Page:History of Gardner, Massachusetts (1860) - Glazier.djvu/151

Rh which time it has been considered an Orthodox church.

Rev. J. C. Paine came to Gardner in 1847, and preached his first sermon on the last Sabbath in September. He received a unanimous call to settle, which he accepted, and was installed Jan. 12th, 1848.

The society had recently remodeled their meeting-house at a cost of about five thousand dollars. The church and society were then small, but soon began to increase, and have kept steadily on to the present time, (Feb., 1859,) so that now there is no spare pew to be rented. About one hundred have been added to the church, and it now numbers one hundred and twenty.

Having in 1824 adopted, and, for about thirty years, held the same creed of the 2d church, in Feb., 1857, the church voted to change their creed, and they adopted another, which is as follows:

1st. You believe there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.

2d. You believe the Bible is of divine inspiration, and should be received as the supreme rule of faith and practice.