“Keep in the hollow of Thy hand This hallowed place, while years shall last; For righteousness still may it stand, Till days and ages are all past.” BY REV. SAMUEL HART, D. D. OF MIDDLETOWN, CONNECTICUT, IN SAINT JOHN’S CHURCH, ALL SAINTS’ CONGREGATION UNITING “It happened, as men say, that the beginning of the settlement of this town fell in the year which saw the organization of the first parish of the Church of England in Connecticut; the bi-centenary of New Milford is also the bi-centenary of the Diocese of Connecticut. It is but natural, therefore, that one who is called to speak to-day as to that part which this parish has borne in the history of the town, should recur to the origin of the Church in this Colony, and should have in his mind the inspiration of last week’s commemoration in Stratford; we cannot but look back from the time when the Church’s ministrations were first held here, to the earlier ministrations on the shores of the Sound. But we have a stronger reason to-day for turning to the beginnings; for the two clergymen who first officiated here, at the request of a few adherents of the Church of England, were Dr. Johnson, missionary and rector at Stratford, ‘the father of the Church in Connecticut,’ and Mr. John Beach, of Stratford birth, Dr. Johnson’s pupil in theology, in charge of congregations in Redding and Newtown. But, as it appears, we can go still further back; for one of the first settlers here, of whom indeed it is said that he claimed the land by title from the Indians, was John Read, who, at the time when the church services were first held by a clergyman in Stratford, was ministering to the Congregational society there, and presently connected himself with the newly formed congregation of Churchmen; indeed, we are told that at one time he had it in mind to go to England and ask for ordination at the hands of a bishop. Whatever his plans in this matter, they were not carried out; for he removed to this place, granted the use of a house which he built as a place of meeting for public worship, and occasionally preached to those who assembled there. He became a lawyer and Queen’s attorney, and removed to Boston, where he was a communicant in King’s Chapel. His son John was one of the first settlers of Reading (Redding) and named the town for his father. Thus there was here, from the very first, a little Church of England leaven.