Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1912-09-18

clergy. Had the Congregationalism OF to-day
ruled at that time, no great division would
then have taken place; and so, two centuries
earlier, IL the Church of England had been
what she now Is, the great Puritan uprising
would not have occurred"
But the obvious suggestion is that this is
| trying to write history over again. which no
man has been able to do successfully. The
going off of the Unitarians was followed by
reaction. There was what was called "great
Teawakening" under DR.. Payson. The times
of whitefeld were revived. While Parson
Smith had been conservative Trinitarian,
mild in his religious notions, Edward Payson
was the religious progressive of his time.
Willis says of him: "He at once showed
the elements of powerful and persuasive
minister. His society and church became by
far the largest in the State and himself the
most popular preacher Of his time" The
memory of his sermons still remains in Port
land as history and q tradition. His
pictures Of the doom ofthe sinner were such
that whole congregations went weeping from
the church. When you read his sermons to-
day, you can see his great power; but his SER
mons were not of the kind that are now
preached in Congregational churches. In
--~ 'Se"'AS VI MS PuoiasACo sciiiOhos ooAAS
Of the leading titles are: "The Terrible Doom
of the Sinner" "The Extreme Difficulty OF
Escaping the Damnation of He'll"
At the beginning Of his ministry, he was an
assistant to DR.. Elijah Kellogg of the Second
parish. In his history of Portland, Willis
j records the fact that DR.. Kellogg preached in
the morning and Mr.. Payson preached in the
afternoon; and Willis makes thissfoot note:
zone of the converts, man of some distinc-
tion. observed: 'Dr. Kellogg gets the sinner
down in the morning, and in the afternoon
Mr.. Payson comes and jumps on him." DR..
Payson was the great preacher of Maine when
this Ellsworth church was formed. He con-
tinued to preach until his death in 1927.
do not know where there can be found
better type of the minister Of the generation
which succeeded DR.. Payson than in the life
| OF Rev. DR.. Tenney, for SO long time the be-
loved pastor of this church. His forty years
with this people is enough to dignity, and al
most glorify, the church at Ellsworth. He
was fitting successor Of the Pilgrim and OF
the Puritan. He was the living type of what
the Congregationalistm minister should be. He
had the best qualities that characterized Par
| son Smith. He had all the kindliness and
helpfulness that made for righteousness, for
the good OF his church and for the peace of
mankind.
Tenney; very few could do the good he did.
But the Congregational churches Of that gene
ration were fortunate in having some of that
type-men who projected the Congregational
ism of Massachusetts Bay into Maine, and
down to the present time; men who followed
the growth and the needs of the people of
their day and generation.
We have taken . passing glance at four
great Congregational ministers-Dr. Tenney,
DR.. Payson, Parson Smith and Increase
Mather. They may be taken each as the type
of his time. Their service in the Congrega-
tional church, as 1 have Just stated it re-
versely in the order Of time, brings us back to
the earliest colonial times, when New Eng
land life began. And do not know how can
better illustrate the Congregationalism of 800
years than by the four great lives.
History cannot arbitrarily divide itself.
John Fiske has made this most interesting
comment upon our history; That while New
England is sometimes spoken of as new
country, its history is, in fact, the story of an
old country. Our towns have a history that
| takes us back to the time of James I.
As have just now suggested, the first
pictures; it presents the history of men of the
world, royalists; members of the English
| Church; NEE who hated the Mayhower Pill
grims and repudiated the Puritan exodus ten
years later to Massachusetts bay.
The founder of Maine. Ferdinando Gorges,
was an English churchman. The grant to
him of the lands of Maine was intended as a
protest against Puritanism. The king en-
Joined upon him little else than the establish
ment of an Episcopal religion within his
province. Men whom Gorges sent in 1889 to
Richmond's island. and to the remote wilder
ness bounded on the westward by Pascata-
way Harbor", formed the first government Of
Maine.
We have already seen that one hundred and
| twenty-five years later the descendants of these
men came to the Union river; but long before
| Melatiah Jordan and the others came here,
the Stuart reign in Maine had given way to a
| Puritan civilization. About the time the pro-
| tectorate Of Cromwell ceased, the Massachu-
sets bay colony bought out the Gorges in
terest from his heirs, paying el,250;
and in 1899, the province charter fixed the
status of Massachusetts in its control of the
district of Maine.
| Immediately after this, there came from
| Massachusetts an infusion of Puritans and
| Congregationalists. They were of the best
| people of England. They had come over from
Dorset, Lincolnshire and Devon between 1880
and 1850. They left their homes at time
when Puritanism had become powerful.
They never suffered prosecutions; they be-
longed to the higher class of society.
| The men who came to Maine from Massa-
| chusetts bay were OF the best people of Eng
| land. They were men who represented Eng
lish Congregationalism. These two strains of
blood, then. entered into Maine life - the
blood of the royalists under Gorges, the best
element of the English Church. and the in
| fusion from Massachusetts, bay, the best type
| of Puritan life. AS l have shown, these two
elements came to Ellsworth, and to this
| church.
The Puritans and Congregationalists of the
Massachuset ts Bay colony were men who had
separated from the English Church because
| they insisted on the right of individual choice
| in the matter OF religion. They did not be-
lieve in the Church debating the kind of
\ ralioiop that the individual should have. In