students united with the church.
He then left for the service which took him away from Brimfield for seven weeks. His duty was in a field hospital at City Point, Virginia. No description of this service has been found.
But the greatest event in 1864 was the marriage of Mary Thirza Knight and Charles McEwen Hyde. She was a graduate of the first class of Hitchcock Free School and a native of Brimfield, born there August 6, 1840. She was further educated at Mrs. Willard's Seminary, Troy, N. Y., and at Oberlin College. "Disregarding the old advice," wrote Henry Hyde, "never to marry in one's own congregation he wooed and won Mary, the youngest daughter of Dr. Ebenezer Knight, the village physician. Unlike in many ways, each seemed to possess in part what the other lacked and no better argument was ever made for the marriage of opposites than their long and happy married life, in which a common ideal of consecration and service dominated the minor differences of thought and temperament."11
They were married October 10, 1864 in their Brimfield church. Mary Hyde entered immediately with zest into the role of minister's wife. She achieved great praise as a religious leader among women.
The Rev. Mr. Hyde reviewed 1865 much as he wrote of 1863:
Never before has the general health of the community been better, never before has there been much greater deadness in spiritual things. The outward business of the house of God was never in better condition, but the spiritual condition of the church has been far below the apostolic standard of holy living.
The year has been one of great public excitement. The closing scenes of the Slaveholders' Rebellion, the assassination of Pres. Lincoln, the entrance of a new President and Congress upon the conduct of national affairs in a most critical juncture in the nation's history, have demanded appropriate notice in the exercises of public meetings.
This generation can never forget the Sabbath which followed the murder of the President, the deep feelings of sorrow and horror it occasioned, and yet also the calm trust which the people evinced in the God who delights to exercise loving kindness, righteousness, and judgement in the earth.
With the return of peace, with a government now free from complicity with the iniquitous system of negro slavery, with indications on every hand of unprecedented prosperity, we need now to feel more than ever our dependency on the blessing of God for any real permanent good. In the privileges and opportunities with which we are in these days favored, we have high incitements to duty. God is calling his church in this nation to earnest endeavor. Let us consecrate ourselves anew and certainly to the will of God, the service of Christ, to the spread of holiness, with fidelity, love and zeal.12
In the next year's report he noted with no great joy the completion of a chapel by the Adventists at nearby East Corner. This kind of "invasion" usually bothered him as a disturbing factor in his church territory and it was to happen again and again. Opposing Protestant denominations had little sensitivity for territorial jurisdiction. This feeling was deep in the Rev. Mr. Hyde's mind because his church was the town church, well established in its historic beginnings and, as far as he was concerned, effectively filling the Brimfield needs.
Young and restless he organized the Pastor's Bible Class. This he taught on Monday evenings and attendance quickly soared to the point where it became a major item in his Brimfield program.13
In analyzing the Scriptures he had to prepare his own curriculum and regularly outlined the material on a blackboard. He was developing a formal instructional approach which would reach its most effective employment in Hawaii. His role was to be chiefly that of teacher.
In 1869 he translated into action his earnest annual complaint, of spiritual matters being secondary in growth and purpose to material affairs. This was a great revival undertaken in January, February and
March. It was most satisfactory to him. With the enlistment of the greater number of the business leaders, the revival was well planned and almost the entire town came into the fold.
In the summer of 1869, the Rev. Mr. Hyde and his church played host to the fiftieth anniversary party of the Sunday Schools of the Brookfield Association (23 churches). He gave the historical address. He had an innate sense of history which was hand-to-hand with his sense of mission to teach.14
But Brimfield, although a major parish, was not an important religious goal. The time to consider a larger church had come. In undergoing the resignation process he found it as complicated as the summons to the position, only in reverse:
At the close of the afternoon service, the Pastor announced his resignation of the pastoral office, and asked the Church and Society to unite with him in calling an Ecclesiastical Council that the pastoral relation might be duly dissolved, according to the forms and usages of our denomination.
A meeting of the church was called and the resignation accepted. This was communicated to the Parish and invitations to be represented at an Ecclesiastical Council were announced.
The Ecclesiastical Council was convened May 21, 1870: Minutes of the Ecclesiastical Council called in accordance with the tenor of the letter of invitation, copied above to consider the expediency of dismissing Rev. C. M. Hyde.
We cordially commend Bro. Hyde to the churches as a sound and effective preacher of the Gospel. He is regarded by his brethren in the ministry as a scholar of rare attainments, able in his presentation of truth, wise in counsel, devoted and faithful in his work as a pastor.
Reasons for his resignation have to be advanced and accepted. The reason stated in this Ecclesiastical Council Minutes, ". . .the want of generous support, which since the Society has such ability, we regard as sufficient. . ."15
Either a friendly naivete was being employed by the Council members to ease Charles Hyde's determination to move to a larger church or if he placed great stress on this point himself he was the one being naive for the "want of a generous support" was to haunt him all the days of his life. The real motivation was simple. He was seeking new vistas, new fields to apply his restless energy—and climb another step up the ecclesiastical stairs. He was "dismissed" to Centre Church in Haverhill, Massachusetts, November 1870, with "recommendations."
NOTES
1. Henry K. Hyde, Charles McEwen Hyde, a Memorial, pp. 15-17.
2. Ibid.
3. Charles M. Hyde, History of Brimfield, (Springfield, Mass., Bryan Printers, 1879), Appendix, p. 287.
4. Ibid., Appendix, p. 307.
5. Ibid.
6. Brimfield Congregational Church, Records of the Clerk, Sept. 4, 1862.
7. Ibid., Annual Report, 1862, Jan. 1, 1863.
8. Ibid., 1863, Jan. 1, 1864.
9. Charles M. Hyde, Samuel Austin Hitchcock (Boston, Alfred Mudge & Son, 1874), pamphlet.
10. Ibid.
11. Henry Knight Hyde, op. cit., pp. 19-20.
12. Brimfield Congregational Church, op. cit., 1864, Jan. 1, 1865.
13. Ibid., 1865, Jan. 4, 1866.
14. Ibid., 1869, Jan. 1, 1870.
15. Ibid., May 21.
Chapter 3
THE HAVERHILL PASTORATE
CHARLES HYDE officially ended his work at Brimfield May 31, 1870. Even before his resignation the Mount Vernon Congregational Church of Boston had a committee in Brimfield checking his fitness to undertake an associate ministry with the famous Rev. Edward Morris Kirk, D.D. Hyde had actually preached from the Mount Vernon pulpit on at least two occasions and had made a favorable enough impression to warrant the committee's trip to Brimfield.
The committee could find nobody in Brimfield who would be critical of his ability, work habits and leadership. One man thought his walk was peculiar, as it was, in a sense; Hyde bounced each step as if on a miniature spring board.
But the committee upon reporting back found that Dr. Kirk