[258] Peter C. Brooks, has helped them to secure a first-rate instrument, at the price of $1,650. The cost of the meeting-house and vestry was $12,566.22; of two furnaces, $220; repairs on clock, $224; carpets and pulpit trimmings, &c., $591.72; work on the grounds, &c., $195.69; making a sum total of $13,797.63. The parish paid the proprietors of pews in the old meeting-house $1,260, and received for said house $260. That the new house was larger than was needed, was a common impression; but the time may come when it will be crowded. It was solemnly dedicated to the worship of God and the promulgation of Christianity on Wednesday, the 4th of December, 1839. The exercises were: Introductory prayer, by Rev. Nathaniel Hall, of Dorchester; selection from the Scriptures, by Rev. Edward B. Hall, of Providence, R. I.; prayer of dedication, by Rev. Convers Francis, D. D., of Watertown; sermon, by Rev. Caleb Stetson; concluding prayer, by Rev. N. L. Frothingham, of Boston. It was the intention of the pastor and people that the original hymns and all the public religious services (except the sermon) should have been furnished, as the record says, “by children of this society.” It would have been so, had not the writer of this history been absent with his family in Europe. The preacher took 1 Cor. III. 16 for his text. Worship was his subject; and it was discussed with the power and beauty peculiar to the speaker. The opening sentences disclose the central thoughts of the sermon. “The soul that makes an offering is greater than the gift. No sacrifice is so noble as the spirit that hallows it; no house built by human hands, for the service of God, is so holy as that which he hath chosen and sanctified for himself in every pure heart.”
O Thou that dost preferThus, on a spot sacred to many of our hearts, stands a second temple of the Most High, whose desk, we devoutly hope, will ever be filled with able scholars and true believers; who, as teachers, shall “preach, not themselves, but the Lord Jesus Christ, so as to make men wise unto salvation;” and who, as pastors, shall delight “to take the lambs in their arms, and carry them in their bosoms.” Especially do we hope that its seats may ever be filled by those who hunger and thirst after God and Christ and truth and righteousness;
Before all temples the upright heart and pure.
