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MEMORIAL SERMON

PREACHED IN THE

South Congregational Church,

NEW BRITAIN, CONN.,

BY THE PASTOR,

REV. JAMES W- COOPER,

OCTOBER 14, 1883.

PUBLISHED BY REQUEST.

mw Britain, com*.:
ADKINB PMNTJKG COMPANY,

MEMORIAL SERMON

PREACHED IN THE

South Congregational Church,

NEW BRITAIN, CONN.,

BY THE PASTOR,

REV. JAMES W, COOPER,

OCTOBER 14, 1883.

PUBLISHED BY REQUEST.

NEW BRITAIN, CONN.:
ADKINS PRINTING COMPANY,
1883.

REV. JAMES W. COOPER,
Dear Sir:— Tbe undersigned, believing that the Historical Discourse delivered
by you this morning should be printed in » form convenient for preservation
respectfully request a copy for publication.
David N. Camp, Henry Stanley,
John B. Talcott, P. Corbin,
J. N. Bartlett, Wm. H. Hart,
J. Warren Tuck, Charles E. Steele,
Edwin B. Lyon, John Wiard,
Charles Peck, C M. Lewis,
Oliver Stanley.
Sew Britain, October 14, 1883.

Memorial Sermon.

JOEL i , 3 : — " Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their
children, and their children another generation."

It is a fortunate peculiarity of old people, that they
love to relate the experiences of the past. When
their voices are silent, then the children should take up
their story and bear it on to the generations following.
The older members of this church are fast passing
away. God has graciously spared them to us. Their
serene and peaceful years have been the fitting crown
of useful lives. Their presence among us is "like the
benediction which follows after prayer." And like
that benediction, too, these years are all too short;
the "Amen" of life is too soon said ; one by one
they rise in silence at the summons of a Voice unheard
by us, and go serenely forth from the congregation
of the righteous here, to greet their heavenly Lord.
Since the opening of the current year, thirteen
members of this church have died. They have not
all been old, but the aggregate ages of the thirteen
numbered 921 years. Their average age was slightly
beyond that ordinary limit of human existence, three
score years and ten. Seven of the thirteen were
men and six were women; four had already passed

the term of four score years ; one tarried among us
until laden with the experience of almost a century
of earthly life.
Let me reverently recite their names, in the order
of their seniority :
MBS. MABY (BICHABDS) ENO,
MBS. GUNILDA (BASS) JTJDD,
FEEDEBICK T. STANLEY,
MBS. OLIVIA (COWLES) HABT,
JOHN J. SLATE,
THOMAS P. GBISWOLD,
MBS. SABAH (DOOLITTLE) CONKLIN,
LEVI O. SMITH,
HENEY 0. BULKLEY,
MBS. ADELINE (HOWD) CAMP,
FEEDEBICK W. HABT,
MBS. WILHELMINA (SEAVEES) BEUEMMEE,
MABTLN HARMON.
In addition to these, whose names are recorded with
ours on .the roll of this church, there are three others
who are also to be mentioned here — members of our
parish, christian people who loved their Lord and
served their generation, and in a good old age fell
on sleep and were gathered unto their fathers :
MBS. ESTHEE LOOMIS, aged 92.
MBS. ELEANOB NASH, aged 73.
WALTEB GLADDEN, aged 68.
I question whether any parish in the commonwealth
has ever had a more remarkable record of its dead to
publish to the world ; surely we never have had in all
our past history . Within nine months, sixteen matured
christians, revered, beloved, honored in life, missed
and mourned in death, have departed forever from
us. The aggregate of their years covers much more
than a millenium ! Their many prayers, who can
number? Their honest deeds and works of love,

who can recount? "They rest from their labors, and
their works do follow them."*
It is a most profitable exercise to commemorate the
virtuous deeds of the righteous dead. It makes us
grateful for God's goodness to man ; it makes us char
itable toward one another's faults ; it inspires us to
faithfulness in our own lives ; it helps us to appreciate
the blessings in the midst of which we live — blessings
which have been won for us by the industry and self-
sacrifice and large mindedness of those who have
gone before.
It is this last thought that fills my heart to-day.
These good people have lived largely for us. We
inherit what they have left behind. I look over this
prosperous community ; I see its busy and ever-in
creasing industries, its refined and pleasant homes, its
free schools bearing honored names, its philanthropic
societies, its christian churches, and I think at once of
those who have lived before us, and give thanks to
God for them. We have not won all these things for
ourselves ; they have come to us from others' hands.
"Other men labored," (some of them died long ago,
and are not forgotten) "and ye are entered into their
labors." This is the law of human life.
There would be great propriety in my dwelling at
length upon many of these whose names I have just
read. No one would think, however, that an invidious
distinction had been made if I should especially mention
the names of three men, who were natives of this
*For the twenty months previous to October 1, 1883, twenty-five members of
the South Church have died whose average age was sixty-nine years.

6
town, who have held public offices of trust among us,
and who have left their impress for good upon the
place. This is the more fitting, as I was unable to
speak at their funerals.*
I may refer with gratitude to the long and useful life
of Frederick T. Stanley. How much we owe to him !
He was a man worthy to be called " one of nature's
noblemen." We are accustomed to tell of what he
has done for New Britain ; public spirited, disinter
ested, far-sighted, he devised liberal things, and he
followed them with a patient energy to their consum
mation ; he has brought comfort to all our homes
and added to our prosperities ; and yet, my thought
is not so much directed to what he has done for New
Britain, as to what he was to New Britain. An exam
ple ! I wish we might learn from him the lesson of
true citizenship. What interest he had in all our
public affairs ! How he would plan, and work, and
give time and strength for some scheme that would
benefit his fellows ! How little he cared for an office
for himself ! His ambition was to serve. In that
service he was conscientious, disinterested, indefati
gable, a lover of his fellow-men ; and he has left us
the heritage of an honored name.
I like to speak here, too, the name of Walter
Gladden. He was not a member of our communion,
but few were more regular than he at our Sabbath
worship, or cherished more tenderly than he the
christian hope. Faithful to public trusts, honest in
political life, a life-long friend of temperance and
*They occurred during the absence of the pastor on a long vacation.

virtue — that was Captain Gladden, How he loved
his native town, and loved to talk about it as it was
fifty years ago, and as it had come to be ! A strong
and honorable link that bound us to the palt was
broken when he died.
The other name to which I referred was that of
Levi 0. Smith, a name which has been worthily per
petuated in one of our public schools. For, a man
who, as a man of business, serves the cause of free
education with painstaking fidelity, as he did, becomes
a public benefactor, and demands, especially from the
coming generations, the meed of praise.
I turn from these, however, to speak more at length
of a longer life than any of them. I choose to dwell
upon this because it includes them all within its sweep
of years and directs our thoughts over a wider space.
It is difficult for us to realize how fast history is
being made ; how swiftly event succeeds event, and
age follows age, and we are hurried along through the
great epochs of our modern life. A common life in
these stirring days is as long as Methuselah's. If we
trace it back to its beginning we find that it covers
periods of great revolutions in science and in social
life, in religious thought and in the political world,
and finally roots itself in what we may call a former,
distant era. This is true of our own lives, even of
those of us who have lived only thirty or forty years
in the world.
On the 29th of September last, there died in this
city the oldest member of our church. Mrs. Mary
Richards Eno was born on the 29th of September,

8
1785. Her death therefore occurred on the 98th
anniversary of her birth ; she lived to within two brief
years of a full century.
1785 ! Let us make a few historical comparisons.
At that time George the Third was King of England,
and continued to be for thirty-five years afterward.
Louis XVI sat upon the throne of the Bourbons in
France, seemingly immovable. The first Napoleon
was a school-boy in Corsica. The French revolution
had not yet begun. The great Catharine was Empress
of Russia, and Poland was still a kingdom with Stan
islaus as King.
Coming to our own country, we find that the war
of Revolution had been fought and peace with England
had been declared two years before. But there was
no "United States of America" in 1785. Two years
passed before the Constitution was framed, and two
years more before it was adopted by the States and
George Washington elected President, in 1789. What
a far-off world that seems to us to be !
Mrs. Eno was born in the parish of New Britain,
in a house which has since become historic, and is still
standing — the old "Skinner House," on East street.
near the corner of Smalley. The house had been
purchased by her grandfather, in 1776, and about a
quarter of a century after her birth it came into the
possession of the Rev. Mr. Skinner, the second pastor
of the church. Mrs. Eno's mother was a weak and
sickly woman, and died at the age of 33. She was
one of six sisters, all of whom died of consumption
in early life. Her father was Amos Richards, a Rev-

olutionary soldier, and a man of great strength, who
is described as having had " the agility of a Zouave,
and at the age of 82 was wont to walk twenty-four
miles in half a day."
I wish I were able to give you a picture of New
Britain as it appeared in the year 1785. Macaulay
in his history has a celebrated chapter descriptive of
England in 1685, but that is a date with which we
can have nothing to do ; for at that time no white
man's dwelling, of the rudest sort, had ever been
erected either in the town of Berlin or New Britain.
It was not until 1686 that the earliest settlers found
their way into this region, and built their stockade in
the center of the bottom lands, or natural prairie
which still stretches down toward the Berlin depot.
It takes but two lifetimes the length of Mrs. Eno's to
carry us back to that primitive beginning of all things
in this locality. For twenty years the people of the
little settlement of the "Great Swamp," as it was
then called, walked regularly to the church at Farm-
ington on Sabbath days, eight or ten miles across the
country and over the mountain, carefully guarded all
the long way by armed men against the dangers of
lurking wild beast and the more terrible Indian foe.
Finally the meeting house was built on Christian
Lane. In 1754 another parish was organized further
to the north ; and this, in honor to the mother-land,
was, by her lawful subjects resident there, at the sug
gestion of Col. Isaac Lee, called New Britain. Both
these parishes remained parts of the old town of
Farmington, however, until the very year of Mrs.

10
Eno's birth in 1785. Then the town of Berlin was
formed, in which New Britain was known as the
second parish.
As nearly as I can ascertain, there were at that
time in all New Britain about sixty houses, some of
them exceedingly primitive in their architecture.
They were scattered along the edges of the parish.
East street was perhaps the principal thoroughfare ;
Stanley Quarter, Osgood Hill, and Hart's Settlement
(in the southwest) being the most populous districts
of the town. The church stood facing the common,
or as it was called, the " Parade," at the present
junction of Elm and Stanley streets. Where the
greater portion of our growing city now stands, there
were almost no dwellings at all. Much of this part
of the parish was then covered with marsh, with here
and there a sluggish stream or an occasional hillock
to give diversity to the scene. The first house, and
for some time almost the only house, built within the
present city limits of New Britain, was not far from
where this church now stands, and was built as late
as 1746.
Imagination finds it difficult to paint the picture !
It was another world upon this same soil ; a different
life from anything that we know about ! And yet, it
was virtually the same community. The descendants
of those same families abide here still. There is the
closest connection between that strange past and this
familiar present, and what we see around us to-day is
but the natural fruit of the seed which was then pre
paring for the planting.

11
This seed, more than anywhere else, is to be found
in the old meeting house which stood on the ledge.
A plain, bare structure without bell or belfry, it was
not an ornamental building in its style ; but it had
just been painted and renovated after the great revival
of 1784, and it was a consecrated house of prayer.
There the people gathered, all of them, Sabbath by
Sabbath, and listened to strong words of doctrine and
reproof. The minister of this little church was no weakling.
Already he had a reputation across the sea for his
valuable contributions to religious thought. In New
England he was accounted one of the leaders in the
great battle that was raging between the brawny the
ologians of that day. New Britain became first known
to the great world outside through its first pastor,
Rev. John Smalley, D. D. He was not a graceful
speaker, and he had no " milk for babes." A tall,
athletic man, somewhat angular and stiff in his man
ner, with a severe countenance, a piercing eye, his
intellect was powerful enough to dominate his whole
nature, and his will could force his thought home upon
his people. He was a strong man's minister; and
under his tuition a race of strong men were reared up
here. Although naturally conservative in tempera
ment, Dr. Smalley was considered a liberal in theology,
and championed the progressive side. He was one of
the founders of the new school, or governmental,
theory of the atonement. He was a pioneer in
thought, and a leader of thinking men. For fifty
years he continued active as pastor of the church, and

12
then for ten years more tarried among his people, the
object of their reverence and high respect. He died
in 1820, at the age of 86.
There was a Providence in placing such a man at
the head of this feeble, settlement in its earliest days.
The church was everything to a community then;
the center of its social life, its intelligence, and its
political activity, as well as of its moral and religious
development. This vigorous christian thinker had the
shaping of the character of the town at its beginning.
There was a Providence, also, in the appointment
of his successor. It was time now that a leader of a
different sort should take the helm of affairs in the
parish, and Newton Skinner was remarkably well
adapted to follow after and complete the work of Dr.
Smalley. The plain spoken, practical preacher, suc
ceeded to the place of the highly intellectual scholar.
A Sunday school was formed, a great revival came —
one hundred and twenty-five conversions to one hun
dred and twenty dwellings — a new, large church was
built, prosperity in all its forms seems suddenly to
have been developed. Mr. Skinner died at the age
of 42, in 1825, only five years after the death of Dr.
Smalley. These two men were the instruments in the hands
of God for the greatest blessing to this community.
Wonderfully complementing one another, the first
laid slowly and laboriously a deep and broad founda
tion of solid masonry; the second raised upon this
foundatiqn the oaken framework of a new, and, we
trust, a permanent structure of society.

13
From 1825, or thereabouts, the development of our
modern industries and generally enlarged life, is to be
traced. Enterprise began to assert itself in modern
forms; manufactures were gradually established. The
stirring men of New Britain looked about them, and
set themselves at work intelligently, perseveringly and
hopefully. No place ever had more natural disadvantages to
contend against ; but no place, I believe, ever had in
it a larger proportion of vigorous minded, clear sighted,
honest, christian men. This was a little back parish of
a quiet country town. It had hardly sufficient water
power to grind its own grist. There was no outlying
country around it to make it a center of trade. It
was connected with the rest of the world by no great
thoroughfare, not even by a turnpike. Its very topog
raphy was against it, and the land had to be filled or
leveled to make a place on which a city might stand.
And yet, in the face of these obstacles, enterprise
made its way. I was told only last week by President
Andrews, of Marietta college, that visiting this place
he once asked a resident here what its natural advan
tages had been, and the answer that he received was,
" Major North." It was the true answer. He, and
such as he, men who had been reared here upon this
soil, whose characters had been trained in the old
church by the ministers whom I have just described,
who themselves were christians, and believed in God
and honest enterprise, who helped one another, and
sought the blessing of the Almighty — these were the
" natural advantages" of the place.

14
The lesson is for us to-day. Such men are not
trained in heathen lands; they do not grow up together
in infidel communities. Enterprise and Christianity
are not at variance. Business prosperity and honest
dealing, whatever some young men may say, are not
incompatible. On the contrary, Christianity is a vital
force. It stimulates ; it arouses ; it inspires with hope ;
it gives confidence in God ; it has in it the very ele
ments of enterprise ; it supplies the only possible
ground for successful commercial dealing. Without
it, a man may come to disbelieve in truth and integ
rity ; worldliness may obtain the mastery over him ;
avarice and covetousness may goad him forward to
his fall. The only basis of earthly success, in the long
run and in the large view, is furnished in the princi
ples which are taught by our christian religion, and
practiced by our truly christian men.
If this were the place for it, I would greatly like to
tell you of the gradual growth of our large manufac
turing interests. For the beginning of them we are
compelled to go back to the year 1800, when James
'North and Joseph Shipman commenced the making
of sleigh bells in the old Sugden house; the capital
being furnished by Dr. Smalley himself. A little later
a company was formed for the manufacture of jewelry,
and afterwards the plating business was introduced.
But these interests were small, and were not much
increased, until about the date mentioned above, when
new life seems suddenly to have been developed in all
branches of manufacture and trade. In 1825 a post
office was established in the parish. In 1833 the first

15
mortise-lock made this side the sea for the general
market, was wrought out by hand on the pattern of a
foreign article, by a member of this church still living
among us.* A few years after, the first complete
machine for making hooks and eyes was put in opera
tion. Steam gave place to the foot and horse power
by which the factories had previously been run. The
old was supplanted by the new. Men studied and
planned, working day and night at forge and lathe
and bench, to devise some new instrument, or perfect
some new industry. The great financial crash of 1837
swept everything away. But, after it had passed,
the struggle was renewed with even greater zeal, until
success was won, and our large and varied industries,
with their millions of productive capital, were securely
established. What I wish to insist upon as a truly significant
fact for us, is that these men who laid the foundation
for our prosperities, were christian men ; and their
industries were, therefore, (whatever their nature
or kind) christian industries. They were conducted
upon christian principles. The proceeds of them main
tained the church of Christ, sent food and clothing to
the poor, encouraged education, and preached the
gospel in those distant places of the earth which are
now actually becoming in their turn our customers in
trade. From the beginning of its history until the
present time, New Britain has, to a remarkable degree,
been a christian community ; its leading men, men of
religious life and high moral character.
*William B. Stanley, Esq.

16
I have said that a transition period was reached
about the year 1825. The next fifteen years were
years of great advance. In a decade, numbers were
added to the population equal to the increase of half
a century before. The stationary community had
begun to move. The quiet old country parish was
developing into the busy manufacturing village.
We are now entering upon another period of tran
sition. We are, at the present time, passing rapidly
from the village life into that of the city. If we do
not already number twenty thousand souls, a very
few months will bring them to us. Our conditions
are changing. New elements are being introduced.
New questions are presented for our solution. We
are entering upon a larger life, with larger opportu
nities for good than ever before.
These periods of transition are always periods of
danger. The men of 1825 and 1840 stood the test,
and stood it nobly. They are now passed, or are fast
passing, away. Shall we, their sons and successors,
maintain in our city life the same influence for religion,
the same high regard for the purity of the home, the
efficiency of the christian school, the honor of the
evangelical protestant church, which they, in a nar
rower sphere, so well exhibited ? This, brethren, is
the great problem which lies just before us now. It
is a problem to be solved by the leaders in our business
enterprises, and by our common people ; by the church
of Christ, and by the scholars in our Sunday schools.
We have a good example behind us. We have fallen
heir to a good inheritance. We stand in the line of

17
a noble succession. But we have still a great work
to perform.
Let us determine here, in God's house, surrounded
by this great cloud of witnesses who have departed
from us in the faith of Christ, that by His help we will
perpetuate the influence of our fathers, do their work
and bless our generation.
Concerning the memory of her whose long career
has already been mentioned in this discourse, I can
speak but a few brief words. She was an energetic,
positive character, vigorous both in mind and body, a
woman of influence while she lived, and that influence
on the side of right. It is remarkable that years
and years ago, when no signs of such a thing appeared,
she insisted that this was to be the site of a large and
flourishing town. She lived to see her prophecy veri
fied. She rejoiced in the prosperity of her native
place, though she mourned over its departures from
its early moralities, especially in its desecrations of
the Sabbath day.
Her latest testimony for God was a doxology. It
is suggestive to us because it marks the highest motive
that may govern our actions, and furnishes a worthy
motto for all our life. In her last weakness, when
consciousness had nearly passed away and she could
with difficulty be aroused, she continued to repeat,
over and over again, as if in reverent worship before
the very throne of God : " Thine be the praise, and
THE GLORY, FOREVER AND EVER, AMEN !"

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