It is but a generation or two, in New England, since on Sunday morning the father of the family harnessed his horse and with his entire household drove the two, five, or even ten miles to the nearest church. Now, with an occasional exception, he stays at home and his children grow up even more indifferent to religious things than himself.

We may philosophize as much as we will on the causes of the spiritual and industrial decay of rural New England, but the fact still confronts us that the country districts are untouched by the Church's influence, and that their inhabitants will go no long distance to avail themselves of the Church's ministrations. There is but one way out of the difficulty, and we may as well face it resolutely. If the people will not go to the Church the Church must go to the people.

It is but a generation or two, in New England, since on Sunday morning the father of the family harnessed his horse and with his entire household drove the two, five, or even ten miles to the nearest church. Now, with an occasional exception, he stays at home and his children grow up even more indifferent to religious things than himself.

We may philosophize as much as we will on the causes of the spiritual and industrial decay of rural New England, but the fact still confronts us that the country districts are untouched by the Church's influence, and that their inhabitants will go no long distance to avail themselves of the Church's ministrations. There is but one way out of the difficulty, and we may as well face it resolutely. If the people will not go to the Church the Church must go to the people.

Meeting with unusual success here, he was called in November 1899 to St. John's Church in Bangor, Maine, where the remainder of his short life was spent in labors faithful and well appreciated. He was president for two years of the Bangor Ministers' Conference, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Bangor Public Library, one of the original movers of the formation of the Citizens' League, a member of the Twentieth Century Club, and one of the Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Maine. He was married to Elizabeth Woodbury King, daughter of D. Webster and Jennie W. (Purinton) King of Boston, 12 September 1900 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. They had four children.

The Rev. Edward Henry Newbegin died of typhoid fever at the age of thirty-five on 14 October 1906 in Portland, Maine, after an illness of about five weeks. His funeral was held at St. John's Church in Bangor, Maine, followed by a memorial service at the Chapel of the Massachusetts Cremation Society at Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts; the Rt. Rev. William Lawrence, Bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts, officiated, assisted by the Rev. Dr. Endicott Peabody, headmaster at Groton School. He is buried with his wife in the Foreside Community Churchyard Cemetery, Falmouth, Maine.

In his obituary, the Bangor Daily News wrote, "Personally, he possessed noble qualities of mind and heart, which won for him many friends and held them true to him always. Genial, courteous and considerate, yet firm and determined when he believed himself in the right; ever true to his own best principles and the best principles of those about him--few Bangor clergymen have been so genuinely popular and few will be more sincerely mourned. His brief life was an example of unselfish devotion and true Christian manliness."

The beautiful wood carving that still hangs on the wall behind the altar, "The Shepherd of Jerusalem," is his memorial. The Rev. Dr. Endicott Peabody said of Rev. Newbegin in an address given at the memorial service at St. Andrew's on the evening of All Saint's Day, 1 November 1906, "I want to point out to you one of the great qualities of Edward Newbegin's life, that of unselfishness. He was faithful as a friend, as a pastor, as a preacher of righteousness; he was faithful unto death and God has surely given him a crown of life."