty-five years of church life would be largely unintelligible, if one were ignorant of this influence. It is to be fully presented this afternoon; but it cannot be wholly omitted from the larger survey of the history of the town and church to which this morning hour is assigned. We have already recalled that the settlement on our four hills and in the adjacent valleys was first known as West Hoosac, or "the West Township." Col. Ephraim Williams, Commander of Fort Massa- chusetts, 1747-51 and 1754-5, being unmarried, was moved by the desire which is common to men to leave their names behind them in some form more enduring than the short memory of a generation. He was also regardful of the disadvantages suffered by youth who grow up in a small frontier settlement far from the educational advantages of older communities, and in a letter which he sent to his cousin Israel Williams of Hatfield with his last will and testament he declared his chief concern in making that will to be for these "poor creatures." By the will itself, he used the second of these interests to secure the first. He gave the residuum of his estate "toward the support and main- tainance of a Free School in a township west of Fort Massachusetts, commonly called the West Township, forever; provided, the said township shall fall within the jurisdiction of the Province of Massachusetts Bay ; Page sixty-six and provided, also, the Governor and General Court give the same township the name of Williamstown." This gift made it sure that the settlers in the West Township would see to it that the Governor and General Court gave the township the name proposed, and so secured to the worthy Colonel perpetual remembrance. The will was drawn in Albany, New York, July 29, 1755. Col. Williams was killed in "The Bloody Morning Scout" near the head of Lake George, September 8th of the same year. His executors managed his estate with becoming care and acted with considerable deliberation. After long delay, the free school was established, was housed in a building so well planned and put together that it is still standing where it was set in the middle of the main street "south of Mr. William Horsford's house," and its doors were finally opened to receive the youth of the town, for whom it was founded, on October 20, 1791 ; but already other schemes were afoot. "The initial step toward the transformation of the Free School into a college was. taken at a meet- ing of the trustees, May 23, 1792. In a petition to the legislature they humbly showed what had been done already, and set forth the 'several circumstances attending the situation of the Free School * * * * peculiarly favorable to a semin- ary of a more public and important nature.' The petition was granted and an act to establish the college and to transfer to it the property of the Free School was passed June 22, 1793." (Cf. Williams Coll. Cata- logue, 1914, p. 21 ). The petition was opposed; but there was no appeal from the action of the General Court. The property was transferred. Western Massachusetts gained a college ; but Williamstown lost the free school which Ephraim Williams designed for Page sixty-seven its children. After studying the earlier history, it was natural to turn to the catalogue of the college to find what provision was made for perpetuating in some fashion the dream of the founder and carrying it into effect. I thought to find there at least some free scholarships provided and reserved for Williamstown youth. I find none. I am informed that a generous individual is providing annually for the aid of students from Berkshire County, and in this benefaction Williamstown youth may share ; but the college, except as it may show preference in individual cases, reveals no sense of obligation to carry into effect Ephraim Williams's purpose to make provision in particular for the education of the youth of the town to which his name was given. Of course that initial gift of nine thousand one hundred fifty-seven dollars seems pitifully small in comparison with later benefactions; but, without that, there would have been none of these larger contributions to the treasury of Williams College ; for there would have been no Williams College treasury to receive them. And it may also be worth noting that, had the original nine thousand one hundred fifty-seven dollars been compounded at current rates of interest, allowing even six per cent, for the period from March 8, 1785, when "The Trustees of the Dona- tion of Ephraim Williams, Esq., for the maintaining of' a Free School in Williamstown" were incorporated and empowered to receive from the executors of the will the proceeds of their trust, that meager endowment would today have grown to over eighteen million nine hundred forty-one thousand dollars. The thought suggests itself that, in view of these facts, it would be a gracious, a seemly act, and one particularly appro- priate in this anniversary year, if the trustees of the college, the present administrators of "the Dona- Page sixty-eight tion of Ephraim Williams, Esq., for the maintaining of a Free School in Williamstown," should set apart sufficient funds for the endowment of one or two "Ephraim Williams Scholarships," to be designated and reserved for the aid of Williamstown students, those "still unborn" whom the founder had particularly in mind in making his bequest. As to the large advantage ultimately accruing to the town and to the Church of Christ in Williamstown from that transformation of the free school into a "seminary of more public and important nature" there can be no question, whatever opposition there may have been in the last decade of the eighteenth century to the ambitious plans of the first trustees of the free school. One of the first effects of this change from a modest free school, teaching English branches and drawing its students from the immediate vicinage, to an ambitious college drawing its students from a wider area appeared in the demand for a new meeting-house. Though rude, like their own regulation houses, the first church building served the needs of the towns- people sufficiently well until after the free school had been transformed into a college. That transfor- mation brought into the town a new voice, the voice of the student body. What seemed good enough for the village fathers was not good enough for these boys gathered from other towns, nor was the building large enough for its new uses. Before the second class, that of 1796, was graduated, there were angry mutterings. Thomas Robbins from Norfolk, Connecti- cut, a member of that class, a son of the Rev. Ammi Ruhama Robbins of whom I have already spoken, wrote in his diary September 7, 1796, "A scandal to have Commencement in such an old meeting-house." Nor were the students content with mere words. Page sixty-nine July i, of that year, Robbins wrote: "The meeting- house assaulted, more or less, every night;" and on July 15: "Great disturbance in town on account of the meeting-house being set on fire last night. It was happily extinguished. Various conjectures about the perpetrators." All this bespoke the impatience of youth. Already a movement had been initiated toward providing a more attractive and ample edifice. As early as January 19, Robbins had written: "The President has started a subscription for a meeting-house. It is circulating." And he had at least one word of praise for those who worshipped in the old house. On July 10 he wrote : "They sing well here." The old contention as to the proper location of the meeting-house died hard. In January, 1777, the town voted to build a meeting-house near the center of the town. A stake was set on the top of Stone Hill, and the site was approved by vote of the town in July, 1781 ; but nothing came of it all. In September, 1796, the town agreed to the building of a new house on the old site, the old house to be moved back and used as a town-house. That matter being settled, subscriptions were secured more rapidly, the amounts showing large liberality on the part of the townspeople, who were still dwelling in small and rude houses; but who built for the Lord a house worthy of His name. This second house was seventy-six feet long by fifty-five feet wide, its length running east and west, and it cost about six thousand dollars. Thomas Robbins, that sharp critic of the earlier building, being in Williams- town in September, 1799, to receive his degree as Master of Arts, wrote in his diary : "There is the best meeting house here I have ever been in." Though much more ambitious in design than the first house, the second was not as well built and, later on, serious Page seventy structural weakness developed in the west end, which was remedied by an unsightly system of bracing and buttressing. In his centennial discourse of November 19, 1865, the Rev. Mason Noble gave some details concerning the early form of the building and of the changes which had been made in the course of the years. He said: "The old church itself is here. It has indeed in the interior put on a new and more modern look. The lofty arched ceiling, the massive pillars below the galleries and the gracefully fluted columns above supporting the roof, the pulpit perched so high against the wall that it cramped the necks of us boys who looked for any length of time to the preacher, the deacons' seat at its foot with its fixed communion table, and the great broad aisle in the center, * * * the dear old square, roomy pews * * * these are all gone forever. * * * Outside we find the old church in most respects as it was from the beginning, though we cannot but miss the graceful and lofty steeple which so wakened the wonder of our childhood and helped to connect the church below with the bright heavens into which the spire seemed almost to penetrate. Even the 'Pine Apple' which in after years took the place of the departed spire is now gone. But we are glad to know that it is the purpose of those who have made these modern improvements to restore the ancient glories of the steeple of 1798." "We rejoice," he said, "that those who come after us have a house for God so convenient in all its arrangements and so well adapted to the purposes of divine worship." I am not free to give a detailed history of Mr. Swift's pastorate nor of those which followed down to the middle of Mr. Ballard's. Through these years the religious life of the church and of the college were Page seventy-one so intimately intermingled that they make properly one narrative, which we are to hear this afternoon, and courtesy forbids all avoidable trespassing on the field particularly assigned to another speaker. Outside those interests in which college and church shared, there were few high places or meetings of paths during these years. Mr. Swift continued in the pastorate until his death on Sunday, February 15, 1807. During the next five years the church was without a minister. President Fitch, who was ordained by the Berkshire Association on June 17, 1795, and others supplied the pulpit, and Deacon Ebenezer Stratton did the work of a pastor. The Rev. Walter King was installed July 7, 1814, and died December i, 1815, stricken down by apoplexy. Mr. King was a man of fine nature, markedly evangelical spirit and wide experience, though he had suffered from ill health from his early years. After a ten months interim, Mr. King was succeeded by the Rev. Ralph Wells Gridley, who served until April 27, 1834. Mr. Gridley's personality and varied service and experience greatly tempt one to narrative and comment; but this would take us into the very heart of the relations of the church and the college. The difficulties springing from those relations finally led Mr. Gridley to resign the pastorate. The next three pastorates were short. The Rev. Joseph Alden was installed July 3, 1834; but after a year's service resigned his office to accept a professor- ship in Williams College. The Rev. Albert Smith served from February n, 1836, to May 6, 1838, and then imitated his predecessor, resigning his pastorate to become a professor in Marshall College, Pennsylvania. The Rev. Amos Savage was installed January 22, 1840, and was dismissed on January 30, 1843, after which he became an agent of the American Tract Society. Page seventy-two THE REVEREND ABSALOM PETERS The Rev. Absalom Peters, D. D., had a longer pastorate, extending from November 20, 1844, to November, 1853. His services were intermittent during the latter part of this time, the church giving him extended leave of absence to act as financial agent of the college, and finally releasing him from the pastorate that he might devote his entire time to that work. If the story of Mr. Gridley's resignation were fully told, it might cast some light on a notable point in this part of our records. Here are four men in succession who turn to other callings after holding pastorates in the Williamstown church. Their experiences here did not make them feel that the life of a Christian pastor was the only life that could content them. They did not find it a bed of roses. Conditions changed during the pastorate of the Rev. Addison Ballard who was installed September 4, 1857, and of whom I shall speak later. Between the pastorates of Dr. Peters and Mr. Ballard, the church was served most faithfully and acceptably by the Rev. Henry R. Hoisington; but he was never installed as pastor and finally, on that account, refused to serve further. During these years which I am constrained to pass over, there were times of high spiritual experience, times of large ingatherings into the church, and times of dearth when the rolls shrank. There was the ever pressing, and always difficult, problem of raising the funds required for carrying forward the work. There were those too frequent changes in leadership; the pastorates short; the interim between pastorates sometimes long, the pulpit during these periods being filled by members of the college faculty, or by acting pastors and irregular supplies. There were times of great disheartenment as witnessed at the annual Page seventy~three meeting in 1859, when the remarks of the brethren on "the spiritual destitution of the community and the low state of piety in the church" so depressed the pastor, Mr. Ballard, that he excused himself from the usual reading of the Covenant. If time permitted, as it does not, it might be interesting to dwell on that financial problem; the complications that arose from the division of authority between proprietors and town; the organization of a legally constituted parish in 1829 and a new parish in 1856; the relations of parish to church and church to parish in respect to the appropriation of Sunday collections, etc., but all this we must pass by with brief mention. During this period other churches were organized in the town and in North Adams which drew from the membership of the First Church here. Of the twenty- two original members of the First Congregational Church in North Adams, organized April 19, 1827, seventeen brought letters from the First Church of Williamstown, the remaining five entering on con- fession of faith. In 1770, of two hundred and twenty polls, rated for town taxes, two hundred and seven were rated "for the minister's tax," the remaining thirteen claiming exemption on account of being connected with denominations other than the Congregational. The second church organization in the town was formed by the Baptists. In May, 1791, the town refused "to incorporate Matthew Dunning and fourteen others into a Baptist Society;" but Dunning and his associates were not to be vanquished, and in 1792, the town chose Isaac Holmes as "tythingman for the Baptists." In 1829, Prof. Kellogg wrote of them, "They have never had a settled minister ; but sometimes Page seventy-four hire one for a year. The church of that denomination here included some members from Hancock ; but was always small and was dissolved about 1811. Some of the members of it united with the church in Berlin, New York. After two or three years another Baptist Church was formed which now consists of forty-three members." In the same article from which this record is taken, Prof. Kellogg wrote of the Methodists : "The Metho- dists in this town have always been few, and now are only a small number of families." They made a late start, but a characteristically vigorous growth after the start was fairly made. They organized a church some- time previous to 1821 ; but worshipped for quite a number of years in the homes of the members. We have already reviewed at some length the early contentions as to the site of the first meeting-house. The opposition to the site on Main street came from men living in the south part of the town. Their contention had weight and was entitled to more consideration than was given to it by the proprietors. If the town had settled the matter, the house would have stood "near the center of the town" as the votes in town meetings made plain. Attempts were made to right what was felt to be an injustice. March 8, 1779, the town voted that the South part should have their portion of preaching until there should be a meeting-house in the center. January 24, 1785, it was voted by the town to build a meeting-house in the South part, the town to pay toward the building the assessed value of the meeting- house in the North part, subsequently fixed at one hundred seventy pounds. This plan failed. Feeling ran so high that in January, 1794, a vote was taken on a proposal to divide the town ; but this was negatived. Page seventy-five Finally, about 1812, a meeting-house was erected in South Williamstown, at a cost of about three thousand five hundred dollars, by the united efforts of Con- gregationalists and Baptists, who used it jointly. The pastors of the First Church preached "in the South Part" every third Sunday from early in Mr. Swift's pastorate down to and including the pastorate of Mr. Alden. When new stoves and pipe were bought for the meeting-house on the Square at a cost of nine hundred dollars in the fall of 1834, it was voted, "to abate the tax that shall fall on the members in the south part of the town in any instance that is desired." The South Williamstown church was organized in 1836. On January 18 of that year the First Parish voted to release from further obligations to itself any members who joined the Second Parish. When a call was extended to the Rev. Albert Smith, the parish voted, "that the ministerial labors of Mr. Smith be confined to the North part of this town ;" but in April, 1845, Dr. Peters, at his own request, was granted "the privilege of preaching one-third of the time, college vacations excepted, at South Williamstown." The long contention between the North part and the South part concerning the meeting-house came at last to an end ; but peace was not yet upon Israel ; other contests were already brewing. The first settlers had taken up the lots and built their houses west of North and South streets. Before 1856, the center of population on the main street had moved eastward, and in time there arose an effort to have the meeting-house moved in the same direction. A lecture room was built on Park street, where St. John's Church now stands, and was first used on December 20 of that year ; but the east end purposed something more. Page seventy-six On Wednesday, April 13, 1859, in the parish meet- ing, Keyes Danforth, of a committee chosen at a meeting of the proprietors of the meeting-house in response to a suggestion of the parish made January 26, "made report of the expense of moving the meeting-house into Park St. Also reported the names of the Proprietors of the Meeting-house that would give up their slips to the Parish, and upon what terms." Apparently, the expenses reported were too great ; for the parish voted not to move the building. In the records of that meeting, if you have under- stood the terminology, you will recognize a complex of interests and forces, a crossing of paths, where wisdom was greatly needed. The proprietors here mentioned were not proprietors of the township. That body was dissolved early in the century, holding its last meeting of record April 7, 1802. The "Proprie- tors" of 1859 were the owners of the meeting-house, successors to the titles in the property held by the subscribers to its building in 1796-8. The parish was, as it is today, a corporation composed in part, but only in part, of members of the church. The church used the property, was looked to in the main for providing the income of the parish, yet had no ownership or control of the property or of expenditures for salaries, etc. And each of these bodies was divided on the question at issue. It was not a condition conducive to peace or highest welfare, material or spiritual. An effort was made at this time, as you note, to ease the situation by the parish acquiring the titles held by the proprietors. That would end one conflict; but the effort was not successful. At another time, an effort was made to have the church take over the rights and responsibilities of the parish, as many churches have done, and so avoid a repetition of con- Page seventy-seven flicts which have sometimes arisen between these two bodies ; but this effort was unsuccessful like the other. In Williamstown no conflict between the two has ever been serious enough to force a serious consideration of that question. The time may come here, as it has come elsewhere, when the matter will have vital importance. The result of this meeting left one section in parish and church dissatisfied. How strong the feeling was we shall see later on. The question of moving the house having been settled, at least for the time being, it was remodeled and renovated in a thoroughgoing fashion, making it, as Mr. Noble said, "a house of God convenient in all its arrangements and well adapted to the purposes of divine worship." A coincidence of dates is here worth noticing. The college had its own separate church organization from June 15, 1834; but it continued to join with the village church in Sabbath morning worship until 1859, when the Alumni Hall Chapel was built, and from that time onward, the college maintained its own separate services. It might have been thought that this change would have meant large loss to the village church in every way. Such a withdrawing from a church of a large part of its congregation usually means a large financial loss ; sometimes it means ruin. But here we find this prompt engagement in costly repairs and improvements immediately after the withdrawal of the college from the long-continued fellowship in worship. The truth is that the church did not suffer any financial loss through this withdrawal. As far back as October n, 1830, the parish, under what pressure we do not know, "voted that all Parish taxes assessed upon the Officers and Students of Williams College be hereafter abated." From that time on, the Page se veniy-eight townspeople received spiritual benefits from fellowship in worship with the officers and students of the college, but no large and assured financial support; though in order to have available a spacious auditorium, the college made a large contribution to the building of the third church as it had to the second. And so it was that the church was as able to undertake the work of repairing and improving its house after the with- drawal of the college as it was before the separation. It is quite possible too that the union had been continued quite as long as was good for the church. It is possible that at times there had been too much control exercised or attempted by forceful presidents and professors, and that there were men in the church who were ready to work more energetically when these partners had withdrawn ; but I leave it to Dr. Carter to discuss that question. On September 14, 1857, the Rev. Addison Ballard, a graduate of Williams College, class of 1842, a man of sensitive spirit and unusual refinement, tall and slender, whose elegance in writing and speaking are still distinctly remembered, was installed as pastor of the church. In December, 1864, after seven years of devoted and fruitful service, he was dismissed from the pastorate, the last pastor who occupied the pulpit in the white meeting-house on the hill. During his pastorate he received into the church one hundred and seven members, eighty of them on confession of faith. From January to October. 1865, the pulpit was supplied by Prof. Albert Hopkins of sainted memory, as it had been from August, 1838, to August, 1839, though Professor Hopkins was not ordained to the ministry until December 26, 1869. On October i, 1865, there came to the church one of the largest blessings it has ever enjoyed. On Page seventy-nine that date, the Rev. Mason Noble, whom the church had vainly called to the pastorate September 19, 1838, came back to his native town to serve the church of his fathers for twelve months. It was an eventful year, and God gave to the people a man of His own right hand to be their leader. Eighteen hundred and sixty-five was the centennial year of the church and of the town. July 26, Dr. Henry L. Sabin, Judge Keyes Danforth and Deacon James Smedley were appointed a committee to make arrangements for the proper celebration of the anniversary. The church being at this time without a pastor, the committee turned at once to Mr. Noble, then serving as chaplain of the U. S. Naval Academy, and asked him to deliver the centennial address "at some time during the Autumn," and further planned the general order of exercises. September 20, the committee for supplying the pulpit invited Mr. Noble to occupy the pulpit for six months "and if possible for one year," from October *st, "it being understood that Mr. Noble will deliver the centennial address at such time as he and the Committee may designate." As the earliest records of the church had been destroyed long before this, the exact date on which the church was organized, or on which Mr. Whitman Welch was ordained, was then unknown, as it is today. For reasons not recorded, November 19 was finally fixed upon as the time for the celebration, and on that date the clerk of the church, Mr. Charles H. Mather, made record : "November 19, 1865. This day set apart for the Centennial opened with a driving rainstorm. The church was however well filled. The Rev. Mason Noble delivered his discourse, occupying one hour [of] the morning and afternoon services. In the evening Page eighty the Conference meeting was held and the addresses and prayers were of a most interesting and impressive character. The Centennial was considered by all as a success, and results for good both in the church and town are anticipated." Details of the celebration are given in a pamphlet which was published at the time, including Mr. Noble's address. Mr. Noble's face has been before me as I have been writing these pages. It is a face in which there is a combination and balance rarely seen of strength, intelligence and sweetness. He was manifestly the man for the hour. He entered on his work here with peculiar advantages. He was born in Williamstown, March 18, 1809, a son of Deodatus Noble, who with his brother Daniel made one of the largest contributions to the building of the second meeting-house and who served the church as deacon from 1814 to 1833. Mason Noble made part of his preparation for college in the Williamstown Academy, and was a graduate of Williams College in the class of 1827. He united with this church in 1826, the year in which one hundred and thirty-three names were placed on the rolls, the largest number of accessions in any one year in the history of the church. Ten of these became ministers of the Word, and one, Asahel Foote, served the church as deacon from 1838 to 1880, when he removed to California. Mr. Noble was thus thoroughly familiar with the families, the traditions and the conditions of Williams- town as a stranger and newcomer could not be. It takes years for a newcomer in any one of our New England towns to become so far familiar with all these factors that he can render the fullest service to the community. Mr. Noble suffered no such disad- vantage ; nor was any time lost in securing that other Page eighty-one indispensable condition of a pastor's best service, that is that the people should know him as thoroughly well as he must know them. During the year of his service here, Mr. Noble kept a journal which reveals the consecration, the untiring energy and unfailing patience with which he worked to bring spiritual blessing to the community. Review- ing the first six months of his service, he wrote on March 25 : "I have preached every Sabbath since I came and done a great deal of extra work. Preached seventy sermons and had as many prayer-meetings and made one hundred and thirty family visits." These visits were devoted to reading of the Bible with religious conversation and prayer, the subject of personal religion and the necessity of repentence and faith and a new life being pressed on young and old. The journal continues: "I have never worked harder in my ministry, nor loved the Gospel more, or ever enjoyed more perfect and uninterrupted health. The church are somewhat quickened and the breath of the Holy Spirit seems to be upon not a few of the unbelievers. If God is pleased to give this church of my fathers a glorious manifestation of His power and love my highest ambition will be gratified, for I have longed ever since I came to impart unto them some spiritual gift." Such a spirit with such labors could not be unfruit- ful. During that year 1866, fifty-nine new members were received into the church, most of them on profession of faith, of whom Mr. Charles Sumner Cole, Mr. James Marshall Hosford, Miss Susan Sedg- wick Hopkins and Dr. Edward Elias Mather are still with us, continuing to us the spiritual blessing of those days. Page eighty-two January 3, 1866, at the annual meeting of the church, "after an address by the pastor on the duty of every member of the church being an efficient co-worker with Christ in building up his kingdom, several of the brethren followed [with] earnest and appropriate exhortation." There was other building work ahead of them which they did not anticipate. On January 21, 1866, Mr. Noble wrote in his jour- nal : "This has been a very sad and memorable day in the history of the church. The weather very cold and the walking slippery and dangerous. Congregations smaller than on any Sabbath since I came here. I preached in the morning from Habbakuk 3:2 on the nature of a true revival of religion, and in the after- noon on Luke 16:22-23. The meetings were very solemn, and considering them in the light of two very crowded and solemn meetings in the North district where I preached on the preceding Thursday and Friday evenings, I thought that notwithstanding the small number present we should before long see a great 'revival.' While sitting in my study and thinking such thoughts, the cry of fire was heard. I saw it was the church already smoking, and in an hour the old church of our fathers was in ashes. All debts on it had just been extinguished, and everyone felt that the way was now prepared for great usefulness and comfort. I met with a few in the lecture room at 7 o'clock and we wept and prayed together on what seemed to some a very dark providence. I read to them the sixty-fourth chapter of Isaiah and told them that, as in the beginning of the late rebellion, everything seemed to be dark and terrible and mysterious and full of the anger of God, and yet the rebellion had been overruled for the good of the nation, so now we ought not to doubt a moment that God had great and merciful Page eighty-three designs toward the church. The end which He had in view would be gained and we must trust Him. We tried to attend to the particular interests of the Home prayer-meeting, as this was our first meeting of the kind. Some reports were given of a very interesting character from the First District; but the other districts were unrepresented on account of the confusion arising from the conflagration." The church clerk recorded the time of the fire as "about an hour after the close of the afternoon service." In the following July, the Rev. J. Qement French, of Brooklyn, New York, of Williams College, class of 1853, read before the alumni, on Tuesday afternoon, July 31, what was designated "A Poem" entitled: "Song of the Old Church at Williamstown." In this occur these lines : "It was is not yet is old ruined shrine, Thick matted now with mem'tys greenest moss; The hill is bare its glory gone no sign Save fire-swept rocks which sunset glints across. Erst builded with a snowy fingered spire; That fall'n, it wore a huge pine apple crown; The tower and temple, the remorseless fire, Unheeding Sabbath's sanctity, struck down. ****** Oh, cruel flames, your tongue proclaims, 'Old yield thee to the new. Not on this sacred hill, but down the midway slope, Another fane of God shall rear its modern cope! I rest in peace! Some bless that Sabbath fire, Yet others weep that funeral pyre !' " Let me call your attention to those last two lines. The old contention concerning the site of the meeting- house had never died out. Those who had been voted Page eighty-four down in the meeting of April 13, 1859, and perhaps some who then voted not to move the meeting-house to Park street on account of the expense involved, now saw the opportunity for a more hopeful effort to secure their will. There has been a tradition current in the town that a difference of opinion and considerable warmth of feeling developed at this time over the question as to where the new building should stand. The official records of church and parish give no intimation of any such contest. We find simply that on April 16, 1866, the parish : "Voted: to Commence Building a Church Edifice this Summer. Voted: to hear a proposition from the owners of the Post Office Lot for the Church Edifice. Voted: to accept the proposition of the owners * * * and to pay them Forty seven hundred dollars for the Lot and to build thereon. Voted : This Parish adopt the Post Office Lot and to build thereon." Everything in this record suggests peace and con- cord; but a leaf has been cut from the parish book which bore the records of a meeting duly warned to transact six items of business, as erasures on the remaining margin show, at some date between the annual meeting of January 8, and the meeting of April 1 6. This leaf bore records of only one meeting. It is entirely safe to say that it was cut from the book with the authority of the parish. One would naturally wonder what was proposed and done at that meeting, and why the leaf was cut out. If we had only the official records, we would have no light on the matter. These three months without any action looking toward the building of a new house would have remained a strange and unaccountable phenomenon; but that Page eighty-five invaluable journal kept by Mr. Noble supplies the explanatory narrative. His record is as follows : "January 22. A meeting of a few members of the Church and Congregation was hastily called together this evening to make arrangements for a meeting on Wednesday to see what could be done for the building of a new Church Edifice. After some consideration it was determined to see what could be raised on the spot and $5,000.00 was immediately subscribed. A committee was then appointed to prepare statements to be laid before a Public Meeting on Wednesday next at i O'clock in the Lecture Room. The spirit of the meeting was most excellent and it seems more and more evident that this apparent great calamity may indeed prove a great blessing. May God so overrule it in His infinite love !" "January 24. The public meeting today in the Lecture room was not as promising as we hoped some of the Brethren indulging in speeches not to edification. The subscription was increased to $7,500. & a committee appointed to canvass each District of the town." "January 31. Public Meeting in the Lecture room in relation to the Church Building. The subscription has now reached $11000. & a Committee appointed to look out for a location." "February 7. The public meeting of the Congrega- tion to receive the Report of Committee on the location of Ch. Edifice was held this evening and was opened with prayer by the Pastor. The Committee recom- mended the present site of the Post Office as both cheap and central. There was no expressed opposition to the Report, though it was thought best to defer the decision for one week. A Committee was also appointed to report on the size and general style of the Ch. Edifice." Page eighty-six "February 14. Public Meeting of Congregation in the Lecture Room to consult respecting the new church. After some very unpleasant discussion in relation to the location the meeting was unceremoniously adjourned sine die, some voting for the adjournment from fear of prolonging strife, & others from fear that the church might not be located in the right place." "March 5. A church meeting this afternoon to consult together and compare views in relation to the location of the new church. The spirit of the meeting was excellent & will do no little to harmonize the Church ultimately on this subject." That last sentence brings us to a point on which we may profitably dwell, and which is my reason for exhuming what the parish so carefully buried. During the weeks following the fire, Mr. Noble, with Deacon Smedley and others, was carrying forward a work begun in the early part of the winter, visiting all families in the northern part of the town and holding meetings night by night in the school houses, counseling, praying, exhorting; laboring for the more thorough consecration of confessed Christians, the recovery of those who had fallen away from their former faith and professions, and for the conversion of those who had not yet taken Jesus Christ to be their Lord and Saviour. At the "Monthly Church Meeting" March 21, "It was suggested by a Brother that the time had come for special exertions in the Central District." Though the weather was unpropitious, meetings were appointed for every night in the following week. These meetings were especially blessed. The record stands : "Some of the Chr. Brethern are much quickened and full of joy and the wish is that the meetings should be con- tinued another week." The "Sunday School Concert" Page eighty-seven in April, held as usual on the second Sunday evening of the month, was crowded and a large accession to the school was noted as having been made during the preceding month, and that many of the classes were now composed almost entirely of young Christians. On March 25, the church clerk made record: "This day it was announced that there would be meet- ings for prayer every evening this week, there being quite a number of persons who have expressed anxiety in relation to their spiritual condition and there being also other manifestations of the special presence of the Holy Spirit in the congregation." On April 5, Mr. Noble made note of "conversions taking place almost daily," and on April 15: "The meetings have continued up to the present time. They have been most joyful and heavenly gatherings, and there [are] now some fifty hopeful conversions." On the following day the parish meeting was held when, with all concord, the parish apparently ordered the excision of the record of a less peaceful meeting, and agreed to the placing of the new church edifice on "the Post Office Lot" where we are gathered today. Certainly there was in this final concord one of those "manifestations of the special presence of the Holy Spirit in the congregation" of which the clerk made record. The lesson is of such worth that I am sure you will agree with me that I am justified in resur- recting a story which, forty years ago, would have brought a blush to some cheeks; but which, when fully told, does honor to the actors, and instructs us that the one healing for hurts and the one sure bond of concord for the church and for the community is in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the deeper consecration of all to God. Page eighty-eight y -+ w D & L> The story of the building of the third church cannot be told at this time. It was dedicated on September 12, 1869, the Rev. Mason Noble, D.D., giving the sermon. The lecture room was finished later and was first used on January 3, 1870. During the time of the building operations, the church worshipped in the old lecture room on Park street and had as its pastor the Rev. E. P. Wells, with the usual interim before and after his service, Prof. John Bascom, the Rev. Calvin Durfee, the Rev. Edward Griffin, the Rev. Daniel S. Rodman and others filling the pulpit for longer or shorter periods. Late in 1869, Prof. Albert Hopkins began his last term of service as acting pastor of the church, in which he continued until his death on May 24, 1872, giving his services without salary as a help to the congregation who were burdened with the expense of building ; and he was at this time ordained in response to the request of the church that he might be able to administer the sacraments. An account of Prof. Hopkins's large and generous service to the church belongs to the topic, The College and the Church, and will be given this afternoon. There is however one matter in this connection which Dr. Carter has communicated in private conversation, and which may be put on record here, as it is not mentioned in the official records of church or parish. In the steeple of the new church (the records giving the name "church" instead of "meeting-house" to the third building), a bell was hung, inscribed: IN MEMORY OF ALBERT HOPKINS DIED MAY 24, 1872. "He being dead yet speaketh." Heb. 11:4. Page eighty-nine Unhappily this bell, either by defect of casting or from later injury, gave forth a woefully discordant voice that by no means suggested the joy of heaven. The infelicity was endured for some time, there being no funds available for its alleviation; but help came from Litchfield County, Connecticut, whence the church had brought its first two ministers. At the suggestion of President Carter in 1886, the Hon. Robbins Battell of Norfolk, Connecticut, who was an expert and enthusiast on the subject of bells, and had recently put a chime in his own home church, gave a duplicate set of bells for the tower of the Lasell Gymnasium. The large bell not satisfying his expert sense, Mr. Battell about 1890 proposed to exchange it for one of perfect tone. President Carter then sug- gested that the discarded bell should be given to the church to take the place of the far inferior one then hanging in the steeple ; but this suggestion was rejected by Mr. Battell. If the bell was not good enough for the gymnasium, much less did he feel that it was good enough for the church. He proposed however that it be broken up and the value of the metal should be his contribution toward the casting of a new bell for the church, and this was done with a success that delights our ears Sabbath by Sabbath, the new bell, cast in 1894, bearing on its side the same inscription as the old. Mr. Battell, a grandson of Ammi Ruhama Robbins, that early trustee of Williams College, was a nephew of Thomas Robbins from whose diary I have quoted, and so was a nephew of Francis LeBaron Robbins and a kinsman of Harvey Loomis, whose names are inscribed on the Haystack monument, and was my own beloved and generous friend and parishioner during the years above noted. Page ninety On December 15, 1872, the Rev. Albert C. Sewall began his service here. He was installed February 26, 1873. His labors for the church and town were unstinted and were abundantly blessed ; but of him and of his successors in the pastorate it is not for me to speak this morning, last night's meeting being given to recollection of their years in the service and fellowship of this church. In this review I have not attempted a continuous and complete narrative of the one hundred and fifty years of church life now ended. I have been excluded from the use of much interesting material by the assignment of special topics to other lips and other pens. Sixty years of the history have been left almost entirely for Dr. Carter to review. Miss Grace Perry has prepared a paper on The Work of the Women in the Church, which will be read and published later. The physical disability of the appointee has unfortun- ately prevented the preparation of a paper on the history of the Sunday school. Many special topics might have been added to these, all of them full of interest. I have only tried to point out some of the high places and meetings of paths as we followed down the course of the century and a half. I have no time left in which to speak of the influences that have gone out from this church over many paths. You viewed yesterday that long roll of honor on which stand inscribed the names of those many members and worshippers here who have gone out through the years to carry the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth. Over three score members of the church have been men ordained to the Christian ministry, including in the list the small number whose ordination preceded their membership here. Children and children's children of Page ninety-one those who were members and supporters of the church have filled and are filling conspicuous and honorable places as teachers, judges, statesmen, publicists and reformers. One of them who was here yesterday, a worthy son of worthy sires, is the present Governor of the Empire State, and in the British Ministry, in these distressful and perilous days, is found Winston Spencer Churchill, a descendant from a Williamstown family. From her vantage ground on the high places where the paths meet, the old church has sent forth her sons and her daughters to extend her influence far abroad. Their line is gone out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world, while here at home a great company, that surrounds us today as celestial witnesses, fought the good fight and finished their course and won the crown of life. The Church of Christ in Williamstown has known difficulties, but it has conquered them. It has seen floodtides and ebb ; and when the ebb was lowest it did not lose heart, but waited for the turning of the tide. And today, in the most beautiful of all the houses that have been its home, it calls on us by its one hundred and fifty years of bright-starred history to look forward with hope and consecration, and to tread with courage, uprightness and gladness of heart the new ways by which the Lord shall lead us as He led the Fathers to ever larger and more fruitful service, guarding us and enriching us with His wisdom on the high places where the paths meet. Page ninety-two ADDRESS OF THE REV. RALPH H. TIBBALS The Rev. John DePeu, introducing the Rev. Ralph H. Tibbals: In the year 1760 there came to this town a man who brought to it enduring blessings. Richard Stratton at that time took up rights and established a home here. Richard Stratton himself was never a member of this church, though he was one of the committee, as you heard this morning, who had to do with the building of the first meeting-house, but he gave his children to the membership and service of the church. His son Ebenezer was a deacon in this church from 1784 to 1814. Mr. Stratton was so thoroughly and devotedly a Christian man that he was known in the early days of the town as Deacon Stratton, before his son bore that honored title on these hilltops. Mr. Stratton himself was a Baptist, the first one on record among the residents of this town. In the year 1791 the town refused to incorporate Matthew Dunning and fourteen others into a Baptist society. In 1792 we find that that earlier action had been in some way disregarded or overcome. In that year Isaac Holmes was chosen "tithing-man for the Baptist Association in this town," so that the Baptist church was organized some time in 1791 or 1792; and we welcome to this platform this afternoon the present pastor of that church, the Rev. Ralph H. Tibbals. The Rev. Ralph H. Tibbals: Mr. .Chairman, members of the First Congrega- tional Church of Williamstown, and friends: I bring Page ninety-three you hearty greetings and felicitations on this happy occasion from the two hundred Baptists of Williams- town. We have a peculiar pleasure in the prosperity of this church when we recall the part taken by a Baptist in its founding. This part has already been referred to and I need not dwell upon it. I might add, however, a fact that may have been mentioned this morning I do not know namely, that the meeting which decided upon the ordination of the Rev. Whit- man Welch, the first pastor of this church, convened in the house of Richard Stratton, and that Richard Stratton was himself named a member of the committee to have in charge that ordination. As Baptists we glory in the record of Richard Stratton; but we glory no less in the record of the Congregational church that he did so much to establish. We rejoice today with you in the completion of a century and a half of that church's life in the cheering, uplifting, saving of a multitude of lives, and the molding of true Christian character in those who have come within the reach of its influence. We rejoice with you in your beautiful house of worship, in the sturdy Christian character that is apparent in your membership, adorned by the Christian graces in so abundant measure. We rejoice with you in your wise leader, sympathetic friend, faith- ful preacher and Christian pastor, whom to know is to revere and love. We rejoice with you in your splendid opportunity to serve this town and, through the college and those who labor in it, to extend your influence throughout the world, and materially aid in establishing the kingdom of Jesus Christ in the earth. We rejoice in the great and glorious truths of our common Christian faith, and bid you a hearty God-speed as you enter upon the work before you, interpreting these truths to human hearts. Page ninety-four ADDRESS OF THE REV. JOHN DUFFIELD The Rev. John DePeu, introducing the Rev. John Duffield: The third denomination to organize a church in this town was the Methodist Episcopal. They first wor- shipped in the upper part of the store, now the Sherman building, built by one John Wright. Their first church building was afterward moved back and became the Waterman & Moore opera house. The building, if not the people, was given over to dances. A later house being built, the congregation at first held its evening service in the basement. It is recorded that one of the pastors, objecting to this and desiring to use the upper room and having his request refused by the officers of the church who controlled the property, took it out in prayer when he thanked God that they had a place in which to worship, though it was half underground. But if the Methodists were ever half buried, they are very much alive and above ground today and are reaching toward the stars. It is our pleasure to welcome the pastor of the Methodist Episcopal church, the Rev. John Duffield. The Rev. John Duffield: Mr. President, friends of all the churches : I am glad to hear that it is recognized outside the Methodist church that we are not dead yet. We sometimes think we are, ourselves, but it will be an encouraging thing for me if I take back from this meeting the fact that Page ninety-five our good friends the Congregationalists do not think that we are dead or likely to be. It is not my purpose this afternoon to go into the history of Congregationalism, that is, the local history, nor the history of my own church, seeing that is done so well, but I might speak in general terms this afternoon of something that has always thrilled me and still does when I read of it. I am glad to be welcomed here this afternoon, very glad; glad that I am in a Congregational church, for I feel that I am part Congregationalist ; by the way, I like the word Independent better; but as I look over history I would like to know who it is that cannot be thrilled and cannot have his soul stirred when he reads just for a little while the history of, say, Congregation- alism from the time of Queen Elizabeth up to now. I have only to mention to you here this afternoon the word "Pilgrim" and "men of the Mayflower" to say that any church or any organization that belongs to such men as the Pilgrim Fathers, who had the blood of the men of the Mayflower within them, whether they be Congregationalists or anything else, has something whereof to be proud. And there is something about the spirit of Congregationalism that I love, and that is its love of civil and religious liberty. What do we owe to it? What would the world have been, what would England have been, what would this country have been, if it had not been for that sturdy spirit that was always ready to die rather than betray the truth. And if I understand Congregationalism aright, that is what it stands for in church and in state. And if you are proud of the Pilgrims, you ought to be proud of Oliver Cromwell, for he, they say, was the biggest Congregationalist of them all, and so what a history you have in the past ! And I am proud to be here to share with you in that spirit, long may it last and live, Page ninety-six the spirit which stands for religious liberty, the spirit that stands for undying manhood. But I am also here in another capacity and that is as a Methodist. I remember that I am a follower of John Wesley, a scholar and religious statesman, the world evangelist, the man who had a heart big enough to take the whole world in, the man of great toleration, who had no place for green-eyed jealousy in his soul, but who, when he met a man who loved God and was following after the truth, put out his hand and said to him: "Is your heart as my heart and are your sympathies as my sympathies, and if they be, here is my hand and here is my heart, and we will work together for the common cause." So I should be false to Methodism if I were not here this afternoon in that great spirit of Methodism to welcome and to say God bless you and God speed all those who love our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in sincerity and in truth. And now they say you are celebrating your one hundred and fifty years of life. Why, some people would say you are growing old, but in my esti- mation there is no such thing as old age. Grey hairs are, like death, but an incident in a man's life, to me pointing to something higher and grander and richer, and as the fathers of the past had their problems to solve and solved them through persecution and death and tribulation, so the Church of God today must take its stand in the center of things and be the greatest force in the world for the unfolding of those imperish- able truths that never die and without which no man or nation can ever expect to succeed. There are problems today, great, deep, solemn, inspiring, that nobody else can solve but the Church of God, problems that are social and intellectual, spiritual and moral. And now what shall be your future, for the future is Page ninety-seven before you and us. I pray that that spirit of the fathers and I love the fathers for their sturdiness and for their greatness of soul I pray that that spirit of the fathers may rest upon this church and upon all the churches of God in the great work that lies before them in solving the problems that lie at their feet; and may success attend your efforts and may you be crowned with the blessing of God. Page ninety-eight ADDRESS OF THE REV. J. FRANKLIN CARTER The Rev. John DePeu, introducing the Rev. J. Franklin Carter: Certain processes of history have a way of ever and again repeating themselves. Beyond all question and of necessity, the earliest forms of Christian worship were exceedingly simple, beginning with household gatherings and informal services. Just how early Diocesan Episcopacy entered in as a controlling and guiding influence in the Christian church is a subject still of somewhat heated debate. But, taking over the direction of Christian worship, it did beautify it and enlarge its scope in many ways. In the year 1870, the Congregational church in Williamstown, which had been perpetuating that primitive form of organization and worship, got through with its old lecture-room on Park street and the building was taken over by the Episcopalians so that in its place might be put, in the course of time, a worthy and beautiful structure that adorns the town today ; and the community at last has that church on Park street that many of the fathers desired, as was narrated this morning. It is a pleasure to welcome to our gathering this afternoon the Rector of St. John's Church, the heir of Congregationalism and an ornament of the Episcopal church, the Rev. John Franklin Carter. Page ninety-nine The Rev. J. Franklin Carter: Mr. DePeu and brethren: I stand here as repre- senting a rather young stripling of a parish of an ancient church, to bring my greetings to you on this one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of this ancient parish. Although we are still young, we have, as Mr. DePeu has just told you, kicked over the cradle, which was the old Congregational lecture-room, and built ourselves a more worthy mansion. When I was a boy, conditions among the various churches and Christians of different names resembled nothing so much as the international condition of Europe today. There were some alliances, but every church was a separate and independent state ; and, for the most part, they were all exceedingly jealous of their own rights and privileges ; they were not at all averse to plotting against their neighbors, and in many cases they sought to undermine the influence of other Christian bodies. I confess that if that same spirit were abroad today I should not feel very much like appearing here to congratulate the First Congregational Church upon its long and honorable history, upon its present prosperity, and upon its bright prospects for the future. But whatever else the movement towards Christian unity may have accomplished or may yet accomplish, it has at least done this, it has brought us near enough together to see that such rivalry has exhausted itself. It is a thing which is not Christian ; and we recognize that members of the Christian churches have no business to fight one another for their Christian heritage. I suppose we are all believers in nationality; that we all believe that the nations of the world have not only their right to existence, but that they each contribute something worthy to enrich Page one hundred and enlarge the life and increase the satisfaction of mankind. And, in like manner, I take it that we can heartily rejoice in the same principle among the Christian churches, that each one has its part to contribute and that the prosperity of one is not some- thing attained at the expense of another; but as one prospers the others prosper, that they are not rival organizations, but rather that they are all functions of the one body. And it is in that spirit that I am glad to stand here today; it is because of this that I rejoice with you in the one hundred and fifty years of your great and honorable history, that I rejoice and thrill at the long line of noble men who have gone out from this church to bear the Christian message to all the ends of the earth and that I can today wish you God-speed as you are now beginning another century and a half of your life. I stand here on behalf of my people and wish you prosperity and the best blessings of God that you may work out in His name and for the sake of this town and commonwealth and nation your contribution toward the upbuilding of a nobler civilization and a nobler, richer, fuller Christianity in the years that are to come. God bless the First Congregational Church of Williamstown. Page one hundred one ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT HARRY A. GARFIELD The Rev. John DePeu, introducing President Harry A. Gar field: There are six Protestant churches in Williamstown, and two of the Roman Catholic order. There is only one college, and what the churches and the town itself would be without that college, it is impossible for man to say and difficult for one in any wise to imagine. The debt that this church and all the churches, and the town itself, owe to the college is beyond our measurement. Planted as this church is in the very heart of the college grounds, it is a joy to us to know that we still have a place in the heart of the college itself and to welcome to our gathering this afternoon the president of the college, who will now speak to us. President Harry A. Gar field: The Congregational Church of Williamstown is in a very real sense the spiritual mother of the college. The church had labored for more than a quarter of a century in the community before the life of the college had fairly begun, and in the early days your pastors were our presidents and professors. Your church was also our church. Since the founding of the college, many of its members have been associated with you. Here were trained in Christian fellowship some of the noblest characters of the college community ; here many Page one hundred two of the children of members of the faculty were baptized, and here was extended to them the right hand of fellowship when they became members and took their places with the elders of the community. There- fore, it is with peculiar pleasure that I bring you greetings from the college and wish you prosperity. It is dutiful as well as a pleasure to bring you greeting. We owe you more than we can repay. We remember the things of the past, sanctified by our relation to you, and look hopefully to the future. We wish to retain your affectionate regard and to cooperate with you in the Christian work of our community. You will hear from other lips, from one whose long association with both institutions fits him in a peculiar way to address you on this occasion, the history of the relation between the college and the church that has marked the passage of the years. But, looking to the future and speaking for the present generation of students, as well as for the faculty of the college, I wish to voice the earnest hope that the relations which have existed in the past may be continued, though in different form. Some of us are members of your body, though we are necessarily, during the college year, occupied with the affairs of the College Church. We hope that this relation will be maintained and strengthened by further accessions as the years advance. Williamstown has impressed many persons as a place in which the people serve God, attending worshipfully the churches. It is a church-going community. There are too few of them in our country today, and this church with the others here represented, has set before the young men of the college an example of high mindedness, of single-hearted devotion to the things of religion, that is essential if the things of the mind are to be of highest service. I am glad to have Page one hundred three this opportunity to express my appreciation of the influence exerted by the churches of Williamstown. It extends to the college, and furnishes an example of community life which our students will do well to imitate, an example which we of the College Church highly appreciate, for it aids us in the efforts we are putting forth. Page one hundred four DR. FRANKLIN CARTER ADDRESS OF DR. FRANKLIN CARTER The Rev. John DePeu, introducing Dr t . Franklin Carter: The last address of this afternoon has for its subject: The College and the Church. We are singularly favored in that the subject will be presented by Dr. Carter, who, as president of the college from 1881 to 1901, a member of this church through the subsequent years, its benefactor before he was a member, and a deacon since 1910, is qualified to speak of college and church and of their mutual relations with thoroughness of knowledge, depth of feeling and grace of utterance. Dr. Franklin Carter: The relation between the original church of New England and the colleges was very intimate. The colleges were really the creation of that church. The learned men, largely divines, and trained at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, who came into the Bay Colony in its earliest years, were deeply concerned that an educated ministry should guide and inspire the churches arising in the new settlements. When other denomina- tions gained power sufficient to establish colleges, these were all of them, practically, religious institutions, all designed to strengthen the influence of that branch of the Christian Church which they represented. In probably every instance up to the middle of the last century in New England, a clergyman was put at the head and the boards of trustees were largely Page one hundred five composed of clergymen. There is something really inspiring in the loyalty to Christ as revealing God in this early constitution and development of the New England college. There were very dark days for the cause of Christianity in New England the latter part of the eighteenth century and there was then much infidelity rife in the colleges, but the close connection between the very organization of these colleges and the church was an anchor that held to faith and was certain to restore in time a general loyalty to the divine Lord. As the nineteenth century opened there was a great revival of true religion and for the first half of that century the colleges paid lofty tribute to their origin. God as the supreme authority of the spiritual and as the informing thought of the intellectual in man was the guiding power of the instruction. Young men were taught by the life and example as well as by the words of their teachers the supreme value of godliness. There may have been more turbulence in those early days on the part of students than now, but I believe it is true that there was a far more open expression of loyalty to Christ. Williams College shared in the general movement of the period. Her board of trustees was less distinctively ecclesiastical than that of Yale, for instance, but her early develop- ment was peculiarly marked by large and lofty conceptions and a noble expression of the Christian life. We are not surprised to find that all the directing forces at her disposition for more than fifty years were vigorously active in the promotion of the prosperity of this beloved church. Of these relations and the men prominent in them, I am about to speak, but I wish first to say a few words in regard to the beginnings of this church, whose origin preceded the opening of the college by only twenty-eight years. Page one hundred six There had been no church organization in this township before the call extended to the Rev. Whitman Welch, in 1765. The church when organized must have been small. In 1768 the legal church members, voters by law, were only twenty. But however few the members were at the beginning, the church was the creation of the proprietors, and was doubtless regarded by them with great interest, if not with a sense of possession and authority. It is certain that several of the proprietors never joined the church, and probably made no profession of religious faith. That was true in other New England communities where a church was organized. But the purpose with which the first settlers came to New England, namely, to secure and maintain religious worship according to their own views, and the deep conviction that religion was a large part of the business of life, remained potent in the minds of their descendants for many generations. Even some who did not claim to be Christians had a strong belief that every township, if it was to prosper, must establish and honor the public worship of God, according to the manner of the fathers. Or, as they might have put it, "Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it." The settlers here contending with the primitive forces of nature, making roads, clearing land, ploughing and reaping, building, fighting the late and early frosts, combating the fierce winds and cold of winter, were much absorbed in securing even a small degree of comfort for their families. They knew little, and cared less, for what was going on in other countries in 1765 of Clive reorganizing Indian Government, of Louis XV doing his little best to destroy Parliamentary influence in France, of the autocratic George III, grasping at absolute power but some of them did Page one hundred seven think of the authority of God, and of His relations to their lives, and were resolved to set up His worship here, though they were slow in accomplishing it. One event in the year 1765, occurring in England, namely, the imposition of the Stamp Act, they did know, and bitterly resented. That act united all America in opposition to Great Britain. In October of that year a congress of delegates was summoned from all the colonies to meet in New York City to deny the right of the British Parliament to meddle with internal taxation, and to demand the repeal of that hated act. A town incorporated that year, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, could not fail to be thoroughly imbued with patriotism. So it is no surprise to learn that one hundred and sixty men from this township fought at Bennington for the liberty of their country August 1 6, 1777, and that the women of the town prayed in the old log school house for victory during that afternoon until the sun went down. The first minister was evidently an ardent patriot. When some of his parishioners were enrolled in a company of minute men, and ordered to report at Cambridge in 1775, where Washington was in com- mand, he went down to visit them. When some of them were later drafted to march under Arnold in the attempt on Quebec, Welch went with them, but had no official position. It seems strange that the young pastor should leave the families of his flock and follow the few soldiers who were drafted, through the wilderness, without any official relation to them. Some of them, doubtless, were very dear to him, but one suspects that some left at home were less friendly, had perhaps been offended by words of the patriotic minister suggesting a lack of patriotism on their part, and that the situation had become a bit tense. At all events, that move ended Page one hundred eight his connection with the infant church, for soon after the disastrous repulse of the attack on the city he was taken ill with the smallpox, and died not far from Quebec in March, 1776. The first church building was erected in 1768, three years after Mr. Welch's settle- ment. During these three years he had preached in the school house, located just back of the present Grey lock Hotel, but from 1768 the people worshipped in the first building consecrated to the worship of God. One wonders if the seating of the proprietors, which would have to be according to social standing, was not the source of some heartburnings, and if there was not some bitterness lasting from that source, even when the pastor marched to Quebec. It is worth remarking here that probably the last church in New England to abandon this unrepublican distinction of seating according to social respectability, was in the parish in Norfolk, Connecticut, over which our present pastor was formerly settled. It was in the pastorate of the second pastor, the Rev. Seth Swift, lasting from 1779 to 1807, that the college became a factor in the community. In 1793, the first year of Washington's second administration, a year of great terror in the French Revolution, the year when war was anew declared between Great Britain and France, the year which may be said to mark the rise of Napoleon's military genius, the college was founded. The Rev. Seth Swift had been pastor already fourteen years, and the incorporation of the college marked the middle point of his pastorate of twenty- eight years. He was one of the three clergymen on the original board of twelve trustees, and had been also a trustee in the free school founded by Colonel Williams. It was in 1792, a few months after the acceptance of the principalship of the school, that the Page one hundred nine Rev. Ebenezer Fitch and his wife became members of this church. The college worshipped with the church, but as the entire number of graduates the first four years after the college was opened was only twenty, the increase in the congregation from the opening of the college the first years cannot have been large. The pastorate of Mr. Swift is an interesting record. The second house of worship was completed in 1798. There was much feeling on the part of the earliest students that the first church building, which was already small for its Sunday audiences, was not a suitable edifice for the commencement exercises, and this feeling hastened the construction of the second house of worship, which was accomplished five years after the opening of the college, largely by the assist- ance of President Fitch. Careful study of the growth of the church during Mr. Swift's pastorate produces the conviction that he was well adapted to preside over this church during the first years of the college. The spiritual awakening that swept through New England from 1797 to 1801 does not seem to have touched this church, but in 1805 and 1806 there was a revival here that was not without profound significance for the missionary movement commemorated by yonder Haystack monument. Recalling that 1805 was the twenty-sixth year of Mr. Swift's pastorate, we cannot fail to believe that his influence had been beneficent, and that he had the warm love of a devoted people. During that revival two of the men whose names are inscribed on the monument, Francis LeBaron Robbins and By ram Green, united with this church. In 1806 Gordon Hall, the first and one of the noblest of the Williams missionaries to reach a foreign field, was here converted, and made a public profession of his faith in Christ in that meeting house standing in Page one hundred ten dignity on the green at the head of our main street. In that church for almost seventy years the commence- ments of the college were held. It was there that Gordon Hall in 1808, Samuel J. Mills and James Richards in 1809, received their diplomas, and there that subsequent classes, until 1866, in whose lists were many destined to distinction, were pronounced by Presidents Fitch, Moore, Griffin and Hopkins, Bachelors of Arts. It is impossible to recall the names of Hall and Mills and Richards without a deep touch of awe and reverence stirring the soul. That group of young men, worshipping in this church, discharging the daily duties of college routine, one or two of them struggling to pay the expenses of an education (very small in those days), outwardly not much different from their comrades, carried in their souls a glow of love for Christ and for humanity that was destined to envelop the habitable globe. There had been American mission- aries before they were born. John Eliot in the previous century, and David Brainerd, early in the same century, and others, had preceded them. David Brainerd's Journal, published by Jonathan Edwards, was doubtless known and read by the Williams group. That book inspired Carey, the cobbler, the pioneer English missionary to India, the masterly translator of God's word into several Indian languages. That book quickened the soul of the brilliant Henry Marty n. It promoted the decision of the intrepid David Livingston to be a missionary, and doubtless fired the hearts of the young men who more than a hundred years ago, living on this soil and worshipping in this church, deeply felt that when Christ's arms were stretched out upon the cross, they were stretched out to embrace the world. Page one hundred eleven Nor can I omit to allude to the illustration here given of the great power often exerted by young men. Down by that haystack they were, in a sense, a group of boys, with the splendid enthusiasm of youth, and few of them lived to a mature age. Think of it. David Brainerd, whom I love to associate with them (he worked for Indians near Stockbridge for a while), died at the age of twenty-nine, having enjoyed only four years of active labor. Mills died at the age of thirty-five, Richards at thirty-eight, and Hall at forty- two. Short but glorious were their careers. It was for eternity that they lived. In the prayer meetings of this church their young voices prayed for the conver- sion of the world. The prayer meetings held for some time in the maple grove near where the monument stands, and under the willows south of West College, were later transferred to the houses of members of this church. Neither these young men, nor those who daily met them, had the vision of their future influence. They were not the first to conceive of the honor of missionary service, or to do missionary work in this country, but the consecration of personal service to the foreign field derived its inspiration in this country from them. Every foreign missionary society in the United States may regard them as its founders. They were not all members of this church. Mills joined the church of his father in Torringford, Connecticut, in June the year he entered college, 1806. It was in April of that year that his name was enrolled in the college, and it makes plain what a power for good he at once became that the immortal prayer meeting was held before the thunder showers of that summer had ceased to occur. Richards, the only one of the names honored on that shaft to enter a foreign field, joined the church in Plainfield the year before he entered college. But all Page one hundred twelve u of these young men of large vision drew spiritual power from and imparted spiritual power to the members of this church. Who can doubt that the pastor of this church, the Rev. Seth Swift, and the president of this college, the Rev. Ebenezer Fitch, working in Christian fellowship, gained new views of the great meaning of Christ's redemptive mission, as they listened to the prayers of those consecrated young men? God be praised that this church and this college were united in that fellowship! Our church manual presents the names of fifty-four who joined this church in 1806, and fifty-two connect- ing themselves with it in 1807. Few students' names are in the lists. Besides Francis L. Robbins, Byram Green and Gordon Hall there are three others, and one graduate, the son of the pastor. Of these, two Swift and Robbins were later closely connected with missionary work in this country. Doubtless then, as now, most of the Christian students preferred to be connected with the church of their own parents in the native town. The years preceding the revival of 1805, 1806 and 1807, were years of indifference and even of hostility to religion in the college, and this revival was the answer to much earnest prayer which had prevailed for more than a year on the part of the townspeople and the few professors of religion in the college. And here let me mention the name, probably unknown until this morning to ninety per cent, of this congregation, of a faithful deacon in this church, who had a large influence, not merely with the townspeople, but also with the students, in arousing and deepening religious interest in days of indifference and even hostility. The name is that of Ebenezer Stratton, uniting with this church in 1780, chosen deacon not many years after, the well-beloved son of Richard Stratton, who was Page one hundred thirteen one of the three men appointed a committee to build the first edifice. "Only a sweet and virtuous soul Like seasoned timber never gives ; But, though the whole world turn to coal, Then chiefly lives." Mr. Swift, as pastor, had always the faith that his pastorate would not end until there had been an impressive revival in the community. His faith was realized in this great revival of 1805 and 1806. Early in the following year he died. We have this minute in the records of the church: "February 15, 1807, at about 9 o'clock a. m., Reverend Seth Swift, our much esteemed, dearly beloved, and very faithful and laborious pastor, died in the midst of great usefulness, while God was pouring out his spirit here and giving him many seals of his ministry." It is no small testimony to the devoted and winning character of the first president of the college that the revival in progress at the time of the death of Mr. Swift continued in vigor during the following year. President Fitch was really acting pastor of this church for six years after the death of Mr. Swift. He was assisted in his labors by officers of the college, but there is good evidence that his ministrations were acceptable to the students and townspeople, though William Cullen Bryant, writing many years afterwards, reports that the students preferred to listen to Professor Dewey as a preacher. In the year 1807 five undergraduates united with this church, three of them seniors who had been in the college for three years, and must have thoroughly understood President Fitch and honored him highly. It is a unique distinction that belongs to him, called to be the first president of the only college founded by the wealth of a patriot soldier, and consecrated to the service of the country by the death of that soldier, presiding over the institution when the great idea of the conversion of the world took mighty hold of some leading students' minds and kindled a fire on this continent never to be quenched, helping with tender interest the pastor of this church to guide and encour- age this movement, succeeding him as acting pastor in the midst of a vigorous revival, and carrying on the work with power, though sorrowing deeply at the commencement of that year, 1807, over the death of his eldest son. Let us pay him the homage of grateful hearts for his loving service of twenty-two years as president of the college, and of six years as really acting pastor of this church. Nor must I forget to mention that during the year 1812, the last complete year of his service as acting pastor, forty-seven persons were admitted to this church, forty-four of them on profession of their faith in Christ, and among them five undergradutes of the college. In the revival of 1812 the college and the church were closely united. There was also a revival in the college in 1815, and Professor Dewey records that the first intimations of seriousness were in connection with the preaching of President Fitch, "which was just then unusually stirring." At the coming commencement he was to lay down the burdens of the presidential office, and doubtless felt, as all do in anticipation of an important change, the solemnity of life. In the year 1819, during the first revival after Mr. Gridley became pastor, one hundred and twelve persons united with this church, but I find the names of no undergraduates in the list. Three Williamstown boys were among the number, who later entered the college and were graduated. That was the second year Page one hundred fifteen of agitation with respect to the removal of the college. The first four pastors, Welch, Swift, King and Gridley, were all graduates of Yale. King's pastorate was brief. To the Rev. Ralph W. Gridley, installed in October, 1816, all records unite in ascribing qualities admirably adapted for the position, and great efficiency in the work. He was elected a trustee of the college in 1827 and held the office until his resignation of the pastorate. There were constant additions to the church during his ministry, and in the year 1826 one hundred and thirty-three persons were added to the roll, among them eleven undergraduates, the largest number of students admitted in any one year to this fellowship. The name of one man admitted to membership in this church in 1817, the year after Mr. Gridley became pastor, should be recorded in letters of light in any history of the relations of the town and college. Daniel Noble was the son of David Noble, who was a member of this church before Mr. Swift was settled in 1779, and was one of the original twelve trustees of the college. David Noble lived in the house on the lower end of Main street, erected by Judah Williams, in recent years .owned and occupied by the late John M. Cole. Daniel Noble built the house now owned and occupied by Talcott M. Banks, of the class of 1890. Daniel Noble was born in his father's house in 1776, was graduated from the college in 1796 and was the first alumnus to become a trustee of the college. He was elected in 1809, when living in South Adams, but returned to Williamstown to reside in 1811, and became treasurer of the college in 1814, which office, with the trusteeship, he held until his death in 1830. To him more than to any other man is due the praise of having thwarted the mistaken purpose, strong in the minds of many, to secure the removal of the college to Northamp- Page one hundred sixteen ton for its possible greater prosperity and usefulness. He was a member of the legislature when this project was agitated and exerted a powerful influence in favor of its retention in this beautiful valley where Colonel Williams intended to promote education. His devotion to this church is preserved by him and his brother Deodatus in the subscription of eighty pounds for the erection of the second house of worship in 1798, a sum equivalent then to two hundred sixty-six dollars sixty- seven cents and, translated into modern values, to many times that amount. One of his three daughters became the wife of the honored Professor Porter, and after the death of Mr. Porter was married to Charles Stoddard, of Boston, later a trustee, who gave gener- ously to the resources of the college in the days when wealthy friends were few. Rev. Dr. Charles A. Stoddard, graduated in 1854, who last evening delighted us with his personal reminiscences of the town and college, was a grandson of Daniel Noble. A sister of Dr. Stoddard became the wife of Samuel Johnson, of Boston, who, during three presidencies, was always ready to respond to any appeal of the college for aid and sent his eldest son here to be educated. Wolcott Howe Johnson, a great grandson of David Noble, was graduated here in 1883 and, dying in 1912, left a handsome legacy to his alma mater. Here, then, is a record of five distinct generations, beginning with David Noble, born in 1744, of loyal alumni and friends of this college in whom have lived precious influences from this church. Members for three generations of this family are at rest in our western cemetery. It may well be questioned if the college and town, taken as an entity, owes to any line of descent for long and loyal service a greater debt of gratitude and honor. Page one hundred seventeen There is one other family which has been connected with the college since its earliest years worthy of mention here. Daniel Dewey, a lawyer, came from Sheffield to reside in Williamstown in 1787. He was made treasurer of the college in 1798 and trustee in 1803. He was appointed to a seat as justice in the Supreme Court of Massachusetts in 1814, but died the following year. His son, Charles Augustus, graduated here in 1811, became a trustee in 1824, which office he held until his death in 1866. He removed to North- ampton in 1826 and was appointed justice in the Supreme Court by Governor Everett in 1837. A second son of Daniel, Daniel Noble Dewey (his mother was a daughter of David Noble) was a graduate of Yale, but was elected trustee of Williams in 1831, the year after his appointment as treasurer. He became a member of this church in 1838 and was actively devoted to all its interests. He was Judge of Probate for this county from 1848 until his death in 1859. His two sons were also graduates of Williams. Francis Henshaw Dewey, graduated here in 1840, a son of Charles A., was born in Williamstown, but began his professional career in Worcester and died there in 1887. He was made trustee here in 1869 and appointed to a seat in the Superior Court the same year. His three sons were graduated here, and two of these sons have each a son who has followed in the ancestral line and holds a bachelor's degree from the college. Although but one of the four distinguished Deweys crowned with judicial honors was a member of this church, the devotion of that one to its interests justifies some account of their relations to this community. Recalling also the fact that Daniel, the first Dewey connected with the college, married a daughter of Page one hundred eighteen David Noble, a member of this church before 1779, we may regard the five generations of Deweys, as well as the other descendants of David Noble previously enumerated, as related to this church in their common ancestor and blest in that inheritance. There can be no doubt that Dr. Griffin, who became president in 1821, and preached at first every other Sunday in the village church, impressed the students, as he did every popular audience, with the majesty of God's government, the grandeur of the Christian scheme, and the importance of personal consecration, and contributed greatly to the success of Mr. Gridley's pastorate. It is said that his relations with the earnest young pastor were not to the end amicable. However that may be, the prosperity of this church reached its highest point when Dr. Griffin was president and Mr. Gridley was the pastor. At least six hundred persons were received into this church during that pastorate of eighteen years. Soon after the resignation of Mr. Gridley in 1834, under the influence of Dr. Griffin a church was formed in the college, and after that event the relations of the college presidents to this church were less intimate. Not that any of the successors of Doctors Fitch and Griffin have failed to do much to strengthen this church, but the peculiar services of those two first presidents have not been repeated. They could not be with a separate church organization for the college, with the increasingly complicated relations of the college, and the enlarging burdens of the presi- dential office. May I quote from the valuable centennial discourse of Dr. Mason Noble one sentence: "Presi- dents Fitch and Griffin will stand out, not only in the marble in the college cemetery, which appropriately records some of their virtues, but in letters of immortal beauty on the souls of those connected with this church, I Page one hundred nineteen who have gone forth to their life work under the inspiration which they here received." After the formation of the college church, in 1834, the pastorates had less significance for the college. Several were very brief, that of Rev. Dr. Alden, beginning in 1834, lasting only two years, as he was elected professor of political economy in the college in 1835. Rev. Albert Smith was also pastor but two years. Professor Hopkins was then acting pastor for one year, followed by the Rev. Amos Savage, whose service covered three years. The pastorate of the Rev. Absalom Peters, D.D., extended over nine years from 1844 and was fruitful. About one hundred persons were added to the membership during his ministrations. The year after his settlement as pastor he was elected trustee of the college and held that office until 1869 although he resigned his pastorate in 1852. There was nothing marked connecting the service of the Rev. H. R. Hoisington, a graduate of Williams, who was acting pastor for two and one-half years, with the interests of the college. In the third year of his pastorate, fifty persons united with this church. These six pastorates, with interims, covered a period of only twenty-three years between the resigna- tion of Mr. Gridley in 1834 and the settlement of Rev. Dr. Ballard in 1857. If, after the formation of the college church, the relations of the pious students with the spiritual life of this church were less constant (they still continued to worship here on Sunday), and the presidents of the college were less prominent in the direction of the church, the devotion of the professors of the college to the welfare of this people lost none of its sincerity. It is not for any of us to remember personally the Page one hundred twenty gracious assistance rendered by Professors Dewey, Kellogg, and Porter, men whose memory was very fragrant here fifty years ago, men who were apparently always eager to open a path for any member of this church, or any Christian believer, into larger view and ampler knowledge and usefulness. Nor did they con- fine their service to things purely spiritual. I well remember the first time I looked down upon the main village street in the full glory of spring, fifty-five years ago, arriving in town on horseback, passing along the road beside the church on the hill, that the majesty of the elms, and the simplicity of the street, struck me as marvelously beautiful. It was the mind, and largely the hand, of Professor Kellogg that planted those elms. They are dying now, but they have added growing charm to that landscape for over one hundred years. On the graves of those three professors the grass has greened for scores of springs, and faded for scores of autumns, but the precious influence which they exerted has been handed down, invisible and often unknown, to us and to thousands whom we have never seen. Some later professors attained the eminence of these first three, and I judge that Edward Lasell was fully worthy of their fellowship. A distinguished scholar, Ebenezer Emmons, appointed lecturer on chemistry in 1828 and professor of natural history in 1833, was a deacon of this church. In 1829 a professor of mathematics, and in 1830 a professor of moral and intellectual philosophy, were appointed, whose relations to the college and this church were to be of incalculable value. The two were brothers. The elder brother became the unique president of the college, his service beginning in 1836. The other was a unique servant of God and this church, his service here in a formal capacity beginning in 1838. The dates of these appoint- Page one hundred twenty-one ments are not synchronous, but it is interesting to note that the president resigned his office the same year, 1872, in which the younger brother was carried to his permanent rest. Both united with this church in 1832, I suppose at the same communion. Both brothers united with the church organized in the college at its beginning in 1834, taking letters from the town church and remained in that membership until their deaths. Professor Albert Hopkins was acting pastor of this church for one year, from August, 1838, to August, 1839, and again from January, 1865, to October of that year, and again from September, 1869, until his death in 1872. During these periods largely of gratuitous service, he carried on his college work, and during all the intervening years was ever ready to assist the pastor. I have called him a unique servant of God and of this church. But no allusion to him would be suitable that did not also record his services as the founder and father of the Church of Christ in the White Oaks and as the builder of that edifice, as finally ordained to the Christian ministry, partly at least that he might serve that people, and as preaching and toiling there from October 25, 1866, when the church was dedicated, until he was no longer able to leave his home. Some of us remember him well, his rather grave and solemn exterior in later years hiding a tenderness and a sweetness that were irresistible, his love for the degraded, his holy enthusiasm for missions, his wonderful flashes of spiritual insight, his abiding sense of the realities of the unseen, the overwhelming authority with which he spoke of those realities. I have never known a person in regard to whom I was so sure that his soul had a transparent window that opened into the unseen world. In massive and sustained discourse he was not equal to his brother, but sudden Page one hundred twenty-two PROFESSOR ALBERT HOPKINS revelations from that invisible kingdom came to us through him at times with tremendous power. He was a marvelous compound of the scientific scholar and the Hebrew prophet, in which combination the Hebrew prophet was certainly predominant. He was the acting pastor of this church when Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865. The news was brought to this village (we had no village telegraph in those days) on the morning of the I5th, and was given out by the stage driver as he drove up from the depot after the arrival of the morning train from Troy. It was incredible to many of us, but proved to be true, and the next day, Sunday, the i6th, Professor Hopkins, in that church on the hill, preached from the text, "The burden of Dumah. One calleth to me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night? The watchman said, The morning cometh, and also the night : if ye will enquire, enquire ye : turn ye, come." That Sunday fell in a college vacation, and a large audience, not merely the ordinary worshippers, but the families of the college professors (the professors were all church-goers in those days) was present at the service. It was a discourse in which those spiritual intuitions, pregnant with mystery, abounded. I cannot say how deeply it impressed others, but to me it was one series of voices from the spirit world. The very texts with which he used to open the noon prayer meeting in the college, conducted by him for more than thirty years, seemed as he uttered them to take on weight and majesty. In his study many students, and I doubt not many other persons, natives of this village, passed through the door that opens into the Kingdom of God. The college, when I first knew it, was poor in material resources, it lacked many cultural elements that have since given richness to its curriculum and Page one hundred twenty-three atmosphere, but it had in those two brothers a precious possession that never was paralleled in any college, and which probably neither this nor any other college will ever possess again. I do not mean to assert that there have not been other college professors of as great ability, and presidents of as cosmopolitan reputation, or that there have not been college presidents and profes- sors who were equally loyal to the Kingdom of God, but two brothers of such peculiar power, the one quicken- ing to the most serious thought on the problems of life and mind, and the other nursing into growth the slightest germs of spiritual aspiration, no other college, so far as I know, has ever had. I suppose in the later years of his service as president, Dr. Mark Hopkins continued the practice adopted by Dr. Griffin of preaching Sunday mornings to the audience in the village church, composed of students and townspeople, from the beginning of his presidency in 1836 until separate worship was established for the students in the new chapel, in the autumn of 1859. It may be truly said that the congregation worshipping in the church had, in those 3 r ears, abundant opportunity to hear the noblest preaching. It was during the pastorate of Rev. Dr. Ballad, the first graduate of Williams to become a settled pastor of this church, that the college faculty and students began to worship by themselves. The change was, in some respects, probably not in all, a distinct loss to this church. As the students occupied the side galleries, there were possibilities of noiseless, if not of noisy, demon- strations of appreciation of anything unusual in the voice, gestures, or words of the preacher or in the apparel and behaviour of the individual members of Page one hundred twenty-four families in the audience below, and especially in the attitudes or facial expressions of the sopranists of the choir, which sang in the gallery at the eastern end of the church on the same level with the students. As an illustration I may relate that a young lady, popular with the students and universally beloved in later life by everyone who knew her, a devoted member of this church, appeared in the choir one Sunday morning with a small bit of black court plaster on one side of her face. In the afternoon service a large number of young men exhibited a piece of court plaster of the same size and the same color upon the corresponding spot of the same cheek, proving both the accurate observation and the gallantry of her student friends. I have sometimes thought that students have their strongest temptations to levity in the place of worship. The loving relation between the college officers and the church did not terminate with that withdrawal of the college from the Sunday services. I will mention certain professors who loved this church, and whose names come quickly into the minds of some of us: Professors Griffin, father and son; Bascom, Phillips, Lincoln, Perry, Denison, and Woodbridge. Time will not permit of my speaking of all those men and their devotions to the interests of this church, but of one or two of them I must say a word. Dr. Bascom honored this church as practically its acting pastor for five months, from November i, 1866, to April I, 1867, and often preached in later years, unfolding subjects of large interest with masterly analysis, and never failing to leave a deep impression of the supreme importance of the things unseen. His love of truth and justice was a passion. His emphasis on the inexorable obligation resting on men and government to obey the rules of truth and righteousness was always command- Page one hundred twenty-five ing. He would say with Ruskin, "Nothing can atone for the want of truth, not the most brilliant imagina- tion, the most playful fancy, the most pure feeling, not the most exalted conception nor the most compre- hensive grasp of intellect can make amends for the want of truth." And with all this he was one quickly sensitive to the canons of beauty in nature and art, and had a large gift of charity. He was, for many of the later years of his life, after his resignation of the presidency of the University of Wisconsin, an inspiring force in the weekly prayer meetings, and attended service here regularly, years after the connected discourses of the pastor failed, by reason of his deaf- ness, to reach his thought. Dr. Luther D. Woodbridge, professor of anatomy and physiology from 1884 to 1899, and deacon in this church from 1891 to 1895, was a Puritan of the Puritans. Amply endowed and thoroughly educated, he was inflexibly loyal to his convictions and insisted rigidly on the fulfillment of every obligation not less when resting on himself than on others. Tenderly con- siderate and self-sacrificing in the sick-room, perhaps a little ready at times to communicate the possibilities of evil, all of which he clearly foresaw, he was always earnest to do his utmost to avert evil from the human body and from the community and the church. The long service which he and his wife (who belonged to one of the prominent and useful families here fifty years ago) rendered not merely to this church but to the church in White Oaks is worthy of grateful remembrance. It was during the service of Rev. Dr. Noble as acting pastor, January 21, 1866, that we saw from the comely house of worship, where this people had assembled for sixty-eight years, flames bursting forth, Page one hundred twenty-six which soon reduced it to a pile of ashes. It was a serious loss, and there was great sorrow in the hearts of many. The edifice had just been painted and repaired, and was a fine historical landmark. That dignified site was then abandoned, and a more central location for a new church selected, not without bitter heartburnings on the part of some, but the strife was finally composed as you learned this morning. The professors joined with the members of the congrega- tion in contributing to the construction of the new edifice. That edifice in which the pews saved from the old church were used for the seating, though never beautiful, was built by heroic sacrifice, and became dear to all. The college treasury also advanced a goodly sum towards the construction for the privilege of continuing to hold graduation and other important services in the edifice. But when the Thompson Chapel and Grace Hall had been erected, and the college had no longer use for our pews, the edifice, which was too large for our weekly congregation, and was depressing at times by its emptiness, was transformed by the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Cluett into this lovely interior, and the no less lovely exterior, where today we celebrate the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of this church. The walls of this edifice, for they are the old walls, were dedicated to the service of God in September, 1869, and it is interesting to repeat that from the date of that dedication until he passed away, Professor Albert Hopkins was the acting pastor of this church. There have been many impressive scenes within these walls connected with the ongoings of the college and the church. Here Dr. Mark Hopkins preached the last three of his uplifting baccalaureates. Here Dr. Chad- bourne was inaugurated, and from this house carried Page one hundred twenty-seven to his final resting-place. Here, when President Garfield had been assassinated, as he was leaving Washington to attend in this house the inauguration of the sixth president of the college, a solemn prayer meeting was held, and earnest prayer offered to the Almighty for his recovery. Here the sixth and seventh presidents of the college were inducted into office. Here the exercises of the centennial of the college were held, when the alumni returned in numbers and distinguished scholars from many institutions of learn- ing came to pay honor to the history and service of the college, many of whom were crowned here with the highest honors our college could confer. Here for thirty-five years the graduating classes of Williams College received their diplomas. Within these walls the beloved pastors Sewall, Bassett, Slade, Butler, Clayton, Martin and DePeu were installed, and here they have administered the holy communion. Here many have professed faith in Christ, while tears of gratitude have welled from the eyes of those who loved them. Here many little children have been baptized into the name of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. From within these walls the mortal remains of Dr. Mark Hopkins, the prince of teachers, were carried to the cemetery, so near the spot where the immortal prayer meeting was held by the early students of the college. But to me the most impressive scene ever witnessed in this house was the long procession of all sorts and conditions of persons, from the village, from the White Oaks, from South Williamstown, from the surrounding hills, that passed up the east aisle of the church to gaze for the last time on the beloved face of Albert Hopkins. Then was exhibited the tremendous power of goodness over the hearts of men and women. Then we caught a new vision of "the glory that excelleth." Page one hundred twenty-eight The graduates of the college who have served as settled pastors of this church are the Rev. Dr. Ballard, from September, 1857, to December, 1864, who was also for one year professor of rhetoric in the college (he lived to be over ninety years of age, and during his life the population of this country expanded from nine to one hundred millions), the Rev. A. C. Sewall, from December, 1872 to 1886, and the Rev. Austin Bassett, from 1887 to 1891. I have spoken thus far of the spiritual influences which the college through its presidents, professors and students contributed to the growth of this church. I must not omit to record that the members of this community, and especially of this church, responded gratefully for these sympathetic activities, and that there has been, especially during the earlier generations, harmony between the community and the college. There was a natural pride in the presence of the college here, and a generous and general willingness, when the agitation for its removal was active, to contribute to its resources and secure its retention here. It is fitting that one family, the Whitmans, should be expressly mentioned as having been most ready to give of its possessions at all times, but especially in dark days, for the maintenance and upbuilding of the college. That family were the largest contributors in the crisis of 1821 when the agitation for the removal reached its height. The women of that family were among the most devoted members of this church. Some of us remember the widow of Seymour Whitman, the son of one of the two brothers so intimately connected with everything good in this community. We can recall her gentle voice, her sweetness, her broad sympathies, and her faith in prayer to God. The honors that have come to any of her descendants (and the same may be said Page one hundred twenty-nine of other families once influential here, whose sons have become distinguished I am thinking of the Hopkinses, the Griffins and the Perrys), suggest the promise contained in the concluding sentence of the second commandment, "having mercy upon thousands of successive generations of them that love me and keep my commandments." And now my thought goes back to two impressive figures, who represented for many years in this community a high type of American citizenship. Both were graduates and trustees of the college, the last trustees with one exception to unite the church and the college. One was a direct descendant of a fir=t settler in this village, and the othej was connected by marriage with one of the oldest families. I refer to Dr. Henry L. Sabin and Honorable Joseph White. Dr. Sabin joined this church in 1828, was made deacon in 1834, and died in 1884, so that for fifty years he was a standard bearer among this people. 1 With his genial, sympathetic nature, with his far-reaching activity as a beloved physician, climbing these hills and following these streams to remote hamlets, diffusing kindness and helpfulness and healing in the humblest homes, giving far beyond his means to the building of the third edifice, and to every benevolent enterprise, putting his hand to every good work, no one that ever felt his loving sympathy should fail to thank God for his devotion to this community, guided as it was by the love of the Divine Christ. Are we not thankful that his seed is still with us? Mr. White came back to Williamstown, his college home, to become treasurer of the college in 1860, and at once united with this church and was deacon here from 1882 to 1890, the year of his death. A dignified, courteous gentleman, a large-minded scholar, bred to the legal profession, an honored servant of this commonwealth in the cause of Page one hundred thirty education, crowned with the highest honor by Yale College in 1868, holding all his offices of trust in subordination to the honor of his Master, he moved in and out among us as one that regarded citizenship here as preparation for the higher citizenship in a city that hath foundations. Mr. James White, graduated in 1851, successor of Mr. Joseph White in the office of college treasurer and a trustee, was a devoted member of this church from 1886 until his death in 1895. Not less loyal has been his successor, Mr. Charles S. Cole (in this instance, for good cause, I violate the reticence customary on such occasions with regard to the living), a native of this town, united with the church in 1866, graduated from the college in 1870 and deacon here from 1900 to 1904 and again from 1910 to 1914, whose absence from this celebration by reason of illness is deeply regretted by every member of this fellowship and for whose restoration to health and usefulness we devoutly pray. Nor in these later days have there failed to be among the most loyal members of this church other graduates of the college. What the church would be today without the loving support of some whom you honor it would be difficult to conjecture. Some of these are connected by ancestral ties reaching far back into the past history of the town. Some of them, not less devoted, have brought from other ancestry, but just as truly of New England, their energies and consecration to the service of this beloved church. The public ministrations, so generously and so graciously offered for more than one hundred years by officers of the college, have largely ceased. The noble breadth of interest, characterizing the professors in every New England college, even half a century ago, has given place to a specialization, which in Darwin's case is Page one hundred thirty-one said to have produced an atrophy of the religious instinct, and often tends to a diminution of breadth of sympathy, to a more or less marked degree. I suppose we cannot look for a renewal of the same tender ties, or hope for the same guiding official help in the coming years, but there are some permanent officers in the college whose sympathy and cooperation are of great value to us today and we believe that these bonds of affection will never be wholly severed. Thus I have briefly sketched some salient features in the relations of the college and the church. I have naturally dwelt chiefly, in characterizing, on the graduates of the college who served the church and on those who guided its life when undergraduates looked to it as the actual church of the college. I am well aware of the inadequacy of my performance, but I trust I have made it plain that the consecration of learning and genius by graduates and officers of the college to the honor of the Divine Christ in cooperation with the members of this beloved church has been a long and beautiful exhibition of the joy of Christian fellowship and the glory of Christian service. We are still a church of Christ, still, with all our infirmities and lapses, a body of believers in the love and the holiness of God, still following, I trust, the same Divine Lord, still enduring, I hope, "as seeing Him who is invisible." We praise God for the tender relations that have existed between the church and the college during all these years, and we pray that we may be more grateful for all the blessings that He still showers upon us, better stewards of His manifold grace. And as we recall the stately figures of the past, and note their self-sacrificing love of the Divine Master, and recount the triumphs of grace in this, our history, we seem to hear voices still praising our Divine Lord, Page one hundred thirty-two and bidding us to regard them as still loving and blessing this ancient church. "Hark, the sound of holy voices chanting at the crystal sea Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, Lord to Thee. Multitudes which none can number, like the stars in glory stand Clothed in white apparel, holding palms of victory in their hand. i "They have come from tribulation and have washed their robes in blood, Washed them in the blood of Jesus : tried they were, and firm they stood. Gladly Lord with Thee they suffered, gladly Lord with Thee they died, And by death, to life immortal they were born and glorified. ! "Now they reign in Heavenly glory, now they walk with golden light, Now they drink as from a river holy bliss and infinite. Love and peace they taste forever, and all truth and knowl- edge see In the beatific vision of the blessed Trinity. "God of God, the one begotten, Light of light, Emanuel, In whose Body joined together all the saints forever dwell, Pour upon us all Thy fulness, that we may forevermore God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost adore." Page one hundred thirty-three ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF WOMAN'S WORK IN THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH OF WILLIAMSTOWN The earliest record now available of the members of this church is that dated in 1779, at the time of the settlement of the Rev. Seth Swift. There were then sixty-one members, of whom thirty-six were women. It would be interesting to know what part of the work of the organization these thirty-six women took upon themselves, but certain forms of occupation can easily be eliminated. The little meeting-house, forty feet by thirty, had no carpet to be sewed or cleaned. There was neither kitchen nor parlor to tempt to suppers or fairs, and as the ministers lived in their own houses, there was no parsonage to claim attention. As this first meeting-house was built by the town proprietors, by no means all of whom were church members, it is probable that needed repairs were made by the town, and when you have added that there were no mission- ary societies for which to solicit funds, you have removed the most common objects for which the women of a church associate themselves. The white meeting-house which burned in 1866 was built in 1798, and by that time the names of some seventy-five other women were added to the roll too many by far to let slip the conscientious pleasure of working under a name. On May 27, therefore, in the year 1812, they signed the constitution of The Female Page one hundred thirty-four Charitable Society. The preamble reads as follows: "Believing it to be the duty of everyone to assist in the dissemination of religious truth, and wishing to cooperate in this good and glorious work by putting into the hands of our fellow mortals the Words of Eternal Life, we whose names are hereunto subscribed do mutually and cordially agree and form ourselves into a Society: and for the purpose of managing the business of the society we do adopt the following Articles for our constitution: " The first object of the society was to be "the free distribution of the Bible V* and Testament and other Religious Books and Tracts, among the poor and destitute families of this town." Another object was "to aid and assist the poor and indigent families of this town in those things that may be necessary and convenient for their nourishment and clothing of the body." For this purpose a sack was to ] be placed "at the house of the president, in a convenient place, for the reception of any article that the benevo- lent and charitable may be disposed to contribute." The third object was "the support of missionaries at home or in foreign countries: and likewise to grant pecuniary assistance to the society for translating the Holy Scriptures into foreign languages." The pay- ment of fifty cents a year entitled one to all the rights and privileges of the society, including the sermon, appropriate to the occasion, which was to be preached at every annual meeting. Article nine of the constitu-y\f tion wisely stated, however, that if any member should see fit to give more than fifty cents it should be thankfully received and faithfully applied to the objects / specified. Mrs. Deoclamus Skinner was the first president and Mrs. Lucy Whitman the first vice- president. Ninety women were enrolled in 1812. There were Nobles, Sloans, Strattons and Sabins ; Page one hundred thirty-five Bardwells, Bulkleys and Bridges; Kelloggs, Joneses, Hubbells and Rosseters; Deweys, Danforths and Smedleys. If ninety seems a large number, it must be remembered that there was no other church in the township, even the people of South Williamstown having their membership here until 1836. The first expenditure was ninety-two cents for the purchase of the two record books which we still preserve, and the next, fifteen dollars for Bibles, one dollar and a half for fifty copies of Homes' Sermons, and twenty-five cents for a box to keep the Bibles in. The Bibles were, as we read in the first annual report, "all distributed by the committee to such persons as were found to stand in perishing need of such charitable donations and who were wholly destitute of that unspeakably important gift of God to a fallen world." There were also contributed that year six magazines, four sermons, four tracts and one Columbian Orator from the Messrs. Whitman, six pamphlets, two spelling books, and one primer from Mrs. Deoclamus Skinner, the president, eight volumes of the Spiritual Companion from Mrs. Rebecca Higgins, one dozen common primers and ten evangelical primers from the widow Abigail Noble, and from Mrs. Maria Dewey, six spelling books. This report was respectfully submitted by Deodamus Skinner, Lucy Whitman, Mehitabel Bardwell, Lucy Smedley, Abby Wolcott and 3 olly Starkweather, with the following conclusions: 'Your committee feel it their duty on this occasion to leclare to the society as the conviction of their minds from a view of the whole subject, so far as their information and experience extend, that many and animating considerations are presented for a further rigorous prosecution of the object of this Institution. Whatever feelings some people have on this subject, Page one hundred thirty-six they cannot permit themselves to doubt but that the Merciful Father of the Universe will look with appro- bation upon the humble efforts of an Institution whose object is to feed the hungry and clothe the naked." It will be seen from the annual reports that this organization combined the work of a Home and Foreign Missionary Society, of a Ladies' Aid and a Good Will Club, and for the first twenty years, at least, there could have been no lack of members. There were added to the church in the years 1819, 1826 and 1831 more than sixty women and girls each year, most of whom would probably have been among the contributors. For the first thirteen years the amount given to foreign work never fell below twenty dollars nor rose above fifty-two, and then it quite abruptly ceased. The collections for the Berkshire and Columbian Missionary Society or the American Home Missionary Society continued throughout the thirty- seven years, gradually decreasing as the number of members fell from one hundred and ten in 1814 to eighteen in 1849. Most of the money came through the hands of collectors, appointed each year to canvass the different parts of the town, and many of the half dollars represented the butter and egg money of the farmers' wives. A few of the more interested or wealthier members added to their fee small sums as donations. It is not easy to see how it was possible, f in a town of this size, quite so frankly to set apart a portion of the population as the hungry, the naked, and the indigent, but from the beginning, a fair proportion of all the money was spent in supplying town needs. ^ Every year something was appropriated for "schooling poor children in different districts of the town." Yam was contributed to make, in different years, seventy- five, fifty, seventy, fifty-five yards of cloth, "that poor Page one hundred thirty-seven children might be decent and comfortable to attend the Sunday School." In addition, in 1848, sixteen dollars were appropriated toward a church carpet. And always there were the Bibles, Evangelical primers, volumes of the Panoplist and Spiritual Companion, to be given out from that box which cost twenty-five cents. Always, 1 that is, until 1827, when it was voted "that the clause in the fourth article of the constitution which requires the society to keep Bibles and Testaments for distribu- tion be erased." The society had only one meeting a year, but the annual reports faithfully set forth, with absolute detail, the use made of contributed bedding, clothing and spelling books. There is no hint in these reports, which gradually grow briefer in the early thirties, of a reason for the distinct falling off in membership. There were fifty and forty, and then thirty and twenty, and when at last, in 1849, there were but eighteen, the secretary, Mrs. Abby Benjamin Sabin, rather sorrowfully presents the following report : "At the Annual meeting \ of the Female Charitable Society, it was the opinion of the members present and the expressed opinion of those absent, that the society had better be disbanded. It had become very much reduced in its numbers, and in its original object was either unnecessary or super- seded by others. A feeling of sadness was experienced that an organization that took the precedence of all others as a benevolent institution among the Ladies of this town, had been, as they hoped, extensively useful in various ways in the relief of human suffering and the diffusion of truth, and embraced the names of so many worthies most of whom had departed to the spirit land, should become extinct. Voted unanimously that the Female Charitable Society of Williamstown be considered as no longer having an existence." Page one hundred thirty-eight It would have been almost impossible to continue the story from this point to the dates held in living recollection if we had not had access to the diary of Mrs. Lucy Benjamin Perry, daughter of Mrs. Ruth Seymour Benjamin, who, in 1839, returned to live for nearly twenty years in Williamstown. An almost daily entry gives account of spring cleanings and the first robins, of commencement festivities, of early frosts, of tea drinkings and of the text of nearly every Sunday sermon. Best of all, for our purpose, she notes the meetings of "Society," the donation parties and the maternal meetings. Society is not mentioned till 1847. In 1848 it is called sewing society and is said to be meeting for the first time in many months. In October of 1850 she again speaks of there having been no society for many months and of an attempt to revive it. It seems evident that, from about the period when the Charitable Society grew weaker, meetings for sewing were held from time to time as occasion demanded. We find from another source that in 1841, when East College burned, the women met at Mrs. Whitman's to make sheets and pillow cases for the students who had lost all their possessions. A fair was quickly arranged for their benefit under the leader- ship of Mrs. Albert Hopkins, and the upper part of the Whitman store was crowded for several afternoons and evenings. In 1848, Mrs. Perry collected money for cleaning the church three or four dollars and says she had a very pleasant time and that people seemed glad to see her. A little later she helped "put down the carpet to the meeting-house." In 1851 she says they were again very busy making curtains and carpets for students, and that they began work in earnest for Mr. Marshall Sanders. This last was evidently his outfit for the field, as he left this church for mission- Page one hundred thirty-nine ary work in Ceylon in that year. For the next few years the interest seems to have increased. One very cold day in January, 1857, there were twenty persons present at a society meeting at Deacon Foote's. A week later "twenty-four of us came back from society , } at Mr. George Smedley's in the omnibus. We had a merry time, I assure you. The wind blew almost a hurricane and it grew very cold, but we did not feel it. Got home safe and comfortable. Thermometer went _) \down to twenty-five below." The names of most of the young men and women who made up this merry time are given, and all through that winter each hostess must have provided for thirty or more guests. The work was usually quilting, followed by} the social compensation of having Richard Hoisington, John Tatlock, Daniel Dewey, John Whitman and others come in to spend the evening. On the fifteenth of April the snow was so deep, she says, "that the gentle-^, '' men called a coach to bring the ladies home." In September and October of 1857 meetings were held in the lecture room, for the work was cutting and fitting new covers for the church cushions. These were taken home to be stitched, and returned for a final effort when, on October 22, they were stuffed. Donation parties are not mentioned every year, but by way of example, Dr. Peters received in 1851 seventy dollars in cash and forty-five or fifty in other things. Among these was a barrel of flour from the students, r accompanied by these lines, composed by Robert Smith of the class of '51, and nailed to the top of the barrel: "Teacher divine, herald of truth, Accept this gift from a band of youth Who ask not gold nor earthly good But the prayers of their pastor for spiritual food." Page one hundred forty The next year, although it was a very rainy day and dark evening, Dr. Peters received one hundred and ten dollars and sixty cents. The next minister, Mr. Hoisington, on one occasion received from the senior class of the college, eighteen dollars, from the juniors forty dollars, the sophomores twenty-five, and the freshmen thirty, which with one hundred and sixty- three from the church and town made two hundred and seventy-six dollars. The next year the students seem not to have contributed, but there were received one hundred and twenty dollars in cash, perhaps thirty . dollars in other articles, "and they had plenty of cake." The Maternal Association is first mentioned about 1840 and had an existence of twenty or thirty years. Mothers and older children met in the afternoon at various houses, for prayer, especially when there was marked religious interest in town. The diary gives a list of more than thirty members, with the names and birthdays of all their children. At quarterly meetings the children recited psalms, and answered questions in the catechism. The meetings were sometimes called "instructive" and sometimes "very solemn," and the chief thought in all minds is evident from this entry: "Two children, we hope, have been converted the past year." Notice of these meetings was given from the pulpit, to the discomfiture on one occasion, of the Rev. Mr. Hoisington, lately returned from India and the use of Indian dialects, who, beginning badly and growing more confused as he went on, announced, for Thursday, a meeting of the "Female Mothers' Maternal V ^SStf^^G^ZSSSffB*** tfMHMMMMM^M Association." "Female prayer meetings" other than these, were held somewhat irregularly at different houses, occasionally in the morning, but more often in the afternoon, and there were neighborhood prayer meet- Page one hundred forty-one ings which the women largely supported though they were conducted by men. For years, until there was a lecture room, the Tuesday evening meeting was held at the house of Mrs. Lucy Whitman, who personally presided over the occasion. With her white cap, black silk gown and folded white kerchief, she sat in her rocking chair on one side of the fireplace, with a granddaughter in a little chair by her side. Opposite would be Aunt Maria, of the next generation, also with a daughter or granddaughter of the house. These weekly meetings were largely attended, the front sitting-room sometimes overflowing into rooms beyond. In the house of Mrs. Benjamin, on house lot No. i, where St. Anthony Hall now stands, there was held for many years another prayer meeting, on Saturday nights. These were always conducted by young men y from the college who, it appears from the diary, were often invited to drink tea at the house on Saturday and then remain for the meeting. This was really a continuation of the meeting in Mrs. Bardwell's house, on South street. Her kitchen had been put at the disposal of a company of students, for a prayer meeting. After a little she asked that the door into the sitting room might be left partly open that the family and a few neighbors might enjoy the service. From this beginning a neighborhood prayer meeting ' rose, with leaders always from the college. At the breaking up of the household of Mrs. Bardwell, Mrs. Benjamin opened her house for the same purpose. The names of the leaders are always given in the diary and usually some mention of the subject or some reason in the weather for a small meeting or the fact that the attendance was only "pretty good." When you consider that there was service Sunday night in the room over the present town library, Tuesday night at Mrs. Page one hundred forty-two Whitman's, a maternal meeting or other female prayer meeting almost every Thursday, it is not perhaps wonderful, that, on Saturday evening, with the two long services and Sunday school to follow the next day, the attendance should sometimes be only pretty good. Such entries as these are characteristic : "Mr. Chandler gave an interesting account of the meeting of the board, saying that they held the meeting on Thurs- day from seven to eleven o'clock, with a good deal of excitement, but finally settled the vexed question which was about slavery among the Choctaws." "Mr. Arthur Perry and William Tatlock talked about Jacob." "Mr. Garfield led the meeting." "Mr. Mooar said the work was progressing in the college." "Hurried, hurried, hurried all the time. Mr. Orton led. We have scarcely had so pleasant an evening all winter." Once, in 1857, she writes that she did not expect a meeting, as it had been proposed that she suspend them for a time as so few came, but to her surprise there were, that night, three students and three ladies. But a condition which may have obtained during the last year or two does not at all describe the important place this meeting had held in the community life. Mrs. Benjamin's sitting room, entered by an outside east door, accom- modated some thirty people. Besides this, many of the men and boys sat in the kitchen, the door of which opened out at the left. Sometimes if it grew very warm, from the fire, and the six wlMjlejxLJaiaBS on the mantel, and the large lamp on the leader's table between the front windows, a door would be opened into the dark parlor and a few chairs perhaps pushed over the sill. The hostesses sat always between the fire and the parlor door. A long sofa, between the corner cupboard and the book-case, was reserved for Page one hundred forty-three the older ladies, and chairs were arranged in rows in front of this. The length of the service depended not on the striking of a clock, but on the interest and solemnity of the occasion. Little boys sometimes fell asleep out of sight, in the kitchen, and one, six years old, was once overlooked by his family and woke to meet the stern and grieved reproof of Mrs. Benjamin, his grandmother, who argued from this inattention dread things of his eternal life. Mrs. Perry's removal from town in the spring of 1858 put an end to these meetings which were so distinctly in the hands of women that they properly come under an account of their activities. It should also be said that the building of the lecture room on Park street, a little before this time (1856), and the transferring thither from Mrs. Whitman's of the Tuesday evening meeting, would in any case, probably, have united all the prayer meetings in one. A foreign missionary society is first mentioned in the diary in 1848, and evidently took up the work dropped by the Female Charitable Society, so that we have a fairly continuous record of missionary work from 1812. The organization must have been somewhat formal for there were annual meetings and regular officers elected. Mrs. Perry was the president in 1856 and collected seventy-four dollars and eighty-six cents for the cause. Earlier, in 1851, she speaks of collecting in the new street, Spring street, and adds, "There is not much of a missionary spirit there." Spring street was opened in 1847 and there were in 1851 seven or possibly eight houses there. Through the sixties there was evidently some collection of funds and perhaps a loose organization. Miss Elizabeth Pierce, a sister-in- law of Dr. Calvin Durfee, formed, at any rate, a missionary circle for young women and girls. At each Page one hundred forty-four meeting an offering was dropped into a varnished box decorated with pressed autumn leaves, and each member as she stepped forward for this purpose, described how the money had been earned. One child of eight cherished resentment for years because an older member laughed aloud at her report that her dime had been earned by "rocking the cradle." Small bunches of flowers were also brought to these meetings and afterwards distributed to the sick. In 1871 the modern auxiliary was formed, with Mrs. Chadbourne as the first president. No records have been preserved of the first seven years except that t the total offering was four hundred and nine dollars [ and fifteen cents. In 1878 this auxiliary associated itself I with nine others to form the Berkshire Branch of the Woman's Board, and the thirty-seven years from that time to this are fully covered by records. The early presidents were Mrs. Chadbourne, Mrs. Sewall, Mrs. | Lincoln and Mrs. Bascom. The offerings for the I thirty-seven years have been between eight and nine/ thousand dollars, not including very considerable gifts from the In His Name Society. This association 01 the younger women was organized in 1878 largely by the influence of Mrs. Sewall and is last reported by the Berkshire Branch in 1894. There were sometimes as many as thirty members and the reports of their monthly meetings show most careful preparation and a serious interest in the work they had undertaken. "Serious" is a rather significant word in any description of the work of these years. This is not to disparage the attitude of more recent times but one can not read the annual addresses of Mrs. Lincoln or the prayer '' services of Mrs. Chadbourne ^without being conscious that they expressed an unusual sense of a very solemn 'and personal responsibility^/ A most characteristic Page one hundred forty-five sentence from Mrs. Lincoln is this: "Time in his unceasing flight has brought us as a society to the close of another year of mission work. Today we seal up its record, to meet us again, individually, at the great day of final account. With thankful hearts we rejoice in the measure of success which has crowned our efforts, but we do not forget that we consider results alone, while in another book the recording angel's pen has taken note of our abUity to do, and the motives actuating us, and according to these has summed up his account. How will the books com- pare?" Again she begins her report: "The annual return of this day calls upon us once more to give account of our stewardship. What have we wrought for the Lord during the year that is passed ?" You will remember that during the life of the Female Charitable Society, from 1812 to 1849, money was collected each year for some home missionary society. That is the last we know of any organized home missionary work for many years. Such activity next appears (about 1880) as an adjunct of the Ladies' Benevolent Society. The money raised was spent for clothing and books sent in barrels to western ministers and their families. Suits and dresses were made or repaired and unbleached cotton made into sheets and pillow cases. The first gift of money to the Woman's Home Missionary Society in Boston was acknowledged in 1884, and an auxiliary of this Boston society, with Mrs. Denison as treasurer, appears as a department of the Ladies' Benevolent Society in the directory of the church printed in 1890. This combination continued until 1895, when for three years no benevolent society is reported. For 1895 and 1896 there was a separate organization for home missionary work, under the direction of Mrs. James White, and in 1897 there was Page one hundred forty-six formed from the union of the home and foreign societies the present Woman's Missionary Society, which, by an economy of organization conducts both branches of the work with the smallest possible number of officers. Most of us have had some pleasant associations with the missionary meetings of this church. In the seventies they were usually held with Mrs. Chadbourne, in the president's house; in the eighties, often with Mrs. Sewall, but changing from month to month to Mrs. James White, Mrs. Arthur L. Perry and Mrs. N. F. Smith. Through most of the nineties the house of Mrs. Mark Hopkins was mission- ary ground. Beginning with the nineteen hundreds the usual place was the lecture room or "the rear east room of the church," which was the secretary's euphuism for the kitchen. For two or three years Mrs. Clayton received us at the manse, and for the last five years we have met with Mrs. Arthur L. Perry. In varied form with singing or without, with many prayers or few, with formal papers or with simple talks, the subject of the world, its wonders, its religions and its needs, has been thus regularly presented. At the close of Mrs. Lucy Perry's diary we left the women stuffing cushions for the church pews. From that time on, with or without a name, they have carried forward the work which in any church women naturally assume. In the sixties there were quilting parties in private houses, when the young women stayed to supper and the young men came in for the evening. Or if there were no quilting, each one carried her own knitting with the dime which stamped the meeting as benevolent. Great rivalries there were in matter of entertainment and much asking for recipes when such good things as Mrs. Joseph White's bread- cake were passed. In the sixties, too, they scraped lint Page one hundred forty-seven for the hospitals and made garments to be sent to the front. Just after the war, to meet some need now forgotten, there were tableaux in the dining room of the Mansion House, with a too realistic dying soldier and with Robert Clark as an Indian hunter, carrying on his shoulders a deer from the collection in Jackson Hall. A little later there were tableaux vivants in old Goodrich Haii, where the Mistletoe Bough was sung, and Miss Abby Mather in Mrs. Mark Hopkins' wedding dress hid in the fatal chest ; and Miss Fanny Whitman; of the wonderful hair, with James Canfield, later chancellor of the University of Nebraska, as priest, performed "The taking of the Veil." In the sixties there was much work to be done in renovating the white church. A new carpet in black and red diamonds especially made in Lowell under the direction of Mr. Joseph White, was put down, and a new Bible for the pulpit earned by the efforts of the Busy Bee Society. This association of little girls had planned to raise their money by means of a fair on a certain Wednesday evening, but when it suddenly developed that the youngest, the one with the brownest eyes and the most appealing smile must leave town that day for a family visit, making Tuesday, the prayer meeting night, the only alternative, they climbed in a body to the study of the Rev. Mason Noble, the minister. On Sunday morning this notice was given from the pulpit: "Brethren, I think we must change the night of our prayer meeting. You know how we all feel about our prayer meeting, but when the little girls came to my study and sat on the arm of my chair and told me how necessary it was to have their fair on Tuesday night, you know, brethren, I had to put off the prayer meet- \ing." When the church was burned in 1866, the carpet was saved, with the pulpit and the pews, and became Page one hundred forty-eight part of the furnishing of the brick church, dedicated in 1869. The money from the fair was spent for books for the Sunday school library, for a gold watch chain for Dr. A. M. Smith, the Sunday school superintendent, and enough was laid aside for the purchase of a hand- some Bible which was first used in the brick church and bears the date 1869. That is the date too of the coming to this town of Mrs. Snyder and her family. Miss Frances and Miss Marcia Snyder were for the next twenty years closely identified with every activity of the church. The first Mrs. Keyes Danforth is perhaps best remembered for her influence over the members of the Busy Bee Society. Every other Saturday afternoon they spent with her in Buxton, radiantly happy every minute while she talked to them, and physically satisfied with her good suppers, of which they now remember especially the apple tarts. In spite of great effort a considerable debt was incurred by the building of the brick church, and the next ten years are filled with the activities of the women, directed toward its payment. Many felt that in view of such an encumbrance it was unseemly to assume also the burden of paying for an organ, but in one way and another that too, was accomplished. / Some small part at least of the organ came from the '' singing in the lecture room, by members of the choir and their friends, of the Death and Burial of Cock Robin. In long black waterproofs the singers advanced in procession, following a draped wheel- ' barrow on which reclined a very limp and songless r robin. Dr. Mark Hopkins is remembered to have \ demurred a little at this ceremony, hoping that it J would not appear to any one as making light of a funeral. Page one hundred forty-nine These were the winters when evening dime socials were almost as interesting as moving pictures and the constant use of the game of twenty questions sharpened the wits of students and townspeople alike. One person still remembers the selection for questioning of "The last drop of water which went over the Falls of Minne- haha in the year 1776," and recalls her chagrin at not being able to tell, at a critical moment, the state in which the Falls of Minnehaha are to be found. Miss Abby Mather was the treasurer, appointed to serve, she used to say, "until death or marriage," and with endless joking she gathered the dimes into her stout little bag until it was marriage. There was a great Dickens party at the Kellogg House, with nearly the whole church in the opening procession. Dick Swiveller is now the pastor of a church in Brooklyn, Mr. Dombey was president of a state normal school, Captain Cuttle taught Hebrew in a theological semin- ary, Mr. F's aunt is a minister's wife and The Little Marchioness writes these lines. There was also a Washington supper at the Mansion House, and, in the lecture room, a loan collection, to which wa's sent everything from Mr. Leake's best paintings and rugs to the spinning wheels and warming pans from our attics. At a costume party late in that period, Dr. Durfee, much impressed by the splendor of raiment he saw all about him, after consulting Mrs. Curtis, the president, that year, slipped away to his house and returned wearing a padded Japanese silk dressing gown, a recent gift from David Dudley Field./ For the rest of the evening not an Indian, Queen Mary or Puritan walked the floor more complacent or enter- tained than he. C* In the year 1881-82 all debts are said in the records to be cleared from the church, and the sum of fifty Page one hundred fifty dollars left in the hands of the minister was passed over to the Ladies' Benevolent Society to serve as a nucleus for the expense of a new furnace. For the furnace they worked three years and (1883) were just putting it in, when there came the gift of a new carpet for the church from Col. Daniel A. Jones of Chicago, and warm and clean they sat down to rest from their labors. There had been that year, eleven sociables with an average attendance of forty, and the only point the secretary deplores is their inability to bring in the people on the edge of the town. "If all who enjoy new furnaces and new carpets and freshly tinted walls i would only come and help!" The rest was not long. \The old carpet was soon resewed and laid in the lecture room, and eight sociables provided the eighty-three dollars and forty-two cents necessary for papering and further repairing of the room (1884). In the year 1885-86 the secretary reports: "We have had two sociables this year and well attended, but the Ladies' Benevolent Society has felt less need of keeping up these gatherings since the Society of Christian Endeavor has been doing so much, with its other work, to promote the social interests of the church." In that year two hundred and sixty-two dollars and twenty- five cents were raised by subscription for new pulpit furniture and pew cushions. The three new chairs were first used on Baccalaureate Sunday, 1886, and at the same time the old sofa disappeared from behind the lecture room desk. But carpets that have come through a fire, been used seventeen years in one place and five in another, need a good deal of attention, so in 1888 the lecture room carpet was taken up and cleaned and patched and pieced and put down. You will remember that this was not a matter for Sloane's men from New York, Page one hundred fifty-one '*** but that members of the society sat on the floor and sewed the long seams, stitched on the patches, and kneeling, pounded in the tacks. Besides this, the church study was cleaned and repapered, the old church cushions cut over and fitted to the gallery seats, the pulpit cushions recovered and the little room between the church and the lecture room furnished with a good cook stove and fitted up for "a very comfortable kitchen." It was perfectly dark and it was draughty and it was freezing cold, but though a poor thing, it was our own and it was our first, and in the enthusiasm of acquisition, Miss Fanny Snyder, the secretary, reports it as "a very comfortable kitchen." Among other furnishings of the room are the spoons marked L. B. S. which were bought at this time. The year 1890 began with the first New Year's dinner, an observance which has never failed. Even in the three years when no benevolent society was reported, the plans were carried out by a few women who were unwilling to see so good a custom let slip. Year by year this dinner becomes more firmly estab- lished in the life of the church, and the attendance 1 increases. For the rest, the decade of the nineties was characterized by some changes of organization, but much of the activity seems to have centered about the packing of missionary barrels. Mrs. Lincoln writes of one year : "We have held neither fair, festival nor dime social, but have trusted for means to carry forward our work to a sense of personal responsi- bility." The sense of personal responsibility wasj strong in the women of that generation. If there was 'money to raise they raised it by personal appeal, and if boxes were to be prepared that was done with vigor. Mrs. N. F. Smith's house was the scene of many packings. Barrels were used instead of boxes, for the Page one hundred fifty-two sake of economy, and new clothing was more the exception than now, but such things as came in were gathered from a larger representation of the society, and one person would never have been allowed to do all the packing. In November, 1897, after three years of unofficial life of which we have already spoken, the name Benevolent Society was allowed to lapse, and under the new designation, Ladies' Aid Society, the women began work again. They elected Mrs. Morrow, presi- dent, and Mrs. Robinson, the minister's wife, was their secretary. The following June (1898) both of these officers moved from town, but nothing was done to fill their places until it was again November and there were new elections. At this annual meeting, plans were also made for a reception to Mr. Butler, the new minister, and carried out under the new officers, Mrs. Samuel J. Kellogg being the president. In 1894 the lecture room was furnished with chairs instead of settees, but the best new thing of the nineties was the kitchen, neither dark nor cold this time, built at an expense of about eight hundred dollars, in 1898. The question of a parsonage became vital during this year and the next. In the early forties Mr. Charles Benjamin had sold to the church, for a parsonage, the house where Professor Russell now lives, and this was used by both Mr. Savage and Dr. Peters, passing out of such service in the fifties, when Dr. Peters bought land and built a house of his own. Mr. Sewall also had owned a house, but many reasons made it seem increasingly advisable that a parsonage should now be added to the parish property. A nucleus for this fund had been given in Mr. Bassett's time by a member of the college faculty, who preached for two Sundays with the understanding that the fifty dollars should be Page one hundred fifty-three set apart for this purpose. As soon as the plans were established the women began to give definite help. Under the management of Miss Alice Carter a play was given which brought in one hundred and seventy-five dollars. A fair, in 1900, gained more than eight hundred dollars. In one way or another, twelve hun- dred dollars were thus added to the building fund. In 1903 the house was partially furnished for Mr. Clayton's use, at an expense of seven hundred dollars. Since that time, for repairs and refurnishing, nearly a thousand more have been spent. The Ladies' Aid Society has therefore a practical interest of nearly three thousand dollars in the parsonage. During the same fifteen or sixteen years nearly two thousand dollars more have been earned, for the cost of the kitchen, for a piano, and the care of the lecture room. The records of the activities of recent years may lack something of the interest and quaintness of the books of one hundred years ago, but the practical advantage of a society capable of contributing to permanent equipment nearly five thousand dollars in that length of time is not to be gainsaid. The largest income has been derived from Christmas sales. This custom was begun in 1903, and nearly seventeen hundred dollars have been thus raised. The amounts have varied from fifty-four dollars in 1903 to one hundred and ninety- five in 1909. This has been accomplished under the able supervision of Mrs. N. H. Sabin, who became president in 1901, and Mrs. E. H. Botsford, who holds the office now. The great generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Cluett has freed our hands from certain tiresome forms of work. The old red carpet, made into rugs and sold, V will never have to be cleaned or patched again. We have almost forgotten already how dusty the gallery Page one hundred fifty-four cushions used to be and how hard it was to keep in order the various dark closets. Released from these things our hands are made ready to meet the new needs that will always come as we follow that old counsel: "Get thy spindle and thy distaff ready and God will give thee flax." The next one hundred and fifty years may add the glamour of strangeness to the story of the work we are doing now. When the accounts of our Christmas sales, our chain teas, and our New Year's dinners have to be sought for in dusty files and attic boxes, who knows how odd and out of fashion they may seem? Our very names may have the flavor of Mehitabel, Prudence and Deodamus, and the language of our annual reports rouse little smiles. No attempt has been made in this sketch to distinguish the service of one person more than another. Those over-worked modifiers "efficient," "capable," "earnest" and "energetic" have applied to some of all the women from our great grandmothers down; and if there were, besides, others only well- meaning but ineffective, it is not for us now to try to distribute the adjectives. Year by year, each in her generation, they built themselves into the life of this church, as year by year, for strength or for weakness, we also build. GRACE PERRY. Page one hundred fifty-five THE HISTORICAL COLLECTION BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS: Church manual of 1849, 1868, 1891, 1902. Collection of old books. Boyhood Reminiscences, Keyes Danforth. New England Primer. Origins in Williamstown, Arthur L. Perry. Williams College and Foreign Missions, John H. Hewitt. CHURCH RECORDS: Seth Swift's records, 1779-1807. Deed of two-fifths of a pew given to Erastus Noble, 1811. A few leaves of the Gridley records, 1826. Part of Mr. Gridley's letter of resignation. Church records, Vol. 3, 1834-1847. Church records, Vol. 4, 1848-1866. Records of the first Parish, 1829-1856. Record of marriages, 1779-1806. Journal of Mason Noble, 1865-1866. Records of the Female Charitable Society, 1812-1849. DAGUERREOTYPES : Mr. Henry B. Curtis. Mrs. Henry B. Curtis. Mr. Jeremiah Hosford. Mrs. Jeremiah Hosford. HOUSEHOLD FURNISHINGS OF EARLY TIMES : Bed warmer. Bee box. Candle molds. Chairs from the Whitman house. Page one hundred fifty-six Cooking utensils, gridiron, toaster, waffle iron. Cradle used by the Torrey family. Foot stool of Rev. Absalom Peters. Hetchel. Samplers. Spinning wheel of Prudence Simonds. Swift. Trunk of Anthony Saunders. Yarn reel. Woven coverlet. LISTS : List of Deacons, with dates. Hist of Ministers, with dates. List of Missionaries associated with this congregation. Original subscription lists : For the church of 1798. For the church bell in 1798. For the church of 1866. For the organ of the church of 1866. PAINTINGS : Residence of Mrs. Ruth Seymour Benjamin. Williamstown street, looking east. Williamstown street, looking west. PHOTOGRAPHS (Persons) : Dr. Addison Ballard. Dr. John Bascom. Rev. Austin B. Bassett. Mrs. Ruth Seymour Benjamin. Mr. Samuel Bridges. Mrs. Samuel Bridges. Mr. John Brookman. Mrs. John Brookman. Rev. Willis H. Butler. Rev. Charles William Calhoun. Deacon Robert Clark. Rev. Francis T. Clayton. Mr. Harvey T. Cole. Mrs. Harvey T. Cole. Page one hundred fifty-seven Mr. John M. Cole. Mrs. John M. Cole. Mr. Henry B. Curtis. Judge Keyes Dan forth. Dr. Calvin Durfee. Rev. George Alfred Ford. Rev. Lewis A. Gould. Dr. Edward Dorr Griffin. Dr. Edward Herrick Griffin. Dr. Nathaniel Herrick Griffin. Rev. Henry Richard Hoisington. Mr. Jeremiah Hosford. Mrs. Jeremiah Hosford. Mrs. Lucy C. Lincoln. Professor Edward Lasell. Mr. Charles H. Mather. Miss Frances L. Mather. Rev. Mason Noble. Rev. Mason Noble and his four sons. Dr. Arthur L. Perry. Rev. Henry T. Perry. Mrs. Roxanna Bixby Pierson. Stephen Pratt, driving the old red stage. Mrs. Susan Calhoun Ransom. Dr. Henry L. Sabin. Mrs. Henry L. Sabin. Rev. William Henry Sanders. Rev. Albert C. Sewall. Mrs. Albert C. Sewall. Col. Benjamin Simonds. Rev. William Slade. Deacon James Smedley. Mrs. James Smedley. Dr. A. M. Smith. Mrs. Nathan F. Smith. Mrs. Margaret Bixby Strong and her son, Mark Hopkins Strong. Mrs. Submit Bixby Strong. Mr. Edwin Talmadge. Miss Hannah Talmadge. Mr. Merritt Walley. Rev. Edward P. Wells. Page one hundred fifty-eight Mrs. Edward P. Wells. Hon. Joseph White. Mrs. Joseph White. Governor Charles S. Whitman. Mr. John Whitman. Mrs. Seymour Whitman. Williams College Faculty in the Fifties. Village choir under Dr. A. M. Smith. PHOTOGRAPHS (Buildings, etc.) : Church of 1798 (exterior). Church of 1869 (interior). Church of 1914 (exterior). Mansion House. Residence of Rev. Seth Swift. Store of Charles H. Mather. Village street. Walden house, on the site of the church of 1869. PORTRAITS : Dr. Calvin Durfee. Professor Albert Hopkins. President Mark Hopkins. Hon. Daniel Noble. Dr. Henry L. Sabin. Dr. Luther D. Woodbridge. Mrs. Luther D. Woodbridge. PRINTS (colored) : Early college buildings. PROGRAMS : Concert at the dedication of the organ, August 24, 1876. Mystery Play, 1908. RELICS CONNECTED WITH THE VARIOUS CHURCH BUILDINGS: Baton of Dr. A. M. Smith. Busy Bee Bible and other old Bibles. Cane made from the wood of the white church (1798). Contribution box from the white church. Page one hundred fifty-nine Door knob from the white church. Foot stove used by the Hopkins family in the white church. Fragment of the old bell. Hymn book from the white church. Lamps from the Park street lecture room. Pewter communion service. Plates from the old silver communion service. Pulpit and three chairs from the white church, used after the fire, in the brick church. Pulpit chairs from the brick church. Samples of old carpets. Page one hundred sixty PA3TORS Rev. Whitman Welch 1765-1776 Rev. Seth Swift 1779-1807 Rev. Walter King 1813-1815 Rev. Ralph W. Gridley 1816-1834 Rev. Joseph Alden, D.D 1834-1836 Rev. Albert Smith 1836-1838 Rev. Albert Hopkins 1838-1839 Rev. Amos Savage 1840-1843 Rev. Absalom Peters, D.D 1844-1853 Rev. Henry R. Hoisington 1853-1856 Rev. Addison Ballard, D.D 1857-1864 Rev. Mason Noble, D.D 1865-1866 Rev. Edward P. Wells 1867-1868 Rev. Albert Hopkins 1869-1872 Rev. Albert C. Sewall 1872-1886 Rev. Austin B. Bassett 1887-1891 Rev. William Slade 1891-1897 Rev. R. A. Robinson 1897-1898 Rev. Willis H. Butler 1898-1903 Rev. Francis T. Clayton 1903-1909 Rev. Percy Martin 1909-1913 Rev. John DePeu 1913- Page one hundred sixty-one DEACONS James Meacham 1784 Nathan Wheeler 1813 Ebenezer Stratton 1784-1814 Benjamin Skinner 1806-1828 Zadoc Ford 1806-1834 Deodatus Noble 1814-1833 Levi Smedley 1828-1849 Andrew Beers 1828-1836 Cheney Taft 1834-1838 Henry L. Sabin 1834-1884 William Dickinson 1834-1836 James Smedley 1838-1892 Asahel Foote 1838-1882 Joseph White 1882-1890 Robert Clark 1882-1898, 1899-1910 Charles H. Mather 1882-1896, 1898-1902 Luther D. Woodbridge 1895-1895 Bliss Perry 1893-1894 George B. Waterman. .1894-1897, 1902-1906, 1008-1912, 1914- T. Nelson Dale 1896-1900 Henry B. Curtis 1897-1900 Charles S. Cole 1900-1904, 1910-1914 E. Herbert Botsford 1901-1905 Carleton G. Smith 1904-1908, 1909-1913 Perry A. Smedley 1905-1909, 1913- Frederick H. Howard 1906-1910 Franklin Carter 1910- Vanderpool Adriance 1912- (In 1895 the term of office for deacons was limited to four years.) Page one hundred sixty-two FOREIGN MISSIONARIES who were connected with the church by membership or (previous to 1859) by act of worship; together with a few who were sent by the American Board to the American Indians. Samuel Parker Oregon Gordon Hall India Samuel J. Mills Africa and Home Luther Rice India Alfred Wright Choctaws Jonas King Greece John C. Brigham South America William Richards Hawaiian Islands Dwight Baldwin Hawaiian Islands David O. Allen India William Hervey India Hollis Reed India Nathan Brown India Harvey K. Hitchcock Hawaiian Islands Henry R. Hoisington Ceylon Samuel Hutchings India David B. Lyman Hawaiian Islands David White Africa Simeon H. Calhoun Syria Charles Robinson Siam Lowell Smith Hawaiian Islands Jesse Lockwood Cherokees David N. Sheldon France Nathan Benjamin Greece and Turkey John Dunbar Pawnees William Tracy India Nathaniel M. Crane India Gushing Eells Oregon Ozro French India Worcester Willey Cherokees David T. Stoddard . . Persia Page one hundred sixty-three Henry M. Scudder India Eliphalet Whittlesey Hawaiian Islands James Herrick India Henry A. Ford West Africa Dwight W. Marsh Turkey William A. Benton Syria John C. Strong Choctaws Joseph K. Wight China Jacob Best West Africa Joshua E. Ford Syria Cyrus T. Mills Ceylon David Rood South Africa Stephen Bush Siam William W. Eddy Syria Justin W. Parsons Turkey Hyman A. Wilder South Africa Frederick H. Brewster China George W. Coan Persia Marshall D. Sanders Ceylon Eli Corwin Hawaiian Islands Edward G. Beckwith Hawaiian Islands Joseph D. Strong Hawaiian Islands Jerre L. Lyons Syria John K. Harris Choctaws Charles M. Hyde Hawaiian Islands Jacob W. Marcusson Turkey Stephen C. Pixley Africa William S. Potter Choctaws Bela N. Seymour Marquesas Islands Walter H. Clark Africa Ephraim P. Roberts Micronesia David C. Scudder India George T. Washburn India Simeon F. Woodin China Luther T. Burbank Turkey James M. Alexander Hawaiian Islands Samuel R. Butler Labrador John T. Gulick China and Japan Henry C. Haskell Turkey Henry A. Schauffler Austria William W. Chapin India Page one hundred sixty-four Samuel H. Kellogg India * Chauncey Goodrich China Frederick Hicks South America George C. Raynolds Turkey Patrick L. Garden Siam Henry T. Perry Turkey Charles W. Calhoun Syria James E. Tracy India William H. Sanders Africa Mrs. Mary P. Ford India Elizabeth Morley China ^ Fannie W. Tracy India '-'Susan C. Ransom South Africa Helen C. Vandyck Syria Alfred Snelling Mortlock Islands Page one hundred sixty-five IICSB LIBRARY UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000 607 477 7