CHAPTER XXIV
RELIGIOUS EFFORTS
THE first religious
movement in the Territory was by the Methodist Rock
River Conference in 1844. Delegated by that body,
Rev. Mr. Hurlbut was first to ascertain
the spiritual wants of this country, and sound the
Gospel trumpet through this sparsely populated region.
He could do little else during the brief period of
his appointment than "prepare the way,"
and leave "fallow ground" for others to
sow the seed and reap the harvest.
His successor, Rev. J.
G. Putnam, had been one year in the field,
when the writer entered the territory; and he, with
the exception of missionaries and the chaplain at
the Fort, and one retired missionary, was the only
evangelical minister "in all the broad domain."
His widely remote stations forbade a frequent visit
to each; and the reader can form some idea of the
destitution, form the fact, that during my five months'
sojourn in St. Paul, I listened to but one sermon.
The Sabbath school was the only religious gathering;
and here, after the formation of a Bible class, we
were acustomed [accustomed] to read a tract or sermon,
while, for one year, the writer remained the only
professing Christian resident in St. Paul, and not
another voice was audible in prayer, in that Sunday
school. The responsibility of discharging the combined
duties of superintendent, teacher, and almost, of
minister, she might not and dared not lay aside; and
thus, amid encouragements and discouragements, hopes
and fears,
Rev. A. M. Torbet
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sunshine and shade, she worked on, wishing,
hoping, praying, that God would put it into the hearts
of some of his children to "come over and help"
to cultivate the promising garden.
Early in the summer of
1848, Deacon A. H. Cavender, Baptist,
and Rev. B. F. Hoyt, a Methodist
local preacher, arrived in St. Paul, and became at
once valuable and efficient workers. The latter, constrained
by the love of souls, occasionally broke the "bread
of life" to the listening few. When the "number
of disciples" had increased to five or six, though
their membership was in three Christian denominations,
on November 9th, 1848, a weekly prayer meeting was
established.
Early in the winter of
1849, a Methodist class was organized by Rev. Mr.
Close (now in Oregon), and about
this time Hon. H. M. Price, since
our delegate to Congress, made the liberal offer of
two hundred dollars and ten town lots, towards the
first church edifice. This church accepted the offer,
and the following spring was laid the corner-stone
of their brick house in Upper Town.
With the establishment
of the prayer-meeting, came the resolution to maintain
some form of religious worship on each Sabbath, and
so blessed was this resolve, that, except on two occasions,
we were not without the living teacher.
In the winter of 1848,
Rev. Mr. Gear held monthly and finally,
semi-monthly, service in St. Paul, with no reward
but a consciousness of doing good, in thus
laboring for the benefit of his fellow men.
Near the close of the
year 1848, a simultaneous correspondence commenced
between the writer and Rev. B. M. Hill, D. D., Corresponding
Secretary of the Baptist Home Mission Board, under
circumstances so singular
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that we could not believe that the hand
of the Lord was in it, and that His Spirit
directed the matter. We supposed ourselves to be strangers
to each other, one asking for a Home Missionary to
be sent to this inviting field—the other seeking
information, and desiring to know if the Home Mission
Board could do anything in this direction. The result
was, the appointment of Rev. J. P. Parsons
in February following, who entered upon his duties
in May 1849, the first resident minister in St. Paul.
On the last day of the same year, "The First
Baptist Church of St. Paul," composed of twelve
members, was publicly recognized in a new and unplastered
school-house, where its services were held through
the ensuing year. About this time the union prayer-meeting,
which had been cherished as "the apple of the
eye," by its originators, was sundered through
denominational interests; and though we heartily rejoiced
in the religious advance, which created the necessity,
it was a painful experience to those who had first
wept over the barren soil, and prayed for more laborers
in the vineyard.
In 1851 Mr. Parsons went
east, to raise funds for the completion of the church
edifice in process of erection. He met with general
good success, and was returning with an amount adequate
to the liquidation of the church debt, when he was
robbed, it is supposed, of his money and effects;
and his death on board a Mississippi steamer, six
days before it reached the port of St. Paul, has veiled
the entire matter in a mystery, which will probably
never be removed. The new house was first opened for
his funeral services, in which nine ministers participated.
The embarrassments of
the feeble church were now extreme. It would not have
been surprising, had a paralysis fatal to its continuance,
fallen upon it; but an
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Almighty army upheld it, and it struggled
on, resolved in the strength of ISRAEL'S GOD,
to do what it could. The "Ladies' Sewing
Society" was an efficient auxiliary, and their
unwearied exertions, combined with the praiseworthy
efforts of the other sex, relieved the church from
debt in the winter of 1855.
In the spring of 1852,
Rev. J. R. Cressey took the place
of the deceased pastor, and labored for two years
with great zeal and efficiency, the church in the
meantime doubling its members.
In November, 1854, he
was succeeded by REv. A.
M. Torbet, a "workman thoroughly
furnished unto every good work," who still
continues to labor in word, deed and doctrine. His
efforts were blessed to the salvation of souls; and
during the first six months, the church tripled its
numbers, though so constantly dismissing to other
churches, that it has been, with propriety, styled
a "religious forwarding house."
The religious and denominational
interests of the Territory have advanced in a corresponding
ration. In September, 1852, the "Minnesota Baptist
Association" was organized at St. Paul, comprising
six churches, with less than one hundred communicants.
In 1856 this body was convened at Minneapolis, a town
which had no existence when it was formed, and eight
new churches were received, making the whole number
seventeen. A report then and there adopted, read:
"Your committee have no disposition to overrate
the importance of this field of labor above other
States and Territories, but they will venture to say,
that, from the moment when the Corresponding Secretary
of that Society (the Home Mission), and a solitary
Baptist member in the city of St. Paul, who is now
present, were both seated, unknown to each other,
open-
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ing a correspondence upon the subject
of Missions in the Territory, to the present time,
there is no field that has developed more rich results
according to the labor performed. That time is no
more years back than the number of churches received
into this body at the present session, and yet in
it some twenty to twenty-four churches have been organized
in this Territory, many of them at no small cost of
labor and means to the Missionaries of the Home Mission
Society. And in a Territory which has probably doubled
its inhabitants this year, there must be still
other points springing up which will have their churches
and will require their missionaries. Ours is no slow
growth in other respects, and it must not be one religiously.
This Territory needs many more able bodied men, who
will enter the missionary ranks and labor for the
good of souls and the glory of God. A large and rich
harvest invites the man of God to toil and sacrifice."
The "Southern Minnesota
Baptist Association" was organized in August,
1856, with four churches and a membership of over
one hundred. In view of all this change, we can only
say, "What hath God wrought!"
Rev. Joshua Bradley,
who came to this Territory in 1850, when it was almost
a wilderness and when St. Paul was almost unknown,
with the design of following out the great object
to which his valuable life had been devoted, viz.,
the establishment of a seminary of learning in this
new land, died, rich in faith, November 22, 1855,
aged eighty-four years. "His name stands connected
with seventeen academies and colleges, which he had
either been the means of founding or fostering into
a healthful existence; and thus, in the hands of God,
he has been the instrument of assisting to lay broad
and deep the foundations of our national learning."
He was never
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abundant in good works, and during the
several interims of pastorate vacancies in St. Paul,
the desk was supplied by "Father Bradley,"
as he was affectionately styled by all who knew him.
Mr. Torbet, in a sermon on his death,
says:
"Wherever he went,
however, he labored in the cause of education; he
was conscious that it was but a secondary work to
that of commending the Gospel to his fellowmen. His
first business in life was the ministry of reconciliation.
And in this he was a man of faith, and full of the
Holy Ghost, with power. Revivals attended his ministry
in many places where he went to build institutions
of learning; and many of his pupils he induced to
devote themselves to the Gospel ministry. The number
of indigent young men whom he has assisted, instructed,
and prepared for the ministry, in both our own and
other denominations, will probably never be known,
until the revelations of the Judgment. Many of them
have been fed from his table, clothed from his wardrobe,
and taught from his lips.
"When I speak of
him as a man, I would say that he was endowed with
great executive ability, more than ordinary refinement
of taste, good reasoning powers, was remarkably upright
in all his dealings, and possessed of strong, good
common sense. I may speak of him as a divine of sound
practical theological views, liberal feelings, great
kindness of heart, ready to sympathize with and comfort
the afflicted, and point the sinner to the Redeemer,
having an unbounded interest in everything that pertained
to the good of men in this world, and their
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glorification in the next. He had a
deep and abiding sense of the worth of Christ, and
delighted to command him to his fellowmen as their
salvation and all their desire. During his life he
preached more than seven thousand times.
"When I speak of
him as an instructor of the young, I may say, he had
few equals. His blandness of manner, and simplicity
of address, made the young always feel at home in
his presence, and fitted him to the communicate instruction
as few other men ever could do. He was eminently successful,
and many of his pupils will to this day attest his
faithfulness.
"As a father, he
was uniformly kind and careful, though his children
were taught obedience; and he ruled his own house
well.
"As a husband, he
was conservative, and knew how to appreciate the mutual
blessings of that time-honored and most tender relation.
He has had two wives, and children by them both. The
children of her who is left his widow were buried
in the morning of life; but he has left one son and
a daughter by his first wife to mourn his loss.
"As a Christian,
Father Bradley was a perfect and upright man. He possessed
strong religious emotions, and loved all who in reality
had a spiritual knowledge of the Saviour of sinners,
of whatever denominational cognomen they were. His
end, therefore, was peace. He had inducements to die,
and his language frequently was — "I long
to depart, and be with Christ, which is far better."
The morning he died, he broke out and sang the first
verse of the hymn
" 'O,
how happy are they
Who their Savior obey.'
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When the first stanza was sung, his
tongue became stiff in death, and he could neither
sing nor converse more. He died as a Christian, entered
into his rest, a loss to the church, a loss to the
community, a loss to friends, a loss to sinners—but
a gain to heaven, a gain to him."
I have made these brief
extracts from the sermons, as many of his personal
friends are yet living, and, besides, it is a record
of a good man, whose works cannot die. He
had for several successive years served as chaplain
in the legislature, remarkably retaining the vigor
of mind and muscle, until a year or two previous to
his death. He preached his last sermon in March preceding
his demise, during the illness of the pastor. Emphatically,
the "luster of his eye was not dimmed, nor his
natural force abated." "None knew him but
to love him." "Blessed are the dead who
die in the Lord!" and may the living, to use
the language of the text on his funeral occasion,
"mark the perfect man, and behold the upright,
for the end of that man is peace."
Chapter 25
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