Essex County, Massachusetts - Chapter 2, 1888 (part 2 of 3)

Mr. Norris was the last of the ministers of the first generation. " The consistent politicks, the religious moderation, and the ardent patriotism of Mr. Norris," says Mr. Bentley, " entitle him to the grateful memory of Salem. He diverted the fury of fanaticism by industry, he quieted alarms by inspiring a military courage, and in the public morals, and a well-directed charity, with a timely consent to the incorporation of towns around him, he finished in peace the longest life in the ministry which had been enjoyed in Salem, and died in his charge." ^ those who had preceded him. But it was short as compared with that of his successor. John Higginson, the son of the Rev. Francis, the first minister - " Teacher " - of Salem, was born at Claybrook, England, August 6, 1616, and accompanied his parents when they came to New England, in 1629, and waa thirteen years old, therefore, when he arrived ; and at that age he joined the church. After his father's death he was assisted by the magistrates and ministers, who could not forget what the young church owed to the father, in continuing his education. At the age of twenty, and for four years after, he was chaplain at Fort Saybrook, Connecticut.. In 1641 he taught a school in Hartford, and studied divinity with the Rev. Thomas Hooker; in 1643 became an assistant to Rev. Henry Whitfield, of Guilford, whose daughter he married. From 1651 to 1659 he was in sole charge of the church in Guilford. In that year, 1659, he took passage for his native land. The vessel in which he sailed was obliged by stress of weather to put into Salem harbor. The church in Salem had recently lost its minister, A negotiation with Mr, Higginson was entered into which issued in an engagement on his part to remain and preach for one year. At the end of the year he was invited to become the pastor, accepted the invitation, and was ordained in August, 1660, Already forty-four years old, he continued in the ministry in Salem forty-eight years, till his death, December 9, 1708, at the age of ninety-two years. He was sole minister for twentythree years, till 1683, - except that for four years, from 1672 to 1676, he had a so-called " assistant," ^ who did not assist, as is explained farther on. In 1683, he being then sixty-seven years of age. Rev. Nicholas Noyes became his colleague. The settlement of Mr, Higginson was signalized by an addition to the covenant of the church, as a solemn declaration against the teachings and practices of the Quakers, as has been mentioned. It had been the custom of the church, from time to time, to " renew " the covenant, as has been noticed before, an act equivalent to a solemn re-affirmation of loyally to its vows, and which was accompanied, in two instances at least, by an addition to its original form, for the purpose of putting on record the church's sentiment or verdict upon special dangers and evils existing at the time. Thus, at the settlement of Rev, Mr. Peters, the church prefaced a " renewal of the covenant " with a preamble which has already been given on a previous page, it being of the nature of a penitent confession that they had experienced the danger of coming to " sit loose to tlfe covenant made with God," and found how apt they were "to wander into by-paths, even to the loosing of their first aims in entering into church fellowship." So, now, in 1660, we come upon another tide-mark, showing how high had arisen the feeling against the Quaker invasion, the following being appended to the covenant : " When also considering the power of temptation amongst us by reason of the Quakers' doctrine to the leavening of some in the place where we are, and endangering of others, [We] do see cause to remember the admonition of our Savior Christ to his disciples. Math. 16 : Take heed and beware of the leaven of the doctrine of the Pharisees, and do judge so far as we understand it that the Quakers' doctrine is as bad or worse than that of the Pharisees; therefore we do covenant by the help of Jesus Christ to take heed and beware of the leaven of the doctrine of the Quakers." "This appendix to the covenant sufficiently shows the stand taken by Mr. Higginson towards the Quakers. It is difficult in our time to conceive the excitement which the arrival of a shipload of Quakers from England in 1660, the year of Mr. Higginson's ordination, caused in the Massachusetts colony. A vigorous persecution had been in progress for some time before, with the usual result of increasing the boldness and multiplying the number of the new sect. They were not altogether an inoffensive people. For, though they disclaimed the use of physical violence even in protection of themselves, among them were those who knew the irritating power of arrogant and exasperating speech, and did not spare the use of it, accusing the magistrates, ministers and the members of the churches of ignorance of the true religion, and of being unacquainted with its spirit. Their interruption of public worship, their open denunciations of time-serving and hireling ministers, and their fanatical violations of good order and the public quiet in some cases, were calculated to inflame the popular mind to the highest pitch of anger ; and while this does not excuse the heavy hand of persecution raised upon them, it explains and palliates the disgust and antipathy felt by many reasonable and worthy persons towards such intemperate revilers of men and women, who were, at least, as good as themselves, and were held in honor - deservedly or not - as appointed chiefs in church and state. " The wildest fanaticism on their part was met by a frenzied bigotry on the other." Mr. Higginson was active in turning upon them an unrelenting harrying, for which Mr. Beutley says he was sorry afterwards. Eighteen of these unhappy persons are said to have been publicly punished in Salem in the year 1661. And, as is always the case when men suffer for their opinions, the most blameless met with the same fate as the most turbulent and aggressive. After the restoration of King Charles II., he took their case into consideration and put a stop to the persecution. It had lasted about five years. The excitement soon died away when the persecution ceased.

A " Direction " for a public profession of faith was prepared by Mr. Higginson, and printed in a dateless tract, already referred to, probably, says Judge White, in 1680, which, however, was " to be looked upon as a fit means whereby to express that their common faith and salvation, and not to be made use of as an imposition upon any." This "Direction" became famous in the friendly but controversial discussion, already alluded to as having occurred thirty to forty years ago, between Eev. Dr. Worcester and Judge White, as to the form of the first covenant, it being regarded by the former as substantially identical with a confession of faith adopted by the church in 1629, along with the covenant, a position earnestly contended against by the latter as wholly untenable.

In 1672 there came a man to Salem from Virginia, who, for a few years, filled quite a large place in the town and church - Mr. Charles Nicholet. He was invited to be the assistant of Mr. Higginson for a year, " for trial." At the end of the year the engagement was renewed upon the same terms for another year, one condition of which being that he should have for his maintenance "a free voluntary contribution every Lord's day." When, at the end of the second year, he was offered again the same terms, they were probably not accepled, as, a little later, it was voted that, " it is agreed by a hand and free vote of the town for Mr. Nicholet's continuance amongst us during his life." At the same time (that is, early in 1674) the town voted a grant of as much land on the common as should be needed " for to build a new meeting-house for the worship of God."^ This meeting-house was begun and its frame erected, but was never finished. The invitation to Mr. Nicholet, extended by the town instead of by the church - an unusual, if not an unprecedented proceeding - and the building of another meeting-house at some distance from the established place of worship, were painful proofs to the elder minister that there were restless and disaffected persons in his congregation not unwilling to show their discontent. "His enemies," says Mr. Bentley, " made by persecution, now had power to distress him." His support had been partly withheld. Some who were not unfriendly thought it time that a portion of his burden of varied duties and wearing responsibilities should be transferred to an assistant. But the church had taken offense and exception at the manner in which the assistant was called - that is, in the town's having acted by itself. A remonstrance was sent to the General Court, which tribunal answered by declaring its disapprobation of such a departure from established usages, characterizing it as not only very irregular, but as "expressly contrary to the known wholesome laws of this jurisdiction." Mr. Higginson disapproved the course pursued by his assistant and the town. Mr. Nicholet explained and promised to be on his guard, but apparently continued his ministry and drew to himself a following of malcontents, and kept up the discord till, happily for the town, " after many farewell sermons," he " departed from America forever," in 1676.

attended Mr. Nicholet's ministry, it also made the burdens carried by the senior pastor, now without an assistant, to be felt more oppressively as he advanced in years. The way was thus prepared for another trial of the experiment of a colleague. In 1682 Mr. Higginson recommended it ; and on the 14th of November, 1683, Mr. Nicholas Noyes was ordained. It was a choice fortunate for the church. Mr. Noyes' character, as drawn in the record-book of the church when he died, on the 13th of December, 1717, at the age of nearly seventy years, and at the end of a ministry of thirty-five years, has been accepted as a just portraiture of the man - a portraiture the more entitled to be preserved and reproduced on suitable occasions, in that it is a calm after-judgment respecting one who bore a prominent part in the ever-memorable and mournful proceedings of the dark days of the witchcraft trials. It is the testimony of his contemporaries; of those who should be presumed to know him best; who knew his mistakes and the sincerity of his lamentation on their account. " He was extraordinarily accomplished for the work of the ministry, whereunto he was called. . . . Considering his superior genius ; his pregnant wit ; strong memory ; solid judgment ; his great acquisition in human learning and knowledge ; his conversation among men, especially with his friends, so very pleasant, entertaining and profitable; his uncommon attainments in the study of divinity ; his eminent sanctity, gravity and virtue ; his serious, learned and pious performances in the pulpit; his more than ordinary skill in the prophetical parts of Scripture; his wisdom and usefulness in human affairs ; and his constant solicitude for the public good : it is no wonder that Salem and the adjacent part of the country, as also the Churches, University and people of New England, justly esteem him as a principal part of their glory." For one to have saved such a reputation as this, who had been a chief actor in bringing those accused of witchcraft to punishment, argues rare excellences of character. Mr. Bentley accords him exceptional honor as the one among all those ministers who were swept along by the storm, misled, silenced, non-protesting, accountable - the one who made all possible reparation afterwards; an open, confessing, self-sacrificing atonement for the evil he had done and caused, to the extent of his ability. " Noyes came out and publicly confessed his error; never concealed a circumstance ; never excused himself; visited, loved and blessed the survivors whom he had^ injured; asked forgiveness always, and consecrated the residue of life to bless mankind. He never thought, in all these things, that he made the least compensation, but all the world believed him sincere." The glooms of the period of the witchcraft visitation have had no parallel, before or since, in the ancient town. It is not our province to depict its creeping horrors. It stands apart, a story of unrelieved tragedy. It was connected with the church-life of the people, but it was an epidemic mania, an outcropping nightmare of superstition, that swept like a sudden torrent over the region. "From March till August, 1692, . . . business was interrupted. The town deserted. Terror was in every countenance, and distress in every heart." ^ We thankfully leave the sombre task of telling the sad tale to another.

We introduce here the few remaining minutes to be noted respecting Rev. Mr. Noyes. He was born in Newbury December 22, 1647, and was the nephew of the first minister of Newbury, Eev. James Noyes. For thirteen years before coming to Salem he had been settled in the ministry at Haddam, Conn. He was never married.

During the witchcraft storm Mr. Higginson held himself aloof. " His only fault was his silent consent." He had gone too far with the Quakers, and learned the lesson of caution. But it was not in him to be strong enough, old man that he was, where all were stricken with the madness, to sound an alarm and call a halt. It was what all were waiting and praying for, from some one. But probably if any had been brave enough and far-sighted enough to cry aloud in protest, it would only have availed when the tempest was subsiding and far-spent ; earlier it would only have added another victim, possibly, to the popular frenzy. Such a panic-stricken community could only come to its senses slowly, and when the fury of the blast was passed. Mr. Bentley's just reflections are ia place here, and in the history of the church should not be omitted : " As soon as the judges ceased to condemn, the people ceased to accuse. Just as after a storm, the people were astonished to see the light at once break out bright again. Terror at the violence and the guilt of the proceedings succeeded instantly to the conviction of blind zeal, and what every man had encouraged all professed to abhor. Few dared to blame other men, because few were innocent. They who had been most active remembered that they had been applauded. The guilt and the shame became the portion of the country, while Salem had the infamy of being the place of the transactions. Every expression of sorrow was found in Salem. And after the death of Mr. Higginson, whose only fault was his silent consent, the church, before the choice of another minister, publicly erased all the ignominy they had attached to the dead, by recording a most humble acknowledgment of their error. After the public mind became quiet, few things were done to disturb it. But a diminished population, the injury done to religion, and the distress of the aggrieved were seen and felt with the greatest sorrow." ^

For six years from the death of Mr. Higginson Mr. Noyes was the sole pastor of the church. He being then nearly sixty-seven years old, Mr. George Curwin, son of Hon. Jonathan Curwin, was oi'dained as his colleague. Mr. Bentley says that Mr. Curwin was proposed by Mr. Noyes in 1709, soon after the death of Mr. Higginson, and would have been immediately ordained if those living beyond the town bridge had not hoped to become a separate church. In 1713 another church was formed, which is the lower parish in Danvers. Mr. Curwin's settlement followed in May of the next year. The opening of his ministry was full of promise, and excited in his people high hopes of usefulness, - hopes destined to an early blight. He died Nov. 23, 1717, at the age of thirtyfour years, only four and a half years from his ordination. He was born in Salem May 21, 1683, graduated from Harvard College in 1701, and ordained May 19, 1714. The entry made upon the church book of records, of date Nov. 23, 1717, after recording his death, adds : " He was highly esteemed in his life, and very deservedly lamented at his death, having been very eminent for his early improvements in learning and piety, his singular abilities and great labors, his remarkable zeal and faithfulness in the service of his Master. A great benefactor to our poor. The Rev. Mr. Noyes his life was much bound up in him." These last words read more as prophecy than as record of a past accomplished, when we look on to the next entry upon the book. It is but twenty days later. It records the death, Dec. 13th, of the Rev. Nicholas Noyes. Within three weeks the church is bereaved of both its pastors.

Mr. Samuel Fisk was called with great unanimity the next year to the church in Salem, and was ordained on the 8th of October, 1718. He was a grandson of Rev. John Fisk, herein before mentioned as sometime assistant to Rev. Hugh Peters, afterwards minister of Wenham and Chelmsford ; was born April 6, 1689, in Braintree, where his father. Rev. Moses Fisk, was many years minister, and was graduated from Harvard College in 1708. He was a man of acknowledged abilities and of great energy, but the unanimity with which his ministry was welcomed at the beginning gave place in no very long time to a rising alienation on the part of a portion of his congregation, which grew to a protracted and bitter controversy, - protracted and bitter even in comparison with other church contentions, proverbial as such are for their tenacity and implacability, - many of his parishioners becoming hopelessly estranged from him, the division culminating at last in the expulsion of Mr. Fisk from his pulpit in 1735. Mr. Bentley ascribes his loss of usefulness to high thoughts of church authority. Pamphlets of more than four hundred pages of printed matter remain in a Salem library (Athen«um) to represent the course of the correspondence and criticisms which grew out of the long contest. The points involved were not chiefly theological or ecclesiastical, but consisted largely of charges brought by members of the church of misrepresentation and of a want of ingenuous, truthi'ul and frank dealing on the part of Mr. Fisk as to an unwarranted interpolation in the church records in the matter of maintaining or discontinuing the church " lecture," an institution which had long existed, the interest in which had fallen oft' greatly, and the responsibility for whose decay, and close, and resumption was mutually bandied back and forth between the minister and the dissatisfied brethren. Mr. Fisk was also accused of arbitrarily refusing to call church meetings except such as he pleased and when he pleased, and of asserting a right of control in church matters generally deemed by a very considerable part of his congregation to be unauthorized and inadmissible. As to one of the issues raised, Mr. Fisk and his followers seem to have planted themselves on unassailable ground. The aggrieved brethren seem to have been a confessed minority of the church. When, therefore, this aggrieved minority, - supposing it to be such, - first called on a neighboring church, - the second in Boston, - to come in, by its representatives, and endeavor to compose the existing difBculties, the majority declined to submit their case to this commission for a hearing and decision. So, when a council of four churches made a similar attempt, and again, when a yet larger and more imposing council was summoned, they simply denied the jurisdiction of each and all such ecclesiastical courts, in steadfast adherence to that original principle laid down at the founding of the church, in 1629, of the independence of each church, and they denied the authority of any other church or churches to interfere in its concerns. Unless by some formal vote it had surrendered this claim of autonomy in favor of some other paramount authority as does not seem to have been claimed, or the voice of the majority was arbitrarily suppressed by the pastor, which is perhaps charged by implication, it is difficult to see by what right the majority of this church and congregation were dispossessed of their meeting-house or any of their church rights, as was done, and sanctioned by the General Court.

After the exclusion of Mr. Fisk from the pulpit, a majority of the members of the church withdrew and built another meeting-house near at hand.^ The withdrawing members continued to use the title of " The First Church," their right to which could hardly be gainsaid, perhaps, except upon the ground taken by the courts of Massachusetts a hundred years later, viz. : that the church derives its designation from the parish out of which it has grown, and upon which its identification depends. Mr. Fisk took away with him the church book of records, retaining it through the peril d of his ministry. In 1762 Rev. Dudley Leavitt, the minister of the church which Mr. Fisk had led out in 1735 to a new home, died, much beloved and lamented. That church soon after opened a gracious and conciliatory correspondence with the church of the First Parish, proposing to relinquish to it the title

1 They first placed it too near, - '- oulj- twelve perches and eleven feet from the First J larish meeting-house." The General Court interfered, and ordered that it should not stand " nearer to the other than forty porches." It was removed accordingly.

of the First Church from that time, and took for itself the title of " The Church of which Rev. Dudley Leavitt was late Pastor," - known since, and now for many years, as the Tabernacle Church. These overtures were met in a like spirit. An amicable division of plate and other church property accompanied and attested the healing of the old wounds of dissension.

Leaving, for the present, the notices of other churches formed in the town from time to time, we follow out first the sketch of the First Church. During the years from 1735 to 1762 the old First Church and Society was called, and called itself the Church and Parish of the Confederate Society, or, for a shorter title and common use, the Confederate Church. Dr. Worcester says the secedersgave them the title. The effect of the divi>ion by which the society was cleft in 1735 was depressing for a while, undoubtedly. But on the 5th of August, 1736, Mr. John Sparhawk was called by " the brethren adhering to the ancient principles of the First Church in Salem," with substantial unanimity, to the ministry among them, and was ordained on the 8th of December following. He was the son of Rev. John Sparhawk, of Bristol, R. I., and was born in that town in September, 1713, and graduated at Harvard College in 1731. He died April 30, 1755, in the forty-second year of his age. He was described by his parishioner, Dr. Edward Holyoke, as " large in person, a man of dignity and an excellent preacher." If that people is to be accounted happy whose history aflbrds few incidents or experiences deemed worthy to be recited, the same evidence may be taken as ground for the belief that a church is happy, its life one of peace, of silent, healthful, spiritual growth, when it affords little material for the historian to record. The First Church entered upon such a period after the close of the rather tempestuous ministry of Mr. Fisk. The usefulness of Mr. Sparhawk's labors, and the affection in which he was held, is shown by the sincere sorrow caused by his death. The ministries which followed were of a like character, and, even down to this day, have generally abounded in quiet and diligent service on the part of the ministers, and been characterized by general harmony and co-operation on the part of the church and congregation in maintaining the institutions of religion and cultivating the spirit of the Christian gospel.

Rev. Thomas Barnard succeeded Mr. Sparhawk. He was the son of Rev. John Barnard, of Andover, and was born in that place August 16, 1716, graduated from Harvard College in 17^52, ordained at Newbury January 31, 1738, left his people there on account of " difKculties about Mr. Whitfield's preaching," and turned to the study and practice of law for a time. Re-entering the ministry, he was installed minister of the First Church in Salem September 17, 1755. He was a man of solid excellencies, both of mind and character, not brilliant, but strong and rightly balanced, " much beloved by his society and esteemed by the public." He was disabled by paralysis in 1770, and a colleague was settled in 1772. Mr. Barnard died Augusts, 1776. The colleague just referred to was Mr. Asa Dunbar. There had been a division of feeling in the choice of a colleague, some desiring Mr. Barnard's son, Thomas Barnard, Jr., to be invited to take the place, while a bare majority were for Mr. Dunbar. The organization of the North Church, with Mr. Thomas Barnard, Jr., for its minister, was the result of the disagreement. But the parting between the brethren who went out and those who stayed behind was friendly, and characterized by an affectionate reluctance to take the decisive step, and by a generous surrender of some of the vessels and sacred things belonging to the church, because they had come to it by gift from those who were now departing or from members of their families. Rev. Asa Dunbar was born in Bridgewater May 26, 1745, graduated at Harvard College in 1767, and ordained in Salem July, 22, 1772. His health before long became broken, and compelled him first to seek its restoration in rest, and finally to resign his office, which he did April 23, 1779, his society consenting with reluctance, and not until convinced that it was a necessity. Honorable and delicate testimonials of the mutual affection and confidence subsisting between the pastor and people were exchanged at parting. Mr. Dunbar studied law after leaving his ministry in Salem, and settled in Keene, N. H., where he practiced his profession and lived greatly respected till June 22, 1787, the time of his death. He appears to have lived in Weston before coming to Salem ; he married there Mary Jones, in 1772, and had a child born there in 1776. After leaving Salem, and before settling in Keene, he probably lived in Harvard for a time, as he had children born there in 1780 and 1781. Mr. Bentley, a competent judge, and not given to unmeaning praise, characterized him as a man of genius. Rev. John Prince, who succeeded Mr. Dunbar, and whose ministry covered a period of fifty-seven years - for forty -five of which he had no assistance - was born in Boston July 22, 1751, graduated at Harvard College in 1776, and ordained minister of the First Church in Salem November 10, 1779.^ Dr. Prince was a faithful and devoted minister and lived in the sincere affection and respect of his people during his long pastorate. But he had greater fame as a devotee of natural science and an ardent j^hilosophical investigator than as a preacher. His parishioner, the late Hon. Daniel A. White, says of him that " he possessed the spirit of a true philosopher and a true Christian, and was alike distinguished for his mechanical ingenuity, his attainments in natural, in theological and general

1 The ministry of Dr. Prince has had no parallel for length in Salem, except in that of Rev. Dr. Emerson, of the South Church, which extended over more than sixty-seven years, though for the first nine and the last thirty-two of the years of his ministry he was associated witli colleagues, and for many years before his death he performed almost no professional duties.

learning, and for his various genius and taste, his ardent love of nature and of art, his single-heartedness and truly Christian temper, and for his amiable and generous disposition, especially as manifested in the gratuitous diffusion of his scientific discoveries and improvements, and in imparting his rare knowledge at all times for the gratification and entertainment of others. His character will long be remembered with sincere admiration." He bequeathed to his society a library of nearly four hundred and fifty volumes. He was an honored member of various societies organized for the study of science, art and history, and received the degree of Doctor of Laws from Brown University. His death took place on June 7, 1836.

During the ministry of Dr. Prince the parish received valuable legacies from Charles Henry Orne, a merchant, and from Miss Mehitable Higginson, a descendant in the sixth generation from the first minister, and widely known as " a teacher of successive generations of children," and " a blessing to the church and the town." More recently the permanent funds of the society were increased by a liberal bequest from Hannah Haraden Ropes, and in 1867 amounted to about ten thousand five hundred dollars. In the year 1817 the society became incorporated as the First Congregational Society in Salem.

In 1824 Mr. Charles W. TJpham was ordained as a colleague pastor with Dr. Prince. He was born in St. John, New Brunswick, May 4, 1802, graduated from Harvard College in 1821, and from the Divinity School in Cambridge in 1824. He was ordained in Salem the same year, December 8th, and filled a ministry of twenty years, when impaired health caused him to resign, and he closed his ministry in December, 1844. Mr. Upham was held in high esteem as an acceptable preacher and a man of scholarly attainments. He received, on retiring from his ministry, substantial tokens of the generous ai^preciation of the people whom he had served, and which he acknowledged with a warm recognition. He died in Salem June, 15, 1875, more than thirty years after his ministry ended, having filled in the course of that time several important civil and political ofiices. He was mayor of Salem in 1852; elected to both Houses of the Legislature of the State at different times, and president of the Senate in 1857-58; member of the National House of Representativs in 1853-55 ; and of the State Convention of Massachusetts in 1853. In various sermons and addresses he sketched and illustrated the history of the Salem Church, and contributed for publication much historical and biographical material, relating to the men and times of early New England. During his ministry he published a small work upon the " Logos, " another upon " Prophecy as an Evidence of Christianity ; " " Lectures upon Witchcraft," which, in 1867, he expanded into an elaborate work of two volumes of nearly one thousand duodecimo pages. " A Life of Sir Henry Vane," in Sparks' American Biography, was from his pen. In 1856 he wrote the "Life, Letters and Public Services of John Charles Fremont," one of the Presidential candidates of that year. His last published literary work was a " Memoir of Timothy Pickering," in three volumes. He edited the Christian Register in 1845-46, and was a frequent contributor to periodical publications, both religious and secular.

Rev. Thomas Treadwell Stone was called to the vacant pastorship in June, 1846, and on the 12th of July following was installed in that office, with the simplicity of form observed in the primitive Salem Church, the entire service being carried on and completed by the congregation through its appointed representative and the pastor -elect. Mr. Stone was born in Waterford, Me., February 9, 1801, and graduated at Bowdoin College in 1820. He was ordained in Andover, Me., September 8, 1824, and continued to be pastor of that church till September, 1830, when he became preceptor of Bridgton Academy. After two years he resumed the ministry, and was settled in East Machias May 15, 1833. The anti-slavery agitation which came to its crisis after a quarter of a century in civil war in 1861, and which had been long straining threateningly the civil institutions and the political integrity of the nation, had also deeply disturbed the peace of a large proportion of the churches of the free States. Some ministers caused discontent in their folds by preaching upon the country's responsibility and duty in regard to the institution of slavery, some gave equal offense by wholly refraining from the theme, and still others displeased their hearers by what they said or their manner of saying it. The public feeling was extremely sensitive. The cotigregations were divided in sentiment. Expressions used in the pulpit, which in ordinary times might not have produced a ripple of commotion, in the inflammable state of popular feeling then existing, broke friendships, and sundered in many instances the bond that held pastor and church together. Mr. Stone, incapable of giving offense by any breach of Christian charity or courtesy, yet felt himself constrained to utter an earnest testimony against slavery as subversive of the plainest principles of justice and humanity, and as equally condemned by the fundamental teachings and the essential spirit of Christianity. While his personal and professional character was unassailable and unimpeached, as it respected the purity and disinterestedness of his motives and the singleness of mind and the high ability with which he discharged the duties of the ministerial office, some of his society became dissatisfied, and he was dismissed in February, 1852. He was afterwards settled in Bolton, and is now passing a serene and studious old age, dividing his time between his home in Bolton and the homes of his children.

January 6, 1863, the vacancy caused by the dismission of Dr. Stone was filled by the installation of Rev. George Ware Briggs. Mr. Briggs was born at

Little Compton, R. I., April 8, 1810, graduated from Brown University in 1825, and from the Divinity School at Cambridge in 1834, and was ordained in Fall River September 24, 1834, and installed in Plymouth, January 3, 1838, as colleague pastor with Rev. James Kendall, D. D. Dr. Briggs resigned his ministry in Salem April 1, 1867, and the same year was settled over the Third Congregational Society in Cambridge (Canibridgeport), where he still ministers, his society having refused not long since to accept his resignation. During Dr. Briggs' ministry in Salem the " irrepressible conflict " between slavery and freedom reached the stage of open war, and the attempted secession of the slave States brought the conflict to a termination in the emancipation of the slaves, the victory of the northern armies and the restoration of peace between the North and the South. Dr. Briggs was a strenuous and able champion of the cause of freedom and of the maintenance of the nation's integrity during the war.

Rev. James T. Hewes succeeded Dr. Briggs, September 27, 1868. Mr. Hewes was born in Saco, Me., March 23, 1836 ; was ordained in South. Boston, February 19, 1862 ; resigned June 4, 1864 ; settled over the Second Unitarian Pari.sh, in Portland, Me., June 23, 1864. He resigned his Salem charge August 31, 1875. With health already impaired before leaving Salem, he was installed in Fitchburg September 26, 1875. After a ministry there of five years, seriously interrupted by ill health, he resigned, sincerely respected and beloved by his society, and after a year and a half spent in California, removed to Cambridge, where he died November 21, 1882.

Rev. Fielder Israel, now in pastoral charge of the First Church, was installed March 8, 1877. He was born in Baltimore, Md., June 29, 1825, was in the Methodist ministry for some years, and later had been pastor of the Unitarian Church in Wilmington, Del., and of that in Taunton, Mass., before his settlement in Salem.

The First Church has occupied successively four houses of worship on or near the same spot, Essex, corner of Washington Street. The first is still standing - so much of it as to make its size, shape and general aspect visible and certain. The main timbers of its frame are preserved and are in their original places, the clothing of the skeleton only - that is, the boarding and plaster - having been from time to time renewed. "An unfinished building of one story," says Rev. Mr. Upham, "was temporarily used at the beginning for the purposes of the congregation." Houses had been provided at once, by order of the company in London, for dwellings for the two ministers, - Rev. Mr. Higginson's "directly south of and about fifty feet distant from the eastern part of the site of the present meeting-house" (ground covered at present by the southeastern corner of the Asiatic Block, now the rear room of the Salem Savings Bank, in which the corporation and its trustees hold their meetings).

Mr. Skelton's house was farther south and to the east, on the southern side of the present Front Street. Neither of these two ministers lived to preach in the first meeting-house, which was contracted for in 1634, the year of Mr. Skelton's death, and which stood, it will be recalled, quite near the sites of their dwellings as just given. Mr. Norton was the builder of that first meeting-house. The trees for it were not felled till the beginning of 1635. and the house was erected the summer after. Its dimensions were twenty feet in length by seventeen feet in width, and twelve feet in the height of the posts. A gallery extended across the northern end, or side, whose front supporting beam rests now in its original position, the floor of the gallery rising towards the rear by a sharp pitch. The main floor of the house is supposed to have been of clay. The door opened on Essex Street when the building stood on its original foundation ; the gallery ran across the same end ; the preacher's place - and the pulpit's, when one was built - was ojjposite, that is, on the southern end. The windows were not glazed till 1637. In 1639 the house was elongated southward by more than its original length, viz. : twenty-five feet. When a new house of worship was to be built, in 1670, the town voted to appropriate the old house to the town's use for a school-house and watch-house. In the course of the next ninety years it was put to various uses by the town. It was in 1760, it is probable, that it was sold to Thorndike Proctor, and by him removed to a spot now in the field a few rods south of Boston Street, near the foot of Gallows (or Witch) Hill, a public road at that time running past it, and there it was occupied as a tavern, after which it stood awhile as a neglected and nearly empty stable and disused store-house. In 1864 it was presented to the Essex Institute by Mrs. David Nichols, its owner at the time, and removed to the rear of Plummer Hall, where it now stands restored to its primitive form by the liberality of the late Francis Peabody, Esq., then president of the Essex Institute, in such a way that the original parts and the renewed portions, respectively, are easily to be distinguished from each other. The second meeting-house was built in 1670, on the western side of the site of the first. It was sixty feet long on Essex Street, fifty feet wide and twenty feet stud; "cost one thousand pounds," says Rev. Mr. Upham, " had galleries, and was called by Cotton Mather ' the great and spacious meetinghouse.' " This house served the congregation nearly sixty years. In 1718 it was found to have become so decrepit as not to be worthy of repairing, and it was voted to build a new one to take its place on the same ground.

This third meeting-house was seventy-two feet long on Essex Street, and fifty feet wide, with two tiers of gallery and a spire. " The steeple," says Mr. Upham, " was probably like that still preserved in the venerable meeting-house of the First Church of Hingham, built in 1681, rising directly over the centre of the roof, the bell-rope coming down to the broad aisle, half-way between the pulpit and the main entrance." Great changes were afterwards made in the interior arrangement and in the external appearance of the building. A picture of it, as it appeared in its latest form, may be seen among the collections of the Essex Institute, and is also preserved in the appendix to the sermon preached by Rev. Mr. Upham at the dedication of the church edifice at present occupied by the society. The old house was taken down in 1826, and the new was built and dedicated November 16th of the same year. There are a few still living who remember the former, with its three tiers of windows, its tower and spire on its western end, and its front entrance upon its Essex Street side.

The meeting-house built in 1826, and now in use, was materially changed in appearance both within and without in 1875. Without, it was originally a plain brick structure, cruciform in general outline, the central and main portion, that containing the auditorium, being nearly square, and in appearance much the same as now on its northern front ; high porches projecting from the middle of the eastern and western sides made the arms of the cross ; the building stood above a lower story devoted to business purposes, - stores, etc., as now. On the Essex Street side of either porch were doors of entrance to the auditorium and the gallery; the ascent from the pavement to the entrances was made by a short flight of steps, an iron fence with gates inclosing the recesses between the street and the steps. Within, a gallery extended along the Essex Street front, in which was the choir and organ, and some space for sittings besides; on the opposite, the southern side, was the rather high pulpit. In 1867 considerable changes were made from its first interior appearance; a smaller organ v.'as substituted for the one which had been in use, and was placed with the choir, in an alcove or gallery, within the upper part of the eastern porch ; the front gallery was removed, and appropriate inscriptions were placed upon the northern wall, against which it had stood. In 1875 the whole interior was changed to its present form, the pulpit or preacher's desk being carried to the western side, and a large new organ built in its rear. At the same time the two porches upon the eastern and western sides were replaced by extended additions on those sides reaching the entire length of the building, providing not only stairways of access to the audience-room, but rooms adjoining for the minister's use and his library, for the Sunday-school library and for other convenient purposes.

Society of Friends. - We now turn back to find and trace the offshoots from this parent stem of ecclesiastical growth in the Salem settlement. The earliest of these was a gathering of Quakers. Mention is made of the appearance of these people in Salem first in 1656 or '57, only about ten years after George Fox began his itineracy and public preaching in

England. The peculiar tenets and practices of the Quakers exhibit one of the numerous phases taken on by the new and freer spirit to which the Reformation of the sixteenth century had given birth. It was an emancipation from bondage to legalism, ecclesiasticism and hierarchies. It was usually characterized by more or less spiritual exaltation and religious enthusiasm, [n some sanguine, imaginative and emotional temperaments, this new spirit burst forth, like new wine from old bottles, into effervescent prophesyings and extravagant claims of illumination. Sincere and pure in motive as most of these people were, they were yet protestants of the protestants, and in many instances boldly arraigned the existing churches as needing a new baptism of the Spirit; as leaning without warrant wholly on the letter of the Bible. They affirmed that each human soul might have its own immediate communication with God, its own interpretation of Christ, and its own revelation of truth, not to be superseded by any external authority. Very innocent and even commendable affirmations these would perhaps be pronounced to-day; and were Endicott, Higginson and Wilson here now, they would, it is likely, assent to them ; while we who are to-day sitting complacently in judgment upon their conduct and upon that of the Southwicks and Maules, if we had been among them in their time, should have been Quakers and denouncers of Quakers in just about the same numerical proportions as they were. We need not be unjust to those who fined, sold and hanged Quakers, in order to do justice to the Quakers. The members of the churches of Salem and Boston could not know just the nature, conditions and the probable outcome of the problem which they had to deal with in Quakerism in 1656, as we now know it, viewing it in the light of history. When they first heard announced the peculiar views of these people, they recognized in them something like and yet unlike the teachings of Mrs. Hutchinson and of the Anabaptists, which they deprecated with genuine dread. To what would the new doctrines disseminated by these preachers, of which they had some not reassuring reports from England, lead, and where would they end? Did the preachers themselves know ? Or were they on a drift whose tendency they were quite unable to forecast? Now it is but common-place wisdom to say that it was not right to judge the whole body or the great majority by the vagaries of a few unbalanced spirits. But the judgment had to be made then and there, by the contemporaries of Robinson, Stevenson and Mary Dyer, and they could not tell at once who were the typical disciples of the new school and who were the exceptional zealots whose ways would be eventually repudiated by the majority, - nor indeed whether the few might not yet become the majority, which was what they feared. They could not tell, nobody could, to what pitch this excitement might rise. Alarming possibilities loomed up to their apprehen- give imaginations. The ways and doctrines of these Quakers appeared to them to lead out to the unfenced wilderness of antinoniianism [no-law-ism] ; so their propagators were honestly, if mistakenly, held to be dangerous to the security of the new communities struggling to set up here law and order in commonwealth and church. The latter were contending with teachings and influences sincerely believed to be disorganizing and hostile to the peace, if not to the existence, of the newly-planted colony. It is asking too much to require that magistrates and ministers, church-members and citizens, in the infancy of a great and critical experiment in the conduct of civil and ecclesiasticalafFairs, acting under circumstances of frequent perplexity and serious embarrassment making their own precedents as they went, and daily treading paths of uncertain ending, should have been exempt from the limitations of their age, and should have made the discovery, at once and on the spot, that the extreme of tolerance towards dissent and contradiction was a discreet and safe policy, to be fearlessly followed out in practice without any restrictions and under whatever provocation - a discovery which, after two hundred years of social progress, hardly commands an unqualified and universal acceptance. It would be disingenuous not to allow, however, that personal feelings, wounded pride and narrow and bitter prejudices doubtless mingled with considerations of public policy, however unconsciously, in promoting the persecution of the Quakers, Persecutors and persecuted were alike human. Grant that the doctrines of the Quakers had much truth to justify their earnest proclamation. They had too often, as uttered, the implication, if not the tone, of the Pharisee's "I am holier than thou," to the members of the New England Churches. Their authors were not sparing in the terms of self-humiliation, it is true, and this made the assumption of superior insight, and nearer communion with God, the more irritating and offensive. The very truths and half-truths that were couched in many of the allegations made against the Christianity of the day, - allegations of undue devotion to letter and form, and of lack of true religious experience and life, which, if they had come from brethren within the church, or from supposed friends, might have been welcomed by the more spiritually-minded and conscientious of the fold, - were not to be borne when regarded as the fiilse accusations of meddlesome, censorious and aggressive pretenders to superior piety. The cruelties visited upon the Quakers were simply hijrrible, almost beyond belief. Yet we may not flatter ourselves that it is because we are so much better than our fathers that we are to-day unanimous in this verdict. It is, that we are nearly a quarter of a millenium later than the Puritans of 1656, and that between their time and ours a good deal has been learned. As to the aggravated sufferings to which the Quakers were subjected, however, this should be said : that in an age when all pains and penalties for crime were immeasurably heavier and more cruel than now, if the Quakers must suffer punishment at all, the punishments inflicted upon them were not unusual, and therefore were such as should have been expected: fines, whippings, public disgrace, imprisonment, enslavement,^ banishment and death. And furthermore it should be mentioned, though not as alleviating in the least the responsibility for the harsh treatment visited upon the Quakers, that some who suffered seemed rather to court martyrdom than to shrink from it. The disturbances growing out of the visits of Quakers to the places of public worship appear to have been less numerous and less violent in Salem than in some other places. As has been already mentioned, a Mrs. Oliver had, in Mrs. Hutchinson's time, and again afterwards, claimed in the open congregation the right to partake of the communion, though not a member of the church ; had denied the right of the church or the magistrates to prevent her ; and had suffered a brief imprisonment for the first offense, and was " publicly disgraced " after the second- One Christopher Holder, a Quaker, after being banished, returned and spoke a few words in the meeting here, September 21, 1657, " after the priest had done," but "was hauled back by the hair of his head, and a glove and a handkerchief were thrust into his mouth." On the Monday he was sent to Boston, received thirty stripes and was imprisoned nine weeks. Samuel Shattock, for trying to prevent the stopping of Holder's mouth, was carried to Boston and imprisoned there. Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick, members of the church in Salem, for entertaining Holder and another of his sect, were sent to Boston and imprisoned. Some twenty persons are named by Felt [Annals] jis having been among the persons punished, or indicted for attending a Quaker Meeting at Nicholas Phelps'. So serious was the apprehension of evil to the churches from this source, that when the covenant was "renewed," soon after the Rev. John Higginson's settlement, a special clause of warning against the leaven of the doctrine of the Quakers was added at the end, as has been noted already.

The Quakers in Salem had their meetings at first in private houses. Their first meeting-house stood on the south side of Essex Street, on the space between the houses numbered at present 373 and 377, and is said to have been built by Thomas Maule, in 1688. Maule had some years before been warned, as a Quaker, to quit the town, and two citizens, Samuel Robinson and Samuel Shadocke,had been fined twenty shillings each for "entertaining" him in 1669. In 1716 Maule bought the meeting-house he had built in 1688, for twenty-five pounds, the society having then built their second meeting-house, a plain building, as all Quaker meeting-houses are, on the present site of

1 Mr. Bentley mentioned that in 1659 "the heads of a family belonging to Salem were ordered to be sold." If, as is probable, the reference is to Duniel and Provided Southwick, son and daughter of Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick, the order was not carried into effect.

the Quaker burying-ground, at the corner of Essex and North Pine Streets, the latter street not having been opened. This second meeting-house is remembered by the older citizens of Salem, having been removed only about fifty-five years ago, that is in 1832.^ The brick meeting-house, on the corner of Warren and South Pine Streets, now occupied by the society, was built in 1832, upon land given for the purpose by a friend, indeed, though not a Friend by sectarian designation, George S. Johonnot.

A difference as to discipline or doctrine, which arose among the New England Quakers towards the end of the first quarter of this century, led to earnest and protracted controversy, and finally to a practical division of the body into two sections, in 1843, sometimes popularly designated as " Gurneyites and Wilburites," from their adhesion, respectively, to John James Gurney, of England, and John Wilbur, of Rhode Island ; each section claiming to be logically and spiritually in historical line with the founders of the sect. The latter conceived that the former " did not allow so full an agency to the Holy Spirit on the mind and heart as the primitive Friends did." The separation took effect in this region, at the New England Yearly Meeting, in June, 1845 ; and again at the Quarterly Meeting in August, and at the Monthly Meeting in September following, was ratified by the followers of the two representative men above named, and the two sections fell irreconcilably apart. The majority of the society in Salem held with Gurney, and those of the adverse views put up a small meeting-house at the corner of Essex and North Pine Streets, in 1847, which is now standing on the same spot, having been changed into a dwelling-house.

Though the Quakers have no fixed and salaried local ministers, the following persons are named in the " Historical Sketch of Salem," by Messrs. Osgood and Batchelder, as being " among the ministers acknowledged and recorded as such, from time to time, by the Salem Monthly Meeting of Friends (comprising the meetings of Salem and Lynn) : Micajah Collins, Mary Newhall, Moses H. Bedee, Avis Keene, Elizabeth Breed, Jane Mansfield, Benjamin H. Jones, William O. Newhall, Abigail Bedee, Sophronia Page, Henry Chase, Hannah Hozier, Lydia Dean, Mary Chase, Daniel Page and Ruth Page." No records of the minority meeting in the house by the burial-ground, are known to have been preserved. Its numbers, not large at first, gradually diminished till the society became extinct. Among those who upheld that meeting, and were identified with it as ministers or well-known supporters, are remembered Nathan Page, David Buffura, Lois (Southwick) Ives and George F. Reed. Current rumor used to say that the

1 The frame of it is now standing in Peabody, on tliii Lynnfield road, having been purchased by the late Mr. Samuel Brown, taken down by him and set up again for a barn near his dwelling-house. An addition has been put to it, but its original size and form are easily to be made out.

last-named, a fine scholar and an able teacher, a member of the class of 1831 in Harvard College,'* remarkable as a linguist, in character simple and guileless as a child, was sometimes, in the last days of the society, the only attendant at the meeting-house, and that then he sat there alone in silent worship and meditation what time the Spirit detained him.

In 1671 the inhabitants of "the farms," or "Salem Village," as the lands now lying about " Danvers' Centre" were then called, regarding themselves as entitled by their numbers and their remoteness from the Salem Church to a nearer place of worship and the full services of a minister, began to hold religious services among themselves on the Lord's day, and constituted a church, the parent church assenting and regarding this church and congregation as a branch of itself. Rev. James Bailey was the first minister, settled in October, 1671, and Rev. George Burroughs, of unhappy memory (as a victim of the witchcraft madness), succeeded him, November 25, 1680. On the 10th of November, 1689, this church was formally separated from the mother church at Salem, and on the 15th of that month Samuel Parris was ordained its pastor.

Marblehead, taken from Salem, was incorporated in 1649, but no church was gathered there till 1684; meantime such of its people as had had or desired church fellowship continued to find it in connection with the church in Salem. On the other side of Bass River, in what is now Beverly, public worship was established in 1657, and Rev. John Hale was settled as the first minister in 1667. In 1713 a second church was formed in that part of Danvers, then called the - lower parish, or " middle precinct," afterwards South Danvers, now Peabody.

East Church. - The third church formed within the present territorial limits of Salem, regarding the Quaker " Meeting " as the second, was that commonly known by the title of the East Church. But as Quaker " meetings " were not held worthy to be counted as "churches" (members of Congregational Churches being judges), and as the Quakers themselves adopted another name for their assembly, this church styled itself the "Second " Church. It will be remembered that during the colleagueship of Mr. Nicholet with Rev. John Higginson (1672-76), efforts were made to establish a meeting, and that a meetinghouse was partly built in the east part of the town, on the northeast border of the common. With the departure of Mr. Nicholet, the division in the society was virtually healed, and the meeting-house was not completed ; but the idea of a church in that quarter did not wholly die out of the minds of the residents in those parts. When a committee of the First Parish reported " reasons for building a meeting-house " for the use of that parish early in the last century, it un-

2 Mr. Reed completed his college course, and had a part assigned him for commencement, but neglected to prepare for it, and did not take his degree.

designedly gave strength to the project long entertained by the Eastern District of a separation from the parent church, and of building a meeting-house in the midst of the population to be accommodated thereabouts. As quoted by Dr. Flint in his sermon on leaving the old East Church, in 1846, this committee's report alleged that "the house [of the First Church] was not big enough to hold the people, and, for want of room, many of the eastern end of the town, and many others on other accounts, stayed away from public worship ; and a great many, under pretence of being of the Church of England, went to Marblehead in boats, [so] that our harbor appeared more like a day of frolicking than anything else." The First Church resisted separation as long as it could, and more than hinted in its acquiescence at the last that the "proceedings of some of the said brethren" had been "irregular" and "contrary to good order;" but seeing a meeting-house already built, and knowing that a minister was selected and ready to be ordained, it finally, in 1718, made a virtue of necessity, ceased from further opposition, and gave the Second Church its benediction at parting.

The year 1718 was an eA'entful year to the First Church, made so by its having recently lost by death, both within three weeks, its two ministers (Rev. Mr. Noyes and Eev. Mr. Curwin), by the settling of another (Eev. Samuel Fisk), by the erection of a large, new church building for its own use, and by the completing of the new East Church building for the people living in that section, and the organization of a separate church and congregation there, over « which Rev. Robert Stanton was ordained the minister on the 8th of April, 1719. The East Society's meeting-house was situated half a mile to the east of the First Church, on Essex Street, at the corner of what was then Grafton's Lane (now Hardy Street). In the sermon of Dr. Flint, just above quoted, it is thus described, - " The house was in dimensions originally forty by sixty feet, and what has been called tunnel-shaped, the belfry and spire ascending from the centre of the roof." In 1761 this meeting-house was new sashed and glazed ; iu 1766 clap-boarded ; in 1770, " there not being room to accommodate the congregation," it was voted to enlarge it, which was done the following year by dividing it in the centre, carrying the western half fourteen feet farther west, and covering in this additional space. The seams, showing the lines of junction between the old part and the new, were visible in the plaster of the ceiling till the house was abandoned, in 1846. At the time of the enlargement a new steeple was built at the western end, and a porch was added at the eastern end. In 1846 the present church edifice was built and occupied.

The birth-place of Rev. Robert Stanton, the first minister of the East Church, is not known. Mr. Felt gives 1692 as the year of his birth. He graduated at Harvard College in 1712, and died May 30, 1727. after a ministry of eight years. Dr.

Flint, the fourth in the line of his successors, inters that his ministry was peaceful and happy, from the fact that nothing to the contrary has been recorded, and that his early death was regretted alike by hia people and the community at large. Mr. William Jennison was ordained the year following Mr. Stanton's death ; that is, in 1728, May 2d. He was born in Watertown in 1705, and died in the same town in April, 1750, having been dismissed from the East Church Sept. 13, 1736. He graduated at Harvard College in 1724. His letter of resignation is pathetic in its humility. A disaffection of his society towards him had become general, the cause of which is not now known. " Honored and Beloved," he wrote, "I esteem myself very unhappy that I have fallen under your displeasure. Glad would I be, if it lay in my power to fulfill the ministry I have received among you, [so] as to approve myself to God and to the consciences of all of us ; but when I consider the great and long uneasiness and dissatisfaction you have labored under (for which I am heartily sorry), I despair of being re-instated in your love and afiection, so as to answer the great ends of the sacred office among you. I am therefore willing to accept a dismission from the sacred office among you, which I write with fear and trembling, not knowing at present what will become of me and mine; but earnestly trusting to your favor and kindness towards us under the difficulties of my situation, and which you have encouraged me to hope for, upon my being freely and willingly dismissed. I heartily wish the best of blessings to your dear church and flock. ..."

The long ministry of Rev. James Diman followed that of Mr. Jennison. Mr. DJman was born on Long Island, N. Y., Nov. 29, 1707, graduated at Harvard College in 1730, was librarian of the college two years, was ordained in Salem May 11, 1737, and died Oct. 8, 1788. His ministry was peaceful for the most part, and so successful that an enlargement of the meeting-house was required in his day and was made. Towards the end of his pastorate, however, his society became desirous of a colleague. A large portion of the peojjle had fallen out of sympathy with their minister's opinions and teachings, which were rigidly Calvinistic, and, in this, at variance with their own. These divergencies led at length to an interruption of harmony; feelings of personal coldness and alienation set in. After a reluctant assent to the expressed wishes of the society for a colleague, in 1783, and the settlement, the same year, of one who held theological views not in accord with his own, the senior minister manifested an increasing estrangement and withdrawal from his society. Mr. Diman is described as " of grave aspect, invested with the imposing dignity - rather stern and awe-inspiring - peculiar to the ministers of the age of huge wigs, which were a symbol of the clerical authority and the orthodox theology of the day."

widely-known scholar, independent thinker, political writer and vigorous preacher, William Bentley, who " dispensed at once with the wig and creed of which it had been so long the symbol." Mr. Bentley was born in Boston June 22, 1759, graduated at Harvard College in 1777, was three years tutor there, ordained in Salem Sept. 24, 1783, died Dec. 19, 1819, the discourse at his funeral being preached by Professor Edward Everett, then connected with the college at Cambridge. The beginning of Mr. Bentley's ministry marked the transfer of the East Church from apparent allegiance to the theology of the Westminster Assembly to that of a liberalism not yet defined, but which later took the name of Unitarian. It cannot be said that the new minister brought about the change, since we have seen that the people of that church, in choosing a minister, showed a preference for one of a different type from that of their senior pastor, even while the latter was yet preaching to them - they having already departed from the doctrinal faith upheld by him. This more liberal theology, which proved to be the nascent New England Unitarianism, was, to a wide extent, "in the air," in the last quarter of the last century, in Eastern Massachusetts, though not yet developed into an open and systematized confession of faith, nor exciting yet the opposition and alarm which it caused in the early years of the present century, greatly disturbing all the Congregational Churches of New England, and dividing a considerable portion of them into two polemic camps. Of the Boston clergy, a considerable number had ceased to hold to the creed of the New England founders. Some were pronounced in their disaffection and dissent; some simply refrained from teaching important parts of the creed of Calvin and the Westminster divines. Mayhew and Howard, of the West Church ; Chauncey and Clarke, of the First Church; and Lathrop, of the Second Church, who preached Mr. Bentley's ordination sermon, were well known for their liberal opinions. So were Mr. Barnard, of the North Church, and Mr. Prince of the First Church in Salem; while the pastors of two churches of the Episcopal order in Boston and Salem, - Rev. James Freeman, of the King's Chapel in Boston, a friend and classmate of Mr. Bentley, and born the same year, and Rev. Nathaniel Fisher, rector of St. Peter's in Salem - were by common repute of the same general way of thinking.

It was with men like these that Mr. Bentley was classed theologically, if, indeed, he was not more unorthodox than they; and this fact recommended him the more as an acceptable candidate to the worshippers in the East meeting-house. Chiefly on account of his political opinions, which were in accord with those of the Republicans of his day, as opposed to those of the Federalists, and on account of his frequent and strong enforcement of these opinions through the press, lie was not in close and cordial professional fellowship with his clerical brethren of the neighborhood, they being for the most part Federalists. Consequently his interchange of pulpit services with them was much more restricted than it would otherwise have been, being confined to a few. He was an ardent patriot. On the 22d of February, 1793, he delivered an oration commemorative of the birthday of George Washington to a very large assembly in the North meeting-house. Again, after the death of Washington, he was invited by the citizens of Salem to pronounce a funeral oration, which he did in the same place before a vast gathering of people. When the United States frigate "Constitution " was driven into Marblehead harbor by the British cruisers Tenedos and Endymion, on Sunday, April 3, 1814, and a messenger brought the news to the church. Dr. Bentley promptly dismissed the congregation and hastened, with many of his parishioners, to the scene of the expected attack.

Dr. Bentley was a man of broad culture, of a wide range of reading and research, and of a catholic mind. The deep and long-enduring influence which he exerted is attested by the traditions that still live among the people of Salem, showing the authority that went with his name and word. He did not write for posterity, but for his own time, caring little for fame. His fame reached beyond his immediate neighborhood and outlasted his time, not because he planned it to be so, but because of the powers of his large and many-sided personality and his wealth of resources. He had much and varied learning, had it at command, and possessed along with it that bracing, balanced, healthful "common sense" which is so wncommon. His heart was warm, his sympathies were quick, his hand was always in practice, both for giving and serving. "From all that I have learned of him," says his successor, Dr. Flint, " I have conceived of him as possessed of a vigorous and brilliant intellect, - rapid and exuberant in thought, - of great ease and fluency of speech, - untrammeled by the authority of names or systems in philosophy or theology, - interpreting the universe and the Bible fearlessly by the light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world, - the light of the soul, which is greater than the outward universe, or the mere letter of the Bible." Dr. Bentley never married. " Having no family ties to divide his cares and responsibilities with his people, he made them his family. And the affection he manifested for them he had the happiness to know was cordially reciprocated by them." Once he wrote for posterity - a " Historical Sketch of Salem," published in the " Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society" (vol. vi.).

Dr. Bentley's successor, just above quoted, was Rev. James Flint, born in Reading December 10, 1779; graduated at Harvard College in 1802; ordained over the church in Bridgewater [East Parish] October 29, 1806; installed pastor of the East Church, in Salem, September 19, 1821 ; he died March 4, 1855. He was the sole minister of the East Church for thirty years, till 1851, when Eev. Dexter Clapp became his colleague. The period of Dr. Flint's ministry was one of steady prosperity for the society. In 1846 the beautiful brick church, with front of free stone, was built on what is now Washington Square (then Brown Street), over against the southwest angle of the common. Dr. Flint was a man of scholarly tastes, had a poetic temperament, and his graceful and vivid writing, combined with an animated and warm delivery of his discourses, made him an attractive preacher, welcomed always in the pulpits of his denomination, as his presence was acceptable also on those more public occasions which brought him before his fellowcitizens at large.

Rev. Dexter Clapp, installed as colleague with Dr. Flint December 17, 1851, was born July 15, 1816, in Easthampton, Mass. ; graduated at Amherst College, 1839, and at the Cambridge Divinity School in 1842; was ordained pastor of the Unitarian Church in Savannah, Ga., November 26, 1843, and continued in the ministry there for a few years, after which he was settled over the Second Church in Roxbury (First in West Roxbury) five years. He was minister of the East Church twelve years, till February, 1864, when he resigned on account of ill-health. He died July 26, 1868. During his ministry in Salem his society was united and strong. It was with sincere regret that his resignation was accepted. He was a spiritually-minded man, an earnest i^reacher, and a high ideal of ministerial duty miide both his pulpit and his pastoral services acceptable and effective.

A few months after his resignation Rev. Samuel C. Beane was called by the society to succeed him. Mr. Beane was born December 19, 1835, in Candia, N. H.; graduated at Dartmouth College in 1858, and from the Cambridge Divinity School in 1861 ; ordained in Chicopee, Mass., January 15, 1862; installed in Salem January 1, 1865; resigned January 1, 1878; installed in Concord, N. H., January 9,1878; resigned May 10, 1885, since which time he has been a missionary for Northern New England, appointed by the American Unitarian Association. Rev. George H. Hosmer was installed pastor of the East Church January 1, 1879, and resigned January 1, 1886. He was born in Buffalo, N. Y., May 14, 1839; graduated at the Meadville Theological School, 1866 ; ordained as an evangelist in 1867, and after preaching in Deerfield, Mass., some time, was installed in Bridgewater December ] 7, 1868, where he remained ten years. He was installed in Neponset February 20, 1887. Rev. William H. Ramsey, the present minister, was ordained October 15, 1886.

Episcopal. - *Si!. Pefer's. - The great majority of the first settlers of Salem brought with them no love of Episcopacy from the Old World home. John Lyford, the well-known disturber of the peace of Plymouth, "came hither also,'" as an associate of Roger Conaut, and held geryices for a time, before Endicott and his company came, according to the usages of the English Church. He was here but a short time, however, as he went to Virginia in 1627, and died there the same year. Of Endicott's company there were a few - at least the two brothers Brown, John and Samuel - who did not fail in loyalty to the Church of England. They were leading men and councillors. When they saw in the organization of the First Church that a new departure, amounting to a virtual secession from the National Church, was determined on, they, with some others of like mind, set up a separate worship after the order of the Book of Common Prayer. When Governor Endicott summoned them to answer for their schismatic attitude towards the Salem Church, they persisted, " and therefore, finding those two brothers to be of high spirits and their speeches and practices tending to mutiny and faction, the Governor told them that New England was no place for such as they, and therefore he sent them both back to England at the return of the shijis the same year." "This proceeding," says Palfrey, " had first raised, and for the present issue had decided, a question of vast magnitude. The right of the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay to exclude at their pleasure dangerous or disagreeable persons from their domain they never regarded as questionable, any more than a householder doubts his right to determine who shall be the inmates of his house." ^ The experiment of Episcopal worship was not tried again with a view to permanency for a long time. To Mr. George R. Curwen's valuable notes, which I am kindly permitted to use, I am indebted for many interesting and important facts in the history of St. Peter's Church. He says that in 1727 Rev. George Pigot, then rector of St. Michael's, in Marblehead, delivered monthly lectures and administered rites of the English Church in Salem, from which he infers that there was an organized parish of that order here at that time. In 1733 a church was built on " Prison Lane" (now St. Peter's Street), and was consecrated June 25, 1734, the land on which it stood having been given in part for the purpose by Philip English and his family, a pew in the church being set apart to them as an equivalent for the rest. The gift was estimated at nineteen-tvventy-fourths of the value of the land, viz., ninety-five pounds, the other five-twentyfourths representing the estimated value of the pew, viz., twenty-five pounds. This church had forty pews and a tower upon its western end. It gave place to the present Gothic stone building in 1833, which was enlarged in 1845 and further improved not many years since by the erection of the stone chapel annexed to it. Rev. Charles Brockwell, a graduate of Cambridge, England, was the first rector, entering upon his office, says Mr. Curwen, October 8, 1738. (Mr. Felt says May 9, 1739.) November 27, 1746, he left St. Peter's, having been appointed by the Bishop of London to

King's Chapel, in Boston. He died August 20, 1755, says Felt (April 20, 1755, say Osgood & Batchelder, in sketch of Salem), at the age of tifty-nine.

Mr. Brockwell was educated at St. Catherine's Hall, Cambridge, and was appointed by the Society (in England) for the Propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts, to St. Andrew's Church, in Scituate, Mass., but " finding neither the place nor the people to answer his expectations," he removed to Salem. The officers of the Salem Church, in applying to the Society in England for a clergyman to succeed him, in 1747, testify to his faithfulness, and speak of theirs as " this infant, though flourishing church."

Rev. William McGilchrist was appointed his successor. Mr. McGilchrist was born in Glasgow, Scotland, 1703; graduated at Baliol College, Oxford, in 1731; ordained priest in 1733, and sent by the above-mentioned missionary society, in 1741, to Charleston, South Carolina. After four years' service he was obliged, by the state of his health, to return to England. Recovering from his illness, he was appointed to succeed Mr. Brockwell in Salem, and entered on the duties of his office in 1747. He died in the ministry in Salem, April 19, 1780, aged seventy-three years. His services seem not to have been quite continuous, however, through the thirty-four years intervening between his settlement and his death. The opposition to the English Church establishment had not died out. The parish was not strong, though it gradually increased until 1761, when it was found necessary to add twenty feet to the length of the church building. It was not without difficulty, however, that, in the face of popular odium and legal ban, the small congregation upheld its standard. In 1777 the revolutionary spirit was impatient and intolerant. The Legislature passed a law prohibiting the reading of the Episcopal service under heavy penalties. Later, however, the service was reinstated by the rector. From 1771 to December, 1774, Rev. Robert B. Nichols, a native of the West Indies, educated at Queen's College, Oxford, was an assistant to Mr. Mc- Gilchrist. He was afterwards a chaplain in the British army, and became still later dean of Middleham, England.

Rev. Nathaniel Fisher was the next rector. He was born in Dedham July 8, 1742. The mother of Fisher Ames, the distinguished statesman and orator, was his sister. Mr. Fisher graduated at Harvard College in 1763, taught a school in Granville, near Annapolis, Nova Scotia, under the patronage of an English missionary society, soon after the Revolutionary War began. In 1777 he went to London, and was there ordained a priest by the celebrated Dr. Robert L-iwth, Bishop of London, and was licensed on the 25th of September of that year as assistant to Rev. Mr. Wood, of Annapolis, and continued after thedeath of Mr. Wood, which occurred the following year, in charge of his mission in Annapolis and Granville, till the close of the year 1781. On his return to Massachusetts at that time he was invited to Saint Peter's Church, Salem, and entered upon his duties there, February 24, 1782. His ministry in Salem extended over a period of thirty years, and closed only with his life, on Sunday, December 20, 1812. Mr. Fisher became a man of leading influence in the Episcopal Church in Massachusetts, being active in the early years of his ministry in measures for the organization of that church in Massachusetts and parts adjacent, and was held in high respect by the clergy and laity. He was a man of independent mind and action, more than once casting a solitary vote in conventions of the Episcopal Chui'ch on important questions coming before them, when his voice alone broke the otherwise unanimous decision. He was a man of stronglymarked traits of character, "and very decided and fixed in his prejudices, which he took no pains to conceal." His demeanor, says his successor. Rev. Charles Mason, was somewhat stern, but he was a man of generous feelings and habits. In person he was strongly built and of a large frame. His constitution was vigorous, and remained firm till his death. In the preface to a volume of his sermons published several years after his death, it is observed that "to clearness of apprehension the author joined a sprightly imagination, which was exercised with care and modesty, and contributed equally to illustrate and enliven his sentiments. This, as well as the other faculties of his mind, was regulated and enlivened by a devoted study of the ancient classics, which, to the latest period of his life, he read with the ardor of a true scholar.''

" In regard to these sermons," says Rev. Mr. Mason, " it may be proper to add that while they contain earnest and impressive appeals to the heart and conscience, especially those which the author last wrote, - we find in them no clear and distinctive instruction upon the great orthodox doctrines of the church. They convey, indeed, no positive doubt in regard to any of these doctrines, but are deficient in such definite statements as would show that the writer firmly and heartily maintained them. It is possible that they may not do entire justice to their author in this respect, and that the preferences of the editor, who is supposed to be a friend who afterwards joined the ranks of the Unitarian denomination, may have insensibly biased his judgment in the selection." The person referred to as having edited the volume of sermons wasprtbably the late Joseph Story, one of thejustices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Judge Story was a devoted friend and parishioner of Mr. Fisher, and to his pen is attributed a highly appreciative obituary notice of his pastor, which appeared in the Salem Gazette of December 25, 1812.

At the time of Mr. Fisher's death the congregation worshipping in Saint Peter's Church was in a very feeble condition. The commercial misfortunes and restrictions that led the way to the War of 1812 had operated disastrously upon the town, and especially upon the

Episcopal Society. The clergy of the town, of various denominations, severally in turn, supplied the pulpit of the church through a series of Sundays succeeding Mr. Fisher's death. The ministry of Mr. Fisher was followed by that of Rev. Thomas Carlile, who first officiated as lay reader, and after ordination entered upon the duties of rector January 22, 1817. He was born in Providence, R. I., January 12, 1792, and graduated at Brown University, 1809. His ministry was eminently useful to the parish, raising it from the low condition in which he found it to a position of comparative prosperity. He resigned the rectorship October 6, 1822, and died in Providence March 28, 1824.

Rev. Henry W. Ducachet, who followed Mr. Carlile, was born February 7, 1797, in South Carolina. He was educated at Princeton, studied medicine and practiced as a physician some years in Baltimore and New York. Changing his profession for that of the ministry, he first served St. Peter's Parish, as lay reader, in 1823, and for a short time as rector, after ordination as a priest. He resigned December 5, 1825, and removed to Norfolk, Virginia.

Rev. Thomas W. Coit, the next rector, was born in New London, Conn., June 28, 1803, graduated at Yale College, 1821, was settled in Salem July 16, 1826, resigned March 22, 1829, and became rector of Christ Church, Cambridge, Mass. He died in Middletown, Conn., June 21, 1885. His ministry in Salem, though short, was very useful to the parish. He was highly esteemed in the Episcopal Church, and wrote vigorously in defense of churchmen, as against the Puritans.

The St. Peter's Parish was much disheartened when Mr. Coit left them, but entered into a correspondence with Rev. Alexander V. Griswold, bishop of the Eastern Diocese, and then rector of St. Michael's Church, in Bristol, R. I., which resulted in his coming to Salem to take the pastoral charge of St. Peter's, which he did December 24, 1829. He continued in the office till June 26, 1834, when he removed to Boston. Mr. Griswold was born in Simsbury, Conn., April 22, 1766, and died February 15, 1843. He was widely known and universally esteemed through Eastern Massachusetts for his personal virtues and his exemplary simplicity, dignity and fidelity in the responsible office to whose duties he was devoted. During the ministry of Bishop Griswold the new stone church was built, his last official act being its consecration.

Rev. John A. Vaughan was Bishop Griswold's successor. He entered upon his duties June 26. 1834. Mr. Vaughan graduated at Bowdoin College in 1815, and resigned the Salem rectorship in 1836. Rev. Charles Mason followed him, being inducted into the ministry in Salem May 31, 1837. Mr. Mason was a son of Jeremiah Mason, the eminent lawyer; was born in Portsmouth, N. H., July 25, 1812; graduated at Harvard College, 1832. During his ministry the church was enlarged by a chancel and vestry-room. The congregation increased and there was growing strength and constant union in the parish. Mr. Mason resigned May 30, 1847, and became rector of Grace Church, Boston, in which office he continued until his death, March 23, 1862.

Rev. William R. Babcock came to the vacant rectorship April 30, 1848, and resigned April 18, 1853. He was born in Westerly, R. I., March 28, 1814 ; graduated at Brown University, 1837. From Salem he removed to Natchez, Miss. Rev. George Leeds succeeded him in the St. Peter's rectorship September 4, 1853, and resigned April 8, 1860. He was born in Dorchester, Mass., October 25, 1816. Mr. Leeds removed from Salem to Philadelphia, and died there April 15, 1885.

Rev. William Rawlins Pickman was the next rector. He took charge of the parish October 7, 1860, and left it in 1835. There was a serious interruption, in the course of his ministry, to the harmony which had existed before, and the agitation did not cease while he continued in office. Rev. James O. Scripture succeeded Mr. Pickman in November, 1865. He was born June 26, 1839 ; graduated at Dartmouth College, 1860, and died August 9, 1868, having officiated in all the usual services, including the communion, at St. Peter's Church, the Sunday next preceding his death. He died sincerely mourned by his warmly attached and suddenly bereaved congregation. From May 1, 1870, to March 28, 1875, Rev. Edward M. Gushee filled the rectorship of St. Peter's, having been previously settled over St. Paul's Church in Wallingford, Conn. From Salem he removed to Cambridge, Mass., and is in charge of a church in that city. In 1872, during the ministry of Rev. Mr. Gushee, the stone chapel was erected in rear of the church. The present rector of St. Peter's, Rev. Charles Arey, D.D., commenced his services in Salem September 26, 1875. He came to Salem from St. John's Church in Buffiilo, N. Y. He was born in Wellfleet, Mass., August 22, 1822.

Tabernacle Church. - The Tabernacle Church is next in age among the churches of Salem. The causes of its origin have been already mentioned, in part, in the story of the First Church, to which the reader is referred. In 1735 the disaifection in the First Church towards Rev. Samuel Fisk, its minister, came to a crisis, as has been stated, in his exclusion from the pulpit of that church, and his withdrawal with a majority of its members : Dr. Worcester says, " three-fourths, at least, of the church and society;'' the remaining members, in their petition calling for a meeting for reorganization, assert that the late minister " was dismissed by a major part of the brethren of the church of the First Parish, qualified by law to act in that matter." Thepreacherof the first Centennial Discourse says that neither the day nor the month can be ascertained when Mr. Fisk and his friends deter- mined to establish themselves upon a separate foundation, or when they consummated their determination by any formal process. In inquiring for the birthday of this, the " Third," or Tabernacle Church, I incline to fix on May 4, 1735, as its probable date. This church conceived of itself as having had a continuous life and identity with the church of 1629. It was not till the 23d of May, 1768, that, by a formal vote, it relinquished the title of the First Church and assumed that of the Third Church. But its date of actual beginning may be assumed to be the first time it a!«sembled after its expulsion from the meetinghouse of the First Church. If the exclusion was, as the record says, on the 27ih of April, 1735, there can be no doubt that the congregation met somewhere, probably enough at the house of Joseph Orne, the next Sunday, which would be May 4, 1735. They soon began the building of a new meeting-house, which was comi>leted in 1736. It will be remembered that they first placed it too near the house of the old parish, " only twelve perches and eleven feet " from it, and that the General Court ordered it to be removed to a limit "not nearer to the other than forty perches." This house stood nearly upon the site of the Perley Block, and was completed early in 1736.

In 1744 Mr. Fisk asked for a colleague. The confidence felt at first in his leadership and in the wisdom of the step taken in separating from the mother church, had begun to wane. Some correspondence was had with that church relative to an accommodation. No agreement could be reached. Rev. Dudley Leavitt was called to be colleague with Mr. Fisk. He declined to take the office of colleague pastor, but, it was understood, might consider an invitation to become sole pastor. August 12, 1745, the congregation voted that Mr. Fisk be discharged from ecclesiastical relations with the society ; the church had taken similar action two weeks before. The way being now considered open for Mr. Leavitt's settlement, the call to hiai was renewed and accepted, and he was ordained October 23, 1745, not, however, peacefully. Mr. Fisk's friends were present at the time and place appointed in sufficient force to interrupt the public services and prevent the orderly proceedings of the ceremony. Those who had come together to settle the new minister retired from the tumultuous scene to a neighboring garden, where, under the shelter of a tree, the service of ordination took place. Mr. Leavitt died, sincerely lamented, February 7, 1762. The society prospered during his ministry. The church, says Mr. Worcester, became "more Calvinistic" under his preaching. Mr. Leavitt was born in Stratham, N. H., in 1720, and graduated at Harvard College in 1739. That his influence was marked in cahning the troubled waters of controversy, that his mind was large and his spirit catholic, and that the impression made by his labors was deep and lasting, is shown by the fact that the church which had been led by his counsels not only surrendered its claim to the title of

First Church, soon after his death, but voted to take, in affectionate commemoration of him, the title of "The Church of which Rev. Dudley Leavitt was late Pastor." It kept this name from August 2, 1762, to May 23, 1763, when it voted to assume the name of the " Third Church."

Mr. John Huntington was ordained successor of Mr. Leavitt September 28, 1763, but lived less than three years from his ordination, dying May 30, 1766, at the early age of thiry years. He was born in Norwich, Conn., in 1736, and graduated at Harvard College in 1763.