The history of Lynn - Lynn Massachusetts Genealogy Project

206 HISTORY OF LYNN. [1813.their disapprobation of the conduct of the Federal party, interms the most positive and decided.A new meeting-house was this year built by the first MethodistSociety, on the common. The burial ground in Unionstreet was opened.1813.The pastoral relation between the Rev. Thomas CushingThacher and the first parish, was dissolved on the third ofFebruary. A portion of his people seem to have been dissatfiedwith him, and the circumstances of the parish were viewedas requiring a separation, with which he appears to have compliedwhh reluctance. In his last communications to the peopleof his charge, he says— " The hnpressive hour has arrived,when motives of commanding authority compel me to requestyour consent, that the pastoral connexion existing between us,should be forever dissolved. No common consideration couldinduce this request, no trifling privations ought to do it, and nomind possessed of the smallest degree of religious sensibihty,but must feel on such an occasion. I became your ministerunder an idea of an engagement for life, resigned all otherprospects, devoted to you the morning and vigor of my days,on the faith of your contract became a husband and a father,and in this way have, in a great measure, lost the opportunityof qualifying myself for any other pursuits in life. I have livedwith you almost nineteen years, and have endeavored not toshun to declare the whole counsel of God ; and if I know myheart, have always desired the best good of you and your children.In the discharge of these duties, I am sensible of manyimperfections, and have to lament that the cause of religion hasbeen so little effectual in my hands. After living with you solong, and patiently enduring so much, I am now called tothrow myself, whhout fortune, on the world, and at a periodwhen, from general embarrassment of the country, even theyoung and vigorous feel so much difficulty in finding supportI am called upon, having passed the meridian of life, and beingsurrounded by a helpless family, to go elsewhere, and find, if Ican, a precarious subsistence." On his separation, the peoplemade him a present of eight hundred dollars, and the councilgave him a recommendation in favor of his moral character.