Address at the Centenary of St. Paul's Church, Norwalk, Conn.

concerned ecclesiastical jurisprudence, was to be trusted with entire confidence. He deprecated changes, and was the apostle of the bidding of law. His views had weight in the committee room, he graced the moderator’s chair, and was a power upon the floor of the convention. He was a sage counsellor but an acute debater as well. He spake to the point, and was gifted with what in another has been commended as the rhetorical quality of knowing when to stop. He was for some time secretary of the lower house in the general con- vention, and for many years chairman of the committee on canons. His services are distinctly worth putting upon record, and the church has reason to be proud of them. Uncompromising in his allegiance to it, never swerved by policy, but ever acting from conviction, in- flexible, intelligent, influential, he won the admiration of his cotem- poraries, and will have secured the approbation of history. And as to that which he here accomplished, everything speaks of him. Not a building, not a wall, not a paling even is standing which stood when he came hither. He filled, and straightened, and pav- ed and smoothed; he built first the church, ' then the walls, then the sheds, then the walks. He built Trinity chapel, South Nor- walk, and helped build at least two other churches in this vicinity, and last of all he built his tomb. “Dr. Mead,” said a jurist, a stranger to him, of an adjoining diocese, “the citizens of my town and fly to Christ for pardon, and use every appointed means of grace, to secure for yourselves, as you may do, a heavenly inheritance ; or else, he who is over you in the Lord, who has so often spoken to you, Avho now again speaks to you in weakness, though in earnestness, must, when the throne is set and the books are opened, testify against you before Heaven and earth that he has warned and instructed you but that you would not improve it: that you knew your duty though you did it not. Oh, save me from the dreadful necessity of witnessing against you! Improve what yet remains; from this hour make the blessed Gospel a savor of life unto life, and not of death unto death. And you, beloved, who have been trying to ‘work out your ow n salvation,’ be diligent, be faithful, and the rewards of eternity shall be secured. What of joy or sorrow may be before you in the future, we know not But this we know, that ‘they that Avait upon ihe Lord, shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint.’” * The present St. Paul’s is a substantial edifice in all its parts. The tower is strengthened by heavy oak timber from the frame of the former church. The belfry and spire stand on ten posts, each post being one foot square. The tower is fifty feet in height, and the belfry and spire extend one hundred feet beyond that, the whole being surmounted by the same weather vane that surmounted the spire of the church of 1786. Probably there is not an individual in the parish who better understands concerning the building, from foundation bed to spire terminal, of St. Paul’s Church, than does the venerable Henry Kellogg, ‘‘the church carpenter.” He has industriously discharged his duty, and after a long laborday, and bent under the weight of years, bears with hope the infirmities and inquietudes of age. The bell which hung in the steeple of the church of 1786 Avas a New Haven bell, bought evidently in November, 1796, at a cost of between 75 and 100 dol-’ lars. It now hangs in the belfry of St. Mark’s Church, New Canaan. The fine toned bell which to-day hangs in St. Paul’s Church, is from the Meneely West Troy foundry, of 2,030 pounds weight, and key F natural. It succeeded some tAVO or three steel bells, and was put in place in January, 1869. 24 owe to you a monument. The spirit which you roused, and the start that you gave us, deserve recognition.” “The monument is built,” was the ready reply, “built notwithstanding opposition.” And down to his death, he was wont to tell of Grace Church, White Plains,* * * § of which parish he was the founder, as the memorial of his earliest ministerial work; while this ecclesiastical establishment, of the convenience and comfort and beauty of which he wras guard- ian genius, is his later memorial. Other testimonials to his long ministry, eternity will present. He labored unweariedly ; he faith- fully proclaimed one topic — it was the text of the last sermon preached in the church of 1786; it was the theme of his life long sermon — “We preach Christ crucified. ”+ We close our record of the rectorships of the century with his mention, blessing Almighty God that the mantle has fallen upon onej who has so zealously taken up the work and so felicitously begun what we devoutly pray may prove another century of com- plete prosperity. RECTOR AND PARISH ASSISTANTS. Parish clerk, or reader of responses, William Cornwall. § Clerical assistants, the Rev. William Atwill, the Rev. Thomas E. PattisonJ (nephew of the late Dr. Mead, and to whose discreet and unremit- ting efforts much of the success of the rudimentary work done twenty-five years ago in the parish at South Norwalk, is due,) the Rev. William H. Williams, vicar of Padgate, England; the Rev. Curtis T. Woodruff, afterward rector of Trinity Church, South Norwalk; the Rev. Frederick Thompson, IT the Rev. Ralph B. * Under the rectorship to day of the Rev. Frederick B. VanKleeck, a son of one Dr. of Mead’s old friends, the late Robert B. VanKleeck, D. D. tThe topic of the first sermon preached, in September, 1841, in the present edifice was “Reconciliation through the Redeemer of Mankind.” t The Rev. Howard Saxstone Clapp, born in 1851 in the city of Hartford ; Yale graduate, class of 1872; ordained to the diaconate May 26, 1875, and to the priesthood. June 1, 1876. First charge, Trinity Church, Wethersfield, Conn., which he held until called in 1883 to St. Paul’s, Norwalk, assuming its rector- ship on Trinity Sunday, May 20, 1883. § Chorister from Mr. Whitlock’s to Dr. Kemper’s day, a period of nearly a quarter century, a position which in later years was faithfully filled by his son, Thomas. II He is now in Syracuse, diocese of central New York. His brother, the Rev, Eugene Pattison, was wont to visit his uncle, Dr. Mead, and married a daugh- ter of the late Jonathan Camp, warden of St. Paul’s. After twenty-six years’ earnest labor in the ministry, he died, in 1831, in Bethel, Connecticut, and is buried in Norwalk, of which town his widow and most of his children are now residents. y From the diocese of Albany, but ordained in Norwalk, by Bishop Williams, at the request of Bishop Doane. 25 Hoyt,* tlie Rev. Frederick R. Sandford, t the Rev. J. B. Jennings, J and Rev. C. M. Selleck.§ The story of the laymen of the past is one which, like that of the clergy, deserves not only mentioning but treasuring. The picture of our ancestors of a century ago is a reproduction of a picture twenty -two hundred years older, when the walls of Jerusalem were in heaps of rubbish and all set to work, and every one lent a hand, and the cry went resolutely up : “Come and let us build.” Their homes were in ruins, and their holy temple lay in the dust, but they proposed to repair the desolation, and all joined in the work and each applied himself to the part within reach. It was too soon to decide upon a final plan ; the smoke had hardly cleared away from the burnt district ; the prospect politically was gloomy ; the blasts of war were heard in the land ; but they could not remain without their church, and decided to put up a building 24x36 for temporary occupancy, some among them offering money, some material, some both, to help in its construction. Goold Hoyt was the first sub- scriber ; then Esaias Bouton, and Samuel Belden, and Jonathan Camp, and Nathan Jarvis, and Ebenezer Church, and Thomas Belden, and Hezekiali Osborn, and John and Samuel Cannon, and Matthew Reed, and Isaac Isaacs, and a number besides these. Others of the parish contributed parts of the frame and covering of the building, girders, posts, rafters, studding and shingles: and still others lent of their skill in cutting, and strength in work- ing, and time in carting. There were some special offerings : David Lambert gave the communion table, as Stephen St. John and Ebenezer Church and Thomas Fayerweather did the chancel and the pulpit in the former church ; and Thomas Belden the brass hinges for the desk ; and Jacob Jennings the hinges for the pulpit ; and Eliakim Warren and David Nash their cash donations, in addi- tion to their subscriptions for the church of 1786 ; while Captain *Born in 1844 In New York city, and educated at Trinity School. He pursued his theological studies under the direction of his father, the well known Ralph Hoyt of former years. After his ordination he took charge of the parish at Tenefly, N. J.. and then of Holy Trinity parish, Jersey City. He spent not quite one year in Norwalk; and died in Illinois, July 19, 1886. tYale graduate; Studied divinity at Berkeley; ordained to the Diaeonate in 1883. He married a daughter of Mrs. Henry Bailey, of Norwalk, and is now rector of the parish at Warehouse Point, Conn. tNashota graduate. §Upon the decease, in 1879, of the Rev. William Cooper Mead, D. D. LL. D., the writer, who had been Hr. Mead’s personal assistant since March, 1865, took temporary care of the parish, and was elected rector in Feb., 1881, in which office he served until his resignation at Easter, 1883. 2c; Stephen Betts,* the Nehemiah of the day, who resisted Tryon’sf 2,000 men when they landed at Compo, and helj^ed General Samuel H. Parsons, of Lyme, Connecticut, drive the small army to their boats after they had fired Norwalk,]; and yet diligently read out of