Section 14 continued
Berwick
Its People and Institutions as I knew them about Sixty
Years ago.
D. O. PARKER.
June 9 ,1897
SECTION 14 CONTINUED.
HIS PUBLIC LIFE.
For more than twenty years Mr. Chipman was a very prosperous merchant. He built and lived for several years in the house occupied by his son the late Henry Chipman M.P., and now by his grandson Ross. He was the first pastor of what is now known as the Berwick Baptist church where he officiated for thirty years. He was forty years old when ordained. Rev. Theodore Harding preached his ordination sermon March 19th 1829, in Alfred Skinner’s house, now occupied by James Reed, Welsford. We have the assurance of his own statement that during his ministry of thirty years with his church, he expended eighteen hundred pounds of personal property above his income from the people in the support and education of his family and in private and public beneficence. His business talent was early and largely developed. He was clerk of the Peace for sixteen years in this County, and for several years was a highly esteemed Captain of the Militia. He was one of the originators of the Nova Scotia Baptist Education Society, and served that society from hits beginning till his death, either as Director or as one of the Executive Committee was its Secretary for fourteen years, and was its President at the time of his death. In his youth he was present when the first Baptist Association was formed in Lower Granville in 1800, and was subsequently clerk of that Association for many years. He was enthusiastic in pressing the claims of popular education, and the intelligence of Berwick and neighboring districts, as also Acadia University, are the standing memorials of his persistent zeal and labors. That great temperance epoch making man, Dr. Lyman Beecher, had published his famous Temperance Sermons a little before Mr. Chipman’s ordination. From the perusal of these, like thousands of others, he became a total abstainer, and uncompromising advocate of temperance; and total abstinence from all intoxicating liquors was made one of the conditions of church membership. He preached temperance as a part of the gospel of regeneration, and had to contend with much opposition. I have from him one instance in his temperance experience. It was at Waterville, the meeting was in a barn, and a goodly number were assembled. It was his first temperance sermon in that community, and before he had spoken long, nearly the entire congregation had indignantly retired. They had assembled to hear the gospel, and not to be treated to the abominable fanatical sham of total abstinence. He and Rev. Edward Manning were co-laborers in the temperance reform, and were honored with an amusing parody on The Death of Cock Robin, I will quote a few lines, -
"Who killed Tom Rum?
I, says Ned Manning,
With my good planning,
I killed Tom Rum.Who saw him die?
I, says Billie Slye,
With my little eye,
I saw him die,Just previous to this wide spread temperance movement the "ardent" was used on almost every occasion by all classes. It graced the marriage, the birth and the funeral occasion, and was the token of courtesy and hospitality. The ministers spoke under the inspiration, and after preaching took it to soothe their excited nerves. Deacon Lyons of Berwick remembers how even the venerable and devout Edward Manning before his temperance conversion. After preaching in a private dwelling, would turn to his wife, and patting his stomach would say "Bettie, Bettie," which was the well understood signal for the soothing cordial. Perhaps there is no village of its extent, with its adjacent neighborhoods, in this Dominion that has suffered so little from the scourge of intemperance, and this is due largely to the vigorous temperance work inaugurated by Mr. Chipman almost seventy years ago.
He was seventy years old when he resigned his charge of the church and gave place to Rev. E. M. Saunders, now Dr. Saunders of Halifax. The late Dr. Cramp thus characterized his theological views; "if we may speak in Presbyterian phrase his was Old School theology without its narrowness and rigidity - modified by new school interpretation minus all philosophizing".
On July 14th 1865 he fell asleep in Jesus. The "days of his pilgrimage" were eighty-three years, seven months and fifteen days. On the 7th of July his coffin was borne from his late home by devout hands and placed before the desk where he had so long ministered. The house was crowded to overflowing and many remained outside. Eleven ministers walked in the procession accompanying the remains to the meeting house. Dr. Cramp preached the funeral sermon from Psalm Lxxiii 23, 24. Rev. A. S. Hunt, the Rev. Dr. Tupper and the pastor of the church all engaged in the solomnities of the hour. His remains "rest in sure and certain hope" by the side of his companion, neath the marble in the old Valley burying ground. – "Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them."
Thanks
to John Parker for supplying parts of the 2nd last paragraph. The
page was torn and John found
what I needed at PANS. (9 June 1897 mfm#4034 NSARM Halifax, NS D.
O. Parker Section 14)