[p. 34] Ellis. This man subsequently won fame as a minister and writer in the Universalist church. May 4, 1862, this doleful record appears:
... A cloud seems to have settled down upon the church—the awful cloud of war, which has enveloped the whole nation in its blighting, withering grasp; and inasmuch as this church has been accessory or conniving to it (with the majority of other churches throughout the land), so is the curse following us in the loss of the pure, peaceful, quickening spirit of the Prince of Peace. After we shall have taken for the curing of our sick spirits the bitter medicine of war and its desolating consequences, may God grant unto us a refreshing return of the real spirit of charity and forgiveness, which will enable us to dwell in the realm of Peace forever with Christ our great Head, when our swords will be beaten into ploughshares and our spears into pruning hooks, and all souls shall know and praise the Lord. Oh, when shall Universalists learn to live out the glorious doctrine of forgiveness, which has been vouchsafed to them, instead of endeavoring to practise continually the old and harsher doctrines of justice and punishment. May our eyes be opened to a consciousness of our glaring inconsistency, and as a consequence our souls be humbled to that condition requisite to the reception of the spirit of Christ!First observance of ordinances, Lord's supper, Feb. 23, 1834. Baptism (by sprinkling), Catherine Coolidge Brooks, June 26, 1842; (by immersion) Mrs. Catherine M. Hall, June 30, 1844. (This was probably the only case of baptism by immersion in our church and took place at the site of the Mystic ford.) Children's Sunday and baptism. The first record and probably the first observance was July 2, 1868, when twenty-five children were baptized. This service was instituted in 1858 by Rev. C. H. Leonard, at that
