The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 | Page 9

Joshua Bigelow, Josiah Brewer, John Curtis, James
Putnam. Daniel Boyden, James Goodwin, Jacob Hemmenway, David
Bigelow, Samuel Moore, and Elisha Smith. The entire expense of the
building was £1,542.
Since the date of its erection there have been many changes and
additions, so that it now presents but little of the appearance of its
former self.
The bell now in use was cast in 1802, and has this inscription:--
"The living to the church I call, And to the grave I summon all."
In 1786, owing to certain disagreements, a division occurred in the
parish, some of its members leaving and forming an organization of
their own, with the Rev. Mr. Bancroft as rector. This society dedicated
its first church January 1, 1722, and this was replaced by a new
structure, of brick, in 1829, which is still in use. Since this first division
new societies have sprung up and new churches have been built, until
to-day there are forty-eight different houses of worship, among which

are eleven Congregational, eight Methodist Episcopal, seven Baptist,
seven Roman Catholic, three Protestant Episcopal, two Universalist,
and two Unitarian churches.
On account of the encircling hills the climate of Worcester is hot in
summer, but somewhat more temperate and less subject to east winds
in winter than that of Boston.
The surrounding country has all the charms that cultivated soil and
undulating hill-and-valley scenery can give. Good roads run in various
directions to the adjacent towns, and strangers often speak of the many
different and delightful drives to be found about Worcester.
Three miles east of the city is the beautiful sheet of water called Lake
Quinsigamond. It is a narrow lake, about five miles long, with thickly
wooded banks, and its surface dotted with picturesque little islands.
Along its shores the Nipmuck Indians are said to have lived and hunted;
and on Wigwam Hill, a wooded eminence overlooking the water,
where one of their encampments is supposed to have been, are still
occasionally found specimens of their rude house utensils.
A large tract of land bordering on the lake has lately been given to the
city by two Worcester gentlemen, and it is expected that in the near
future it will be cleared away and made into a public park. The only
park that the city now possesses, besides the Common, before alluded
to, is a small affair on the west side, at the foot of Elm street, one of the
principal residence streets.
* * * * *

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By George Lowell Austin.
There is something eminently satisfactory in the reflection that, when
the new faith, "That all men are created equal," and that "Governments
are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of

the governed," was finally assailed by the slave-power of America, and
had to pass the ordeal of four years of war, a man born and reared in
poverty, deficient in education, unused to the etiquette even of ordinary
society, and untutored in the art of diplomacy and deception, had been
selected by the people of the United States to become the representative
of the new faith, and the defender of the government established upon it.
This man was ABRAHAM LINCOLN, of Illinois, the record of whose
life, at once important, eventful, and tragic, it is pleasant to recall.
There are, in my judgment, at least four men associated with the period
of the civil war, who, in their early lives, their struggles, their training,
and their future callings, ought forever to command the admiration of
this people: Lincoln, the lowly, the exalted, the pure man in rude
marble, the plain cover to a gentle nature, the giant frame and noble
intellect; Grant, the defender of the Federal Union, the unflinching
soldier, around whose dying couch a whole nation now lingers, whose
light will shine down through future ages a warning to conspirators, to
freemen a pledge, and to the oppressed a beacon of hope; Stanton, the
lion of Buchanan's cabinet, the collaborator of Lincoln, the supporter of
Grant, gifted with the far-seeing eye of a Carnot, spotless in character,
incorruptible in integrity, great in talent and learning, and a fit object of
unhesitating trust; and John Rogers, the American sculptor, who has
offered, in his beautiful and famous group of statuary, "The Council of
War," an undying tribute to these three great leaders in American
history, and is himself worthy to be grouped with them in our
remembrance.
"Leaves have their time to fall, And flowers to wither at the north
wind's breath, And stars to set; but all-- Thou hast all seasons for thine
own, O Death!"
If we could have looked into a rude log-cabin in Hardin county,
Kentucky, on the morning of the 12th of February, 1809, we should
have seen an