“God of our fathers, in whose sight
The centuries are but as days,
We ask, as those of old, Thy light;
We bring, like them, our gift of praise.
“We bless Thee for the fathers’ love;
They made the rough way smooth, that we
Might safer walk. O, may it prove
The path of peace that leads to Thee.
“We reach across the vanished years
And touch their holy lives to-day,
They kept the faith through toils and fears;
Grant healing in the touch, we pray.
“If mists of time have dimmed our sight,
And faith has faltered on the way,
May clearer vision in the light
Of holy memories, crown this day.
“Alike to Thee are new and old;
Thy care through ages is the same;
Thy love links with a chain of gold
The centuries, in one dear Name.
“Keep in the hollow of Thy hand
This hallowed place, while years shall last;
For righteousness still may it stand,
Till days and ages are all past.”
BY REV. SAMUEL HART, D. D.
OF MIDDLETOWN, CONNECTICUT, IN SAINT JOHN’S CHURCH, ALL SAINTS’ CONGREGATION UNITING
“It happened, as men say, that the beginning of the settlement of this town fell in the year which saw the organization of the first parish of the Church of England in Connecticut; the bi-centenary of New Milford is also the bi-centenary of the Diocese of Connecticut. It is but natural, therefore, that one who is called to speak to-day as to that part which this parish has borne in the history of the town, should recur to the origin of the Church in this Colony, and should have in his mind the inspiration of last week’s commemoration in Stratford; we cannot but look back from the time when the Church’s ministrations were first held here, to the earlier ministrations on the shores of the Sound. But we have a stronger reason to-day for turning to the beginnings; for the two clergymen who first officiated here, at the request of a few adherents of the Church of England, were Dr. Johnson, missionary and rector at Stratford, ‘the father of the Church in Connecticut,’ and Mr. John Beach, of Stratford birth, Dr. Johnson’s pupil in theology, in charge of congregations in Redding and Newtown. But, as it appears, we can go still further back; for one of the first settlers here, of whom indeed it is said that he claimed the land by title from the Indians, was John Read, who, at the time when the church services were first held by a clergyman in Stratford, was ministering to the Congregational society there, and presently connected himself with the newly formed congregation of Churchmen; indeed, we are told that at one time he had it in mind to go to England and ask for ordination at the hands of a bishop. Whatever his plans in this matter, they were not carried out; for he removed to this place, granted the use of a house which he built as a place of meeting for public worship, and occasionally preached to those who assembled there. He became a lawyer and Queen’s attorney, and removed to Boston, where he was a communicant in King’s Chapel. His son John was one of the first settlers of Reading (Redding) and named the town for his father. Thus there was here, from the very first, a little Church of England leaven.
“But we are told of no formal church services here for twenty-two years, and of no separate congregation until 1743. At this time, Dr. Johnson, that man of great learning and prudence and missionary zeal, had been ministering for twenty years in Stratford, extending his journeys to places adjacent and remote in the Colony, and exercising a strong and healthful influence on behalf of the Church. Among the young men whom he trained in the Church’s ways and in her theology, his pupils and members of his family, was John Beach, for eight years Congregational minister at Newtown, ‘a popular and insinuating young man,’ as was testified of him, who after ordination in England came back to his former field of labor and began a wonderful work there and in Redding, with a small congregation of five families. These two men came hither at