Worcester County, Massachusetts - Chapter 181: Worcester - (a?«//«h<'a'.), 1889 (part 1 of 3)

Ecclesiastical History By Charles Emery Stevens

A HISTORY of any New England town without an ecclesiastical chapter would surely be like the play of Hamlet with the part of Hamlet left out. For a city of eighty thousand inhabitants, with fifty churches and fifteen denominations, and a history covering two centuries, such a chapter ought of right to occupy a large space. But this the plan of the present work altogether forbids. Only a very condensed outline of what might well fill a volume can here be given. It must needs be a somewhat bald narration. Outline sketches admit of neither shading nor color. Under such limitations this writing must proceed.

At the outset two methods of treatment presented themselves. One was the chronological method ; the other was the topical. By the latter method all that is to be said of one denomination would be presented by itself; the topic would be exhausted before another wa.s touched. Beginning with the Trinitarian Congregationalist.s, for example, we should treat of all the churches of .that order before proceeding with the next. And although the other method may have its advantages, and, indeed, has been adopted by some writers, this, on the whole, seemed to be the preferable method. It has this important advant^e, that the origin and growth of each denomination can be viewed consecutively and apart from others. Accordingly, this method will be pursued in the present hi.9tory. Without further preface, I begin with the

Trinitarian Congregationalists - First or Old South Church. - The first permanent settlement in Worcester began on the 21st of October, 1713. Nearly fifty years before, steps had been taken towards this end and temporary settlements had been begun ; but before foot was set upon the soil a provision was made " that a good minister of God's word be placed there." This provision was first realized in the year 1719, when the Rev. Andrew Gardner was ordained as the first minister of the Gospel settled in Worcester. Before this, however, the people had been wont to assemble regularly for public worship in their dwelling-houses, and notably in that of Gershom Rice, who was the first to open his house for the purpose. Soon the dwelling-house became too strait, and in 1717 a small meeting-house of logs was built. It stood at the corner of Franklin and Green Streets, just southeast of the Common. This served its purpose until 1719, when a more spacious edifice was erected on the site thenceforward occupied by the Old South for one hundred and sixty-eight years. Meanwhile a church had been constituted - perhaps self-constituted - with Daniel Heywood and Nathaniel Moore for its first deacons. This occurred soon after the permanent settlement. The precise date of this important beginning is not known, but Whitney (" History of Worcester County ") thinks that all pr6babilities point to the year 1719. This, then, seems to have been the year when the church was organized, the meeting-house built and the first minister settled.

The ministry of Mr. Gardner was not a happy one. He was addicted to deer-hunting and practical jokes, and, naturally, was accused of remissness in the discharge of his duties. His people on their part neglected to pay his small stipend of perhaps £40, and also the " gratuity " of £60, which they had voted to give him. Dissatisfaction increased ; some left his preaching. The General Court having been appealed to in vain, an ecclesiastical council was at length convened, in September, 1721, to take the matter in hand. After long delay by the council, on the 31st of October, 1722, Mr. Gardner was dismissed from his charge. It is said his errors were more of the head than of the heart. He was generous, sometimes without regard to consequences. This instance has been preserved: "A poor parishioner having solicited aid in circumstances of distress, Mr. Gardner gave away his only pair of shoes for his relief; and, as this was done on Saturday, appeared the next day in his stockings at the desk to perform the morning service, and in the evening officiated in borrowed slippers a world too wide for his slender members." Mr. Gardner was a native of Brookline and agradu- ate of Harvard in the class of 1712. It was thought worthy of mention that, in conformity with the custom of the time, his name was placed last in the roll of his class, as indicating the relative social position of his parents. For the same reason Abraham Lincoln's name would have stood at the foot of his class had he been college bred. The subsequent history of Mr. Gardner did not improve his reputation. Installed as the first minister of Lunenburg in 1728, and dismissed in 1731 " because he was unworthy,'' he retired to a town in the Connecticut Valley, and there died at an advanced age. After a period of preaching without settlement by the Rev. Shearjashub Bourne, the Rev. Thomas White and others, on the 10th of February, 1725, a call was given to the Rev. Isaac Burr, and on the 13th of October following he was ordained as the second minister. A long and quiet ministry followed. His relations with the people were cordial, and the latter were forward and generous in his support. When the paper money of the period became depreciated they took care that his salary should not suffer. . During his ministry a memorable event was the arrival in Worce.ster, October 14, 1740, of George Whitefield, accompanied by Gov. Belcher. On the next day the famous evangelist " preached on the Common to some thousands," as he wrote in his diary. Nothing appears to show that this visit was otherwise than welcome to Mr. Burr. And yet, the forces then set in motion had their ultimate issue in his dismission. It seems the Rev. David Hall, of Sutton, "a follower of Whitefield,'' found Mr. Burr too backward in the new Whitefield movement. Though he preached repeatedly " in private houses " in Worcester with Mr. Burr's consent, yet he was moved to write down in his diary that the latter " seemed not well pleased.'' At length Mr. Burr refused his consent to further preaching by his Sutton brother, whereupon the latter was led to express the fear that the Worcester minister was " too much a stranger to the power of godliness." In truth, a Whitefield party had been formed in Worcester, and Mr. Burr was found not to be of the number. Alienation naturally arose, and the growing trouble impaired his health. So, in about four years after Whitefield's advent, a mutual council was convened, and under its advice Mr. Burr was dismissed in March, 1745. Lincoln ("History of Worcester," p. 146) says that he was the son of the Hon. Peter Burr, the father of President Burr, of Princeton College, and consequently grandfather of Aaron Burr, Vice-President of the United States. But this is an error. It appears from evidence in the probate office at Hartford, Conn., that he was the son of Thomas Burr, of that city, and therefore not of the Aaron Burr lineage. He was born in 1698, and graduated at Yale in 1717. His death occurred at Windsor, about 1751. No portraiture of his person or mind survives ; no characteristic anecdote is of record, and nothing testifies of his ministry save its continuance for a fifth of a century in a generally peaceful way. The town next made choice of Nathaniel Gardner, a graduate of Harvard in 1739; he, however, declined the call. Nearly two years elapsed before the settlement of the next minister. In this interval a covenant ' was adopted and subscribed by fifty members of the church. Doubtless there was a covenant of some sort when the church was first organized, but what it was, and how it compared with this new one, we have no means of knowing. If it was a "half-way covenant" after the fashion of that day, it must have differed materially from this one of 1746.

After Mr. Gardner many candidates were heard ; but at last the choice lay between the Rev. Thaddeus Maccarty, of Bosfon, and the Rev. Jonathan Mayhew, of Martha's Vineyard. Each was to preach four Sabbaths in succession, and on the Sabbath before the day of election both were to preach. After this competitive trial the choice by a very large majority fell on Mr. Maccarty, and Worcester missed the chance of having the famous divine of the Revolution among the number of its ministers. Mr. Maccarty was installed on the 10th of June, 1747. The sermon on the occasion was preached by himself, for which unusual step he offered ingenious reasons in the introduction. Besides the pecuniary provision for his support, a house with about two acres of land on the Common southeast from the meetinghouse was purchased for a parsonage. In 1765 this property was conveyed in fee to Mr. Maccarty by the town. Nearly fifty years after, in a suit by the Rev. Samuel Austin, D.D., in behalf of the parish, the property was recovered back from the tenant claiming under a conveyance by the executors of the deceased minister. The estate, however, was afterwards relinquished by the parish. The ministry of Mr. Maccarty was of nearly forty years' duration. In the course of it occurred the Revolutionary War, bringing severe trials ; and at the close protracted sickness kept him out of the pulpit. He lived greatly respected and died deeply lamented on the 20th of July, 1784, at the age of sixty-three years. His ministry was the longest of all which the First Church enjoyed during the first one hundred and seventy years. Mr. Maccarty was tall, slender and thin, with a black, penetrating eye, which added to his effectiveness in speaking.^

2 A faint likeness of him survives on a poorly-paiiited canvas in the possession of Mrs. Mary P. Dunn, one of bis linea! descendants. His. remains were buried in the cemetery then on the Common, at a spot just south of and very near the Soldiers' Monument. In 1848 all the gravestones in the cemetery were laid flat, each over its respective grave, and buried beneath the turf, and Mr. Maccarty's among the rest. A description of the emblems on bis headstone, together with its inscriptions, is given in Barton's " Epitiiphs." The inscriptions were copied upon a mural tablet erected in the 0!d|South by Dwight Foster (brother of Mrs. Dunn), late a justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. The tablet will have an appropriate place upon the wall of the New Old South.

" As a preacher he was solemn, loud, searching and rousing," said a contemporary clerical brother. President Johu Adams, in his early years a resident of Worcester, wrote to Dr. Bancroft that " Mr. Maccarty, though a Calvinist, was no bigot." In the course of his ministry, Mr. Maccarty published eight occasional sermons ; several others may be found in Doctor Smalley's " Worcester Pulpit." From these posterity may judge something of his doctrine, which was sound, and something of his style, which was not classical. During his sickness and after his decease a young man appeared in his pulpit whose preaching was destined to be the occasion, if not the cause, of a lasting division in the Finst Parish. Of this an account will be given under another head. During the controversy which arose, no minister was called ; then, in 1786, the Kev. Daniel Story was called, accepted the call and went on preaching, without being ordained, for about two years, when the call was re-called. It had been discovered, that he, too, entertained Arminian sentiments. Having thus received his coiigti in Worcester, Mr. Story went into Ohio as chaplain of the company which founded Marietta, the centennial of which was celebrated in 1888, a distinguished citizen of Worcester (Senator Hoar) having a leading part therein. Mr. Story was an uncle of Joseph Story, the eminent justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was born in Boston on the 29th of July, 1756, was a graduate of Dartmouth in the class of 1780 and died at Marietta in 1801.

The settlement of the next minister, Dr. Austin, in the last decade of the century, was the beginning of a new order of things. Before proceeding with its history let us look at the way of public worship in the First Church during the period then closing. As elsewhere, the principal parts of the service were praying and preaching; singing and reading the Scripture lesson were subordinate; and, indeed, this last did not become a part of the service until near the middle of the century. Under date of September 3, 1749, the church record recites that the " laudable custom was very unanimously come into by the church at one of their meetings some time before." In this matter the Worcester church was not behind others, since the custom " was not introduced into New England " until that period. Singing had been a part of the service from the beginning. At first it was congregational, primitive and rude. The minister read the first line of a psalm and the congregation sang it. Then the eldest deacon " lined " the rest, and " singing and reading went on alternately." There was neither chorister nor choir nor set tune, but each one sang to please himself. This was the "usual way," so-called. In 1726 an attempt was made to substitute the " ruleable way." A vote of the town was passed to that effect, but the deacons resisted, and the " usual way " still prevailed. The unmelodious custom was too strongly entrenched.

Forty-three years went by and a generation had died off before another attempt to change it was made. Then, in May, 1769, came a modest proposition to invite "a qualified individual" to lead. A bolder stroke followed in March, 1770, when three men were designated by name "to sit in the elders' seat and lead," and by a unanimous vote a fourth was chosen to " assist." Here was our modern quartette, so far as the old-time sense of propriety would allow. The next step was taken in 1773 by providing seats exclusively for the singers. Six years after, on the 5th of August, 1779, the town struck the final blow by adopting these votes : That the singers sit in the front seats of the front gallery ; that they be requested to take said seats and carry on the singing ; and that the psalm be not " lined." Nevertheless, on the next Sabbath the venerable eldest deacon rose and began to " line " the psalm. The singers, from their new " coign of vantage," began to sing ; the deacon raised his voice, the singers raised theirs ; it was an unequal strife, and the deacon "retired from the meeting-house in tears," This was the end of the " usual way " of singing in Worcester. From that time onward the ruleable way prevailed without opposition.

The first book in use was the " Bay Psalm Book," » as improved by President Dunster, of Harvard College. This held the ground until 1761, and was then displaced by the version of Tate and Brady, " with an Appendix of Scriptural Hymns by Dr. Watts." The exact date when this book came into use was on the 29th of November in that year. It continued in use until the settlement of Dr. Austin, and then, on the 20th of January, 1790, gave way to " Watts' Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs." The version of Sternhold and Hopkins was never used in the church in this town," says Lincoln.^ This version was the one in use under royal authority by the Church of England, and was bound up with its " Book of Common Prayer." Perhaps it was because of this that the New England churches chose to have a" Psalm Book" of their own - a book free from all complicity with an established church.

1 This most famous and rarest of books was the first one ever printed in America, Its true, ivhole and only title was " The whole booke of psalmes faithfully translated into English Metre, Whereuuto is prefixed a discourse declaring not only the lawfulnes, but also the necessity of the heavenly Ordinances of singing Scripture Psalms in tlie Chinches of Gud. Imprinted 1040." In 1C3G there were, mys Dr. Thomas Prince, " near thirty ministers " in New England who had been educated in the English universities. These divines selected out of their number "the Kev. Mr. Richard Mather, the Rev. Mr. Thomas Weld and the Rev. Mr. John Eliot," to prepare a new yereion of tlie Psalms for the use of the New England churches. The printing of the work was begun in 1639 and completed in 1640. This was the Bay Psaliu-Book." A single copy, bearing the imprint of the last-named year, is treasured in the iron safe of the American Antiquarian Society, in Worcester It is sometimes said of a very rare book that it is worth its weight in gold. In 1876 a copy of this book belonging to the estate of the late Dr. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, was sold by auction in Boston for about one thousand and fifty dollars. The Worcester copy weighs nine ounces. The pi ice paid for the Boston copy, therefore, was more than si.t times its weight in gold. 2 MS. Notes in Lib. of Antiq. Soc.

After six years of waiting the First Parish at length secured the most distinguished among all its ministers. On the 29th of September, 1790, the Eev. Samuel Austin, D.D., of New Haven, was duly installed in the vacant pulpit. His first considerable step was to clear up and reinvigorate the doctrinal basis of the church. A new creed and covenant were adopted, whereby its orthodoxy was conformed to the strictest type. All the subsequent activities of Dr. Austin had this type for their basis. He devoted himself to the investigation of theological questions. He prepared and published the first complete edition of the works of the elder Jonathan Edwards. He was one of the founders of the General Association of Massachusetts, and also of the Massachusetts Home Missionary Society. He was often called to sit in councils on difficult cases. He was a man of strong convictions and plain speech. On public affairs he preached with great freedom. His fast-day sermons were notable. Several were published. The one preached on the 23d of July, 1812, during the war, caused much agitation. He therefore published it, with this upon its title-page : " Published from the press by the desire of some who heard it and liked it ; by the desire of some who heard it and did not like it; and by the desire of others who did not hear it, but imagine they should not have liked it if they had."

At the end of twenty-five years he became president of the University of Vermont, but, because of the suit already mentioned, remained nominal pastor of the First Parish till 181S. Kesigning the college i presidency in 1821, he became pastor of a small church in Newport, R. I., once the charge of the famous divine. Dr. Samuel Hopkins. This, too, he resigned in 1825, and then returned to Worcester, preaching occasionally in Millbury. By and by the death of an adopted son, physical disease and pecuniary losses brought on mental disturbance. Like' the poet Cowper, he became a religious monomaniac. The darkness of despair settled down upon him. For some four years he remained in this state of gloom. Near the end, light at intervals broke through the cloud. He died on the 4th of December, 1830, in the seventy-first year of his age. He was a man of commanding stature, of dignified carriage, austere yet affable on near approach, and " with a smile like a sunbeam breaking through the clouds." As a preacher he was Temarkable for power and pathos, and of eminent gifts in devotional exercises. The impress of his character was deep and abiding. Of his publications, Lincoln ("History") gives a list of thirty-three, with their titles.

The successor of Dr. Austin was the Rev. Charles A. Goodrich. He was ordained as colleague pastor on the 9th of October, 1816, and became sole pastor by the formal dismission of Dr. Austin in 1818. His ministry was short but fruitful of a spiritual harvest, about eighty new confessors.being added to the church in one year. But it was a ministry full of trouble also. Beginning as a young man of twenty-six years, he found himself confronted at the outset with the opposition of a leading person both in the parish aud in the town. Though this person was not himself of the church, yet some of his family were; and the combined influence of all caused the diaflection to spread. Attempts at reconciliation were made and failed. It became evident that either the minister or the disaffected must leave. The former was too strongly intrenched to be ousted, and the latter perforce accepted the alternative. For a time they resorted to other communions while retaining connection with their own church. Presently, they sought release from this bond. Some asked for dismission and recommendation. Several were dismissed but not recommended. Councils were resorted to and countercouncils were held, with the usual results of ex parte proceedings. Each party in turn was sustained. At last a council constituted the disaffected, with others, into a new church, the history of which, under the name of the Calvinist or Central Church, will be given in its proper place. A war of pamphlets followed, able and exhaustive on both sides; and to them the reader must be remitted for further and fuller details of the unhapi>y controvei-sy. This church quarrel was the most serious that ever afflicted any church of any communion in the town. Ill health compelled Mr. Goodrich to lay down his charge on the 14th of November, 1820, and the same cause prevented him from resuming the pastoral office. For the rest of his life he devoted himself to literary pursuits. He became a maker of books; his school histories were in their day greatly in vogue, and of one more than one hundred thousand copies were printed. A list of his principal works is to be found in the "Worcester Pulpit."

The sixth pastor of tlie <-)l(l South and the next after Mr. Goodrich was the Rev. Arietius Bevil Hull. Born at Woodbridge, Conn., in 1788, graduated in 1807 at Yale, where he was a tutor for six years, he was ordained and settled at Worcester on the 22d of May, 1821. He came to his new calling with a high reputation both as a scholar and as a teacher. Ill health, however, kept him down, and after a protracted sickness he died in office on the 17th of May, 1826. His virtues as a man and a minister were celebrated by his contemporary neighbor. Dr. Nelson, in a funeral sermon. He was eminently social, simple, refined, charming in conversation and "a welcome friend to the poor." A quarter of a century after his death men often spoke of him "with kindling emotion.'' His church attested their affection by erecting to his memory a monument inscribed all over with elaborate encomium. In 1827 the church and parish united in a call to the Rev. Rodney A. Miller. The call was accepted and he was ordained on the 7th of June in that year. For nearly seventeen years he remained jiastor of the church. During this period more than four hundred were added to its communion. At length diti'erences arose between Mr. Miller and members of the church and parish ; in consequence, a mutual council was called and the result of its advice was the dismission of Jlr. Miller. For many years after, he continued to reside in Worcester, but in the end returned to Troy, N. Y., his native place, where he died at an advanced age. Mr. Miller was the first president of the first Temperance Association ever formed in Worcester. For some years he was one of the overseers of Harvard University and had a zeal for the rectification of its theological standards.

A series of seven pastorates followed that of Mr. Miller. The first was that of the Rev. George Phillips Smith, a graduate of Amherst in 1835. He was installed on the 19th of March, 1845, and died at Salem, while in office, on the 3d of September, 1852. His ministry was a happy and successful one. Following him came the Rev. Horace James, a graduate of Yale in 1840, who was installed on the 3d of February, 1853. Mr. James was full of devotion to his charge, but when the Civil War broke out, devotion to his country overbore the former and issued in his appointment as chaplain of the Twenty-fifth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers, and his consequent dismission from his pastoral charge. This event occurred on the 8th of January, 1863, and his death on the 9th of Juue, 1875. Rev. Edward Ashley Walker, who had been ordained chaplain of the First Connecticut Heavy Artillery in June, 1861, was installed as Mr. James' successor on the 2d of July, 1863. Like some of his predecessors, he was compelled by ill health to 1)2 retire altogether from the ministry. His death occurred on the 10th of April, 1866. During his ministry, September 22, 1863, the one hundredth anniversary of the building of the Old South meetinghouse was elaborately commemorated. At the meeting-house the Hon. Ira M. Barton made an intjoductory address, and Leonard Bacon, D.D., of New Haven, gave a historical discourse; while at Mechanics Hall, in the after part of the day, much reminiscent discoursing was had. The old meeting-house, a typical specimen of New England church architecture of the last century, with its elegant slender spire and faithful weathercock, was suftered to remain for nearly a quarter of a century longer before its demolition in August, 1887, under a municipal decree.

After Mr. Walker's dismission the Rev. Royal B. Stratton was installed on the 2d of January, 1867. Serious disability, more or less impairing his usefulness, led to his dismission on the 25th of April, 1872. His death occurred in this city on the 24th of January, 1875. On the 21st of May following Rev. William M. Parry, of Nottingham, England, received a unanimous call to the pastorate. He practically accepted the call and performed his duties as acting pastor, but was never installed. On November 3, 1S73, he " resigned," but the resignation, taking the church by " surprise," was not accepted. On the Uth of December it was withdrawn, but on the 4th of January following he preached his farewell sermon. His preaching had been both dramatic and eccentric and consequently had drawn crowded houses. Leaving the Old South, he drew after him nearly one hundred and fifty of its communicants, and together they at once proceeded to organize a new church in Mechanics Hall by the name of the Tabernacle Church. Without loss of time a Congregational Council was convened for the purpose of recognizing the church and installing Mr. Parry as its pastor. The council received the church into fellowship but refused to install Mr. Parry. The church then proceeded to violate the principle of the fellowship, to which it had just been admitted, by an autocratic installation. The services on the occasion were performed by lay members of the church ; and in that fashion Mr. Parry became the first and, as it proved, the only pastor of the Tabernacle Church in Worcester. Church and pastor both came to a speedy end. Mr. Parry suddenly died in his chair while making a call upon two of his female parishioners, and the church, already grown disgusted and disintegrated by his gross and increasing eccentricities, vanished into the inane.

To return to the Old South : The Rev. Nathaniel Mighill, a graduate of Amherst in 1860, was installed as Mr. Stratton's successor, September 25, 1 875. The fate of so many of his predecessors overtook him also, and because of ill health he was dismissed on the 15th of June, 1877. Then followed the Rev. Louis Bevier Voorhees a graduate of Princeton in

1867. After occujiying the pulpit for six months, a nearly unanimous call led to his installation on the same day on which his predecessor was dismissed. But neither in this instance did a change of ministers secure the church against the fate which so inveterately jjursued its chosen pastors. After preaching for a time Mr. Voorhees was compelled to relinquish his charge, but his formal dismission did not take place till the 5th of May, 1880, when his successor, the Rev. Joseph F. Lovering, was installed as the fourteenth pastor of the church and so remained.

A question had long been in issue between the city and the First Parish touching their respective estates in the land occupied by the Old South. The city claimed the land and wished to remove the building, and the parish resisted the claim and wished to preserve the building. Things remained in this condition until 1885, when the city obtained from the legislature authority to take all the title and interest of the parish. In May, 1886, the city council voted to take under the act. Thereupon the parish made an overture to the city towards an agreement upon the amount of damages. The city having declined to entertain the overture, the parish then proceeded, under the provisions of the act, to ask the Superior Court for the appointment of commissioners to award damages ; and this was done. The case came on to be heard in July, 1887, when the city solicitor, Frank P. Goulding, appeared for the city, and Senator George F. Hoar for the parish. An exhaustive preparation and all the legal learning and skill of the respective advocates went into the case. After weeks of deliberation the commissioners brought in an award of $148,400. The city refused to pay the award, and under the act claimed a trial by jury. A compromise followed resulting in the payment of $115,895.25. With this money the parish purchased a lot on the corner of Main and Wellington Streets, and proceeded to erect thereon a church worthy of its history and rank as the First Parish in the city of AVorcester. The corner-stone was laid on the 4th of July, 1888, and the exterior walls, of red sandstone throughout, were substantially completed by the end of the year. It is, without doubt, the most imposing church edifice in the city. A massive central tower, forty feet square and rising on four square marble pillars to the height of one hundred and thirty-six feet above the pavement, is the dominating feature. Another feature, appealing to a different sentiment, is the low belfry at tin northeast corner, of architecture curious and fine, in which is suspended, as the sole relic connecting new and old, the bell (cast in 1802) that swung for eightyfive years in the old belfry on the Common. A parish-house at the rear, adding to the mass and architectural completeness of the whole structure, contains a variety and abundance of spacious apartments suited to all the multiplied and multiplying requirements of modern church life. The cost of this New Old South

The Cahinisf or Central Church. - The second church of this order was first named the Calvinist Church. It was an outcome, but not an outgrowth, of the First Church. As we have already seen, the settlement of Mr. Goodrich resulted in a serious disaffection towards his ministry. Among the disaffected and aggrieved were Deacon David Richards, his wife and eight others. In their extremity these persons summoned a council (the third) to advise them in the premises. This council was convened on the 16th of August, 1820, and having heard the case and approved a Confession of Faith and a Covenant which had been presented, proceeded on the 17th to constitute the applicants into a separate church under the name of the Calvinist Church in Worcester. It is worthy of note that the moderator of this council was the Rev. Nathaniel Emmons, D.D. For a certain length of time the new church maintained public worship in private places. The house of its first deacon, David Richards, seems to have been the first and principal place of worship. This house stood near the site recently purchased by the United States for the new post-office building. In this private way, without any pastor or parish, the church held itself together until 1822. In that year "articles of association" looking towards a parish organization were drawu up and signed. The first signature was that of Daniel Waldo, under date of April 3d ; others of the same date followed, and within the next nine years more than two hundred and sixty others were added. On the first Sunday following, April 3, 1822, regular public worship was commenced in the court-house. This continued until October 13, 1823, when the society took possession of its meeting-house, which had been erected by Mr. Waldo at a cost of fourteen thousand dollars. The sermon at the dedication of this house was preached by Dr. Austin, who wiis in sympathy with the new church. In the next year the property was conveyed to trustees for the use of the church and society. Early in 1825 the organization was perfected by the incorporation of the Calvinist Society. Meanwhile, on the 15th of April, 1823, the Rev. Loammi Ives Hoadly, who had supplied preaching for the previous year, was ordained as the first pastor. His ministry was embarrassed by the unhappy relations which continued between this church and the Old South, but still went on with increasing success until a severe sickness brought it to a close. His dismission, by a vote of the church, took place on the 19th of May, 1829. Recovering in a measure, he engaged in various activities, - as pastor again for a brief period, editor of The Spirit of the Pilgrims, assistant editor of the " Comprehensive Commentary," teacher and farmer. His last residence was in Northfield, Conn., his native place, and there he died quite recently at the great age of ninety-one, having outlived

During Mr. Hoadly's ministry Mr. Waldo made a further addition of five thousand dollars to the resources of the society. Its growth continued unchecked, and in 1830, and again in 1832, the church edifice was variously enlarged and improved. This prosperity was due, in no small degree, to the popular ministry of the Rev. John S. C. Abbot, who became the succe.ssor of Mr. Hoadly on the 28th of January, 1830. During five years Mr. Abbot continued to go in and out among hi.s people with great acceptance. While discharging his pastoral duties, he found time to write and publish two books which made his name kuowu in both hemispheres. These were "The Mother at Home" and "The Child at Home," the former of which has been translated and published in nearly all the languages of modern Europe. In 1835 Mr. Abbot asked and obtained a dismission on account of ill health. After recuperation by a year of travel in Europe, he spent the remainder of his very active life in various pursuits, but became known to the wide world chiefly as the author of many popular books. Mr. Abbot was l>orn in Brunswick, Me., and graduated at Bowdoin in 182.5. He died at Fair Haven, Conn., on the 17th of June, 1877. His successor was the Rev. David I'eabody, who was installed in 1835 within six months after the pulpit had become vacant. His ministry was short and much interrupted by ill health. In the year following his settlement, under the advice of his physicians, he sailed for the South, where he spent the winter. A temporary improvement enabled him to resume his pastoral duties in Worcester. But the attack on his lungs - for that was his malady^ - again enforced cessation from pulpit labor. He improved the time in travel. Arriving in Hanover the day after commencement, he learned to his surprise that he had been appointed Professor of Rhetoric in Dartmouth College, his alma mater. This, taken with the state of his health, determined his course. He obtained a dismission from his pastoral charge and in October, 1838, entered upon the duties of his new olfice. His tenure of this, however, was brief His death occurred on the 17th of October, 1830, after one year of college service much interrupted liy illness. The career of Professor Peabody was as brilliant iis it was brief His intellectual powers were of a high order. His mental discipline was thorough, his scholarship fine. His character was " a rare combination of strength and loveliness." With a figure and face of manly beauty and a rich and mellow voice, he stood before his jteople in the pulpit a preacher of singular attractions. His memory long continued to be fragrant in Worcester.

The next pastor of the Central Church was the Rev. Seth Sweetser. His pastorate covered a period of forty years. It began on the 19th of December,

1838, and ended with his decease, in 1878. During this period, in 1845, occurred the death of Daniel Waldo, in a large sense the founder of the society. In his will he continued to remember it for good by devising to it, in connection with the church, a valuable real estate upon which stood the chapel of the society and a dwelling-house. In 1858 occurred the first interruption to the prevailing harmony. Until then the expenses had been defrayed by a tax on the polls and estates of the members. Under a new statute the expenses were raised by an assessment on the pews. This change caused the withdrawal of a considerable number of rich and influential members. But the vital forces of the body soon healed the breach and supplied new strength. Forty additional pews were provided to help bear tlie burden of the new tax. Dr. Sweetser was not a magnetic preacher ; he had not the gift oratorical, but his compositions for the pulpit were of rare finish. He published occasional sermons which amply repaid perusal. On the death of President Lincoln he gave a discourse which had uo superior, whether of pulpit or platform, in the whole range of productions called forth by that event. It was sought for from distant cities and the edition was exhausted before the demand was supplied. In his last years Dr. Sweetser's healtli declined until he was at lengtli compelled to surremler the pulpit. But church and parish were unwilling to sunder the tie which had bound them so long together, and though hip service ceased, his support (not his salary) was measurably continued until his death. Dr. Sweetser was born at Xewburyport in 1807 and graduated at Harvard in 1827. For a time he was a tutor in the university, and in after years a member of the Board of Overseers. He sustained the same relation to Audover Seminary. Of the Polytechnic Institute in Worcester he was an original corporator and trustee, and to it he gave his best thought aud work. Of the city he was an unobtrusive leading citizen, and among the clergy of the State he was a power. The bases of his influence were wisdom and reserve.

On the 19th of November, 1874, the Rev. Henry E. Barnes, a graduate of Yale in 1860, was installed as junior pastor. On the 3d of May, 1876, after a year aud a half of service, he was dismissed, and soon settled in Haverhill, Mass., where a large measure of success rewarded his labors. For nearly two years the pulpit was supplied by candidates and quasi-candates. Many were called, but few chosen. Then the Rev. Daniel Merriman, a graduate of Williams College, united all voices in calling him to the vacant place. The call was accepted, and in February, 1878, he was installed, the Rev. Dr. Richard S. Storrs, of Brooklyn, N. Y., preaching the sermon. Within a month came the death of Dr. Sweetser. In no long time after, the subject of building a new church began to be agitated, and foremost in the agitation was the new pastor. A conditional subscription was set on foot and the required amount was provided for ; but the enterprise developed antagonisms, which, in the intereat of peace, made it necessary and certain that one party or theother shonld and would withdraw. Accordingly, four-fifths of the trustees, all but one of the deacons, the men whose money had been chiefly relied on, and a large body of others, old and young, quietly left their church home of a generation, voluntarily surrendered all the property and dispersed themselves among the other churches. But Providence, " from seeming evil still educing good," inspired the crippled church with courage to arise and build, and the result was one of the most beautiful churches in the city or elsewhere. It stands as a conspicuous monument of the recuperative power of a Christian democracy under adverse conditions. At its completion no root of bitterness remained to bear evil fruit, and those who withdrew and those who remained sat amicably side by side at the dedication of the new house. Its beauties were afterwards celebrated by the graceful pen of Prof Churchill in the Amiover Review.

Jlie Union CImrch. - In the autumn of l.s;5-l a few young men, chiefly from the Old South Church, conspicuous among whom was Ichabod Washburn, laid their plans for a new church. The need of it had been felt for several years, and it seemed to them that the time to act had fully come. Accordingly, the preliminary steps were taken, and on the lltli of March, 1835, they were duly incorporated under the name and style of the " Proprietors of the Union Meeting-house." At a meeting held in December of the same year it vva.s voted that the name of the new church should be " The Union Church." In .lanuary, 1806, Articles of Faith and a Covenant were unanimously adopted, and on the 3d of February following a council constituted the new church with the customary formalities. On the 5th of March the society held its first meeting, and on the 6th of July its new house of worship was dedicated. It was a plain brick structure of !M» feet by 54, situated on Front Street, opposite the historic Common. Made more commodious in 1845-46, it was superseded in 1880 by a more beautiful but not more spacious edifice erected on the same site. The first pastor of the Union Church was the Rev. Jonathan E. Woodbridge. His installation took place on the 24th of Novemlier, 1836. His ministry began when the anti-slavery movement was burning its way through the churches. Union Church did not escape. Mr. Woodbridge took one side and the society took the other on the question of opening the church to anti-slavery lectures. On the 1 0th of January, 1838, the society, by a vote of forty-five to twelve, decided to open the house to the famous anti-slavery agitators, James G. Birney and Henry B. Stanton. Mr. Woodbridge thereupon promptly tendered his resignation, and on the 2d of February the society as promptly accepted it, and called a council to dissolve the relation between them. The first call to this pastorate, though unanimous on the part of church and parish, had been declined by Mr. Woodbridge. Upon a second and more urgent call he had consented to come, only to discover in one short year that he and his people could never agree on the great divisive question of the day. His dismission took place on the 14th of February. After leaving Worcester he became more widely known to the churches as editor of the Ni^io England Puritan, afterwards made one with the Bonfon Recorder under the name of the Puritan Recorder. The second pastor of the Union Church was the Rev. Elam Smalley, who was installed on the 19th of September. 1838. For nine years previous he had been associate pastor with the Rev. Nathaniel Kmmons, D.D., of Franklin. Doubtless he had profited by such a long association with that remarkable divine, but no two persons could be more unlike in their mental characteristics. Reasoning, so eminently characteristic of the Franklin doctor, was not Dr. Smalley's forte or aspiration. He sought rather to edify by pleasing. If he dill not prophesy smooth things, he yet prophesied in a smooth way. What he aimed at he accomplished. The church was built up, and his ministry of fifteen years was a success. The society testified its appreciation by repeated additions to his salary. En due time he was decorated with the doctorate of divinity. After seven years the meeting-house was altered so as to secure one hundred additional sittings, while Deacon Ichabod Washburn at his own cost provided a vestry and Sunday-school room in the basement. In 1844 the society accepted from the " Proprietors of the Union Meeting-house '' a deed of all their corporate property and assumed all their corporate liabilities. On the 8th of May, 1854, Dr. Smalley asked a dismission, in order " to enter another field of labor." The request was granted, and he shortly after became the pastor of the Third Street Presbyterian Church in Troy, N. Y.,and there, on the 3Uth of July, 1858, he died. In 1851 he published " The Worcester Pulpit, with Notices Biographical and Historical." The plan of the work included a sketch of each church and pastor in each denomination, with specimen sermons. It is a valuable source of information touching the churches of Worcester. The Kev. J. W. Wellman, a graduate and afterwards a trustee of Dartmouth, was the next choice of Union Church. He justified their choice by declining the call from a sense of duty to the obscurer church of which he was then the pastor. Dr. Wellman at a later day became conspicuous as the only trustee of Andover Theological Seminary who resisted the new departure." Failing to secure him, the church next extended a call to the Rev. Ebene/.er Cutler, of St. Albans, Vt. The call was accepted and the pastorelect was installed on the 6th of September, 1855. At the same time a subscription for a pastor's library was set on foot which resulted in a substantial sum for that essential but much-neglected furnishing of a church. In 1859 began a series of etibrts, continuing through several years, for either the enlargement of : the old or the building of a new house of worship. | Votes were passed to mortgage, to sell the old house, to examine sites, to build a new house, to raise money by subscription. An abiding feeling that the church was not well housed for doing its most effective work \ lay at the bottom of these spasmodic efforts. But out of it all the chief thing realized at the time was only a small addition to the rear for the organ and choir. The new church was still in the future. Dr. Cutler continued his ministry with growing reputation until 1865, when he was elected president of Vermont University. This called forth an urgent appeal from his people not to leave them, and he consequently declined the flattering offer. Shortly after, he received a tender of the Professorship of Ecclesiastical History in Hartford Theological Seminary, but this also he promptly put aside without waiting for it to take formal shape. In the autumn of 1874 he initiated the proceedings which resulted in the organization of the Worcester Congregational Club, of which he became the first president. The subsequent history of the club amply vindicated itself and him. In the winter of 1877 a bronchial trouble compelled him to seek relief in other climates. First going to Florida, and in the summer to Europe, he was absent from his pulpit until the following October, when he resumed preaching, though not fully recovered. Early in 1 878, under stress of circumstances, he finally resigned his pulpit, retaining, however, his office. The pastoral relation was not dissolved until the 11th of October, 1880, just before the installation of his succeesor. The council, in dismissing him, made mention of his " wide usefulness '' and " profound scholarship," and gave him the name of "a Christian man without fear and without reproach." He continued to worship with the Union Church which subsequently testified its affection and esteem by honoring him with the title of piutor emerihis.

For nearly two years the Rev. George H. Gould. D.D., supplied the pulpit in connection with the testing of candidates by preaching. During this period the new church, so long desired and so long delayed, was erected on the old site. As already remarked, it was a more beautiful though less capacious edifice than the old one. The cost was thirty-seven thousand five hundred dollars. A new organ of fine quality and appearance added to the attractions. The dedication of the house took place on Sunday, the 10th day of October, 1880, on which occasion the sermon was preached by the Rev. Henry A. Stimson, the pastor-elect. On the 14th, Mr. Stimson was duly installed. He was a graduate of Yale, and came to his new charge from a highly successful ministry in Minneapolis. His ministry in Worcester was distinguished by remarkably energetic parochial work. The young were especially soon made to feel of how much church work they, too, were capable. The printing-press was brought into play, and a Sunday bulletin was issued every week. The service of song was extended and enriched. And by the plan of free seats on Sunday evenings the poor had the gospel preached to them. Large congregations rewarded these efforts, large additions to the church followed. In the midst of, perhaps because of, this marked success Dr. Stimson received a call from the church in St. Louis of which the lamented Dr. Constans L. Goodell had been pastor, and he decided it to be his duty to accept the call. His dismission, much to the sorrow of his people, took place in June, 1886. The present pastor. Rev. William V. W. Davis, was installed as his successor on the 15th of April, 1887. He was a graduate of Amherst in the class of 1873, had his first settlement in Manchester, N. H., and was called to Worcester from the Euclid Avenue Presbyterian Church in Cleveland, Ohio. Within the first year of his ministry one hundred members were added to the church. The present membership is five hundred and thirty-four.

Salem Street Church. - This church was the result of a joint contribution of men and means from the Old South the Calvinist and the Union Churches. The rapid growth of the city from 1840 to 1848 had impressed the pastors and brethren of those churches with a conviction that the time had come for the organization of a fourth church of their way. Measures were accordingly taken in 1847 for the erection of a church edifice. Meanwhile the persons enlisted in the new enterprise held preliminary meetings, adopted a creed and covenant, and on the 14th of June, 1848, were recognized as a church in a formal manner. Of the one hundred and thirty-three who constituted the membership, eighty went out from the Union Church, thirty from the Calvinist Church and the rest mostly from the Old South. The new church had its place of worship in the city hall until the 12th of December, 1848, when the new house, which had been erected on Salem Street, was dedicated. The cost was somewhat less than twentyeight thousand dollars; the money was collected out of the three sponsorial churches. On the day following the dedication occurred the ordination of the Rev. George Bushnell, and his installation as the first pastor of the church. The .sermon on this occasion was preached by his brother, the Rev. Horace Bushnell, D.D. Mr. Bushnell was a graduate of Yale in 1842, and had his theolngical education at Auburn and \ew Haven. He prosecuted his ministry with great satisfaction to his parishioners for nine years, and then found it prudent, because of impaired health, to withdraw from pastoral labor. By accepting the position of superintendent of public .schools in Worcester he hoped to regain his health. However, after nearly a year of this labor it seemed expedient to lay down his pastoral charge, and he was accordingly dismissed on the 27th of January, 1858. Prior to this date the church had taken action at sundry times to jirnvide a new pastor. < )n the 2^d of June, 1857, a vote was passed by a small majni-ity to call the Rev. Merrill Richardson, ofTerryville, Ct. ; then at the same meeting the matter was indefinitely postponed. On the 9th of November, by a nearly unanimous vote, a call was extended to the Rev. Eli Thurston, of Fall River, which, however, was declined by him. < )n the :ilst of December the church again voted to call Mr. Richardson, and the society concurred in the call. To this action, however, there was serious opposition, which found expression before the council convened to install him. The council, nevertheless, while giving respectful heed to the remonstrants, of whom there were forty-eight, proceeded with the business before them, and on the 27th of January, 18.58, Mr. RichaWson was installed as pastor of the Salem Street Church. After this untoward beginning he went forward with his ministry for twelve years. Then, on the 27th of September, 1870, he was dismissed at his own request, because his eyes had failed him for purposes of study. " When he came there was a storm, but when he went away there was a clear sky." In two months after, he was settled over the New England Congregational Church in the city of New York ; and in two years after that he became pastor of the church in Milford, Mass. His death occurred in December, 187(5. It was said : " He gave the church uniting power, and a certain healthiness of spiritual life." It was said again : " He was a warrior and a child ; he was rough and gentle." And again it was said : " He sought to produce everywhere the peace of God in Jesus Christ." But it was also said by the late Judge Chapin, a leader of the Unitarians and at one time president of the American Unitarian Convention: " Mr. Richardson is a good enough Unitarian for me." These testimonies are all to be considered in forming an estimate of the minister who won the Salem Street pulpit with so much difficulty, but who, having won it, kept it undisturbed till he chose to give it up.

On the 8th of March, 1871, the Rev. Charles M. Lamson, of North Bridgewater, received a unanimous call from both church and parish. In his letter of acceptance he said that he viewed it as " a call to a work rather than to a place," and in this spirit he prosecuted his ministry. His installation took place on the 3d of May. In June he was appointed chairman of a committee to revise the church standards and to prepare a new manual. On May 1, 1872, the creed as re-written by the committee was reported and unanimously adopted. It would be a just description to say that it was the old creed liberated from the old straitness, and some might think from the old straightness, even. Entire harmony and deepening affection between Mr. Lamsen and his people, increasing influence within the city and widening reputation without, marked his ministry from the beginning to the end. After more than fourteen years of service he felt admonished by the state of his health to ask a dismission. Very sorrowfully his people yielded to his wish, and on the 28th of September, 1886, his dismission was declared in a result of council, which expressed in tones of rare encomium the appreciation of his clerical brethren. After a year and more the Rev. Isaac J. Lansing, of Brooklyn, N. Y., was called to the vacant pulpit. The call was unanimous, save for a single vote. Mr. Lansing was a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He was content with its doctrines, but dissatisfied with its polity. He disliked its three years' limitation of ministerial labor. He preferred the Congregational permanency. The call to Salem Street was opportune and he at once signified his acceptance. The installation took place on the 11th of November, 1886. The loss of Mr. Lamson, and the loss of members because of that loss and also because of their nearness to other churches had greatly reduced the prosperity of the Salem Street Church. To the work of its recovery and enlargement Mr. Lansing brought all his methodist energy and forth-putting. He devised liberal things, all of which, however, he could not at once bring to pass. But a debt of five thousand dollars was paid off, and the meeting-house was renovated and reseated at an expense of about eight thousand dollars more. Once more it was filled with an old-time congregation. In August, 1888, a unique departure was initiated. At its own motion and its own cost, without aid from the parish treasury, the church determined to provide an assistant minister for service over and above and outside of the pastor's proper work. This plan was carried into etfect on the 18th of October, by the engagement of the Rev. William W. Sleeper. Several definite lines of activity were contemplated. The new minister, a thoroughly educated musician, was to take in hand the musical training of the congregation. He was to have a large Bible-class of the young men. He was to act as a missionary in the highways and hedges. And he was to do service at funerals and minister consolation to such as had no pastor to call upon. At the opening of the year 1889 this new and varied work was in successful progress ; while, as an important reinforcement for its more pronounced success, the church had in that year secured the services of Prof. Benjamin D. Allen, who for thirty-four years had been the organist of Union Church.

Summer Street Mission Ch/ipel. - This church had its origin in the benevolent heart of Ichabod Washburn. To provide " the benefits of moral and religious instruction and restraint for a pretty numerous class of persons, living in Worcester," was his aim. Accordingly he had erected, at his own expense, and caused to be dedicated in the spring of 1855, a Mission Chapel on Summer Street in that city. At the same time he made provision for the free ministry of the gospel to all who should resort to the chapel for such a privilege. The fir.st minister employed in this service was the Rev. William T. Sleeper, then the city missionary. His term of service closed with the close of the year 1856. Rev. Samuel Souther, a graduate of Dartmouth in 1842, followed him and remained until 1863, when he enlisted as a private in the army of the Union and gave up his life on the battle-field. Under his ministry an Industrial School was organized in December, 1857. In 1864 the Rev. Henry T. Cheever, a graduate of Bowdoin in 1834, succeeded to the ministry of the Mission Chapel. Through his inspiration a movement was begun for the formation of a church, and on December 28, 1864, eighteen persons constituted themselves the " Church of the Summer Street Mission Chapel," by the adoption of a Confession of Faith and a Covenant and the election of deacons and a clerk. On the 22d of January, 1865, the church was received into the fellowship of the churches by public " services of recognition held by a council in Union Church. On the 3d of April the church " constituted itself a religious society " or parish, " according to the statutes of the Commonwealth, under the name of " The Society of the Summer Street Mission Chapel." In March, 1866, Deacon Washburn executed his will and made ample provision therein for the perpetual maintenance of this charitable foundation. The Mission Chapel estate was devised to the Union Society, in trust, " for the purposes and trusts declared in the will, and no other." In addition, the sum of twenty thousand dollars was given for defraying the expenses of maintaining a minister and public worship, and a further sum of five thousand dollars to maintain the Industrial School connected therewith. By the decease of Deacon Washburn on the 30th of December, 1868, these gifts became operative. Mr. Cheever continued to be the minister of the Mission Chapel until the 1st of April, 1873, when Mr. Sleeper was appointed to his place by the joint action of two deacons of the Union Church and two of the Mission Chapel Church, in accordance with the provisions of the will. On the 26th of January, 1886, the trustees voted that it was expedient to sell the Summer Street property and locate the church elsewhere. This action was in harmony with the views and wishes of the Mission Church and its minister. But it was strenuously resisted by the former minister, Mr. Cheever, and by the widow of Deacon Washburn, on the ground that it was in violation of the letter and intent of his will and in defeasance of the object which he had at heart. The question went up to the Supreme Court by petition of the trustees for leave to sell and was decided in their favor.' The founder of this important charity began his life in Worcester as a workman for daily wages. At the close of his life he left an estate of more than half a million of dollars accumulated by his own industry and rare sagacity. The bulk of this great wealth he devoted

1 The writer is authentically informed that it is the purpose of Mi-s. Washburn to contest the sale at the proper time on the ground that such sale would destroy "the testamentary lien of the Industrial School on the Mission Chapel.'* to the good of his fellow-men. All along the pathway of his life he was setting up monuments of his munificence, wbile his testamentary gifts for school and church and hospital far exceeded those of his life-time or those of any previous benefactor of the city.

Plymouth Church. - The beginning of this church was in 1869. More than twenty years had passed since the last church of this faith and order had been organized. In that time the city had grown from sixteen thousand to forty thousand inhabitants. The churches were crowded ; it had become difficult to obtain seats; some, even, through failure to do so, had gone into the Methodist fold. Under these circumstances, fifteen young men mel together in a private room to confer respecting a new church. They had acted together in the Young Men's Christian Association, had thus become acquainted with each other, and said it would be a good thing if they could have a Young Men's Christian Association church. They formed a nucleus around which other young men gathered. Soon the circle of interested persons widened and came to include older men and men of substance. Then the enterprise rapidly gathered headway. The first meeting was held on the loth of April, 1869. On the 29th it was announced that Mechanics Hall had been secured for public worship during one year. Forthwith a subscription of three thousand three hundred and forty dollars was made by sixty-three persons to defray the current expenses ; and within a week or two the sum was raised to about three thousand eight hundred dollars. A Sunday school embracing more than three hundred was at once begun, and on the second Sunday in May public worship was held in Mechanics Hall with preaching by Rev. Dr. E. B. Webb of Boston. On the same evening a meeting was held to take measures for organizing a church. A committee was charged with the duty of preparing and presenting a creed and covenant. When the time came for action thereon difficulties were encountered. Among others, the Rev. George Allen, who had proposed to become a member of the church, rose and gave his voice against the adoption of any creed whatever. Failing to convince the meeting he recalled his letter of recommendation and withdrew from any further connection with the enterprise. At a subsequent meeting the articles of the creed as reported were largely changed and then adopted. The question of a name came up. Edward A. Goodnow, the largest giver, and many others were in favor of making it a free church. Mr. Goodnow, therefore, moved that the name be the " Free Congregational Church," and to make it free he subsequently subscribed one thousand five hundred dollars a year to pay for the hall. His associates, however, were not yet prepared for the measure, and instead of that name voted that the name be " Sixth Congregational Church." Meanwhile, a society had been organized by the name of the Plymouth Societv, and the church afterwards made its own name conform to that. On the 7th of July a council assembled in the Old South meeting-house to assist in organizing and recognizing the new church. With a recommendation to amend the 4th article of the creed they proceeded to the performance of their functions. Of the one hundred and ninety-four persons proposing to be of the church, one hundred and twenty-seven were then present and were duly constituted the Sixth Congregational Church. A week later fifty-one of the remainder were received into the membership. Four deacons having been elected) and a communion and baptismal service having been presented by Mr. Goodnow and his wife, Catherine B. Goodnow, on the .^th of September the church celebrated its first cofcmunion. From that time onward a great variety of preachers occupied the pulpit until April, 1870, when the Rev. Nelson Millard, of Brooklyn, N. Y., received a call to become the pastor. The call was declined on the ground that continuous preaching in so large a hall would cause too serious a strain on the physical powers of the preacher. On the 26th of October a unanimous call was declined by the Rev. William J. Tucker, now the distinguished professor at Andover, perhaps for the same reason. A practically unanimous call of the Rev. B. F. Hamilton met with the same fate. Meanwhile the future pastor of Plymouth Church, the Rev. George W. Phillips, of Columbus, Ohio, had been heard in its pulpit for the first time at Christmas in 1870. After this experience had been repeated at intervals through the following year, he accepted a call and wa,s installed on the 28th of L>ecember, 1871. A condition of his acceptance wa.s that the society should build a church edifice. Accordingly funds and a site were the next things in order. In April, 1872, the site was fixed by a vote to build on the ground where the church now stands. This action split church and parish in two. The soreness of the wound however, was soon assuaged, and both halves continued to live as two wholes with a two-fold prosperity and usefulness. Fifty-six members received a peaceable dismission and straightway with others proceeded to organize a church in the more southern part of the city. The load became heavier on Plymouth Church but the sturdy shoulders under it did not succumb. On the 26th of April, 1873, the corner-stone was laid ; on the 19th of April, 1874, the chapel was dedicated for use; and on the 29th of April, 1875, the entire edifice was done and dedicated. It is a structure of granite, with perhaps a larger seating capacity than that of any other church in the city, having seats for the comfortable accommodation of fourteen hundred persons. Its cost, including recent decorative improvements, has somewhat exceeded one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. In 1881 sixty-six thousand dollars of this cost still rested as a debt upon the Plymouth property and people. It was determined to obtain relief from the incubus by efl'ecting, if possible, a large reduction of this debt. Suddenly, in the month of April, Edward Kimball, of Chicago, the good genius of debt-burdened churches, appeared before the congregation to assist. While the matter was thus in hand, Edward A. Goodnow sent in a written proposition that if the debt were not merely reduced but extinguished he would make a gift to Plymouth of an organ and a chime, each to cost five thousand dollars. Under this incentive, coupled with Mr. Kimball's inspiration, the effort was redoubled, the debt was extinguished, and chime and organ were put in place, at a cost to the giver of nearly eleven thousand dollars. The chime was made a memorial of his deceased wife, for whom the church had before held a special commemorative service, by the inscription on the principal bell - In Memoriam CatherineB. Gaodnrnv. After a successful pastorate of more than fourteen years Dr. Phillips, at his own request, was dismissed on the 10th day of .May, 1886, and immediately settled as pastor of the important church in Rutland, Vt. <Jn the 30th of .lune, in the same year, Plymouth Church and Society extended a unanimous call to the Rev. Arthur Little, D.D., of Chicago. The call was declined, and the church remained without a pastor until Ajiril 7, 1887, when the Rev. Charles Wadsworlh, Jr., of Philadelphia, was installed. In M.ay of the next year he resigned his office on the ground that he had accepted a call to a Presbyterian Church in San Francisco. The church was quite unreconciled to this sudden bereavement, but yielded to it under protest. However, the council called to dissolve the tie advised against it. This led to a reconsideration which resulted in a cordial re-establishment of the old relation. As the year 1888 wore on, however, the church was admonished by the failing health of its reinstated pastor that if it would keep him something must be done for his relief. Accordingly, in January, 1889, the jiarish voted to have, and provide for, a pastor's assistant. In this matter the Ladies' Benevolent Society had taken the initiative by assuming an obligation to pay one-half of whatever salary the parish should fix upon. By way of further relief, the pastor's annual vacation was doubled and a large addition made to his salary. In making these anxious and liberal provisions Plymouth Cluirch felt justified by the magnitude of the work upon its hand.-*. With the costliest church edifice of its order in the city and the largest church membership and no church debt and a constituency "rich and increased in goods," it was in a position both to devise and to execute liberal things.

Piedmont Congre(ja/ioniil Churrh. - In the sketch of Plymouth Church it was stated that fifty-six members of that body were dismissed for the purpose of forming a church in the southern part of the city. This was the origin of Piedmont Church. The first steps were taken at an informal meeting held on the 3d of May, 1872. On the 10th of the same month it was resolved to organize a parish and purchase a lot on the corner of Main and Piedmont Streets. On the

16lh the lot had been purchased and fifty-nine persons had signed an agreement to become a religious society. On the 23d the associates assembled under a warrant and organized the society according to law. On the 30th the name of " Piedmont Congregational Church " was adopted. The corporate name, however, continued to be the "Seventh Congregational Church in Worcester." On the Gth of June by-laws were adopted whereby " any person " proposed and elected by the major vote might become a member of the society. On the 14th the first subscription was made among those present at the meeting, and a sum of fifteen thousand dollars was pledged. Plans were adopted August 23d, and by September 20th the subscription had increased to twenty-four thousand dollars. Meantime, on the 2d of June, the first public religious service had been held in the Main Street Baptist Church. In the same place a council was organized, on the 18th of September following, for the purpose of constituting the church. The confession of faith, covenant and all preliminaries being found satisfactory, the church was duly constituted by the council. The sermon was preached liy the Rev. George H. Gould, D.D., who remained as acting pastor from that date until 1877. In October ground was broken for the church foundation, which, by contract, was to be finished by the 1st of June, 1873. In due time the basement was completed and occupied for public worship during the period in which the superstructure was being finished. On the 1st of February, 1877, the auditorium was ready for occupation. It has a seating capacity of one thousand one hundred and twenty. The building is one of the largest church edifices in the city, and through improvements, chiefly of a decorative character made in 1888 at a cost of ten thousand dollars, is one of the most attractive. The original cost of land and construction has been set at one hundred and thirty thousand dollars. A fine organ, the gift of Clinton M. Dyer and wife, was placed in the organ-loft in 1884, at a cost, including a complete apparatus for blowing it by water-power, of about six thousand five hundred dollars. With the completion of the building came the first and only pastor. Rev. David O. Mears, D.D., who was installed on the 3d of July, 1877. Under his ministry church and parish kept pace with the most progressive. His reputation went abroad beyond Worcester, so that several doors were opened to him elsewhere. In 1885 he was invited to take the presidency of Iowa College. This, after careful consideration, he declined as he did also the pastorates of several important churches to which he had been invited.

Park Congregalional Chtirc/i. - The beginning of this church was a Sabbath-school gathered by a woman. To Lydia A. Giddings the praise is due. Along with and reinforcing her activity came that of the city missionary, the Rev. Albert Bryant. This was in the autumn of 1884. Presently a council advised the establishment of a church and measures were taken accordingly. In May, 188o, the first sermon was preached in Agricultural Hall by the Rev. J. F. Lovering, pastor of the Old South. The laboring oar was now placed in the hands of the Rev. Dr. A. E. P. Perkins, a resident minister without charge. Through his eflicient labors, with those of his coadjutors, such progress was made that in the summer of 1886 a commodious chapel had been erected, and on the 26th of September was dedicated. The land lor the site, on the corner of Elm and Russell Streets, was the gift of David Whitcomb. Including this, the whole cost was about nine thousand dollars. The title of the property is in the City Missionary Society. On the 24th '<of February, 1887, the church was constituted and at the same time the Rev. George S. Pelton, formerly of Omaha, was installed as its first pastor. At first a Society was organized on the old double-headed plan ; but after nearly one year of church liie passed in this way Park Church took advantage of the general law for the incorporation of churches enacted in 1887, and on the 17th of January, 1888, took on corporate powers and became itself a parish. Both men and women were named among the corporators, and both were made responsible for the "government of the body" so far as they were "legal voters." The aim was to make impossible the old-time antagonism of church and parish. This the scheme assured. But just as under the old Congregational way, so now, there still remained two bodies in Park Church - a spiritual body independent of law and an artificial body subject to law.

Pilgrim (Jongregntional Church. - The origin of this church was in marked contrast with that of the Plymouth and Piedmont Churches. While they sprang into existence as it were full-grown and displayed masculine vigor from the first, Pilgrim Church bad a childhood. It was, in a sense, the child of the City Missionary Society. That society explored the ground and prepared the way and supplied the first preaching. Because of that society it came to exist when and where it did. It first became visible in the form of a diminutive Sunday-school, at No. 6 Hancock Street, on the 13th of May, 1883. Mrs. Fannie M. Bonii, a city missionary, had gathered a little flock, and Mrs. Fannie H. Mighill, whose warm co-operation had been secured, opened her doors for its reception. At this first meeting exactly ten scholars were present, of whom five had never before been in a Sunday school. By the 8th of July the ten had become a crowd and Woodland street schoolhouse was secured for its accommodation. In five years it had grown to nearly six hundred members. On the 1st of July, 1884, the school received the gift of a lot of land from Mr. F. B. Knowles, of Piedmont Church, and Mrs. Helen C. Knowles, of Union Church. The same persons, with others, contributed money for the building of a chapel which was finished and occupied on the 25th of January, 1885.

When completed it was the first of six houses of worship now (1888) standing between Piedmont Street and New Worcester. On the 16th of Noveml)er, 1884, the Rev. Charles M. Southgate began pastoral work. He was a graduate of Yale in the class of 1866, and came to Worcester from a pastorate of nine years with the Congregational Church in Dedham. Under the fresh impulse imparted by him the enterprise went rapidly forward in the way of its enlargement and consummation. On the 19th of March, 1885, the church, embracing eighty-eight members, was organized, and at the same time the ]),istor was installed. (_)n the 19th of August, 1887, ground was broken for the new church edifice, and on the 1st of July, 1888, it was dedicated. It stands on the corner of Main and Gardner Streets, is one of the most attractive churches in the city, and, with the other property, is valued at one hundred and ten thousand dollars. The auditorium has more than one thousand and fifty sittings, while the rooms devoted to the Sunday school accommodate more than six hundred persons. The society connected with this church was incorporated on the 13th of April, 1885. The by-laws provide that all male adult members of the church shall, and "any" adult members may, become members of the society.

Three things distinguish this from other Congregational Churches, and probably from all other churches in the city. The first is, the church and parish status. By requiring adult male member.s of the church to become members of the parish and members of the parish to be members of the church, it was designed, as in Park Church, among other things, to make antagonism between the two bodies impossible. One further thing .seems essential to the complete success of this plan, and that is, to require all female, as well as male, adult members of the church to become members also of the parish. Without this, antagonism, however improbable, is nevertheless possible. The second distinguishing thing is the unique and admirable provision for the accommodation of the Sunday school. A 'spacious primary room, parlor and ten separate class-rooms have been so arranged that each can be shut off from the rest during the study of the lesson and then all thrown into one again for the general exercises. The third thing is the provision for the secular side of this church organization. The first chapel was moved to one side, named Pilgrim Hall, and fitted up with rooms for a gymnasium, carpenter's shop, boys' reading room, hall for social purposes and a kitchen. In this Hall the healthful secular life of Pilgrim Church goes on through all the secular days of the week. The membership of this church at the close of the year (1888) was two hundred and fifty.

Church of the Covenant. - This church is an anomaly of Congregationalism. At present it is tripartite, but it may become quadrupartite and indefinitely more. Under one church organization there are thus far three "sections," each in a different part of the city. The names of these are, the Houghton Street Section, South Worcester Section and Lake View Section. Each section is an inchoate church, having some, but not all the powers of a Congregational Church. The peculiar organization grew out of the needs of the chapel congregations in charge of the City Missionary Society. Upon the incorporation of this society, in 1883, the congregations at South Worcester and Lake View came under its care. On the 19th of October, 1884, it organized a Sunday school in the neighborhood of Houghton Street, and on the 15th of October, 1885, dedicated the Houghton Street Chapel. In the chapel a council assembled on the 10th of December following to organize the church. At an adjourned meeting of the council held in the vestry of Plymouth Church, on the 22d of December, the business in hand was completed by the public recognition of the Church of the Covenant. In January, 1886, there were forty communicants in all the sections, of whom more than one half were in the Houghton Street Section.

Due provision was made for the practical working of this anomalous church. It was placed under the "pastoral care" of the City Missionary Society, with the city missionary. Rev. Albert Bryant, for its pastor. Each section was to manage its own sectional affairs. The pastor of the church was to be the pastor of the section and preside at all its meetings. He was to perform all pastoral, pulpit and sacramental duties for each separately. There was to be a secretary of the section and a clerk of the church, the former of whom was to transmit his record of sectional doings to the latter for permanent record. Each section was to elect one deacon or more, and the sectional deacons were collectively to be the deacons of the church. Any section might admit and dismiss members of its own body, but the duty of issuing letters of dismission and recommendation was laid upon the clerk. The discipline of its own members was placed exclusively in the hands of the section, as though it were an independent church. Matters of interest common to all the sections were referred to a general advisory board. This was to consist of the pastor, standing committees of the sections and two representatives of the City Missionary Society chosen annually. By this board the clerk of the church was to be annually elected. If the church was to be represented in any ecclesiastical body, each section was to take its turn in appointing the representative. Finally, the whole church and each section were to hold separate annual meetings. The title to all the property was vested in the City Missionary Society. After a trial of several years the working of the plan fully met the expectation of its authors. At the close of the year 1888 the membership had increased to sixty, more than half of which still belonged to the Houghton Street Section.

dred families of Scotch descent and Presbyterian principles emigrated to this country from the north of Ireland. Landing at Boston, they dispersed to various points in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. A part came to Worcester, and in the next year gathered a church after the Presbyterian way. A minister, Rev. Edward Fitzgerald, accompanied them and preached to them for some months. Their place of worship was at first in the garrison-house, then recently built, near the junction of the Boston and Lancaster roads. Very soon they began to build a house of worship for themselves ; but while it was in the process of erection " a body of the inhabitants assembled by night and demolishedjthe structure." Discouraged by this unwarrantable opposition, they made no further attempt to build a sanctuary. But the church continued to hold on its way for some years. For awhile they worshipped with the Congregational church, nearly equalling them in numbers; but, failing in this way to secure any preaching of their own kind, they withdrew and again became separate with the Rev. William .Johnson as their minister. While supporting him, however, they were also compelled by law to contribute their share to the support of the church of the " standing order." From this burden they, in 1736, asked but failed to be relieved. In the end, by successive removals and otherwise, this first Presbyterian Church in Worcester gradually vanished out of existence, and for nearly one hundred and fifty years no further attempt was made in that direction. Conspicuous among this early company of Scotch Presbyterians was William Caldwell, who very soon went from Worcester with his family and became the founder of the town of Barre. He lived to be one hundred years old, lacking one year. His grandson, William Caldwell, became the sherift'of Worcester County - " the model sheriff," as Governor Lincoln styled him. An ancestor of General George B. McClellan was also among these early Presbyterians of Worcester.

After the long interval already mentioned a second Presbyterian church was constituted. The first meeting for this purpose was held on the 21st of February, 1886, and on the first Sunday in April following public worship was inaugurated. The church was formally organized by the Presbytery of Boston on the first Sunday in September, 1886, with forty-eight members and the Rev. J. H. Ralston as acting pastor. Mr. Ralston was a graduate of Alleghany Seminary, afterwards was in Kansas for seven years as a home missionary, and was called to Worcester from that distant field of labor. The place of worship for this church is a hall in the building of the Young Men's Christian Association.

Unitarian Congreuationalists - K/'s< Unitarian C/iurch. - For about three-quarters of a century one church and one parish sufficed for the inhabitants of Worcester. Then the "Second Parish in the town of Worcester" was organized. That was and still remains its corporate name, although the organization is commonly known as the First Unitarian Church. The genesis of the new body came about on this wise : The Rev. Mr. Maccarty, after a long and peaceful ministry with the First Church, had ; grown old, fallen sick and become unable to preach. A young man about thirty years old, Mr. Aaron Bancroft, was found to take his place in the pulpit. i After he had preached for eight Sundays, Mr. Mac- 1 carty had so far recovered as to be able to resume his pulpit, and Mr. Bancroft went away. In the next year the aged minister died and Mr. Bancroft was again called in. This time his preaching caused ' commotion. Differences of opinion sprang up ; the parish became divided, the peace of the town was ! disturbed and social intercourse interrupted. A second time Mr. Bancroft went away. Then the town - not the church - improved the opportunity to vote in town-meeting " that there be a day set apart for fasting and prayer in this town for calling on the Divine assistance for the re-establishment of the gospel ministry in this place." The town adjourned its meeting for one week, and then, four days before the one appointed for the fast, voted to have " Mr. Haven" preach four Sundays and after him Mr. Bancroft four. This arrangement brought Mr. Bancroft's first Sunday on the 10th of January, 1785. The date is significant. Three days later, without waiting to hear him on the remaining three Sundays, his admirers to the number of fifty-four signed and presented a petition for the town - not the church - to take action looking towards his settlement as Mr. Maccarty's successor. In the town-meeting held in response to this petition on the Ist of March, they moved this remarkable proposition : " That the town agree to settle Mr. Bancroft in the work of the gospel ministry, and such other person as may be agreeable to and chosen solely by those who are desirous of hearing further, and the settlement and salaries of both to be at the expense of the Town at large." The record says that " there was some debate." It adds that it passed in the negative. Defeated on this point, the petitioners then moved for leave to form a religious society over which Mr. Bancroft might be settled. This, too," passed in the negative. They then proceeded to take what the town had refused, with all its financial consequences. A voluntary association was formed, a covenant adopted and a church organized. Of the sixty-seven associates, only two men and four women had been communicants. But these, even, not having been dismissed from any other church for the purpose, were not competent, according to usage, to form the new one. A novel expedient was devised to meet this novel situation. A public " lecture" was appointed, at which the covenant was read and explained and then signed by all who chose to. In this way the church connected with the Second Parish was constituted. Public worship began on the third Sunday of March in the court-house, with preach- iDg by Mr. Bancroft. On the 7tb of June he consented to become the minister of the new society, and on the Ist day of February, 1786, he was ordained. Only two ministers of the vicinage could be found to assist, the rest coming from Boston, Salem and Cambridge. After nuicli difficulty and delay the new parish was duly incorporated on the liith of November, 1787. It was a poll and not a territorial parish, and was the first of the kind in Massachusetts outside of Boston. Here some notice may fitly be taken of what seems not to have arrested the attention of any previous writer. By the ancient law of Massachusetts the method of choosing and settling a minister was after this manner : the church first made choice ; then the parish - i.e., town - concurred or non-concurred. Unless there had been church action there was no place for parish action. This law, originating in 1692> continued down through the last century and was in force when the Constitution of the Commonwealth was adopted. That instrument contained two provisions bearing on the matter in hand : first, parishes were given the exclmive right of electing their public teachers ; and second, all the laws theretofore in force were declared to " remain and be in full force until altered or repealed by the legislature ; such parts only excepted as are repugnant to the rights and liberties contained in this Constitution." Now, on the one hand, the law of 1(592 giving to the church first and the parish afterwards the right of election never was repealed ; but, on the other hand, that law was repugnant to the " e.rclusive right" of election given to parishes. And this appeal's to have been the legal status at the date of Mr. Bancroft's candidacy in 1785. The right of the church to any voice in the election of its minister had been simply annihilated. Whether this was known and fully understood at that time may well be doubted. Nevertheless, the business about Mr. Bancroft went forward precisely as though it was understood. The first and only resort was to the parish. The parish alone took action ; the church look none. So far as its records show, Mr. Bancroft was not a candidate before that body. His name, even, does not appear on its records. The scheme to make him the minister of the First Parish manifestly originated outside the church and was carried on outside. And however much it turmoiled the town, it neither rent nor hardly ruftled the church- This view is supported by the fact, already stated, that only six communicants were found in the new movement. After the Bancroft party bad withdrawn the First Church and Parish resumed their ancient relations and proceeded to elect Mr. Story as their minister by the rule of 1G92 ; the church choosing and the parish concurring. The same course was pursued in the subsequent election of Dr. Austin. .\nd this would seem to show that the procedure in Mr. Bancroft's case was accidental and exceptional, and not in the way of using the new power conferred on parishes by the new Constitution.