Continued from October 2025…

First Universalist re-opened in September 1947, after the summer break. Its 125th anniversary celebration was set for all-day Sunday, October 12, and Wednesday evening, October 15. A Danbury News-Times headline in its October 11 edition announced “Special Services Sunday For 125th Anniversary Of Church” [see note below]. Morning worship would begin at 10:45, led by Rev. Dr. Harry Adams Hersey with Miss Adelaide Grabert at the organ and the church choir performing. The order of service included an Organ Prelude, Call to Worship and the Lord’s Prayer, Choral Responses, Avowal of Faith, a Responsive Reading of Psalm 64, an Anthem, Prayer, a Scripture reading from I Chronicles, a Hymn, Offertory with solo by Myrtle Evans, Sermon, Closing Hymn, Benediction, and Postlude. Dr. Hersey’s sermon was titled “Looking Both Ways.” He said, in part:

“It is remarkable that not only our church, but that any church is active after 125 years, most of them in a century notable for the rise in materialism, the secularizing of Sunday, the revolution in human knowledge and thinking….Frightened theologians said that religion was doomed, its foundations destroyed….But the church and religion did not die. It developed amazingly in all directions….[These] have characterized and shown the vitality of a religion which was to be ‘destroyed’ by modern science and liberalized theology. The prophets of doom were utterly mistaken….

“I am sure the Universalist church will never be a large church. It appeals to reasoning faculties which few exercise in the realm of theology. It is not a rescuing religion. It compiles no statistics of saved souls. But though it is not a ‘lifeboat and coastguard’ religion, it is a ‘lighthouse’ religion. As the ‘lighthouse’ prevents hundreds of thousands of ships and sailors from becoming wrecked, so our church prevents people from becoming ruined and lost….I do desire and pray for the time…when ‘not one soul shall be destroyed or cast as rubbish to the void….'”

A home-coming reunion and fellowship social and a buffet supper were held that afternoon from 4 to 6 pm at the church. Former parishioners returned and members of other local churches and out-of-town Universalists were welcomed. Rev. Elliott Bates Barber, who pastored the Danbury Universalists from 1912 to 1920 and still lived in the area, shared reminiscences. Special evening worship exercises followed the supper and featured a Prelude, Hymn, another Scripture reading from I Corinthians, an Anthem, Offertory with solo by Clarence Murphy, and an Address titled “To Us is Handed a Torch” by special guest Rev. Robert Cummins, DD, General Superintendent of the Universalist Church of America. Dr. Cummins reviewed the roots of Universalist belief and development, including mention of luminaries among Universalist scholars and thinkers:

“Our Universalist fathers struck their roots deeply into the past. More than four centuries before the Christian era, an ancient Persian observed, ‘Have we not all one Father? Has not God created us?’ Moses recognized but one God. Malachi and the wonderful Book of Jonah, whose great message is hidden because of its setting, declare one god all-embracing love. Amos declares His justice and Hosea, His love. Origen, uncanonized saint, head of one of the great theological groups of the early centuries, declared that all religion not expressed in right conduct is invalid….Today [Universalism] is opposed to the theology of helplessness and hopelessness…”

He continued:

“Our church has always stood in the front rank in progressive service. Hosea Ballou, in his great treatise on the Atonement, anticipated American Unitarianism by ten years….Long ago we declared for public education free from ecclesiastical control…Our church was the first to admit women to the ministry with full equality. We were foremost in prison reform, against capital punishment….John Murray’s Universalist church in Gloucester refused to pay taxes to support the established church. It carried the case to the Supreme court [Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court] and won a victory which freed all churches and put ‘separation of church and state’ into the bill of rights.”

Dr. Cummins concluded by reflecting a mid-twentieth century, post-war optimism shared by many Universalists of the day:

“Today Universalism is a living faith for a living people. It is the inevitable basis for ‘one world’ in which mankind may dwell in complete democracy, with good will. We are temporary custodians of a great trust; ours the responsibility to be faithful to it.”

A Benediction, Music, and Postlude closed this special evening service.

On Wednesday, October 15, starting at 6:30 pm, a covered dish supper and social was held in the church dining room. Anyone associated with First Universalist Society in any way was invited and encouraged to attend. Archival notes say Rev. Gustave Leining, ordained in Danbury in 1922 and minister until 1927, would be guest speaker that evening. Following Rev. Leining, church trustee William Wood would present an illustrated lecture entitled “Beautiful America.”

A report on the October festivities was made at the next church board meeting. The minutes of the meeting say this: “It was very successful, guests coming from all parts of the state. The receipts fell $8.13 short of expenses (about $117.00 today). Balance was paid by treasurer from general fund.” So concluded First Universalist’s 125th anniversary celebration.

But it would not be the only observance of a 1947 anniversary. Adelaide Grabert, First Universalist’s longtime organist and choir director, was marking fifty years in those roles. At the December board meeting, Edith Ritton and Sallie Rollins were designated as co-chairs to arrange a party in Miss Grabert’s honor.

[Note – Long-time church member Frank Rollins was at the time publisher of The Danbury News-Times and an executive of the News-Times company.]

To be continued in December 2025…