Fifty Years Among The Baptist

by David Benedict

Chapter 24

ON RELIGIOUS NEWSPAPERS IN THIS COUNTRY AND AMONG THE BAPTISTS. — DIFFICULTIES AT FIRST. — TOO NUMEROUS AT TIMES. — THEIR SECULAR CHARACTER. — FIRST SUNDAY SCHOOL. — ON THE RISE AND MANAGEMENT OF OUR BENEVOLENT INSTITUTIONS. — ON THE DEATH OF CORRESPONDENTS AND FAMILIAR FRIENDS.

 

THE Religious Remembrancer was the first paper of this kind that fell into my hands. It was published in Philadelphia by a Mr. Scott, a deacon or elder among the Presbyterians. It was commenced on a moderate-sized sheet, in 1813, and was continued a few years. Complete files of the paper for four years, bound in two volumes, are among my documents of this kind.

 

For a long time after religious papers began to be issued, the secular journals not unfrequently spoke lightly of them and their patrons, and represented this new undertaking as a visionary project, which in their estimation could not succeed. On the one hand, these journals had nothing to fear on the score of rivalship, nor did the newspapers reply to them. At this time, I had just published my old Baptist History, and as the slow and costly methods of communication then in vogue had occasioned me much inconvenience in collecting my historical information, a religious press was to me a most inviting project. This cheap and expeditious method of corresponding appeared just the thing in this business, in this country, where so little has been done to collate historical documents, and where so few ancestral records are to be found.

 

The Boston Recorder, published by Nathaniel Willis, a deacon among the Congregationalists, was the second religious newspaper to which I became a subscriber. This work assumed neutral ground, which it maintained for a time to my satisfaction; but at length, as some things in it appeared somewhat sectarian, I wrote Mr. Winchell on the subject, by way of complaint, and he, in reply, informed me, that a project was on foot for a paper of our own, and soon the old Christian Watchman made its appearance, and Deacon James Loring for a long time was its publisher and principal editor. This paper was commenced in 1819. Now I found myself at home in the newspaper line, and I gave the undertaking a hearty encouragement, both by promoting its circulation, and also by contributing to its columns. Of this favorite sheet I have files from its commencement, although in some cases, they are incomplete.

 

As other papers of the kind were begun, as far as practicable, I gave them countenance and support, mostly, however, by contributions of matter, original and selected; and when I engaged in earnest in collecting materials for my late work on Baptist history, I made an effort with a good degree of success to obtain the religious papers of all sorts of Baptists in the United States, and in the British Provinces; and, as I preserve all documents of this kind, I have a large stock of them on hand, which I would be glad freely to dispose of to those who may desire them for historical purposes, but if they must go the way of all such publications, with rare exceptions I will leave them to their fate at home.

 

Miscellaneous Remarks on Religious Newspapers

The secular character which these journals have more and more assumed was quite disagreeable to me for a long time, but I finally became reconciled to it as a matter of necessity, as but a few of them could live without some advertising pay. I concluded it was better to have a compound motion of a sacro-secular character rather than none at all. While religious papers have been increasing in their details of worldly affairs, those on the secular side, as a general thing, have paid an increasing attention to religious concerns. In my early day but few managers of the secular press ever referred to serious matters in respectful terms, but now they have reporters of their own at all ecclesiastical conventions and assemblies of an important character, and in their reports may be found early and full accounts of the doings of these bodies. The same may be said of the passing events pertaining to all churches and parties in the whole of Christendom.

 

A ministerial friend of mine having become the owner and manager of an old temporal concern, I rallied him on the apparent incongruity of his course in the business. "O," said he, "the secular press has become about as religious as the religious, and religious papers are about as secular as the secular."

 

This sentiment has been very fully verified in the accounts which are found of the great revival now (1858) in progress through the land.

 

After religious papers became somewhat common, and their beneficial influence began to be widely experienced and acknowledged, in some cases they were started prematurely and the management of them was committed to incompetent hands. The credit system also, in a profuse manner, was the bane of these papers at an early day, so anxious were the publishers of them to spread them far and wide. But if they had been well paid for their circulation was generally too limited and their prices were too low for them to live long, and in the end losses were incurred, often by those who were ill able to bear them. "We must have a paper for our own region," was a prevalent idea with many, and at the solicitation of friends I labored hard for a number of years in conjunction with others to establish a small religious journal for our own little State, of a general character, the only plan which we could expect would succeed. Bat in the end I advised our people to go for the Christian Watchman, which they would find a decidedly denominational paper, and considering its size and superior quality, much cheaper than we could make at home.

 

As to the size of our religious papers, the form of them and the method of publishing them, different customs have prevailed, but generally they have begun small, and those that have lived have gained in amplitude by degrees, till in a few cases they have become much too largo for the convenience of the readers and the profit of the publishers. A Kentucky paper was the most remarkable for its size of any of our denomination that has come into my hands. This sheet approached the bed-blanket standard, but ere long it was cut down to a medium size.

 

The folded form for binding has been sometimes adopted, but very few of them, I think, are ever bound.

 

Companies, conventions, and individuals have, at first, been the owners of our religious papers, but so far as I have observed, they generally do the best under personal ownership and responsibility. On the whole, I recommend for these journals the folio form, the medium size, and as little disputation as possible.

 

My Experience in the Business of Sunday School

Fifty-four years ago, when I began my ministry in Pawtucket, being then a licensed preacher, and student in college, I found a quiet little company of poor factory children, under the care of the village school master, who had a moderate compensation for his services from a few factory owners, for the children all were free. The main object of this juvenile seminary was to impart the rudiments of common school-education, but from the day on which it was kept, it was called a Sunday School. This benevolent undertaking was set in motion seven years before this time by the late Samuel Slater, of cotton mill notoriety, for the benefit of the poor, ignorant, and neglected children who had gathered round his mill, then the only one in the place. Pawtucket at this time was a small village, with but few meeting-going people in it, without any church or settled minister on the ground. The first Baptist church was formed in 1805. We had heard of Raikes' enterprise in England, in the Sunday School line, and his plan was copied by this new American institution, which still lives on an improved platform in a numerous pedigree in Pawtucket and vicinity. This sacro-secular concern was moulded into the shape of modern Sunday Schools about forty years ago. By this time the little one had become two bands, with two masters, one of whom is now an aged deacon in a neighboring Baptist church. By degrees Bible reading and a moderate share of religious instruction had been introduced into our unusual but very useful establishment, until by mutual agreement the old system was dispensed with and a new one was adopted. The main body of the school went to the first Baptist church, then under my care; a large branch of it was taken up by the Episcopal church, then newly instituted; and as the Congregational, the Methodist, and other churches arose, their Sunday Schools had in their composition relics of this old peculiar band, now under review, some of whom are yet to be found amongst the aged citizens of the place.

 

This old first day school, as it was called by its patrons of the Friendly order, who were among its liberal supporters in its most enlarged operations, required a good deal of attention from some quarter; books were to be procured, stationery supplied, incidental expenses to be defrayed, and the masters to be secured and paid; and as I was the only minister on the ground, most of this labor for many years came on me at an early day, and so it continued until about the time of the dissolution of the old confederacy. As my labors increased I proposed to one of the firmest friends of the cause either to retire from my post or to have one or more associated with me.

 

"Friend B.," said the good old Quaker, "thee does the thing very well; no new hand could take a hold of it as readily as thee does. We will supply the money, and if thee does a good deal of work, we will give thee a good deal of credit for it."

 

I ought to mention, that serious scruples were entertained by many of our citizens as to the propriety of common school keeping on the Sabbath. These scruples operated strongly on my own mind when I first fell in with the school, and whether to favor or oppose it, was a serious question. The condition of the factory help was deplorable. They had been collected from the highways and hedges, and such were the prejudices against the cotton mills, in early times, that no others could be obtained for them. By the means of this school, the minds and morals of these children of misfortune were improved. They were kept from roving and mischief on the Sabbath, and as Sabbath services increased, they were induced by degrees to attend them.

 

I have thus given a brief account of my early connection with Sunday School operations, under circumstances of a very peculiar kind. After the transformation of this old concern into modern shape, it soon became very prosperous, and now, it is doubtful whether many places can be found, of equal size, which do more in the business of Sunday Schools notwithstanding the abundance of natives, and the superabundance of foreigners, in our various manufacturing establishments, who altogether neglect the ample supply of schools and churches and reforming institutions, on the ground, which was so uncommonly destitute of every thing of the kind when the peculiar school now under consideration was commenced. Indeed, at that period, the age of benevolent operations had scarcely dawned upon any portion of the world, and not at all on this region.

 

The claim of Pawtucket, of having started the first Sunday School in America, for a long time remained undisputed; but of late years, a number of rival claims of priority in the business have been set up. Most of these claims, however, are in favor of old catechising operations, which we do not admit can be fairly brought into competition with our school.

 

Pawtucket people are not very sensitive or ambitious in this matter, and if living witnesses can be produced, of a Sunday School more than sixty years ago, which still lives in a dozen or more branches, and the whole history of it is attested by such testimony.