Seventy-three Years In the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Nashua

Sermon by Bob Sampson
July 16, 2006

Welcome and Opening Words

My name is Bob Sampson, and I welcome you to the summer services of the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Nashua. These services are being held every Sunday at 10:00 AM until regular services in the church resume on September 12. If you are here for the first time, we hope you will come back. Information about Unitarian-Universalism is on the hall table and there is more information at our website, uunashua.org.

If you have been here before, you may appreciate some words which in part explain why I have been coming here for seventy-three years.

"Peace be to this house and to all who enter herein, for none of us liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself. Fellowship is heaven and lack of fellowship is hell; fellowship is life, and lack of fellowship is death; and the deeds that ye do on earth, it is for fellowship's sake that ye do them."

Chalice Lighting

In the holy quiet of this hour, let each of us bring an offering of penitence, if not of purity; of love, if not of holiness; of teachableness, if not of wisdom; of devout obedience for the time to come, if not the fruits of well doing in the time that is past. And so may we find strength and courage for every need.

Words for Reflection

From the Articles of Faith adopted at the first meeting of the First Unitarian Congregational Society of Dunstable:

"The enjoyment of Christian privileges, in conformity to the views in which reason and revelation present themselves to our understanding and feelings, being amongst the choicest blessings which Heaven has vouchsafed to man, and a union of kindred minds being the happiest medium through which such enjoyment must flow, the subscribers and those who may hereinafter associate with them, unite themselves together into a society to be denominated 'The First Unitarian Congregational Society in Dunstable...'"

The statement of faith that hung on the church wall for many years:

OUR FAITH

"The Fatherhood of God
The Brotherhood of Man
The Leadership of Jesus
Salvation by character
The Progress of Mankind onward and upward forever."

Our present Vision, Mission, and Covenant Statement:

The Unitarian-Universalist Church of Nashua, New Hampshire will be a beacon of liberal religious thought and action whose members are committed to the search for truth and meaning, the acceptance of diversity, and the promotion of social justice within a supportive and caring community. We will:

Sermon

If we were in just this spot 179 years ago, we would be outdoors in an oak grove, viewing the just completed building of the First Unitarian Congregational Society of Dunstable. Contrary to what some allege, I was not on the building committee, but I have been here for more than a third of that time. Have I been a member of this church all my life? NO; I'm not dead yet!

We are now, of course, the City of Nashua and not Nashua Village within the town of Dunstable, which had been split into a New Hampshire Dunstable and a Massachusetts Dunstable when the state line was settled. And we have been the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Nashua, since the merger of the Nashua Unitarian and Universalist churches in 1956. I was there for that event and recall the somewhat heated debated over whether the new organization would be called a church or a society. "Church" obviously won, although, as a sometimes conservative lover of tradition, I voted the other way. The use of "society" in the name of a religious organization reflects the fact that the Puritan, Calvinistic, Congregational churches of early New England were state churches, supported by general taxes and closely integrated with the town and state governments. The Unitarian and Universalist revolt in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries against these Trinitarian churches with their heavy emphasis on the sinful nature of man, predestination, and the notion that only a handful of the elect would be saved from eternal damnation led many of the new, liberal groups to call themselves "societies."

But not always. Under the congregational plan of church government, each parish was free to conduct its own affairs and call a minister of its choosing. A tour of Middlesex County, just south of us in Massachusetts, will often reveal, facing the village green, a beautiful, steepled, colonial church with a sign in front reading something like,

"First Parish Church of Bedford
Unitarian
Organized 1729"

Just down the road, you will see:

"First Church of Christ
Congregational
Established 1830"

And sometimes, the word "Trinitarian" added, reflecting the great schism in New England Congregationalism 200 years ago when parish after parish voted to call a Unitarian minister, and being in the majority, kept the building while the Trinitarians moved out.

But I have digressed in explaining why both the Unitarian and Universalist churches in Nashua originally called themselves "societies". It is pertinent, however, to tell you that the First Universalist Society, organized in 1818, actually preceded the Unitarians, who came into being on September 11, 1826. The two societies' affairs blended and separated several times over the 135 years before they merged into our present church. From 1830 to 1835, the two societies worshiped together. Again, from 1953 until the formal merger in 1956, the two groups again held joint services. Both Rev. Leon Fay, the Unitarian minister, and Rev. Myles Blanchard, the Universalist minister until 1954, were of great service in making the merger a successful one. Parenthetically, we should note that our Nashua churches merged four years before the national organizations joined together in 1960.

With what I have been saying as background, I will now turn to some of the events, persons, politics, and theology of the Unitarian and now the Unitarian-Universalist Church during its 180 year history and in particular, during the 73 years of my connection with it. The question is often asked, "What led you into the Unitarian-Universalist Church?" For me, the answer is, "My parents' hands." My parents were members of the church when I was born, and on my father's side, a fourth generation Unitarian.

The minister during my childhood was Rev. Otto Lyding, a scholarly and somewhat austere man of German descent, educated at Harvard and Harvard Divinity School and our minister from 1920 to 1945. I came to know him and his wife, Gertrude, quite well after he retired and came back to Nashua in the middle 1950's. In those years, I always worried about whether or not he recalled an incident when I was about four years old, and Mr. Lyding made a visit to our house. Seated beside me on our living room sofa, he asked, "How is Bobby today?" and patted me on the head. My response was to say, "Stop that, you damned fool!" My mother was, of course, appalled, and I really don't recall what was said next.

The church membership in Mr. Lyding's time was staunchly Republican - I can recall only one avowed Democrat, the church Sexton, who was found to be having an affair with a church member not his wife and was fired as Sexton. This, no doubt, established in some members' minds the loathsome nature of Democrats in general. On a considerably different note, Phillip Ellis Stevens was one of the sturdiest pillars of the church, and church treasurer for twenty five years immediately following his father's twenty five years in the same job. I remember Phillip quoting his father, and certainly echoing his own sentiments, "I thank God I was born an American, a Unitarian, and a Republican." I also remember my parents commenting on Mr. Lyding's opening prayer on the Sunday morning after the 1940 Presidential Election, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt had just been elected for an unprecedented third term. Mr. Lyding was reported to have begun, "Oh Lord, in view of the disappointments of the past week..."

To this day, there are still perhaps half a dozen Republican church members, illustrating, I hope, the broad tolerance which should be the hallmark of a liberal church.

It was during Mr. Lyding's ministry that the Parish House was built in 1929, meeting a long felt need. It is hard to imagine, considering the intensive use of our present spread of buildings, how the church managed with only the church building and the large Parsonage at 78 Concord Street, bought at the beginning of Mr. Lyding's tenure with a gift from the Stevens family. The Parsonage was sold in 1977, part of trend in many churches to allow ministers and their families a home of their own choosing. Construction of the Parish House was almost immediately followed by the Depression, which crippled church finances as well as those of many members, and it was not until 1948 that the mortgage, held by American Unitarian Association, was paid off, although not before termites had attempted to eat up the building.

Speaking of finances, I will mention the Every Member Canvass of 1941. This fund raising event, then usually held in the fall, was for some reason delayed until December, and was scheduled for Sunday, December 7, 1941.

Mr. Lyding was followed by Rev. Ernest Sommerfeld. His short ministry, from 1945 to 1947 was an unfortunate one in that there was no interim ministry to allow the church to accustom itself to someone other than Otto Lyding. Mr. Summerfeld and the Prudential Committee clashed and Mr. Summerfeld departed, to be followed in the pulpit by Rev. Edward Cahill. Again, there had been no interim ministry, as is now the almost universal practice, but the church had become prepared to accept a minister that was not Mr. Lyding. Even with interim ministers, almost every ministerial change in my lifetime has been followed by a "sack the new minister" movement. Since Mr. Summerfeld, it has never been successful, but it always happens, and I predict will happen at the next change. While prophesying, I will tell you that our next minister will be female.

Mr. Cahill's ministry, from 1947 to 1951, was again relatively short, but entirely successful, and still defines for me the ministry of this church. Mr. Cahill was one of the three or four people who have significantly influenced my life, and I will always carry with me his repeated affirmation that, "The only thing of which we must be intolerant is intolerance." Mr. Cahill had completed his junior year at MIT as a mechanical engineering student before deciding to study for the ministry, and was one of the few ministers in my experience who could preach on subjects related to science or technology and get it right. Mr. Cahill could have been the Unitarian minister in the story of the young man who bought a rather racy sports car and wished to have it blessed. According to the story, he called on several clergymen of various faiths, explaining that he just acquired a sports car with fuel injection, dual overhead cams, and a five on the floor shift and that he would like the car blessed. All the clergy expressed puzzlement at "overhead cams, five on the floor", etc. and doubted that they could bless something of which they such little understanding. Finally the young man found a Unitarian minister and explained that he had a car with dual overhead cams, fuel injection and five on the floor, which he wanted blessed. The Unitarian minister replied that he understood dual overhead cams, fuel injection, and five on the floor, but what was this blessing thing?

At this point it is appropriate for me to say something about the evolving theology in our church. As the three readings you heard earlier indicate, we have evolved from other Christian denominations, originally differing from them largely in rejecting the triune God of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost and in accepting the use of individual reason as a tool for discovery of religious truth. This was the position of the early members of the Unitarian Church of Nashua. I hasten to note that none of the statements of faith that I read were ever required belief for members of the church, each member being free to find truth for him or herself. Even in 1827, the Church accepted the widely held view in the Unitarian churches that, "[the statement of faith] is not intended as a creed... There is no design to impose it on others. Its acceptance is not made a condition of Christian fellowship. It is not meant to be a fetter on the soul."

Fetters on the body, that is, human slavery, were once a different matter. In 1838, a request for the use of the church to hear a "discourse on slavery" by a member of the Anti-Slavery Society was rejected by vote of a large majority of the congregation. The vote probably reflects the long connection between the church and the Nashua Manufacturing Company, the cotton textile mill that created Nashua, and gave the land on which the church rests. Daniel Abbott was both one of the founders of the church and the Company. In my youth, Walter Whipple, who sat in the pew immediately in front of me, was both Executive Vice-president of the Nashua Manufacturing Company and a past Chairman of the church Prudential Committee. The "unholy union" between southern slave owners and New England cotton textile interests was aptly expressed in 1848 in Sen. Charles Sumner's phrase, "Lords of the loom and lords of the lash." Our church members were lords of the loom or servants of those lords.

Essentially theistic, this church continued to be a Unitarian Christian-oriented church well into my lifetime. Moving slowly from theism to deism and then increasingly seeing wisdom in non-Christian teachings and putting less emphasis on the Bible and Christian tradition, many of us have arrived at a humanist position, outside of traditional Christianity. Today, in this church as in the Unitarian-Universalist denomination in general, there is a complete spectrum of belief, ranging from Unitarian Christians to Atheists, each of whom has found their own Truth aided by the fellowship of church members that is heaven and the lack of which is hell.

I think the trend towards humanism began to be apparent during Mr. Cahill's ministry, and I know his personal views were much more in the humanist vein than in the more orthodox forms that the church service then followed. Mr. Fay, our minister from 1951 to 1957, continued to lead us toward a humanist theology, and this reached its apogee during the 29 year ministry of Rev. Donald Rowley. During that time, the Lord's Prayer disappeared from our services, as did most references to God, and nearly everything that suggested the old liturgy, Unitarian, Universalist or otherwise. Don, one of the more saintly men who ever graced our pulpit, often spoke of being in the post-Christian era. I think he was at least premature, but he ardently wished to put behind us the horrors that Christianity and every other major religion has from time to time visited upon humankind.

Turning back to my own memories of 50 or 60 years ago, I recall that a large Bible was always open on the pulpit, that at least one reading was always from Scripture, and that the Lord's Prayer was part of every service. The minister's prayer and most of the congregational responses, when used, were addressed to God. For most of my years here, Sunday collections to meet church expenses were never taken. We do now take a collection, but it is for outreach and community service, not for paying our bills. The collection this morning goes to the Minister's Discretionary Fund, which he uses to meet modest, but unmet needs in the church family and in the community at large. Your contribution in the basket by the door will be gratefully received and wisely used.

Illustrative of our and our denomination's changing thought, are the four hymn books that have been used here in my lifetime. The first, with a black cover, published in 1914, reflects an almost entirely God-centered, Christian view in the hymns, the suggested orders of service and in the additional readings The red covered book, published in 1937, has number of orders of service that "are ethical in tone" as its Preface states, and considerably fewer hymns from Victorian Protestantism. The blue covered book, published in 1964, contains no suggested orders of service, and as the Preface states, "Here are utterances representing differing minds, differing approaches to and interpretations of religion and life. Here we celebrate our recognition that truth for living is in all religious traditions." Our current hymn book, published in 1993, also does not suggest orders of service. Its Preface states, "Our living tradition began the twentieth century primarily as a liberal Christianity among Universalists and Unitarians, and ends that same century also embracing the riches of humanism, feminism, mysticism, natural theism, the Jewish tradition, many other world faith traditions, and the skepticism generated by this century's disillusioning woes and wars."

One of the few hymns that has appeared in all four books is the wonderful "Light of Ages and of Nations" with words by Samuel Longfellow and music by Franz Joseph Haydn. The music is singable (for most) and the words speak to all that is best in our tradition. I hope we can sing it the close of this service - but please don't expect me to lead you; even Haydn's Austria is beyond my ability.

Before closing, however, I should tell you a little about our buildings and how they came to be. I have mentioned the construction of the church in 1827.

Although moved about 20 feet eastward in 1924, to make room for the Parish House, the exterior has remained largely unchanged. The interior, however, has had several transformations, for some of which I was in part responsible. Until 1875, the pulpit and gallery were in the reverse of their present positions, that is, the pulpit was between the doors at the front or Canal Street end of the building. The pews of course, faced opposite from their present orientation, and had gates. Some recent repairs revealed old woodwork which suggests that the pews were once painted light green, and old records tell us that in the 1875 remodeling, stained glass windows were installed. Some further work in 1890 created a pulpit end of the church much as it is today, although between then and now that end went through several transformations. In 1924, the stained glass was removed, small rooms for storage were added in each front corner, and a huge gas chandelier in the center of the ceiling was replaced with five pendant electric fixtures. In 1964, the interior was repainted for the first time since 1924; the pendant light fixtures were replaced with the recessed lighting we see today, and the visible but non-speaking organ pipes with their rather Victorian supporting framework, removed. George Nary and I, on a hot August night removed the framework and pipes, aided by a six-pack of Colt 45. Prudently, we stored the pipes in the cellar, against the possibility that the drape that replaced them would prove unsatisfactory.

Which it did ten years later, when the pipes, minus the Victorian framework were restored and made to speak. At the same time, the rooms at each front corner were removed, the pulpit moved forward, and the choir area expanded. The planning for this was the work of Mr. Bliss Woodruff, whose contributions to the design, décor and arrangement of our buildings over the past 45 years has been immense.

And speaking of speaking organ pipes, the present organ was built in 1948, the gift of the Stevens Family and Miss Anna Stearns. It uses many of the pipes from the old organ, which was "tracker action" or mechanically controlled instrument. During quiet passages, one could gear the click and clack as the keys and stops worked the controlling mechanism. I had the job of shoveling out the church in the winter of 1948, and after shoveling, always came in to see the organ builders at work on more than 1000 pipes and bellows that went into the organ. One more organ story: The organ console - where the organist sits - is moveable, with difficulty. After some years in more or less its present position, it was desired to turn it sidewise so that the organist could face the choir. How to do this was not entirely clear. Mr. Pearley Fletcher, a one man maintenance committee and another great pillar of the church for many years, pondered the problem, and at one in the morning thought of a way to do it. Rushing to church with his tool box, he made the move and met Don Rowley at the door at eight, saying, "There; it's done!"

I have already mentioned the building of the Parish House and will only say a bit more about it. Mr. Cahill felt the need for an office at the church - ministers had previously used part of the Parsonage as an office - and the church also felt the need for secretarial and clerical help beyond what volunteers had provided. The result was the conversion of the upstairs ladies toilet into the minister's office, and the storage closet across the hall into a secretaries' office. Mr. Cahill met with the high school church school class in his office every Sunday before the services began, with the result that I can say that some of most valuable lessons of my life were learned in the Parish House ladies toilet. In the late 50's after the Unitarian-Universalist merger, the Parish House became extremely crowded. There were simply not enough rooms for the Church School program, but again, Mr. Fletcher came to rescue, devising a plan for removable partitions in the Auditorium and Dining Room. When not in use, the partitions were stored in racks against the walls, and when in use were held in place by pegs into the floor. You can still see the peg holes in the Auditorium. While the scheme worked, classes were also being held in every room from the kitchen to the minister's office, as I have just noted. In 1955, Mr. Fletcher proposed that a new education building be constructed, but where to build seemed an insurmountable problem until the morning of Sunday, February 3, 1957.

As we gathered for church that morning, the National Guard Armory next door erupted in flames. It had long been something of a paradox to hear a service devoted to peace, love, and goodwill, only to come out of the church to see field artillery pieces pointed at us. The fire drove us out of the church, where the intense heat of the burning building could be felt through the windows. Everyone watched from the street to see if we were going to loose our church. The Guardsmen removed the ammunition for the burning building and the fire department did magnificent job of keeping the church from burning. The Guard had long wanted a new Armory and we wanted space for a school building, so a deal was struck, and agreement reached to demolish the remains of the Armory. The demolitions was controversial - some powerful voices wanted to use the shell of the Armory, but demolition was decided, on and Bliss Woodruff designed the building in which we are now meeting.

I think I have held you long enough, although I will be happy to answer questions after we conclude, so let us join in Hymn 190, "Light of Ages and of Nations"

Closing Words

Now may the truth that makes us free, and the hope that never dies, and the love that casts out fear, lead us forward together, until the dayspring breaks and the shadows flee away. And while we toil amidst things as they are, may the vision of this yet to come strengthen and inspire us.

Bob Sampson
July 16, 2006