Asylum Hill Congregational Church celebrates the 20th anniversary of Joseph Twichell’s pastorate

1. A large number of the members of the church attended, and “many were present from other congregations of different denominations in the city.”
2. At some point during the event, Joseph Twichell announced that he had received a note of congratulations and well wishes for himself and the congregation from Calvin Stowe.

The anniversary event was announced in today’s Courant, on page 2.

The Courant reporter only paraphrased Twichell’s remarks:  “No sketch report of Mr. Twichell’s remarks, following those of Dr. Parker, can show the deep feeling manifest in their delivery, or that shown by those who listened to him.”

1. “There will undoubtedly be a large gathering of members of the congregation and of other friends of the pastor.”
2. ”The church and society have greatly prospered, the relations between pastor and people have been exceedingly pleasant during the last twenty years, and the celebration was in every way a happy one.”
3. From Parker’s remarks:

• “When I think how many good people have come to this church from the South church, during the last twenty years, I am tempted to fear, should Mr. Twichell remain here twenty years longer, that the whole congregation will find the way hither.”
• “And so, not only because of my most intimate and delightful intimacy with your pastor, but because so many of my former parishioners are before me, I feel that I am among friends.”
• “He and I are veterans in this field. If his head is a trifle snowier than mine on the outside, it is only a trick of the hair, and mine is all the grayer inside.”
• “One of Thackeray’s children once asked him why he did not write such stores as Dickens wrote. He replied, ‘Ah, my child, I cannot do it.’  It was my sad duty to quote this reply to a child who once told me that he wished I would preach sermons like that which he had just heard from Mr. Twichell in my pulpit.”
• “Blest as he is in good health, in a happy temperament, in a loving people, in hosts of friends here and there, in a noble wife and a lovely family as yet unbroken, and in a parish than which I know none better and few equal, why should he not stay his life out here.”
• “I pray that the only ‘call’ from this parish when he shall obey may be the Master’s call to higher trusts and services in another world. And, for you, and for all who on earth love him, may that call come late, yes, very, very late!”

1. Waldo S. Pratt was a professor at the Hartford Theological Society.
2. Edwin P. Parker was the senior minister at the South Congregational Church.

Unattributed.  “Anniversary evening at the Asylum Hill Congregational Church,” Hartford Daily Courant, December 15, 1885, page 2.

Unattributed.  “The Asylum Hill Congregational Church,” December 16, 1885, page 3.