The Meeting House

by Jesse Halsey

The Meeting House where for ten succeeding generations aspiring souls have found God, making His Presence known under the forms of our visible worship.

The Meeting House where our Fathers met in their generations to transact in Town Meeting the affairs political and economic of their tiny commonwealth.

The First Church of Christ in Southampton—thus she was called at her beginning; thus she remains a Church of Christ through the years. Standing today at the crossing where four ways meet, her testimony unswerving to Things Unseen and Eternal, a House of Prayer for all peoples, she renews her allegiance to her Lord and His Gospel of brotherhood and Good-will, remembering the Tradition of The Fathers, their fight for freedom, their brave testimony and unswerving devotion to duty, to Country, and to God.

Let Thy work appear unto Thy servants, and Thy glory unto their children. [And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us:] And establish Thou the work of our hands upon us; yea the work of our hands establish Thou it. 

--Psalm 90: 16-17

[Psalm 90] A communal lament that describes only in general terms the cause of the community's distress. After confidently invoking God (Psalm 90:1), the psalm turns to a complaint contrasting God's eternity with the brevity of human life (Psalm 90:2-6) and sees in human suffering the punishment for sin (Psalm 90:7-12). The psalm concludes with a plea for God's intervention (Psalm 90:13-17).