Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 5.djvu/39

 THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, CONCORD, N. H. 27

��FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH CONCORD, N. //.

��BY HOWARD I\I. COOKE.

IF we go back to the year 1755, we come to the time from which to date the commencement of the history of the Baptist denomination in New Hampshire. In that year the tirst Baptist church now in existence in the State, was formed in the town ot Newton, the county of Rockingham. It was a time when the "standing order," as it was termed, was the domi- nant religious power within our borders, and to whose mandates all were expected to render obedience. In this organization we find an illustration of the union of church and state. The town, in connection with the church, called and settled the minister, paid his salary in money or in those things that he needed to supply his wants, built the meeting house and the parson- age, levied the rates upon the inhabitants^ and all were expected to pay or suffer the penalty prescribed by law. The Baptists in our State, in the last century, bore the brunt of the baitle for religious toleration, as the records of the church in Newton and other churches amply attest.

Near the middle of the eighteenth century, a remarkable man came from England to our country, and exerted a great influence in the religious world. It was George Whitefield, the friend and contemporary of John Wesley. One of the important results that followed his labors in New ft^ngland, was the breaking down, in a degree, of the power of the standing order ; and this result contributed indirectly to the spread of Baptist sentiments and the increase of Baptist churches, so that while in 1 739, one hundred years from the organization of the first Baptist church in Providence, R. 1., there were but thirty-eight churches of the faith in the land, in i 783, or in less than half a century, there were three hundred and nine.

The brilliant example and great success of Whitefield and his followers had taught the utility of th# itinerant system of preaching. In our own State, several Baptist ministers at nearly the same time entered its borders, at differ- ent points, and commenced their labors. Among the more prominent and successful of these was Rev. Hezekiah Smith, pastor of the Baptist church in Haverhill, Mass. He made missionary tours in various directions, accom- panied by some of the members of his church. In the course of his jour- neyings, Mr. Smith visited the town of Concord. His success in other places aroused hostility to him and his mission, and called for a special warning from Rev. Timothy Walker, the pastor at that time of the Old North Church. This was given in a sermon, afterwards published, entitled, " Those who have the form of Godliness, but deny the power thereof." It does not appear that Mr. Smith was anyways daunted by this ministerial fulmination, and it is prob- able his labors in Concord, at that time, were indirectly the means of the formation, some years later, of the First Baptist Church, the history of which we propose briefly to write.

Concord, at the commencement of the present century, was a pleasant town, with a population of two thousand and fifty-two. A resident here in those years passing up Main street, to-day, and viewing the handsome and substantial business blocks that adorn the city, could not fail to note the change vv'hich this lapse of time has made in its appearance. A change as great as that, however, has taken place in less than eight decades, in the opinions and practice of our people in matters of religious observance.

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