Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-11-04
AT LAST NIGHTS MEETING
Rev pr Anderson Delivered an Flo.
 quent Address.

At the evening service at the First Baptist church last night the attend ance was very large. An eloquent ad- dress was delivered on Religious Wa terbury'' by the Rev Joseph Anderson, l b. D., pastor of the First Congrega- tional church. Dr Anderson said in part:
 Tn the service connected with the celebration of the centennial of church, it is well worth while, it is a matter of course, that the religious side of the life of the community should re- cefve special attention. It is well worth while that this busy, prosper ous, worldly city, this intensely ma terialistic city, has a religious side, al- though it be not nearly so large nor so dominating nor so obtrusive as it's secular side.
 Religion is really a thing of the in her life; but my subject this evening, I take it, is religion as imperfectly re- vealed in institutions and organized l activities.
 ''In the early life of Waterbury, as in all of the oldest New England towns, religion was matter of uni versal concern. No one was allowed to ignore it, as thousands do today The
 
 under the old parish system of Congre- gatfonalism, was in the hands of the town and although the entire popula- tion was not gathered into the church, 1 as in European communities church membership being limited to presuma- I bly, converted persons, the church was nevertheless a very central thing; it was an object of interest and care to l the people as a whole. It was the I town that built the eeting house and employed the minister and the town 1 laid tax to meet the expense thus in- cured
 More than, half a century passed l here in Waterbury before this condition of things was disturbed-by the set ting off of new parishes in the north west and north now known as Water town, Plymouth and Thomaston- and a few years later by the introduction i. of dissent through the coming in of persons attached to the church of Eng land. But religion with new centers i and under modified forms was still the 1 concern of the town as a whole and ] continued to be so from generation to general ton. It was not until the adop- l ton of the state constitution in 1918 that the entire severance of church and 2 state was accomplished. How great the contrast between the present time and that first half century when the only church in town was the church which I have the honor to represent; l between the present time and that period of sixty years during which the First Ecclesiastical society and St Johns parish divided the community l between them. The First church with it's meeting house. on the east end of l the green and St James (afterwards St i John's) with it's church edifice on the west end of the green, claimed the en- tire area of present Waterbury until i the incoming of the Methodist and Bap- lists and the organization of the church which is now celebrating the centenary of its birth. The Methodists who hau been working their way into the town before the beginning of the century organized church in 1915 and there was no other-nothing, in fact, to mod l ify the Americanism or to disturb the Professionalism of our population-unt t 1847, when our first Roman Catholic 1 parish was organized. Our two Luth- eran churches, representing foreign element of another kind, were organ ized as recently as 1890.
 teWa cannot correctly picture the re- l 1igious side of Waterbury without re- minding our Roman Catholic and other friends of the brotherly relations ex-, isting among our Protestant denomina- tions. SsIt is not the difference in their theological beliefs that keeps the Pro- I testant churches apart to-day; itis the, differences in ecclesiastical organiza7 tion, coupled with a, natural loyalty to their denominational history.
 | s vN.-a q AoTI ,~R 1gHfnwnTnf Protestant denominations in this city. referred to the eighteen Protestant l churches, and estimated the total Pro testant population as 25.O00.
 'sT fear that only a small part of that 25,OO0 is reached by our eighteen churches in any thorough and effective \ way. Tn our eighteen churches and l two chapels there are, let us say, 5000 sittings; are they ever. on any fair Sun day morning. all occupied? Are two thirds of them occupied| |'
 Dr Anderson also reviewed the Cath l olic side of the city's population and smoke at length upon the enormous and rapid growth Of Catholicism in this city and the important factor 1t has be come in the public and religious life of the city
 The Rev George M, Stone. delivered an interesting address on "Evangel- fsnn'' He made the following reference l to Dowie: 'We have heard much of. late about John Alexander Dowie. We \ cannot afford to ignore this man. Crude, cratic and vulgar as he may l be. mark the phenomenon! Has it ever occurred in the world before, that 5000 people traveled in body 1000 miles. under a banner of what we might call evangelism? Its faults teach us truths. I look at Dowie's mission in an optimistic sense, and am optimistic on the subject of evan 1 gelism. We are on the eve of a new and nobler day The purposes of God 1 become the prayers of his people, be- fore they are executed. One of the signs of the new movement is the won 1 dnr.f111 attnnfinn tn f1n ert11du nf Gnd,s