The New England Meeting House – An 1882 Perspective On December 5, 1882, Rev. Noah Porter, Congregational minister and President of Yale College, presented a paper to the New England Society of Brooklyn, N.Y. His address was entitled The New England Meeting House. That address was published in the May 1883 edition of The New Englander. [303-338] I recently posted on “Explore” a quote about New Englanders from that article. In this post and in subposts to it, I am placing some additional quotes from that article which I found of interest. ++++++ [The titles to the following excerpted sections of text are mine.] --Churches and Towns in Early New England “Out of the church grew the town; or rather the town was evolved or developed along with the church. Whether church members, as in Massachusetts and New Haven, were at first the only voters, or whether, as in Connecticut, the town voted into its commonwealth, those men, and those only, who were fit to be freemen, it was all the same, as the church was the germ and the meeting house was the center of the self-governed commonwealth, and became the scene of all those public trans actions which should connect man with his fellow man, and with his God, in an organized and common life.” [305] --The Term Church “The New Englander would not call this building a church. That, in his view, was a sacred and significant name, which should be applied only to one of the most exalted conceptions which had ever come to the mind of man. For any other use of the word there was, in his view, no warrant in the Scriptures. In the language of Richard Mather, There is no just ground from scripture to apply such a trope as church to a house for a public assembly.—Ratio Disciplinae, 5.” [305-306] --The Oldest House in New England and a Stone Church “The oldest dwelling house in New England, and probably in the United States, is in Guilford, Conn. This was built in 1639, but it was built of stone, with very thick and solid walls, and is in excellent repair. There is a tradition that the first church in Guilford was also constructed of stone. This is the more probable as the town abounds in ledges of more or less loosely lying rock material. This, however, did not hold of the majority of the New England towns. The number of stone buildings of any kind was singularly small.” [306] --Where the Bell-Ringer Stood On the pyramidal style of many very early meeting houses: “The structure was square, or nearly so; the roof was pyramidal, and terminated in a belfry over the center, requiring the bell-ringer to stand in the middle of the edifice. We have an excellent example of a building of this type in the meeting house at Hingham, Mass., built in 1681. . .” --The First Steeple in Connecticut “The first steeple in Connecticut was erected in Guilford in 1726, and attached to the meeting house previously built in 1712, which was 68 feet long and 46 feet wide. It was expressly voted that • the belfry and spire of the meeting house shall be built in the fashion and proportion of the church at Newport, Rhode Island. The church referred to is doubtless Trinity Church, which is still standing, and retains the organ given to it by Bishop Berkeley about 1730.” [308-309] --MA Known for Ornamented Pews “It deserves to be recorded also that, in Massachusetts very generally, and the parts of other New England States which were affiliated with Massachusetts, the pews were made more airy and elegant by open panels, variously ornamented with open work. Through these openings the younger worshipers could communicate with one another during the long sermons.” [See Part Two in a subpost.]
Posted on: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 01:10:20 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015