“Text—Proverbs 22:28. ‘Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.’
“A burning desire to deliver a living message is one landmark in the evangelism of the fathers of our church. The age of our town is nearly four times as great as the years of Methodism’s church edifice in our village; more than twice the years of Methodism in the present confines of our town; one hundred twenty-seven years greater than Methodism in the State; thirty-seven years greater than Methodism’s first Conference. Indeed, John Wesley, its founder, was but four years old, in June of the year, when John Noble, New Milford’s first settler, penetrated these forests primeval. Our fathers came not as a colony, but as evangelists, impelled by a vital experience. They believed that sin separated from God, that only by salvation, through the atonement of the Redeemer, could sinners be in harmony with the Father, that personal righteousness and the witness of God’s indwelling Spirit were results of redemption, and that the redeemed were to go on unto the likeness of Jesus. Without ignoring other elements in their belief, the stress laid upon personal experience and its intensity led them far and wide. That they did not thrust an alien graft upon New England religious stock is seen in one instance, at least, by the demands of Jonathan Edwards for personal righteousness, and for conversion as a requirement for all seeking the communion of the Lord’s Supper; and the sad rejection from his pulpit. Infidelity, imported with the teaching of the French revolutionists, was alarmingly on the increase. The custom of discussing metaphysical subjects and of weaving fine-spun doctrines was spreading more or less throughout Christendom; to so large an extent had London been infected, that Blackstone, the famous law commentator, in visiting every church of note in that city, said he did not hear one sermon that had more of Christianity than had the writings of Cicero, and that they could not have been called Christian sermons. The revival-stirring sermons of Wesley and Whitefield were permeating through and upward from the masses of the people. And the reception given to this message, so ardently delivered, assures conclusively the need that had been unsatisfied. So, then, the fathers of our Church entered this field with the ringing word of God in their hearts as their warrant.
“Faithful sowing and careful husbanding of the harvest constituted another landmark. When, in 1789, Jesse Lee was appointed to Stamford, he had neither preaching place nor congregation as a rallying point; not even a member in all New England to greet him. He entered with a ‘roving commission.’ True enough, Methodism had been presented by some of the most prominent evangelical preachers since the visit of Charles Wesley, nearly sixty years prior to Lee, and including Whitefield, Boardman, and Garretson, within a short time of the more concentrated mission in 1789. Lee’s fine appearance, his massive frame, his weight being about three hundred pounds, his wit and good humor, his wisdom and judgment of human nature, his knowledge of the Bible, and his depth of consecration gave him an entry. The labors of Lee extended, during his first year, from Norwalk along the Sound coast, and upward to Ridgefield and Danbury. These pioneers approached our town from the south, reaching the part now separated into the town of Bridgewater, about 1800; they came from the Hudson River in the north to Gaylordsville in 1813, and to Northville in 1816; from the southwest to Lanesville, then called Pleasant Valley, in 1815. These activities from all directions soon resulted in the erection of church buildings at all of these points. The care of the preachers was constant to train the converts enlisted. They visited and revisited, at heavy privations and difficulties, to make sure of the standing of even one or two new members.
“The essential coworking of the laymen is another landmark. Methodism, from its inception, would have been incomplete without the largest degree of co-operation on the part of the laity. It has been a layman’s movement, under the direction of ordained leaders. As soon as two or more were converted at a place, one of the number was delegated as leader for the others, thus forming classes for religious culture. Awaiting the visits of the preacher in charge, these classes were hives of industry, and seminaries of learning, and communions for worship in charge of one of their own number, the class leader. Those more qualified by nature and grace were called for special activity as local preachers, and they went from place to place, preaching to other congregations, alternating with the ordained preachers and under their direction. These meetings were in homes, at times the choicest in the center of the town, or at others, far in the fastness of the forest within the rude log cabin, or at others, in God’s open temple with the swaying branches of the trees as their rafters. The time of worship might be at any hour from sunrise until midnight, and on any day during the week. The congregation was called from the home, the shop, the store, and the field, not by the chime of the church bell, but by the volume of hearty singing; the numbers might be confined to one beside the preacher, or mount upwards to more than twenty thousand. The immediate results of these preaching visits were to be cultivated by the resident laymen. And nobly did they keep the faith. Exhortation, rebuke, counsel, encouragement, forbearance, and brotherly love must come by means of fellow laymen, in many cases but little older in the faith than the new recruits.
“Zeal in building up the local church was another landmark. Within a few years after the introduction of Methodism, church buildings were erected at Gaylordsville, at a cost of eight hundred dollars; at Northville, on ground of Harvey Benson, at a cost of six hundred dollars, beside labor and material contributed; and at Lanesville, at a cost of three thousand dollars. This indicates considerable sacrifice on the part of the members, and interest in the community. In 1849, after considerable discussion, the members of the different churches, so close in location, agreed upon the village as a central point, and our present edifice was built. Since 1833, when its name had first appeared in the conference minutes, it has been known as the New Milford charge. Before that it had been part of the Stratford circuit, which, in 1822, when our town first had a permanent preaching place on the circuit, had only three church edifices; while to-day this range contains church property, including parsonages, worth nearly a million dollars, has several thousand members, and gives for benevolent purposes, outside its own borders, more money every year by far than the total amount contributed for all causes at that time.
“Within a few years of the building of the present edifice a parsonage was erected. Every year additional money was laid out on the property; principally in 1869 in the pastorate of the Rev. W. R. Webster, and in 1891, when the church was remodeled and enlarged, at a cost of several thousand dollars, in the pastorate of the Rev. R. T. Cooper.... In the long line of preachers, whose counsel and administration have cheered and molded many lives, was the Rev. William T. Gilbert, one of a great class graduated from Yale University, who, with earnest manner and finely wrought sermon, built deeply and broad; and, after laying aside his pastoral duties, he re-entered the ranks, working faithfully along different ways in the activities of the laymen. The Rev. George Lansing Taylor, D. D., L. H. D., ended a life of great intellectual power and moral grandeur, while your pastor. For breadth in learning, strength of thought, independence for truth, tenacity to purpose, and conscientious following after his Master, he was notable. His pastorate will long be memorable in the history of this church, and be felt in the lives of its members, among the younger especially, as they were marked by his striking personality.”
BY REV. ORVILLE VAN KEUREN
IN THE GAYLORDSVILLE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH
“Methodism was established in Gaylordsville in 1825, under the following circumstances:
“Rev. Cyrus Silliman, of the New York Conference, came to visit a cousin, Mrs. David Sterling, who lived one and a half miles below the village, in the town of Sherman. While there, he made an appointment for a week-evening service at the Strait district schoolhouse. The attendance was so large and the interest so marked that he continued the meetings four evenings, and then returned to his charge in the State of New York.
“The people, however, continued the meetings for several weeks, holding them in private houses. Rev. Andrew Elliot, the pastor of the Congregational Church at New Milford, learning of the revival, came up several times and visited the families.