\
tihvavy of Che t:heological ^tminavy
PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY
PRESENTED BY
The John M, Krehs Doratimn
BX 9211 .N5 B84 1861 New York (City). Brick
Presbyterian Church. Brick Church memorial
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EXTERIOR OF THE OLD BRICK CHURCH IX BEKKMAN STRKKT
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BEICI CHUECH lElOPJAL
CONTAINING
THE DISCOURSES DELIVERED BY DR. SPRIISTG ON THE
CLOSING OF THE OLD CHURCH IN BEEKMAN
ST., AND THE OPENING OF THE NEW
CHURCH ON MURRAY HILL;
THE DISCOURSE DELIVERED
Jfiftittjj ^uiuhrsiirj
OP HIS INSTALLATION AS PASTOR OF THE BRICK CHURCH
WITH
THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE
MEMORIAL MEETING,
THE DISCOURSE PREACHED ON THE OCCASION
OF
MRS. SPRING'S DECEASE.
NEW YORK: M. W. DODD, PUBLISHER^
No. 506 Broadway. 1861.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861,
By M. W. DoDD,
In the Clerk's OfBce of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York.
NEW YORK :
PRINTED BY EDWARD O. JENKINS,
20 NORTH WILLIAM ST.
Y''
CONTENTS.
PAOB.
DEPARTURE FROM THE BEEKMAN STREET CHURCH. 1
DEDICATION OF THE NEW CHURCH 45
FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY DISCOURSE 81
PROCEEDINGS AT THE MEMORIAL MEETING 129
DISCOURSE ON THE DEATH OF MRS. SPRING 215
MEMORIAL OF GOD'S GOODNESS.
A DISCOURSE;
DELIVERED ON THE 25th OF MAY, 1856, AS THE
CLOSING SERMON IN THE OLD BRICK
CHURCH IN BEEKMAN STREET.
MEMORIAL OF GOD'S GOODNESS.
" "We have thought of thy loving-kindness, O God, in the midst of thy temple. That ye may tell it to the generation following; for this God is our God, for ever and ever; he wiU be our guide even unto death." — ^Psalm xlviii. 9-14.
The present service closes the public worship of God in an edifice where it has been enjoyed for 88 years. For whatever purposes this hal- lowed ground may be hereafter employed, expe- rience has convinced us that it is no longer a fit place for religious worship. We have admitted this conviction reluctantly; we have resisted it too long. It is now forced upon us by considera- tions which we have no doubt God approves, and the best interests of his kingdom demand.
With the future we have less to do, on the present occasion, than with the past. The Brick Presbyterian Church has, from its origin, occu- pied a position sufficiently prominent to justify, even in the eyes of the men of the world, some historical notices, which may, perhaps, be viewed with interest by others as well as ourselves.
8 BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL.
It requires no great labor and very little re- searcli to furnish the historical outlines of a Christian congregation, which dates back only 88 years. The first account we have of Presbyte- rianism in this city, is the combination of several Presbyterian families from England, Scotland, Ire- land, France, and New England, in the year 1706, who were in the habit of assembling together on the Lord's clay, in a private house, and conduct- ing their religious services without the aid of any Christian minister. The following year they wor- shipped occasionally in the Dutch church in Garden street, and, in the year 1716, formed themselves into a regular Presbyterian church, under the stated ministry of the Rev. James An- derson, a native of Scotland. For three years this infant church assembled for public w^orship in the City Hall, then on the corner of Nassau and Wall streets ; and in 1719, they erected the first Presbyterian church in Wall street, out of which was formed the Church of the Seceders in Cedar street, under the pastoral charge of the Rev. Dr. Mason the elder, and also the Brick church in Beekman street. The corner stone of this edifice was laid in the autumn of the year 1766, and on the first of January, 1768, it was opened for public worship, by a discourse from the Rev. Dr. Rodgers, its first pastor. The con- gregations worshipping in Wall street and in
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Beekman street remained for a series of years one churchy under tlie same associated pastorate, the same Board of Trustees, and the same bench of Euling Elders. This identity of interest was preserved during the whole of the Revolutionary war, and down to the year 1809. During the war, these two Presbyterian churches were the objects of the special vengeance and indignity of the enemy. The church in Wall street was con- verted into barracks, and the Brick church into a hospital — defaced, stripped of their interior, and left in ruins, and the parsonage house burned to the ground. On the return of peace, and while these edifices were beino; rei^aired, the con- gregations statedly worshipped in St. George's and St. Paul's, through the unsolicited and gen- erous courtesy of the vestry of Trinity church. After having been repaired at great expense, the Brick church was reopened in June, 1784, by a discourse from Dr. Bodgers, from the words of the Psalmist, " I was glad when they said unto me. Let us go into the house of the Lord." The ministers successively associated with Dr. Kodgers, after the conclusion of the war, were the Rev. James Wilson, from Scotland, the Rev. John McKnight, and the Rev. Samuel Miller. These congregations, in their united capacity, and for many years after the present pastor of the Brick church came to the city, established and sus-
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tained a large parocMal scliool, in Nassau, be- tween Liberty and Cedar streets, and relin- quisbed tbeir funds for tbis object to tbe Public Scbool directors, on tbe expressed condition tbat no cbild wbom tbey sbould recommend sbould be excluded, and tbat tbe Bible sbould be daily read in tbe scbools.
Serious inconveniences were found to attend tbe arrangement of tbis collegiate cbarge ; and by an amicable stipulation, in the year 1809, tbe congregations, till tben united, were formed into separate and distinct cburcbes ; — tbe Rev. Dr. Rodgers retaining bis relation to botb, and tbe Rev. Dr. Miller tbe stated pastor of tbe cburcb in Wall street — Dr. McKnigbt voluntarily resigning bis connexion witb botb cburcbes.
Sucb was tbe state of tbe Brick cburcb tbe year before tbe ordination and installation of tbe present pastor. Tbe eldersbip consisted of men well known, botb in civil and ecclesiastical life, and venerable for age and character. Tbey were Abraham Vangelder, John Thompson, Wilbam Ogilvie, Benjamin Egbert, Thomas Frazer, John Bingham, John Mills, and Samuel Osgood, to wbicb were added, shortly after tbe separation of tbe cburcbes, William Wbitlock, Richard Cun- ningham, Rensselaer Havens, and John Adams. While all tbese gentlemen were men of worth and influence, tbe ruling spirit among them, and
BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL. ' 11
the man eminent for discernment, practical wis- dom, ardent piety, and vigorous action, was John
Mills.
The age and infirmities of Dr. Rodgers had re- leased him from all duty, and the great object of the church now was to secure the services of a stated pastor. There were divisions among them arising from the separation previously referred to, from ancient feuds, personal animosity, and political excitement. A call was presented to the Rev. Dr. John McDowell, of Elizabethtown, in New Jersey, which, though sustained by a large majority of the congregation, he declined accepting. Subsequently a call was presented to the Rev. Dr. Andrew Yates, of East Hartford, Connecticut, and though unanimous, was de- clined ; Dr. Yates giving the preference to the Professorship of Moral Philosophy in Union Col- lege. Three efforts were subsequently made to induce the congregation to call the Rev. Lyman Beech er, then of East Hampton, Long Island ; but for want of harmony, this measure was aban- doned. Subsequently, in May, 1810, the Session deputed two of their number to procure the ser- vices of the Rev. Dr. Speece, of Virginia, on trial ; this effort was also unsuccessful. At the same meeting they also appointed the same committee "to proceed to Philadelphia, during the sessions of the General Assembly, and make application
12 BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL.
to any of tlie Presbyterian ministers tTiat may be convened there, whose piety and talents would, in their judgment, render him acceptable to the congregation, and earnestly solicit such minister to make the church a visit of two or three Sab- baths, with a view to a permanent settlement as pastor ; and in case they should not find any minister there suitably qualified, that they make inquiry of the ministers present ; and if they re- ceive well-grounded information respecting any minister whose piety and talents would probably make him acceptable to the congregation, that they take such measures for procuring a visit from such minister as they may think proper." There is no record on the minutes of the Session of the action of this committee, and no report of the results of their appointment.
At a meeting of the Session, on the 28th of May, 1810, the first resolution was adopted which relates to your present pastor. He had not a single acquaintance in the congregation, nor does he know by whom, nor by what means his name was presented to the Session. He had passed through the city the preceding week, and preached a single discourse in the church in Ce- dar street, under the care of the late Dr. John B. E-omeyn, and who was then in Philadelphia. While there, a spectator of the transactions of the Assembly, the Session passed the resolution
BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL. 13
inviting him to supply the pulpit. He accepted this invitation, and occupied the pulpit the first Sabbath in June, preaching in the morning from the words, " Wherefore come ye out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the un- clean thing, and I will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty;" and in the evening, to a crowded audience, from the words, " By the grace of God, I am what I am." I hold in my hand the identical discourses which I then j^reached, and have often been filled with won- der that these two jejune and puerile discourses should have decided the question on which so many interests depended for time and eternity. But the hand of God was in the whole proce- dure. At the close of the morning service^ and in the churchy the Session had a meeting, at which Dr. Rodgers presided, and which the deacons and trustees were invited to attend, at which they unanimously resolved that notice be given from the pulpit, at the close of the afternoon and evening service, that the congregation assemble the next day to take into consideration the pro- priety of making out a call for Mr. Gai'diner Spring to become the stated pastor of the Brick church.
On the following day that meeting was held, the Kev. Dr. Milledoler, then the pastor of the
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cliurcli in Rutgers street, presiding, and a unani- mous call was made out for the proposed candi- date. I was greatly embarrassed by this unex- pected invitation. A call had already been pre- sented to me from the church in Andover, Mas- sachusetts, from the Park Street church in Bos- ton, and at the same time I had been requested to receive a call from the church in New Haven. The elders of the Brick church were urgent for a prompt and immediate decision, on account of the peculiar state of the congregation ; and though I did not formally answer the call till the 6th of July, I gave to Mr. John Mills, the leading ruling elder, such intimations of my pur- pose that they had a right to consider me, and did consider me, as their minister. It appeared to my own mind the call of the Great Head of the church to a field of labor too important to be compared with others, and too unequivocal to be misunderstood. Unfitted for it as I was, yet en- couraged to believe that I should have strength according to my day, I accepted the solemn charge, and was ordained by the Presbytery of New York, and installed the pastor of this peo- ple on the 8th of August, 1810. Of the Presby- tery by which I was ordained,* consisting of Rev.
* Among those ■who were subsequently received into it, the follow- ing nainisters also sleep in the dust: — Rev. William Boardman, Rev.
BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL. 15
Dr. Roclgers, Rev. Greorge Faitoute, Rev. Peter Fish, Rev. Philip Milledoler, Rev. Samuel Miller, Rev. John B. Roineyn, and the Rev. Ezra Stiles Ely, not one remains.
The fathers, where are they ? and the younger prophets do not live forever. The distinguished individuals to whom I was under the greatest obligations, so long as they remained members of the Presbytery, were the Rev. Dr. Miller and the Rev. Dr. Perrine, both of whom filled the office of Professor of Church History and Gov- ernment in our theological seminaries, and died full of years and full of honors. Their uniform friendship, their kind and gentleman-like deport- ment toward me, their wise counsels, their active assistance in my arduous work, the interest they took in my usefulness, and the influence they ex- erted in my favor in seasons of solicitude, conflict
John Teasman, Rev. Henry Blatchford, Rev. Philip M. Whelpley, Rev. Samuel Whelpley, Rev. John B. Romeyn, Rev. Mathias Bruen, Rev. Henry P. Strong, Rev. Mathew L. R. Perrine, Rev. Joseph S. Christ- man, Rev. Henry Hunter, Rev. Elias Crane, Rev. Daniel Newell, Rev. Seymour P. Funk, Rev. Stephen K Rowan, Rev. E. W. Baldwin, Rev. Daniel Carroll, Rev. Joseph Sanford, Rev. Henry White, Rev. George W. Perkins, Rev. Erskine Mason, Rev. Truman Norton, Rev. A. J. Graham, Rev. John Little, Rev. S. Earned, Rev. E. Holt, Rev. Wal- ter King, Rev. Ward Stafford, Rev. Flavel S. Mines, Rev. Isaac Lewis, Rev. F. Chamberlain, Rev. Albert Judson, Rev. George Bourne, Rev. Robert Birch, Rev. Moses C. Searl, Rev. Charles M. Oakly, Rev. George Carrington, Rev. John Anderson, Rev. Nathaniel S. Prime, Rev. Icha- bod S. Spencer, and Rev, Samuel E. Cornish.
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and depression, demand from me this public and grateful acknowledgment.
During the first year of my ministry, I was constrained by necessity to the preparation of those discourses which I could most easily pre- pare. My subjects were such as were most famil- iar to my own mind, rather than those which were demanded by the character and condition of the congregation. But no sooner did it please God to give me the confidence of the people, than topics were carefully selected with a more special regard to the indications of divine provi- dence, and the wants of those to whom I was called to minister. Both the elders and the peo- ple expected from me discourses that were ad- dressed to the pojyidar ear and taste. There was a standard of preaching and a feeling on this subject which tried and embarrassed me, and which led to a carefully prepared discourse from the words, " Speak unto us smooth things." God was pleased to put honor upon this discourse, and to produce the conviction on the minds of those who heard it, that the preacher's business is to 'preach His truth., and leave the consequences with Him, and that instead of aiming to jplease men^ his great aim ought to be to please God., who trieth the hearts.
There was at that time prevalent in the city a sort of hybrid theology, half Arraiuian and half
BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL. it
Antinomian — tinctured witli the views of "Mar- shal on Sanctification," on the one hand, and the ritualism of High Church Episcopacy on the other — which, young as I was, I felt myself called on to investigate and resist. In the main, it was evangelical and Calvinistic, but it was hyper- Calvinism, and not that Jclnd of Calvinism which is taught in the Bible. Some of my own people were not a little imbued with it, and it led to a series of discourses on tlie " Discriminating traits of Christian character," in which the agitated ques- tions were treated, not polemically, but practical- ly. These discourses the Great Head of the church condescended to attend with his blessing, and to make the means of disturbing false hopes, and bringing many persons out of darkness into his marvellous lio^ht.
It was the preparation of these discourses which first directed my own thoughts to the discussion of subjects in a series of discussions^ comprising from twenty to thirty discourses on the same general topic, so many of which have been de- livered in this sanctuary, and subsequently found their way to the press. The most imjoortant of the series was that which, in the order of time, immediately followed the discussions on Christian characteristics. It comprised a system of theology, and consisted of more than one hundred discours- es. It was the great effort of my life. The pre- 2
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paration of these discourses occupied more tlian three years of laborious and continuous study and preaching. Very many of tliem were delivered on the evening of the Lord's day, and to very large audiences. Nor do I know that any series of sermons preached by me have been listened to with greater interest, or have been more exten- sively useful. It was a system of theology not prepared for the schools, but for the people. And while it blinked no hard questions, save those which the word of God bids us to let alone, its main object was to show the bearing of every truth upon the conscience and heart ; to exalt God, and to lay the sinner, humbled and with- out excuse, trembling, yet hoping, at the foot of the cross. The ])ractical a/pplication of every doctrine was the most labored part of almost every discourse ; nor have I ever preached to more solemn audiences, nor with more evident tokens of the divine favor and presence, than when preaching some of these discourses. One of these, I well recollect, cost six weeks' labor ; and I mention this, not for the discouragement, but the encouragement of those ministers who, in the vigor of their days, are willing to be woi'Tcing rnen.
My jDreparations for the Sabbath have been habitually, almost always and uniformly made in season I never, to my recollection, except in two
BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL. 19
instances, deferred to the last day of the week ; nor do I know of any better way of gaining time, labor, knowledge, and health, than such an ar- rangement. One little circumstance, in connection with the series of theological discourses, deserves here to be mentioned, that gave interest to them. During their delivery in the winter season, in ad- dition to the Thursday evening lecture, there was established a Bible-class, or rather a theoloo-ical class, in " the old Session-room," comprising all of botb sexes who chose to attend, for the purpose of reviewing, examining, and enforcing, by ques- tion and answer, the discourse of the preceding Lord's day. It was a large class, often number- ing more than a hundred, and thougli it consisted of gentlemen in professional and literary life, of merchants, and mechanics, and teachers, and ladies of greater and less distinction ; and though all liberty was allowed of proposing questions on subjects of difficulty, it was a religious class, and was understood to be a religious service. There was no restraint, but the most unembarrassed and cheerful discussion ; yet there was no rudeness, no frivolity. It was one of the most interesting and solemn services of the season, and gave so- lemnity and interest to all our other services. God was with us by the influence of his sacred Spirit. And when we came to the j^ractical appli- cation of any sucli great doctrine as man's depravity,
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the sovereignty of God, the nature of holiness, the nature and necessity of regeneration, the great atonement of his Son, and the retribution of his punitive justice, many a time did proud heads droop, and the question was answered by a tear. Men and women are now living, who, though widely scattered, will never forget this beautiful service. And here commenced the first memorable outpouring of God's Spirit u2:>on this people. Not far from thirty of this class, prin- cipally young, where turned from the power of Satan unto God, some of whom have died in faith and hope, some of whom live to exert a Christian influence, and some of whom are eminent for their usefulness in the gospel ministry.
God had graciously given testimony to the word of his grace, as here preached, at earlier periods. The thought has no doubt often crossed the minds of reflectino; Christians that those who have occupied a place on the earth during the last fifty years, have lived in a remarkable age of the world, not only as it respects science and the arts, and the progress of civil society, but in regard to the cause of vital piety. The period, commenc- ing with the year 1Y92, and terminating with 1842, was a memorable period in the history of the American Church. Scarcely any portion of it, except the high church Episcopalian and the Unitarian churches of Massachusetts, but were
BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL. 21
graciously visited by copious effusions of the Holy Spirit. From north to south, and from east to west, our male, and more especially our female academies, our colleges, and our churches, drank largely of this fountain of living waters. It was my privilege to enter upon the course of academi- cal life not far from the meridian of this bright day. There were no subjects that interested my mind more deeply when I began my ministry among this people, than those revivals of religion which passed over the land of my boyhood. This interest increased with time, and official labors and responsibility, and exercised a most important influence upon my whole course. Sparse clouds of mercy had been hovering over the congrega- tion during the first four years of my ministry, and not a few, especially of those in middle life, had been brought into the kingdom of God. The year 1814 was a year of severe labor and deep solicitude ; as it drew towards its close, of great discouragement and depression. It seemed to me that I must abandon my post, and that neither my mind, my heart, nor my health was adequate to its constantly accumulating duties. My intel- lectual resources seemed to be exhausted, and drained dry. Many a time, after preaching, did I remain long in the pulpit that I might not en- counter the faces of the people as I left the church ; and many a time, when I left it, did I feel that
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I could never preach, another sermon. Yet I labored on week after week, without discovering to what extent the Spirit of God was carrying forward his own noiseless work. I perceived nothing to encourage me but an unusual enlarge- ment and urgency in prayer, a great facility in the selection of fitting themes for the pulpit, and more freedom and earnestness in declaring the whole counsel of God. God remarkably in- terposed to relieve my mind from its depression, and gave me such enlarged and delightful views of his truth, that my whole ministry received a new and cheered impulse. It was easy, also, to perceive that the spirit of grace and supplication was being poured out upon the people. The weekly prayer-meeting and the weekly lecture were full of interest. Days of fasting and prayer were occasionally observed, and a Saturday even- ing prayer-meeting was estal^lished by the young men of the congregation. Our Sabbaths became deeply solemn and affecting ; we watched for them like those who watch for the morning, and I verily believe we anticipated them w^ith greater pleasure and expectation than the sons and daughters of earth ever anticipated their brightest jubilee. This was the first strongly marked revival of God's work among this people ; and I take this notice of it because it was so em- phatic an expression of God's goodness to your
BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL. 23
young minister. Poor a thing as I have "been, and still continue to be, it was this work of grace which made me what I am ; which gave me entirely new view^s .of the great objects of the ministry, and made my work my joy. I loved it before, but never so ardently as then. But for this early season of mercy, during the summer of 1814, 1 do not see how I could ever have remained among you. It was the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. The ingathering was not great, but it was the finest of the wheat. I may not mention their names.
This was but the beginning of the days of mercy. The commencement of the year 1815 was the dawning of a still brighter day. The last Sabbath of the old year and the evening services of that Sabbath will be long remembered. Eight or ten persons, during the following week, were found to be awake, and in earnest for their salvation. The whole winter was a day of the right-hand of the Most High. The cloud of mercy extended itself through the following spring, and summer, and autumn. In the month of November the Bible- class was reorganized, the Saturday evening prayer- meeting was renewed, and God appeared to take the work into his own hands. There were com- plaint and hostility ; there were not wanting appre- hensions in the minds of some of the pastors and churches in the city that the work savored more of
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fanaticism than intelligent and sober tliouglit. But the apprehensions were groundless. The blessing was near ; the sacred influence was silent as the dew of heaven. There was no outbreak and no disorder. There was prayer. There was solemn and earnest preaching. There were unexpected and unthought- of instances of seriousness among the gay and frivo- lous, in the families of the rich as well as the poor, among the immoral as well as the moral, and many were the instances of conversion to God. The third Thursday of January was set apart by about thirty members of the church as a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer. It was in a private house in the rear of St. Paul's, in Church street ; and such a day I never saw before, and have never seen since. It was closed under strong and confident expectation that God was near, and that his Spirit was about largely to descend upon the people. And so it was. A delightful impulse was given to the work by this day of ]3rayer. The promise was made good, "Before they call I will answer, and while they are yet speaking I will hear." The weekly lecture, attended on the evening of that day was perhaps the most solemn service of my ministry. The subject of the discourse was sug- gested by the words, " Marvel not that I said unto you, Ye must be born again." God was with the hearers and the preacher ; his Spirit moved them as the trees of the forest are moved by a mighty
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wind. There is good reason to believe that the minds of more than one hundred persons were deeply impressed with a sense of their lost condi- tion as sinners, and their need of an interest in Christ, on that evening. Enemies were silenced : members of other churches came among us to see and mark the character of the work for themselves, and all classes were constrained to confess, "This is the finger of God." Between one and two hun- dred attended the meetings for religious inquiry and conversation, and deep solemnity pervaded the whole people. There was great eagerness for relig- ious instruction, and great satisfaction in the soul- humiliating and soul-encouraging doctrines of the cross. The work was rapid. The period of awakening and conviction in many instances was very short — so short that older Christians began to doubt the genuineness of such conversions. There was no reason for the doubt. Some of the brightest and most enduring Christians amongst us were those very persons whose conversion was almost as sudden as that of Saul of Tarsus. The gathering of this protracted harvest was rich, consisting some- times of thirty and forty, and at one communion of more than seventy, filling the broad aisle of the church — a lovely spectacle to God, angels, and men. There have been five seasons of the especial outpouring of God's Spirit upon this people dur- ing the ministry of their present pastor. They
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were interspersed between the years 1812 and 1834, more or less copious, but always seasons of delightful refreshing from the presence of the Lord. If the tree is known by its fruit, they are proved to have been the fruit of God's Spirit. The subjects of this work of grace have, in almost all instances, run well; they have turned out intelligent and active Christians. Many of them have been called to their last earthly rest; nor shall I forget the blessedness and the blessed scenes of their last hours. Many of them are ministers of the gospel, and more the wives of ministers. Many of them are teachers and superintendents of Sabbath-schools. Many of them are ruling elders and deacons in other churches, while some remain in the hon- orable fulfilment of these offices amons^ our- selves. Very many of them are scattered through this wide land, and distant churches and the dis- tant wilderness are made glad for tliein. I never was so gratefully impressed with this fact, and with the high privilege of preaching the gospel in this sanctuary, as on an unexpected tour through Western New York, and the Western States on the Upper Mississippi. Everywhere I met those who remembered the young minister and the Old Session-room. I heard of the death of some far away ; and it was affecting to learn that in their last hours their thoughts of grate-
BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL. 27
fill praise were turned toward these scenes of mercy.
It will be found by an inspection of our rec- ords, that after the separation of the Brick and Wall Street churches, and before the installa- tion of the present pastor, the Session were faith- fully employed in acts of painful discipline. Church discipline is not less truly an ordinance of God than church communion. No church can prosper that connives at heresy or immoral- ity among its communicants. This unwelcome duty was faithfully j)ursued for several years after my settlement among this people, and has been discharged with perfect unanimity ever since. In the early part of my ministry there were some avowed infidels in the church, who were the disciples of Paine and Palmer; there were, also, avowed Universalists ; there have been, from time to time, immoral men and licen- tious, whom no means could reclaim, and they have been cast out. It has often been at great sacrifice of feeling, and some of interest and in- fluence, that these acts of discipline have been performed ; but, however reluctantly and cau- tiously, it is a work which has been done. There have also been evils in the church at large with which the Brick church has sympathized, and in the pressure of which it has endeavored to exert a healing and conservative influence. The great
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schism in tlie Presbyterian cliurch in the United States, which issued in the excision of so many churches in Western New York, was one in which this church took no part, and which it en- deavored to prevent. We saw and felt that there were errors in doctrine and in church pol- ity that were at variance with our standards ; but it was our judgment that there was a consti- tutional remedy for them, and that it ought to have been adopted. We had no confidence in the men who were the leaders of the New School party, and believed that their aims were to secure exclusive power ; but we could not be- lieve that the mass of their followers were not true to our standards, and could never be per- suaded that such a wholesale excision, without any previous trial, was consistent with sound Presbyterianism. Yet all our sympathies in doc- trine and in polity were with the Old School. We w^ere crowded to the wall, and called on to de- cide whether or not our allotment should be cast with the New School, who had abandoned them selves to leaders with whom we had no sort of sym- pathy, or with the Old School, with whom our doctrinal views and views of church order were in unison, while we disapproved of their excind- ing acts. Nor did we long hesitate, but formed our decision, after having frankly expressed our dissent from their measures, to remain with the
BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL. 29
exclnding party. This was an unliappy division, thougli overruled for good. There are hundreds of as good men and sound Presbyterians in the excinded churches as are to be found among our- selves ; and when time, that great healer, shall have purged them of the unhallowed leaven, and fostered a more fraternal spirit in both these branches of the great Presbyterian family in this land, we doubt not they will once more become united and harmonious. Blame was imputed to us by both parties for our neutral course; but we did not think it neutral. Our decision to re- main with the Old School was prompt and firm, and not less prompt and firm was our Protest against its excinding acts, and that Protest now stands on .the records of the Presbytery. We did not deem this a neutral course ; nor could we, with an honest conscience, have adopted any other, without fomenting still further disunion, and forming, as was seriously thought of, a third party in a church which ought ever to have been one. In those great and benevolent enterprises for which the ao:e in which we live has been distin- guished, it has been the privilege of the Brick church to bear her part. Taking the forty-six years of my pastorate together, no church in the land has given more bountifully to the cause of domestic and foreii^n missions. It has done not a little also in the work of educating poor and
30 BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL.
pious young men for the gospel ministry. Bos- ton, New York, Elizabetbtown, Princeton, and tlie West and far West to this day have eminent ministers, in the Congregational, Presbyterian, and Dutch Reformed churches, who were bene- ficiaries of this church.
Of God's goodness toward myself, I might write volumes without exhausting the theme. My own life and the life of her he so early gave me, have been spared to us, while the great mass of the companions of our youth among this peo- ple sleep among the dead. It is a coincidence which an old man may be pardoned for taking notice of, that tliis day on which we now meet, completes the fiftieth year of our married life. It was on the twenty-fifth of May, 1806, the Lord's day, that we were united in bonds not to be severed but by death. This twenty-fifth of May, 1856, also the Lord's day, celebrates our " golden wedding," and we are both well pleased in thus inviting you to this religious celebration, which looks back upon so many interesting fticts in the narrative of our pilgrimage. Thirteen of our children were born in the midst of you, and baptized in this house of God ; and you have generously borne with their failings and ours. Six of the fifteen have died since our connection with you, and you have sympathized with our tri- als, and liberally provided for our wants and
BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL. 81
theirs. Your unexiDected bounty to us two years ago, wlieu I was thousands of miles from you, and knew not of the generous arrangement so nobly made in order to relieve the solicitude of the evening of our days, demands tliis grateful and public acknowledgment.^"
* The bounty here referred to, and so unexpectedly dispensed, will the better appear from the following documents :
New York, 1th June, 1854.
PcBSUANT to public Dotice given from the pulpit, a meeting of the male members and stated hearers of the Brick Presbyterian church in Beekman street, was held this day in the church, to consider and determine, agreeably to said notice, upon a subject of interest to the congregation, embraced in the eighth section of the act to provide for the Incorporation of Religious Societies, in relation to Minister's salaries.
On motion, Samuel Marsh, Esq., was called to preside as Chairman, and BIoses Allen, Esq , was appointed Secretary.
The notice under which the meeting was called having been read, the following reso- lutions were offered, and, after having been duly considered, were unanimously adopted :
I. In consideration of the arduous labors of our excellent pastor for a long series of years, at a salary below the average amount paid to many clergymen of this city, to remunerate, in some measure, his past services, and more adequately compensate them in future, i?e.so/'yec?,That the salary of the Rev. Dr. Spring hereafter be fi.xed at five thousand dollars per annum, commencing with the present fiscal year.
II. lie.svlve<7, That the preceding resolution be communicated to the Board of Trus- tees, and that they be requested to ratify the same, agreeably to said act.
III. Jie-iolved, Thai, Horace Holden, Samuel Marsh, Moses Allen, Guy Richards, and Ira Bliss, be a committee to communicate these resolutions to the Rev. Dr. Spring, and to express to him the undiminished confidence and affection of this church and congre- gation, and their earnest prayer that God may long preserve him to be His minister to this people.
SAMUEL MARSH, Chairman. Moses Allen, Secretary.
At a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Brick Presbyterian church, on the 13th of June, 1S54, Mr. Holden presented to the Board a certified copy of the proceedings of a meeting of the congregation, held in the church, on Wednesdaj-, the 7th day of June u'lt , which was read, and ordered to be entered on the minutes.
Whereupon, on motion, it was unanimously liesolved, That this Board do approve of, and hereby ratify and confirm, the aforesaid proceedings of the congregation, fixing the salary of the Rev. Dr. Spring at five thousand dollars per annum, to commence the first day of May last.
A true copy from the Minutes,
THOMAS EGGLESTON, Clerk.
82 BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL.
My labors among you have been, for tbe year past, curtailed and embarrassed by the visitation of God. The world of sense has been for the most part shut out from my obstructed vision ;
New York, ISth June, 1S54. Rev. Dr. Spring : —
Dkar Sir : The undersigned have been appointed a committee to communicate to you the accompanj nig resolutions, passed unanimously at a meeting of the congrega- tion, and subsequently in like manner ratified and confirmed by the Board of Trustees.
It affords us great pleasure to discharge this duty, and it is only embittered with the regret that this act of justice has been so long delayed, much of which delay may be chargeable to our own negligence or forgetfulness, not to use a harsher name.
It is gratifying to be able to state, that on this occasion but one sentiment pervaded the entire meeting; not the slightest dissent was manifested in thought, word, or deed. It was the spontaneous expression of grateful feelings from full and thankful hearts.
For almost half a century you have occupied the same post, and the same sphere of labor and of duty.
Some of us have sat under your ministry for more than forty years, and during that long period can bear testimony to your untiring industry, your unbending integrity in the exhibition of gospel truth amid conflicts and parties, and your entire devotion to the appropriate duties of the ministry.
We feel, too, that it is neither flattery to you, nor vain-boasting in us, but a thankful expression of gratitude to God, to say, that yours has not been an unprofitable minis- try, nor your influence been confined to this church. We can see traces of your faith- ful preacliing, marked by the divine Spirit, not only in our city and vicinity, but in al- most every state of tliis vast republic ; and we expect, if we are ever so happy as to arrive at our Father's house on high, to meet multitudes there of those whom neither you nor we have known in the flesh, brought home to glory through your instrumental- ity.
It is a source of delightful reflection to us, that in the early evening of your days, after so long a ministry among us, you retain the undiminished confidence and affection of your whole people, an affection as warm and fresh as crowned the day when first you devoted your youthful prime in this church, to Christ and his cause.
Our beloved pastor ! these expressions but feebly represent our own sincere emotions.
We would humbly commend you to the Great Head of the church, and earnestly pray that lie may preserve you yet for many years to come, to preach the everlasting gospel to this people— that He may make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you ; and finally, when our warfare is accomplished, that He may receive you and us to that blessed communion where our love shall be for ever perfect, and our joy for ever
full.
Respectfully and affectionately,
HORACE HOLDEN, ^
SAMUEL MARSH, /
MOSES ALLEN, >• Committee.
^ IRA BLISS, (
GUY RICHARDS, -'
BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL. 33
a heavy cloud has hung upon it, which I know not will ever be so removed that I can labor among you with comfort or usefulness. I bow to this visitation; I am not unhappy under it. I have no doubt of the care and faithfulness of our heavenly Father in thus laying his rod upon me. I have never been unhappy in my work, but have greatly rejoiced in it as in every view my chosen service ; thankful above all earthly things that God was pleased to put me into the minis- try. I have never regretted the choice for a moment. I have found trials in it, but not one more than was required by the imperfections of my own character, my position, and my useful- ness ; and were I now in the bloom of youth and secular promise, of all employments in the world I would choose that of a minister of the gospel. With all my unworthiness, I would go to the throne and say, "Here, Lord, am I; send me!'''' This conviction grows upon me as my infirmity gradually disqualifies me for the labors to which I have been accustomed. I cannot speak of the glad emotions which fill my heart, as, in the sus- pension of my more vigorous studies, I sometimes look over the thousands of manuscripts I have been allowed to prepare, and reflect upon the privilege of having been permitted to utter so much precious truth to this beloved people. It is a delightful view to my own mind, that, with 3
34: BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL.
all my deficiencies, God has not permitted me to be a loiterer in bis vineyard, and that, however im23ei'fcctly, my work has not been negligently done. What my motives have been another day will show. Of one thing^ I am confident, that I have been devoted to it, regardless of all other vocations. My great cause of solicitude now is that I shall wane, and fade, and faint, and die " of having nothing to do." I find these days of unreading and unstadious repose the greatest trial of my life, except my sins. I ask your in- dulgence, your sympathy, and your prayers, that God would give me a cheerful mind, and so di- rect me in the employment of my time that my life may not become a burden, and that I may not be a cumberer of the ground. Yet, I may not, I do not, distrust him. Because thou hast been my help ; therefore, under the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice.
And now, in this brief review, what shall we say ? One thought forces itself upon your minds and my own. It relates to a theme on which I have so often dwelt in this sacred desk : The goodness of God^ how wonderful it is ! The ris- ing and setting sun proclaim it, and every star of the dark night. Like the milky way, it fills the heavens with its whiteness ; and like the rain- bow painted on the clouds, it spans them with its prismatic beauty. The atmosphere we breathe
BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL. 35
is surcharged witL. it, and it is conducted off in its ten thousand electric forms. Every bird, fish, and worm, every buzzing insect, every phant and flower, and every blade of grass inhale it. Every sea, every lake and fountain, every river and stream and sparkling dew-drop, receive alike their riches and their beauty from this uncreated source. How much more richly and purely, then, does it flow here in the sanctuary where all its streams are confluent, and from the mountain- tops of Zion send gladness through the city of our God ! A-Ve cannot comprehend the love that brought the Lord of Glory to the manger and the cross ; that here proclaims the glad tid- ings of great joy, and that sends forth his Spirit to call the w\anderers home. " O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness ! " " How great is thy goodness to them that fear thee, to them that put their trust in thee before the sons of men ! "
I love this place where I now stand —
" Here my best friends, my kindred, dwell ; Here God, my Saviour, reigns."
Had any one told me twenty years ago that I should live to see it abandoned as a place of re- ligious worship, I should have thought him a ro- mancer, if not a madman ; yet the hour of aban- donment has come. On an occasion like the present,
36 BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL.
sometlimg is due to this ancient sanctnaiy. The speaker stands here for the last time ; and you, beloved friends, meet for the last time in the con- secrated place where we have so often assembled for the worship of God. As before intimated, I am not ignorant of the defects of my ministry. Yet have I this thankful conviction, that, so far as I have known it, I have not shunned to declare the whole council of God. If I have not, testify against me this day. We call upon you to witness, we call upon the sainted spirits of the departed to witness, we make our appeal to the walls of this hallowed edifice, if the truth of God, detached from the systems of human philosophy, from the mis- named improvements and ultraisms of the age, and from the popular daubing with untempered mor- tar, has not been proclaimed from this pulpit. This house has also been greatly endeared to us as " the house of prayer," as " the house of prayer for all people." Many are the seasons which the living and the dead have here enjoyed, in sweet communion with God and one another. This house has been our thankful resort in prosperity ; in adversity it has been our refuge. Here the aged and the J^oung have come for the first and last time to commemorate the love of Christ at his table. Here our children have been baptized, and their children after them, and here we have wept and prayed together as God has called them
BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL. 37
from these earthly scenes. Here other generations have listened, as you now listen, and around this spot and beneath it are the sepulchres of the de- parted. I seem to stand to-day amid generations that are past, so vividly does my imagination peo- ple these seats with faces and forms whose place now knows them no more. Pleasant, yet mourn- ful, are these reminiscences ; memory has no associ- ations more delightful than those which run by the waters of the sanctuary. This house has also been the stranger's home. Of this and of that man it shall be one day said, that " he was born here." Many a wanderer from other lands, and more from distant regions of our own broad territory, have here sought and made their peace with God ; while many a backslider has been restored, amid scenes which have given joy to the angels of God, and told of the years of the right-hand of the Most High. Recollections of individual character and deep and tender interest gush upon us to-day, which, while we must suppress, are full of thank- fulness and praise. " We have thought of thy loving-kindness, O God, in the midst of thy tem- ple," that " we may tell it to the generations fol- lowing," and that " this God is our God, for ever and ever, and will be our guide even unto death." But our work and our privileges in this house of God here have an end. It is His voice which to-day says to us, " Arise ye, and depart hence, for
38 BEICK CHUECH MEMORIAL.
this is not your rest." We have occupied it too long ; and although it has been for the benefit and enlargement of other congregations, it has been not only to the diminution of our strength, but to the injury of our habits as a people, and almost to the breaking up of our second service on the Sab- bath. Notwithstanding the doubts of some, and the officious and uncalled-for interference of others, we ourselves are satisfied that this once tranquil and central spot is no longer a place of repose either for the preacher or the hearers. We have no longer the unobstructed privileges of the gospel. Our weekly lecture and our weekly prayer-meet- ing, as well as our Sabbath-school, are of necessity discontinued ; while it is at no small inconvenience that a single religious service is sustained on the Lord's day. The question has been asked. Why not leave this church as a church for strangers, and for the hotels and boarding-houses in this part of the city ? To this we have this conclusive answer, We ourselves have proposed to do so. At a meet- ing of the Presbytery of New York, I myself made the proposition to the churches that this congrega- tion would subscribe $50,000 for that purpose, on condition that the other consfreo^ations would unite in raising the balance of $150,000. The Presby- tery received the proposal with favor, and ap- pointed a committee to take it into consideration. That committee reported against the proposed ar-
BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL, 39
rangement, and the Presbytery and the congrega- tions dropped the subject.
We have come to the conclusion, therefore, to quit this edifice, not indeed without difiiculty, but deliberately. And we owe many thanks to those who, amid all the turmoil from without, all the foreign influence, and all the gradual derelic- tion from our services of our own consfreo^ation, have stood hy us in this crisis of our history. For years we have been almost in transitu', and it has put in requisition no small degree of attach- ment to the house of their fathers, and no small degree of Christian principle, to make the sacri- fices that have been indispensable to our contin- uance as a well-organized department in the house of God. While none of us are without lingering attachments to these ancient courts, few if any among ourselves now question the expe- diency, the duty, of the removal. We have been a harmonious people for six and forty years ; and we are now harmonious in this great and agitat- ing question. And although we cannot say that we leave these walls without regret, we can say we leave them for conscience' sake, and at the bidding of our divine Leader. The house does not belong to us^ but to Him / and therefore we are bound to husband the property entrusted to us, for the best interests of His kingdom. We bid it adieu^ to follow the guidance of his provi-
40 BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL.
dence, and pitcli our tabernacle under the pillar and the cloud. These seats will no longer be occupied by us ; this pulpit will henceforth be silent. To you who have long rejected the gos- pel as here proclaimed, it now makes its last call. Prayer will no longer ascend from this altar ; the songs of this temple will now cease. Farewell, then, thou endeared house of God ! thou com- panion and friend of my youth, thou comforter of my later years, thou scene of toil and of re- pose, of apprehension and of hope, of sorrow and of joy, of man's infirmity and of God's omnipo- tent grace, farewell I Sweet pulpit, farewell ! Blessed altar, farewell ! Throne of grace, as here erected, and where God no longer records his name, farewell !
But not to Tliee^ O thou that hearest prayer, thou God of Zion, who dost still dwell with man upon the earth — not to Tliee^ who hast said, " Wlierever I record my name, I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee," do we say farewell ! " The desire of our souls is to thy Name, and to the remembrance of Thee. Whom have we in heaven but Tliee^ and what is there on the earth that we desire beside thee ? " Even now, at this late, this last hour, from the bottom of our hearts do we say, " If thy presence go not with us, carry us not up hence." If we forget Thee, ever blessed and adorable Saviour, or the church
BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL. 41
which thou hast purchased, or the Mount Zion where thou dwellest, let our right hand forget her cunning, let our tongue cleave to the roof of our mouth, if we prefer not Thee and these above our chief joy !
Nor, my beloved people, is it to you that your pastor says farewell. These brick walls and this plastered ceiling, and these pillars and seats, do not constitute the Brick Presbyterian church. Ye are these constituents, and " ye are our glory and joy." The winter of life is too near for me to have much personal interest in your arrangements for the future. My personal interests and repose would be the better consulted by remaining where we are. My heart's desire and prayer to God, and my most vivid hopes, are for your usefulness and benefit, rather than my own. I would not see you a dispersed people. And while it is with concern that I say this, it is with hope rather than fear. I would fain live to see you lengthening your cords and strengthening your stakes. But whether I live or die, God will assuredly be with you, and bring you to the place of his sanctuary. "If I shall find favor in his eyes, he will show me both it and his habitation. But if he say thus, I have no delight in thee, behold here I am, let him do as seemeth good unto him ! " Thus far he has led us on in mercy.
These days of solicitude and agitation will soon
42 BEICK CHUECH MEMOEIAL.
be over. " The root of Jesse " yet stands as an " ensign to the people, and his rest shall be glo- rious." Only take diligent lieed and he very cour- ageous to do his will, to love the Lord your God, and to walk in his ways, and to keep his command- ments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and all your soul, and his pres- ence and blessing shall be with you and yours for a great while to come ! The Lord bless you and keep you ; the Lord cause his face to shine upon you, and be gracious unto you ; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace ! His name be upon you and your children ! Amen and amen ! And let all the people say, Amen !
KXTERIOR OF TFIK NEW BRICK CHURCH OX MURRAY HILL.
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THE SANCTUAEY.
A SERMON;
PREACHED ON THE 31st OF OCTOBER, 1858, AT THE
DEDICATION OF THE NEW BRICK CHURCH
ON MURRAY HILL.
THE SANCTUARY.
" Ye shall reverence my sanctuary."— -Leviticus xix. 30,
Strottg has been the desire of him who ad- dresses you to see this auspicious day ; more strong than his expectations. The removal of a church hallowed by so many affecting associations as those concentrated around the place of our fathers' sep- ulchres ; a church that has borne no insignificant part in our national history, and where so many distinguished men and fathers of the American Revolution worshipped ; a church, the foundation of which was laid with their own hands ; a church memorable for the power of God in the conversion of men, and endeared to so many now scattered over this broad land, — was an enterprise which none of us anticipated without misgivings of heart, and none counted on accomplishing without diffi- culty. These difficulties met us on every side ; but " having obtained help of God, we continue to the present day," the same organized community with which such multitudes have identified their
46 BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL.
sweetest liopes, wliere their graces flourished, whence their prayers ascended, and on which they now look down in the gladness of anticipation' and with the fervor of praise. We have no ordinary cause for thanksgiving to God, and for mutual gratulatiou, that, after an exile of two and a half years, we at length assemble in these courts.
We meet on this day of our holy solemnities to dedicate this edifice to Him to whose name and praise, we trust, it will ever be devoted. We would honor Him^ by putting honor upon the institutions of his own appointment ; He himself would have us reverence his sanctuary.
The subject of this discourse, therefore, is that one great word —
The Sanctuary, comprising, as it does, the divine presence, its moral power, its benevolent influence, its conservative principles, and its social character.
We reverence it,
L In the first place, as the House of God.
When we come to it, we shut the door on the world, and think of the great and glorious Being who occu- pies it. It was his early promise, "In all places where I record my name, I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee." His presence consecrated the field and the stone where Jacob slept. It consecrated the bush on Horeb, and the " tabernacle of witness " in the wil- derness. It consecrated the temple at Jerusalem as " an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob," and
BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL. 47
made its history the history of earth and heaven. It was holy ground, because God was there. No uncircumcised could enter it, nor any unclean thing be offered on its altars. When the Hebrews were exiles in a strange land, their harps hung upon the willows because they had no symbols of the di- vine presence. When their temple was pillaged and burnt, and the wall of their city broken down, and its palaces destroyed with fire, and they be- came tributary to foreign kings, their glory was departed, because the Shekinah was gone, and the God of Israel was no longer among them. And when, in after times, their temple was desecrated by al] the lites of paganism, and the statue of Ju- piter was set up on the altar of burnt offering, it was no longer a sanctuary. And now, when the proud Moslem sits upon the throne of David, and the mosque of Omar stands on Mount Zion, how emphatically is the lesson inculcated on the world, that the God of Israel dwells no lonorer in Jerusa- lem, no longer in Mount Gerizim, but with every assembly of worshippers gathered in his name.
This is the high privilege of every Christian sanctuary. If the pagan world reverences its tem- ples as the dwelling-place of its deities, how much more ought Christians to look upon their sanctua- ries as sacred in the sanctity of their Oracle, and the presence of tlieir God.
Solemn thought, that the King eternal, immor-
48 BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL.
tal, and invisible, before whom the loftiest and the holiest are lost in amazement, bows his heavens and comes down to these earthly courts ! Yet is it a thought that cheers us, because, while he comes in the splendor of his rectitude, he comes in the gush- ing tenderness of his compassions ; while he comes to stamp disappointment and mockery on every hope which rests not on him, he comes as the refuge and hope of the lowly ; and comes, not so much in the glory that encircled Sinai and made the prophet tremble, as in the winning loveliness, the blended and attractive glory, which shines in the face of Jesus Christ.
Well may we turn aside to see this great sight, ''''God tvith us,^^ within the walls of an earthly tem- ple. In lowly reverence we fall before this pres- ent Deity ; the celestial here bending to the ter- restrial ; the unseen and all-seeing One dwelling in the framework which is of man's device. " How dreadful is this place ! " yet how delightful ! " Surely this is none other than the house of God, and the gate of heaven!" Well may all hearts shout with joy at the condescension of this recon- ciled God. The sanctuary is the presence-chamber of the King of kings ; his own royal banqueting- house, and the " mountain of his holiness." If we look into the book of nature, or into the revela- tions of conscience, or into the writings of human philosophy and the speculations of science, we find
BRICK CHUECH MEMORIAL. 49
nothing that answers the question, What and where is God ? It is an absolute, abstract Deity the hu- man mind always thinks of, until he is revealed in the person of his Son. The sanctuary draws aside the veil, behind which the great Jehovah " dwells in the thick darkness." There we find the God whom we are not afraid to think of, and to hold fellowship with, and who, to all the varied attri- butes of greatness, adds those varied manifestations of goodness which command our submission, our filial love, our trusting confidence. No earthly joy and honor, no patronage of the rich and learned, no crowded assemblies, no arm of flesh, no tokens of public favor, can be to us instead of his presence and glory. What are all the formality and gor- geousness of worship, if He who is a Spirit be not here worshipped in spirit and in truth ? What is all human teaching, with its well digested thoughts and charms of utterance, if God's own lips speak not, and the soft whispers of his love breathe not ? Say to us, thou God of Zion, " My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest ! " We would behold the beauty of the Lord, as we have seen it in the sanctuary. Our prosperity depends upon the bright visions of his glory. O that he would walk amid the golden candlesticks, and make this place of his feet glorious ! The inward tokens of his presence are the best pledge that we shall enjoy the outward tokens of his favor. Give 4
50 BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL,
US these, and there will not be wanting those who will say, " We will go with you, for we have heard the Lord is with you."
11. We reverence the sanctuary, in the second
place, FOR ITS MORAL POWER.
Men are apostate and sinful. Sin has impover- ished them. They have wants which nothing but unearthly resources can supply, " having no hope and without God in the world." Iniquity is their ruin. So long as iniquity rankles in their bosoms, it proves the sharpened tooth of the undying worm ; the fires of perdition cannot be quenched, so long as men remain the victims of wickedness.
It is no marvel, therefore, that the most compre- hensive j^urpose of the divine mind terminates in securing and j)erpetuating the interests of holiness. ' His works, his providence, together with the rich and varied manifestations of liis great and glorious nature, ever have had for their object the great in- terests of holiness in the world in which we dwell. The mio'litiest movement his wisdom and love ever dictated aims at here constructing a highway that shall be called "the way of holiness." Holiness is the ultimate good. There is nothing better that God seeks after, and nothing else he has made such sacrifices to secure.
In the accomplishment of this great work the sanctuary has a part to perform, which can be per- formed by no other instrumentality. Where no
BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL, 51
vision is, the people perish. Men rarely become moral, never religious, dissociated and severed from the house of God. If the sanctuary has an inter- est in the happiness of men, it is a happiness that is inseparable from a holy and virtuous character. What it most seeks to promote is a character that God loves, a character that is progressively like his own, a character cherished by all that is binding in the obligations of law, all that is rich in the plenitude of grace, all that is tender in the sym- pathies of our great High Priest, and all that is stimulating in those " exceeding great and precious promises " whereby his people are made partakers of the divine nature. Do you ask how the sanc- tuary effects this great object? we answer. By the power of truth, the power of prayer, and the power of the Holy Ghost. Here is the truth of God^ pre- senting the thoughts and affections of the infinite to the finite, and opening that exhaustless store- house of motives so wondrously suited to man's intellectual, moral, and sensitive nature. Here is the Spirit of all grace^ without wdiich truth is pow- erless, and with which it receives the welcome of the warm affections, is enthroned in the chambers of the inner man, and sanctifies and saves. Here, too, is that heaven-ordained spirit of grace and su/pplication^ setting in motion all other instruments and agencies, and demonstrating man's impotence, and God's faithfulness as a prayer-hearing God.
52 BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL.
We may not speak loosely wlien we speak of this moral influence of the sanctuary. It is not the mere form of godliness it would secure, but the power ; it is not names, but things ; it is not the shadow, but the substance. Pagan ablutions, and papal crosses and sprinklings, are not piety. The ostentation of religious observances, and the decen- cies of a visible morality, are sometimes found among the scoffers at all heart-religion. A Chris- tian creed and a Christian profession are not un- known among those who are dead in trespasses and sins. Inspect the fruits of the sanctuary, and it will be found that it is the rain of heaven and the Sun of righteousness by which they are matured, and the hand of the sanctifier that gathers them. Holiness has taken the place of sin, gladness the the place of sorrow, light of darkness, hope of despair, life of death, where the sanctuary is clothed with power. Nor do we hesitate to say that, various as are the means by which the world is converted to God, and beautifully cooperative as they are, the pivot on which the machinery rests, the main shaft that impels it, its motive power, is the fire on God's altars. To this hallowed spot the church militant and the church triumphant look with hope, and here from under the sanctuary the waters issue that give life to the world. The very walls of the sanctuary are monitors, and the en- trance in at the doors reads the lesson, " This is the
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way, walk ye in it." Tliere is no safer path, nor is is tliere a more effective repulse to tlie Tempter than to say to him, I am going to the house of God.
I love to look at the sanctuary in the retired vil- lage or the crowded city ; in the bold foreground, or the retreating shadows of the distant landscape. It is God's vineyard, where " the vine flourishes, and the tender grape appears," while around its conse- crated walls is " God's acre," where the plants of righteousness, thickly set and deep, are gathering their immortal bloom. The beauties of hohness and the glories of immortality are there. Yes, I love to look at such a scene, and to say when I look at it, " How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel ; as valleys are they s^^read forth, as gardens by the river's side, as lignaloes which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters ? " The dewy eve, the blushing morn, fade in comparison with this garden of God, sj^arkling in the beauties of holiness, and fragrant with its sweet perfume. Bashan languish eth, and the flower of Lebanon languisheth : holiness never withers ; its leaf is green even in the year of drought. Glorious beyond all but the foretelling pen of proj)hecy, are the bright destinies of the sanctuary : glorious to feel and enjoy, glorious to behold^ and, in seasons of darkness and despondency, glorious to look for. When that hope is realized, then will
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be the jubilee of tlie world. The ingathering of the great harvest year shall have come, when the " plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the tread- er of grapes him that soweth seed, and the moun- tains drop down sweet wine, and all the hills do melt." Intimately connected with these thoughts, III. There is a third reason for this religious reverence for the sanctuary, and that is its active
BENEVOLENCE.
The church of God, from its origin and organ- ization, from the laws by which it is governed, and the profession and character of its members, from the peculiar privileges it enjoys and the means of its advancement, from its opportunities for useful- ness, and the promised favor of its Great Head, possesses notoriety and preeminence. She is like a city set on a hill, which cannot be hid. While generation after generation has passed away, and thrones and dynasties have vanished, and proud institutions have crumbled to the dust, and every ancient work of man is lost, this great work of God remains — a living community in a dying world, a spiritual community, youthful and vigorous, where all things else grow old and decay.
God's sanctuary is everywhere invested with this commanding position, in order to impose upon it the obligations of active service : " To whom much is given, of him also much shall be required." Its mission is to " do good and communicate." It is
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not erected to be looked at and admired, but to speak to us, to act upon us. Its province and its office are to send out its sympatliies to tlie ignorant, and enligliten tliem ; tlie wandering, and reclaim tkem ; the lost, and save them. We hold of very little account that cold and dead orthodoxy which paralyzes effort. The professed Christian, who folds his hands and congratulates himself that he has nothino- to do for a world that lieth in wicked- ness, because helieving is his business, and not worhing^ is in nothing better than the slothful servant. An enlightened belief in the doctrines of grace, so far from diminishing Christian diligence, impels to it by superadded obligations and motives. Our obligations to holiness and to every form of active service, are just as real and just as bind- ing as they would have been had the Saviour never fulfilled all righteousness ; just as real and just as binding as they would have been had we been justified by the deeds of the law. If salvation is of grace, it is unto works ; we are fellow-workers with God. He works in us that we may work. We look to him as though he did all, and we labor as thou2:li all the work were our own. We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be all of God and not of us ; yet do " we strive mightily, according to the grace that worketh in us mightily." Nor is this cooperation the less obvious and dehghtful because our agency
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is human and divine. It is " the worm Jacob" that is to " thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and make the hills as chaff."
Such is the creed of the sanctuary, and with this it stands in the midst of a perishing world. None are overlooked by it, old or young, far off or near. Emphatically are the young its charge, because God has committed them to it ; it is the sanctuary that modifies and moulds their character. It has a larger heart, too, and a more enlarged vision than this. It looks over this sin-struck earth, and cares for the heathen at home and the heathen abroad. Its thoughts, its counsels, its prayers, its gifts, its deeds of self-denial and endurance, form no incon- siderable part of the history of the church of God.
You wonder, pej'haps, that I utter such obvious truths ; not only would I utter, but enforce them. If God requires it of his ministers that they be working men, he also requires it of his churches that they be working churches. What kind of a light would that be that does not shine, or what sort of a church is that which has no forthgoing activity? What is Christianity without the be- nevolent deeds which Christianity produces ? We do not ask what the sanctuary is^ so much as what the sanctuary does. There may be a dead sanctuary, as well as a dead faith. A dead sanctuary ? what is it ? There is no heart there, and no active pul- sations ; it is no living temple ; it is Death ! If it
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acts not, it lives not ; its sublimest devotions are but sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal, without its active cliaracter. If this edifice is worthy the place it occupies, and the cause to which we devote it, we must have an honest and an earnest Chris- tianity, permeated with more of the popular ele- ment, employing more heads, more hearts, and more hands. "We must have a willing people, and lay under contribution every tribe, every family, every man. This is what sanctuaries are built for. They are not built for the minister, but for the people. The minister is nor the church, nor is the pulpit the sanctuary. It is the solitude of his toil that is very apt to dishearten even the most courageous laborer. The difference between a ministry standing alone and a ministry upheld and encouraged by the favor and cooperation of an effective church, cannot be known this side eternity. Negligence is the sin of Christians, and it is no small sin. The want of well- doing is one of the devil's forms of evil-doing. The Saviour's maxim was, "I must loorl&P I must " work the work of him that sent me while it is day ; the night cometh, in which no man can work." We cannot prolong the day of labor an hour. Time does not wait for our indecision, nor death for our delay. It would be a lamentable narrative here- after to be told, that the generation which is now passing through this house of God has left no lumi- nous track behind it.
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JSTor let it be thought that we derogate from the dignity and sacredness of our subject, when we remark —
IV. In the fourth place, that the sanctuary is dis- tinguished for its C0]:^SEEVATIVE PEINCIPLES.
It is no enemy to reform and progress ; yet is it no part of its principles or its policy to " do evil that good may come." It hails every aggressive movement on the kingdom of darkness ; yet it is not heedless of consequences. Reform and progress are its great object ; yet it has no organ of destruc- tiveness. While it is not blind to existino^ evils, it dreads the evils of premature reform. So long as it acts in its true character, its aim is to make the world wiser, better, and happier ; nor will its work be accomplished until " the Lord God shall cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all nations." Yet it does not run riot, even in advanc- ing the right and eradicating the wrong, lest by ill-timed and unhallowed zeal it should lose more than it would gain.
If the world in which we dwell is so impregnate with wickedness that it cannot endure the teachings of heavenly wisdom without secret hostility or open turbulence, we may not forget that the bitterness^ the turmoil, the angry invective and strife of the world, belong not to the house of God. It is no friend to rancor and bitterness, even in a good cause. We accord to it, nay, .we claim for it, its
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controversy witli evil ; and it is a controversy which is uncompromising. But we see not why it may not breast itself in the very front of the battle, without " scattering firebrands, arrows, and death." It is not the fiery meteor, but rather is it like the moon, wading in her brightness through a night of storms. Embai-rassing, obscuring clouds it may look for, but it shines by its own light, pure and white, though making its way through Egyptian darkness. It is no thunder-cloud, filling the hearts of men with fear ; nor, when its seals are opened, do the stars of heaven fall to the earth as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs. No, no ! Soft and gen- tle breezes l^low from Mount Zion ; the Sun of righteousness lingers upon its summit, and bright visions open upon the vale below.
The longer I live, the more I am convinced that this is one of the great characteristics of the sanc- tuary. It was not the earthquake, nor the strong wind, nor the fire, that made the prophet wrap his face in his mantle, but the still, small voice.
We forget our office when we needlessly ignite and inflame the worst passions of the human heart, and strike blow after blow upon the foundations of public tranquillity. The great statute-book of the sanctuary is a cautious instructor, enforcing its lessons with " the meekness of wisdom." There is much that it teaches, and some truth which it does not teach ; wisely leaving the great principles it
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inculcates, like the leaven liid in three measures of meal, to their quiet and progressive power. If the Apostle Paul could have had the private ear of Nero, I have no doubt he would have told him truths which the Spirit of God would not allow him publicly to declare to the Christians at Rome. His object was, not to agitate and revolutionize, but to regenerate and reform. Sudden changes in the j^olity and affairs of the world the sanctuary does not look for. It aims, not so much at rudely undermining old institutions, and demolishing old landmarks, as at leaving them silently and grad- ually to crumble and wither under the subduing power of truth and love. A few wild and unsea- sonable blasts of the trumpet may produce a storm which even the " Sermon on the Mount," a thou- sand times repeated, cannot assuage. There is no such reforming power as the cross of Christ. And the beauty of the reform is, that it is accomplished without doing any harm. When the sanctuary conceatrates the energy of its intellect, the ardor of its emotions, and its fiery zeal, in a prolonged crusade against some one social evil, it is very apt to lose sight of its appropriate work, to exhaust its vigor in a foreign service, and, in the end of its ec- centric course, take up the lamentation, "They made me keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard have I not kept."
Our own land stands first and foremost of all
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lands in the unsliackled influence of the sanctuary. For bis religious principles no man is here account- able but to his Maker. The church has no jeal- ousy of the state, and the state has no jealousy of the church. We have no inmiugling of the cross and the clay. There is no ecclesiastical domina- tion to dictate the measures of the government, and "no Star Chamber to trample the rights of conscience under the heel of arbitrary power." Our obligations, therefore, as American churches^ stand abreast with our high privileges. In a land where the people influence the government, rather than the government the people; where public opinion originates the laws; where the church can prosper without the state, better than the state without the church ; and where the religion of the gospel stands confessed as the only bulwark of na- tional security, the sanctuary has obligations of no ordinary kind. Our free institutions do not ad- here to our soil or climate, nor do our rich prairies nourish them, nor are they imbedded in our moun- tains ; they rest on the influence of the sanctuary. Selfish politicians, noisy patriots, and profligate courtiers, are not for the state to lean upon. Our prosperity, oue union, is inseparable from our Christian character. The severe schooling and steady habits of our fathers laid the foundation of our greatness, and it has thus far been protected and sustained by the laws of that kingdom which
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is not of this world. What the future will be, we know not ; if we have fears, it is because we have fears for the influence of the sanctuary ; and if we have more and stronger hopes than fears, it is be- cause the sanctuary is his abode who " ruleth the raging of the sea, and stilleth the tumult of the people." Mercurial and fiery spirits may find a place within its walls, and threatening voices and mighty thunderings may agitate it ; but there are words of peace above the bowlings of the storm. If a bright horizon is yet to open upon us; if " young America," with her headstrong impulsive- ness, is preserved from the turbulence of anarchy ; if, in the murky atmosphere that now and then envelops us, and if, amid the hoarse and sharp rumbling of the cavern beneath us, we avoid or survive the earthquake, it will be because " knowl- edge, with strength of salvation, is the stability of our times,"
If it so happens that we live in an age when these thoughts are unwelcome, or are looked upon with suspicion, or will be misinterpreted and abused, the more is the pity, and the more is the need of them. Well assured am I that the time will come when they will receive a hearty response from all right-hearted men, and that experience will show that " wisdom is justified of her chil- dren." We ask for this house of Grod that it may be baptized with the spirit of wisdom, and long re-
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main as God's witness to whatsoever tilings are love- ly, whatsoever things are true, w^hatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are of good report. Should the time ever come when it ceases to be the reprover of wicked- ness, and at the same time the patron of good or- der, some weeping prophet may survey its ruins and say, " How is the gold become dim, and the most fine gold changed ! " Give us this spiritual, this conservative character, and our "walls will be salvation and our gates j)raise."
Y. We reverence the sanctuary, in the last place,
for ITS SOCIAL AND FRATERNAL CHARACTER.
There is but one true religion in the universe. The religion of heaven and the religion of earth, varying as they do in measure, are in their nature essentially the same.
The sanctuary is the house of prayer for all 'people. It is the symbol of man's brotherhood, and stands forth as the sacred asylum oi fallen hu- manity. So far from being appointed for one nation, one clime, one class, or color, it recognizes no distinction of names or persons, and no cove- nant of peculiarity. Of all places in the world, it is the place where Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, bond and free, wise and unwise, seamen and landsmen, the stranger and the home-born, are re- garded with a Christian impartiality. And why should it not be so ? They are alike the offspring
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of the same Almiglity Parent ; invested with, the same intelligent and immortal existence ; subjects of the same moral government ; equally the heirs of sin and the curse, and the offered salvation; all born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward ; all destined to lie down in the grave, to stand at the bar of the final judge, and, as they employ this day of grace, to be at last associated in the same blessed heaven, or in the same awful hell.
All have a common interest, therefore, in the house of God. Attractive it may be to the rich, but never ought to be repulsive to the poor. One of its peculiarities is, that " the rich and the poor meet together" at its altars. It speaks to all: to the peasant in his hut, and to the king on his throne ; to the saint in his closet, and to the criminal in his dungeon ; to the children of want and woe every- where. It is the great leveller ; not by obliterat- ing all human distinctions, but by making a dis- tinction that absorbs them all ; not by depressing the high, but by elevating the low, and raising both to the dignity of "the sons and daughters of the Lord God Amighty."
Man is a social being ; his religious privileges, and obligations, and hopes, are intimately inwoven with this great element of his nature. Most beau- tifully and wonderfully are the social relations made subservient to his immortality. Christian churches are not more certainly the nurseries of
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the churcli in heaven, than Christian families are the nui'series of the church on earth. If you sur- vey the lands where God's altars are thrown down, or have never been erected, you will be apt to find them lands where the social and domestic ties are sacrificed, to those that are more public ; where the endearments of private life are usurped by a proud ambition, and the allurements to personal piety are lost in the clamor and bustle of the world. " Come, thou and all thy liouse^ into the ark;" this is the voice which issues from the sanc- tuary of God. X)ur attachments to the sanctuary may well be expressive of our attachment to the worship and the God of our fathers ; and well may they be strengthened by the sweet memories of the domestic circle. I would not part with these sacred reminiscences. Oh ! how sweetly they sometimes come back upon us in the days of pen- siveness and grief; and when we stand in silence over the honored grave of the departed; and where, amid the many bonds that united us, none is more valued than that which bound us to the house of God. We honor the solitary chamber where grief is bathed in tears, and the mourner takes refuge by himself in the bosom of eternal love ; but it is not as when assembled Israel, in the day of their rebuke, bowed together in heaviness at the evening sacrifice. We sympathize with the publican when he went up alone to the temple to 5
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pray ; but it is a most cheering scene to look at, which the Psalmist speaks of, when he says, " We took sweet counsel together, and went to the house of God in company." There is beauty and forth- going praise in the lonely star that twinkles in the retiring cloud ; but it falls short of the beauty of the spangled heavens, nor is it the adoring anthem when " the morning stars sang togetliei% and all the sons of God shouted for joy."
And may we not extend these thoughts to the great brotherhood of churches of every name? Christian men are Christian men everywhere. Though they have been dispersed through differ- ent ages of time, and are now dispersed through different sections of the church of God, they are the same Christian men everywhere. Though they differ in their intellectual endowments and acquisitions, and even in their spiritual character, joys, and influences, they are still good and Chris- tian mem Like scattered rays of light and love, they all radiate from God's sanctuary. Their re- ligion is one ; they themselves are constituent parts of the one body of which Christ is the head ; one temple, of which he is the Deity ; one sphere, of which he is the Sun.
Whence, then, this moral chaos ? Why this scattering of the one fold of the great Shepherd ? Whence is it that the old faith and the old char- ity are separated by almost impassable barriers ?
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Why this " party-colored blazonry," and this " cross firing of the hosts marshalled under the Captain of our salvation ? We plead for God's sanctuary ; and, on its behalf, we ask for what we have ever given, and hold ourselves ready to give — the in- terchanged tokens of love and influence, which the Bible not only justifies but demands. That Book of God has its standard of church-fellowship, and here it is : " Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity ! " Here it is still more definitely : " In Christ Jesus neither circum- cision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. And as many as walk according TO THIS RULE, pcacc be on them, and mei'cy upon the Israel of God ! " Here it is again, in the words of our loving Master : " Father, I pray that tliey all may he one^ as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me ! " Who can stand before such an appeal as this ? Where is now the stern Anabaptist, and the unyielding pre- tender to apostolic succession, and the sturdy champion of the exclusive divine right of Presby- teiy, and the devout advocate for the literal ver- sion of the Psalms of David, who of such figments would erect a wall of brass around the sanctuary ? We have no desire to be regarded as " uncom- mon pretenders to charity." Ye are our Avitnesses that we are not slow in " contending earnestly for
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the faitli once delivered to the saints." Yet we have no war, except with error and sin ; and where the error is radical to the Christian system, or es- sential to the Christian character, it is a war of ex- termination. But we have long since learned tliat conformity is not essential to unity, nor to Chris- tian fellowship. "The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, hut righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." The more the faith and fellowship of Christ prevail, the more will they lead his followers to fellowship with each other. The sanctuary calls upon us to receive and acknowl- edge all Christians, of every name, who are Chris- tians indeed. Oh ! we are sick at heart of this dis- membered body of Christ ! Nor do we mean in this matter to be fettered by sectarian intolerance, or awed by the authority of men. Blessed be God, the time is coming when the "watchmen shall see eye to eye, and lift up their voice togeth- er, and with the voice together shall they sing." We look for such a day, and on this side the heav- enly world. And what a beautiful expression of the object and design of the sanctuary and of the spirit of heaven ! The sanctuary below is but the vestibule to the sanctuary above. We would not come to it, feeling that we are dissociated from any one of the families of the redeemed, any more than we are dissociated from " the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." There the
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earthly sanctuary terminates in the companionship of " an innumerable company of angels, and the spirits of 'just men made perfect, and God, the Judge of all, and Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant."
Such is God's sanctuary. Who can appreciate it ? — its object, its toil, its solicitudes and discour- agements, its expectations and successes, its hon- ors and rewards ; what is there on the earth to be compared with these ? In its moral power and permanent influence it stands preeminent above the forum, above the senate-house, above the battle-field, and above the press. Thought looks to it for in- struction ; the wounded conscience looks to it as its refuge, and the burdened heart for its repose. Lisp- ing childhood looks to it, and buoyant youth, and vig- orous manhood, and hoary age. Christianity looks to it as its defender, and as the heaven-designated herald of its glad tidings. The history of the sanc- tuary would be the history of Christianity in all its lights and shadows, in all its depression and tri umph, in all its conflicts and victories. Nations live or die, as their sanctuaries rise or fall. Woe to the land that is not the land of the Sabbath and the sanctuary ! All the world over, with the exception of those temples where God once dwelt, and from which his glory is departed, an intimate sympathy will be found to exist between the sanc- tuary and the best interests of men. If Scotland,
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from having been " one of the rudest, one of the poorest, one of the most turbulent countries in Europe," has become " one of the most virtuous, one of the most highly civilized, one of the most flourishing, one of the most tranquil," it is because " He that dwells between the cherubim there shines forth."
When a body of Puritans in the North of Eng- land, and after them a body of the " Scotch-Irish," removed to this western wilderness, in order to enjoy liberty of conscience, their rallying-point was the house of God, And now, like a wreath of perennial flowers, everywhere adorning hill and valley, their scattered temples are inmingling their hallowed incense with the winds of our mountains and the spray of our iron-bound coast. A right- minded foreigner can hardly j^ass through the length and breadth of this land without observing that one of our strong peculiarities is a religious reverence for God's sanctuary. What citadels of strength are these unnumbered Christian temples, everywhere lifting their spires toward heaven ! Should ever the time come when a barbarous del- uge, like that which inundated the fairest portions of Europe during the middle ages, passes over this land, among its first and most ruthless desolations would be found a desecrated or a desolated sanctuary.
These thoughts give interest to this welcome hour. While the tide of life has been sweeping
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away the landmarks of the past, some few remain who saw our ancient sanctuary in its glory, and still more who witnessed its decay. Thanks to God, the overflowing waters have thus far been restrained fi-om invading these altars. We have lived to see the top stone of this edifice laid, and its doors open to us. We have nothing to ask for in the external and material arrangements of this house. It is not a gorgeous edifice ; it has no dec- orated walls and arches, and no splendid magnifi- cence. Yet are there stability and comfort, and tasteful architecture, which do honor to the genius and fidelity of those employed in projecting, erect- ing, and embellishing it. ^'•Strength and hemity are in his sanctuary." We have sufficient interest and sufficient gratification in the external and the material ; God grant that we may have a deeper feeling for the internal and the spiritual ! Why should the visible captivate us, and the lust of the eye and the pride of life charm our hearts to those things that are seen, instead of attracting them to the unseen realities, of which these sym- bols, these appearances, are only the shadow.
The sanctuary is more than ornamental archi- tecture, and harmonious music, and external wor- ship. We look above and across the visible, to Him who is invisible. It is the selected spot where the Almighty architect forms the materials of ''the living temple, built up with lively stones,
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an holy temple in the Lord, an habitation of God through the Spirit." It is God's house, and we come to dedicate it to him. And there is, in my humble judgment, no superstition, but great pro- priety and truth in these acts of dedication. There is, and there ought to be, as wide a distinction be- tween the house of God and all other places of public resort, as between all that is secular and all that is sacred. The one is a select and consecrated territory ; the other belongs to the business of the world. Secular themes and secular objects have their place, but that place is not the sanctuary. From our hearts we dedicate this edifice to the God of heaven. It is nothing to us if he do not occupy it. Stand up, all ye j^eople, and before God, angels, and men, consecrate it to his worship and honor, to whom it belongs ! — each one of us humbly looking to him, that he would fill it with his great glory. Be it ever sacred to him by whose name it is called ! — sacred to his mercy-seat and his praise ! — sacred to his pure gospel, to his own ordinances, to the fellowship of the saints, the con- version of men, and the comfort and edification of those who fear God and love his Son. Sacred place ! " Arise, O Lord God, thou and the ark of thy strength ! Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness ; and let thy saints shout for joy ! " From this good hour let this house be devoted only to sacred and religious uses. Here let all
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that is sacred be put in motion, and all that is sec- ular be put at rest. In his name, to whom we have thus solemnly dedicated it, we say to you. Reverence God's sanctuary. Prize his ordinances, and teach your children to prize them. There are fountains of mercy here ; a river the streams where- of make glad the city of our God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most His^h. Bend over this living fountain and drink to the full. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and hless the Lord. The Lord, that made heaven and earth, hless thee out of Zion.
It will not be looked for, on the present occasion, that T should repeat those historical notices that were given in the last discourse that was delivered in our former edifice. It is natural for those who are in an advanced period of life to look forward ; Christianity looks forward with hope. " The Brick Presbyterian church in the city of New York" will not, we trust, prove recreant to its character nor its trust. There have been periods when we have had some misgivings as to the course this church has pursued; yet, upon a deliberate review of it, it is our welcome conviction that, under the divine favor, the true purpose of the sanctuary, notwithstanding all our imperfections, has been here, in some good measure, accomplished. When we look at the number and standins: of those ministers of the gospel whom its prayers and its
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bounty have sent forth to the world; when we advert to the part it has taken in organizing some, and in sustaining other institutions for the spread of the gospel; when we think of the multitudes to whom the gospel has been here preached, and the multitudes who hail from this church as their spiritual birthplace; when we recall its conflicts with error and its conservative influence ; when we set before our minds the two generations of the Lord's people who have gone from us to the upper sanctuary, and dwell with such gratified emotions upon the scenes of trial through which they passed, and upon their peaceful departure; and when, in our present survey of this people, we count so few among this adult population who have not named the name of Christ, we bow our knees in humility and thankfulness before the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, much as we have to deplore, we have not run in vain, neither labored in vain ; " yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me."
We enter upon our new career under few cir- cumstances of discouragement, and many of bright anticipation. We are at a sufficient remove from our sister churches to forbid all interference or ri- valship, while we are in the midst of a population that give us welcome, and bid us God speed. With no ordinary gratification, also, Ave greet the return to our number of so many of -those who, be-
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cause tlie place has been too strait for us, have for a short season been the adornment of other and more convenient churches. We need them, and here, we trust, they will once more find themselves at home.
In the name of the Lord, therefore, we set up our banners. It is an eventful age of the world in which our enterprise receives this new impulse. They are cheering scenes we look upon, as from this mount of vision and this hour of hope we look down on the ages of mercy that already begin to visit our guilty world. Even now is the " earth helping the woman." The halls of science, the in- ventions of art, the resources of commerce, and, above all these, the facilities of international intercourse, are becoming tributary to Him in whom all nations shall be blessed, and even the battle of the warrior has prepared the way for the Prince of Peace. More than all, the ever-blessed and adorable Spirit of God is coming forth to the bright conquests of the " latter-day glory." The crisis is approaching, and startling events may be looked for in the future history both of the church and the world. Nor may you be dismayed, my brethren, if mercy and judgment still stand abreast in the redemption of men. If the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience is gone up with his legions on the length and breadth of the earth, it is but to herald his own overthrow, and
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be the precursor of "quietDess and assurance for- ever." A few fleeting centuries, and the work of the sanctuary will be accomplished, and the church militant enjoy her repose.
I have before made the remark, that I did not favor the removal which we have lived to witness, from personal considerations, for it must be clear that the small remnant of my ministry would have been less precarious and less toilsome had the re- moval never have been effected. As Israel said to Joseph, I now say to you, " Behold, I die / but God shall be idUIi youP Yet while I live, I ask no greater joy than to preach the gosj)el to this people. It would be no grief of heart to me to die on the harvest field. I would die in the midst of you, and hope that the grandchildren of those whom I have attended to their graves, will give me a resting-place, ever quiet and " Ever Green," amid their fathers' sepulchres, and where so many sheaves have been gathered in fully ripe from this ■field of labor. ISTor have I anything more to ask for this house, than that the God of Zion would here record his name, and that among the glorious things that shall be spoken of this city of our God, it may be said that " this and that man was born in her, and that the Highest himself hath estab- lished her." May we not, my brethren, this day offer the prayer, and indeed cherish the hope, the confidence, that "the glory of this latter house
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sHall be greater than that of the former " ? Long may this sanctuary stand upon this holy hill, as God's witness to the favored city and land where we dwell ! Here may successive generations begin their everlastmg song, and your living and dying prayer and mine be, " Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces ! " And when the last trumpet shall shake all things earthly, may every living stone of this spiritual temple bear yonder immortal inscription, "Holoess to the Lord ! " How sweet the thought that, worms and sinners as we are, we ourselves may then exempli- fy truth, " Behold, what hath God wrought ! " and in that far-off land where the Lord is the light thereof, and the Lamb its glory, our voices, with those of the loved and venerated who have gone before us, shall swell the chorus, "Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb, for- ever ! " Amen !
REDEMPTION GOD'S GREATEST WORK.
A DISCOURSE;
DELIVERED ON THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE AUTHOR'S
ORDINATION AND HIS INSTALLATION AS PASTOR OF
THE BRICK PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE
CITY OF NEW YORK.
BY GARDINER SPRING.
In submitting this discourse to the public, the author may be allowed to say, tiiat it is from the first and original manuscript. The transcript of it, prepared witli care, more compact, and designed for the press, was consumed by fire in the office of tlie printer. I could not recollect it, and am constrained to fall back upon tlie original and very imperfect manuscript. G. S.
REDEMPTION GOD'S GEEATEST WORK.
"That I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people." — Isaiah li. 16.
I HAVE selected this text as the subject of the present discourse, not because on such an occasion I shall attempt to do justice to it, but for the out- lines of truth it furnishes in this retrospect of my ministry among you.
There is nothing contingent in the arrangements of the eternal Mind. The God only wise thought of everything beforehand : all was comprised in the counsel of his own will. It was a far-reach- ing view presented to the prophet's eye, in the beautiful chapter which contains the text. The re- vealing Spirit had assured him that the "Lord shall comfort Zion, and make her wilderness like Eden ; " that notwithstanding the hostility of her enemies, she need not "fear the reproach of men, neither be afraid of their revilings:" and that, " though the heavens shall vanish like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a gar- ment, God's righteousness shall be forever, and his 6
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salvation from generation to generation." At length, summing up tlie whole series of promises in her complete redemption, and bringing these luminous assurances to a still brighter focus, he forges the last link in his argument by the declarer tion, " I am the Lord thy God, that divided the sea, whose waves roared ; Jehovah of hosts is his name. And I have put my words in thy mouth, and have covered thee with the shadow of my hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay
THE foundations OF THE EARTH, AND SAY UNTO
ZiON, Thou art my people." The position I desire at least, and shall attempt to illustrate, from this comprehensive declaration, is, that The work of Redemption is God's greatest work.
The first thought which illustrates its greatness is the spiritual and immortal nature of its sub- jects.
The Saviour once said, " What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole ivorld^ and lose his own soul ? " Suns and planets and fixed stars are like a drop of a bucket, and vanish from our thoughts in comparison with the intellectual faculties, the moral character, and the deathless destiny of man. All that constitutes this terraqueous globe — ^all, all are bubbles, atoms, the very "vanity of vani- ties," compared with the immortal soul. Yet this is it, — this soul of man, — which is the selected sub- ject of this redemption.
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There is gradation in the works of God. The narrative which records them is one of progress and development, from unorganized matter to the organic forms of life ; from the vegetable and ani- mal to the intellectual ; from the intellectual to the moral and immortal. This visible and exterior universe is a work by itself, but not for itself; everywhere indicating the divine wisdom, power,' and goodness. But with all their magnificence and beauty, all their symmetry and organization, they are mere masses of inert, unconscious matter. Wondrous existences are they, and the more won- drous as the researches of science make them known to us ; yet are they without sensation, with- out thought, without will or emotion, without the capacity of enjoyment, without enlargement and ex- pansion. Yonder sun and moon, those planets and that milky way, and aU beyond them, are now what they always were. The brightest of them all has no immortality, and in a few revolving centuries will wax old as a garment and be turned to ashes. A reflecting man at once perceives that this material creation is not the fit subject for any great and ultimate procedure of the infinite Mind. It is, and e^-er must be, wanting in those elements which ai-e essential to great and lasting results.
. The distinctive feature of the work of redemp- tion is, that it rises above and beyond the ob- jects of time and sense, and concerns itself with the
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immaterial, the moral, tlie immortal — realities tliat have more than a relative and temporary value, and that remain and stand fast when this external ma- chinery of nature is broken np, and blazing planets die — realities forever enlarging, expanding forever in holiness and joy never yet attained by the lof- tiest seraph, or in wickedness and woe never yet endured by the foulest fiend. There are heights and depths in this onward career which imagina- tion cannot fiithom. Man's redemption alone stands abreast with his immortality, ever onward, with- out measure and without end. It is a new world this redemption stands related to ; a new heavens and a new earth, where immortal faculties flourish, and thoughts and affections and responsibilities and joys follow the march of eternity.
In this earth on which we dwell material things are very apt to shut out the immaterial. The con- flict is between the visible and the invisible, the mor- tal and the immortal, the sensual and the spiritual. The most distinguished naturalist of the age has expressed the opinion that those who are most de- voted to the researches of natural science are most exposed to atheism. Doubting, first the reality of the immaterial world as distinct from material or- ganization, men at length stop at second causes, and lose sight of the great First Cause. Their higher and immortal nature does not interest them. Yet is this the key-stone in the arch of the spiritual
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temple, Eedemption rises above creation and providence by the moral and immortal nature of its subjects. These relations to eternity give it its immeasurable importance. If there are wonders in a leaf of the forest, in a beam of light, and a drop of water, what a world of wonders is man — man fallen — man redeemed — man glorified ! Were the material universe crowded and compact to- gether within the compass of the earth on which we dwell, and all its orbs of light were there, and all its hoary-headed mountains, and all its rivers, and all its palaces and gold, — one creature of God, fallen and redeemed, would outweigh them all. And if " one sinner that repenteth" is the joy of the holy universe, well may reason be confound- ed, and imagination wearied in the flight, when from the summit of Mount Zion they survey the " great multitude which no man can number," all born for immortality, that are comprised in this redemption. We need to be inhabitants of eter- nity, in order to appreciate the work so conversant with eternity. We look to the Cross, to learn the worth of the soul ; and we look to the soul, to know the worth of the Cross. If there is no re- demption, immortality is a curse ; if there is no immortality, redemption is a dream. Man is worthless, if Christ is worthless. If man is more than a vain show, a worthless bubble, a sigh, a grave ; if his existence, if the countless existences
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of liumaiiity leap over all the landmarks of time, and roll onward to a bonndless eternity, tlien Christ and his redem2')tion are everything.
Look now, in tlie second place^ at the means by which his redemption is accomplished.
These millions born for immortality, multq^lied like the leaves of the forest and like the sand on the shore, are all fallen by their iniquity, and are the children of wrath. Sin has made the earth where they dwell a charnel-house. The dead are there. It is the cemetery of ages. The pall of midnight rests upon it. It performs its revolutions under the curse of a violated law. An impenetrable cloud hangs over it that is surcharged with wrath. How to rescue them and restore them to the divine fa- vor, without the subvei-sion of that righteous empire so wisely and benevolently established throughout the universe, and without a complete prostration of that justice and judgment which are the habitation of God's throne, w^as the great prob- lem which agitated unsearchable Wisdom to its depths. It could not be solved by an act of arbi- trary powder, for then the sovereignty of God would come in collision with his rectitude. It could not be solved by the overflowing tenderness which re- coils from the execution of a law which heaven and earth pronounce holy, just, and good, but rather by some procedure which magnifies the law and makes it honorable; which vindicates its
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claims, and is itself tlie end of the law for right- eousness to every one that believeth. It was a glo- rious object to attain, and the heart of God was set upon it as it was never set upon any other enter- prise. Nor was it set upon it in vain. The method of obtaining it stands abreast with the magnitude of the work. It was no after-thought ; it was wrapt up in the manifold wisdom of God. What was it ? Oh ! the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! It was " God manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory." This is the sum and substance of the method. The inscription stands engraven as on a pillar for luminous exhibi- tion to the world. When the Saviour said to his disciples, " I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world ; again, I leave the world and go to the Father," it was the solution of the enigma, "A little while and ye shall not see me ; and again, a little while and ye shall see me." We need not marvel that they replied, " Now speakest thou plainly, and speaketh no proverb." But plain and intelligible as the declaration is, it contains things which angels desire to look into.
Of all realities, this is the most astonishing — the Seed of the woman bruising the serpent's head. He whom all the angels of God worship — he to whom thousand thousands minister, and ten thou-
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sand times ten thousand stand before liim — ^lie before whose majesty and glory they cover their faces with their wings — he who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, taking i(/pon Mm the form of a servant., and made in tlie likeness of men ! This great fact stands alone in the history of the universe ; amid all created and uncreated things there is nothing like it. Gabriel might have become a worm ; but it would have been a faint adumbration of such condescension as this. The brightest prince in the court of heaven might have put off the splendor of the upper sanc- tuary, and, like Babylon's degraded monarch, been driven from among his pure and uncorporeal peers to eat grass like oxen, till seven times past over him ; but this were but the j^assing and unnoticed shadow of that low estate to which the second person in the ever blessed and adorable Godhead was subjected when he was " made of a woman — made under the law, that he might redeem them that were under the law." What a view is this, — the mighty God, the everlasting Father becoming one of the sons of men ! Four thousand years had passed away since sin and death entered upon their devastations on this earth, when, lo ! the announcement was made in heaven that the Son of God was about to put on the form of a servant : and when he laid aside his celestial robes and crown, it was a day never to be forgotten ; it was the jubilee of the universe cele-
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brated on eartB, and destined to be a higli anniver- sary even in tlie realms of light.
Yet this was but preliminary to the proposed arrangement. Thus debased, the Incarnate One took upon himself the mighty aggregate of human guilt. Holy, harmless, and undefiled, as susceptible to pain and reproach as to degradation and shame, he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Legions of holy beings hung over his pathv.^ay, but it was a sad pilgrimage. His earthly existence was unceasingly embittered ; and with no alleviation to his sorrows, amid embarrassments and temptations, sufferings and a self-sacrificing submission, such as the sun had never before looked upon, he trode his obedient way, and trode it alone, though abuse and insult met him at every step. Not a disloyal act, nor murmuring word, nor impatient emotion, nor reluctant wish, marked his history from first to last. Dark and dismal as was the last scene, the service and the suffering had attractions for him even beyond the glory he had with the Father before the world w^as. He foresaw it all, yet he chose it ; he felt it all, yet he did not recoil from the burden. His enemies challenged him to come down from the cross ; but he could not come down till his work was accomplished. There, while worlds gazed upon the sight, gazing with immeasurable interest, and crowding around his cross, he made his soul an offering for sin — a spectacle to God and angels,
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men and devils — tlie satisfaction of justice and tlie purchase of eternal life.
These are the means by which this redemption was accomplished. Such is the groundwork of the sinner's j)ardon and justification. On these the whole redemption rests ; a superstructure worthy of its eternal and glorious author, and resting on an im- perishable foundation. The purpose of redeeming mercy had been stillborn but for this wonderful humiliation, this perfected abasement of the Son of God. This gi'eat fact, like the doctrine of man's accountableness and immortality, underlies all the truths of a sujoernatural revelation. Its types and prefigurations, its ceremonial and moral jurispru- dence, its predictions in all their fulness, harmony, and progressive character, its doctrinal instruction, its promises and threatenings, its terms of salvation, its faith and hopes, all receive their fulfilment or derive their true import from Christ Jesus and him crucified. Like the star of Jacob, it lights up the night of ages that are past ; and like the Sun of righteousness, foretold by Malachi, it pours its heal- ing beams on the coming years of the right hand of the Most Hisfh. It is the srreat central fact in the universe. And if that is the greatest work of God which is the most Godlike and accomplished in the most Godlike way, there is nothing to be compared with this redemption.
In addition to this, it must not be forgotten that
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it MAKES EVERYTHING- ELSE SUBSERVIENT TO ITS IN- TERESTS AND ADVANCEIMENT.
That cause for wliicli God planted tlie lieavens and laid tlie foundations of tlie earth, may well be regarded as important enough to lay under contribu- tion every creature and every event in the universe. Such are the teachings of the Bible. In this great cause, God first and chiefly spared not his Son ; and well does the apostle demand, " How shall he not with him freely give us all things." The greater includes the less. There is nothing in the works of creation nor in the works of providence which does not derive its importance and value from the relations it sustains, and the influence it exerts upon this redemption. Do we ask for what and for whom were all these worlds and beings made ? the answer is, "All things were made by Hm and for Him." 'No matter what it is, — material and imma- terial— visible and invisible — ^heaven, earth, thrones, dynasties, angels, men, devils, — this Redeemer is head over them all, and makes them all, in different measures and different ways, subservient to his high purpose of redeeming mercy. The mountain rivu- let is not more tributary to the river, nor the thou- sand rivers to the ocean, nor the ocean in its turn more certainly to the clouds, the dew, the rain, than all things are tributary to the great design of his redemption. The sun rises and sets for him, or at his command it stands still upon Gibeon ; and
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for him tlie moon walks in her brightness, or rests over the valley of Ajalon. The Rose of Sharon blooms to indicate his loveliness, and the Lily of the Valley to show forth his beauty. There is not a wave that lashes the shore, nor a tumultuous revolution among the people ; there is not a por- tentous indication that makes the inhabitants of the world afraid at his tokens, nor a gladsome sign that makes the outgoings of the morning and the evening to rejoice, nor a sweej)ing flood, nor a year of famine, nor a battle of the warrior, — no, not one among all the physical or moral causes that act upon the character and condition of men, but acts also upon his cause and honor, and is, therefore, under the control of this Mediator-king. The earth we live upon would never have been created, never had its seasons revolved, nor its landscapes smiled, nor its Sabbaths visited us, nor its ministry of reconciliation been known, nor its glad tidings listened to, had it not been spread out as the selected theatre of a great redemption. Were a Christian statesman to look over the earth at the present hour, what a multitude of events would he discover that are indissolubly associated with the great interests of man's redemption! and how, in this inspection, would he have the key that unlocks many a mystery in the complicated affairs of men ! And when, in some future age, the favored historian shall arise, as deeply imbued with the knowledge
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of God as with the researches of men, who shall look back and tell of the past, how certainly will his point of vision be the mountains of Zion, his pen dipped in Siloam's brook ! If, when the foun- dation of the earth was laid, the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy, how inspiriting the view, and how rapturous the song, when in full and long retrospect this redemp- tion asserts its honors, and it stands confessed that for this all things were made ! Great or small, vast or minute, complicated or simple, full of terrors or of joy, dissociated from its relations to this redemp- tion it is nothing, it was formed in vain. It is un- worthy of God, because it is no part of that one grand, systematic, harmonious whole, of which the redemption is the fulfilment and the glory.
With such resources, therefore, we may, in the fourth place ^ take a glance at its conflicts and
TEimiPHS.
As head over all things to his church, the ac- credited Kedeemer is a king and has a kingdom. When he stood at the bar of the Roman procura- tor, Pilate asked him, " Art thou a king then ? " Jesus answered him, " For this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world." Thous^h born of a woman and crucified as a malefactor, God has exalted him as king upon his holy hill of Zion, and given him a name that is above every name ; that at the name of Jesus every knee should
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bow, and every tongue confess tliat lie is Lord, to tlie glory of God the Father.
Enemies he has on earth and in the dark world of perdition. His conflict is with sin ; and however insidious and mysterious its working, and however vast its empire and severe its bondage, his object is accomplished only as the empire of wickedness is overthrown, and the kingdom of truth and ho- liness established in its place. This is his great object. His death and sacrifice, his boundless grace and mercy, and the perfected justification of those who believe in him, are but means to this great end. He foreknew and predestinated them that they might be conformed to the image he wears. He calls them, he justifies them, he glori- fies them, his full blessing consisting in turning away every one of them from his iniquities.
The enterprise is worthy of its author ; and the greatness, the glory of it can be measured only by the obstacles it surmounts. Its conflict with law and justice we have already adverted to, and its conquests over them. But it has other conflicts and other triumphs. That priceless thing, the soul of man, was in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity. This magnificent edifice, this spiritual temple where God once dwelt, was in ruins, its grandeur and beauty disfigured, defaced, polluted, and the abode of the foul spirits of dark- ness in every form. Sin was there in all its ugli-
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ness. Idle and wandering thoughts were there, — dreamy fancies, lying vanities, towering pride, ab- sorbing selfishness, debasing lusts, malignant pas- sions, prolific error, and that mother monster, en- mity to Grod. And these were followed up and acted out in deeds of wickedness of varied form and enormity,— from the obscenity of idol altars, to their inhuman cruelty — from bold infidelity, to open contempt and profanation of all that is sacred - — ^from the anarchy and confusion where every so- cial tie is torn asunder, to the lawless riot which embitters all the ingredients of human intercourse — from the solitary blow of Cain, to the extermi- nation of millions on the field of battle — ^from the licentiousness of the brothel, to the libertinism of the harem — from breaches of trust and deeds of dishonesty, to the ravaging of provinces — ^from the romancing of a fertile imagination, to the bear- ing of false witness against our neighbor — from the miserable shifts of avarice, to the desolations of the slave-trade — and from the sighing of the sick- chamber, to the overwhelming miseries that deluge the earth. Such is the devil's work and the fruit of man's apostasy.
Ofifensively and defensively, and with vigorous purpose and fearful success, have the powers of darkness prosecuted the war, sometimes by force and cruelty, and sometimes by delusion and false- hood. Nations have been deceived and enchained
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by it, and the " wliole world lieth in wickedness," chained down in spiritual bondage, darkness, and death.
Yet "the messenger of the covenant," girded with truth, his feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, having on the breastplate of righteousness, bearing the shield of faith, and armed with omnipotent power, though he did not anticipate a sjjeedy, was sure of an ultimate tri- umph. The conflict needed such a champion. No other could restrain or subdue the foe. Philoso- phy could not do it : its sages were learned and eloquent, but they were j^igmies in such a contest. Legislation could not do it: human laws, proud monument as they were of ancient civilization, were but as the spider's web. Science could not do it : with all its bi'illiant discoveries, it had no power to cure the leprosy of sin. Nor could the guilty and miserable victims liberate themselves. Darkness never yet created light; sin never yet vanquished sin. There is nothing in man to take the part of God against himself Sin would reign supreme and uncontrolled, for all that men and means can accomplish ; and forever reign, but for him who is stronger than the strong armed.
His work comprises redemption by price and redemption by power. Early the mandate went forth : " Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty ; and in
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thy majesty ride prosperously, because of truth and meekness and ris^hteousness." A crown was given to him, and he went forth conquering and to conquer. Sometimes the day of vengeance is in his heart because the year of his redeemed is come ; while his province and his prerogative are to draw his enemies by the coi'ds of love as with the bands of a man. Nor are his victories the less real because they are noiseless. The Lord is not in the earthquake, nor in the strong wind, nor in the fire, but in the still, small voice. It is the ex- cellency of poT\Tr, gentle as the dew, and soft as the breathing of his love. It is his own new-creat- ing Spirit ; it is the Dove of heaven hovering over a lost world, and from his fleecy cloud distilling blessings that make Jerusalem a rejoicing and her people a joy. The God of heaven has no interest in the universe so dear to his heart as this. He himself presides over it, and conducts it to its glo- rious issues. It is his work, and his greatest work. " Behold," says he, "I create Jerusalem a rejoicing and her people a joy." The men of this world erect .monuments in commemoration of events that mark important epochs in its history. They shout the praises of the hero who has fought their bat- tles and achieved their victories. But here are the conflicts and victories of him who " hath on his vesture and on his thi2:h a name written, KiuG: of kings, and Lord of lords." If poets and painters 7
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depict tlie scenes where battles are fouglit and vic- tories won, how much more memorable are the scenes where the Spirit descends, and the Captain of our salvation has fought and conquered ! This was the joy set before him, when, without a smile, without a drop of consolation, he hung between heaven and earth, and all the waves and billows of God's wrath were passing over him. "Well does he deserve the crown. Kide on, thou mighty Con- querer ! the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right scep- tre. Koll on, roll on, thou river of Gocl, that art full of water ! the wilderness and the cities are glad for thee ; the villages that Kedar doth inhabit lift up their voice ; let the inhabitants of the rock sing; let them shout from the top of the moun» tains ! Let the triumph begin, " The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever."
Another testimony to the magnitude of this re- demption is found in the fact that it is so expees-
SIVE OF THE GLOEY OF ITS GEEAT AuTIIOE.
TJnwasting as are the resources of joy and bless- edness eternally within the great First Cause, he would not exist alone. If we inquire why he chose to give existence to creatures and worlds, we have the answer in the words, "Thou hast created all things, and for tliy ])lm8iire they exist and were created." What his great and ultimate end is in
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all that lie does, is a question that lies deep at the foundation of all sound theology and true relig- ion. Nor do we see but the one answer to this question ; God himself is and must he his own end. The silence and the solitude of eternity were bro- ken by the voice which " spake, and it was done ; which commanded, and it stood fast." His perfec- tions require eternity to unfold ; and, though sel- fishness has no place in his nature, he does, as he ought, appreciate his own character and claims. All holiness and joy are from him, and are pro- duced and perpetuated by the most perfect and harmonious manifestation of his own intrinsic and unchanging excellence. And because it exhibits his character in all its grandeur and loveliness, it is such a manifestation as gratifies his infinitely benevolent mind.
Followed out to their conclusions, these are great truths ; but they are obvious truths. The infinite does not exist for the finite, but the finite for the infinite. Man's existence, and man's rectitude and happiness, point above and beyond himself Meas- ure the earth, count the stars, and people the moon and the planets ; and when you have num- bered them they are but atoms compared with the infinite "All in All;" themselves deriving their worth and importance from their forthgoing ex- pression of the ineflable glory of the eternal and infinite One, " of whom, to whom, and through
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whom are all things." How obvious to the mind of any man but an atheist is it, that " God made all thinsfs for himself I " Who else should he make them for ? Look above, beneath, around you ! you see wisdom and design in all things. All that is, or ever will be, was made for God. Oh ! it is a delightful thought. We would have God exalted everywhere, by all creatures, and always.
This redemption, originating in his warm and loving bosom, — what would it be if it were not so full of God? What would it be if from every page of the Bible, every bright day of the Son of man, every pulpit, every baptismal altar, every com- munion-table, every high-born hope of pardon and peace, every flowing stream from the river of life, and every bird of paradise that sings upon its out- spreading branches, were they not vocal with the truth, " Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord God, be it known unto you, but for my great Name's sake ? " No marvel that, on the early intimations of this great work, the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy, and that with every progressive disclosure of it the angels cover their faces with their wings. Oh ! it was a bright epoch in eternity that gave rise to a de- sign thus comprehensive, thus carried into execu- tion, thus glorious in its conflicts and triumphs, in order to rend the veil that shut out the glories of the Godhead from the view of creatures, and make
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him appear to mortal eyes — liim fhe eternal, un- created One — liim first, him last, him midst, him everything.
Nature and providence, nay, the first covenant, are enveloped in clouds and darkness. There is a bright side to the cloud ; but it is a cloud still, and has a mixture of obscurity compared with the glory that shines in the face of Jesus Christ. God's de- signs are deejD and unfathomable, separated from his redeeming mercy. He himself was never truly known until he became Emmanuel. We see him now in some measure as he is. It is his great work we are looking at ; the master device of his mighty intellect and surpassing love. Vast and comprehen- sive as it is, it is one which he will never see any reason nor have any desire to enlarge, or diminish, or alter. Here he has developed the ruling motive of his conduct, and solves every dark problem, and unweaves every intricate web in his providence. The highest exhibition of uncreated excellence which created beings have ever discovered, or ever will discover, is in this wonderful Redemption. Ev- ery eye is now thrown upon him, not as a wither- ing abstraction ; not as an existence demonstrated by a logical process; not as a personification of mere greatness and majesty, whom to contemplate only fills the mind with awe ; but as a vivid rep- resentation of perfect rectitude and perfect good- ness,— the unseen God seen by mortal eyes, heard
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by mortal ears, and liis voice of love calling for a response from mortal hearts.
Yes, from mortal eyes, mortal ears, and mortal hearts. There is such a thin 2: as the inward wit- ness to the truths of this redemption. Good men contemplate it with delight and joy. There is so much in it of the God they love, of the Saviour who died for them, of the Spirit who sanctifies them, of the prospects and destiny of that kingdom of which they are the subjects, of the well-being of this woi'ld and of the interests of the universe, of the holiness and happiness of time and eternity, that every devout mind contemplates it with delightful and delighted admiration. When the truths and spirit of this redemption are no longer the objects of a mere intellectual perception, but are transferred to the believer's heart and experience, it is then that this wondrous procedure of heavenly wisdom and love is seen in its true glory and in all the beauty of holiness. In every instance of genuine conver- sion, it is, as it were, repeated and acted over anew. It has its counterpart in the bosom of every con- verted man. Its deity is there, because for the first time he is there enthroned and honored. His rec- titude and justice are there. His abounding mercy is there. His omnipotence is there. His sovereignty is there. His faithfulness is there. The consum- mation of all his purposes, yea, his whole glory, is
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there, if not in Ml portrait, in amiable and impres- sive miniature, reflected from, the cross, inwronght in tlie soul, and progressively clianging the beholder from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Every glimpse of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, excites and gives enlargement to his brio-htest views and best affections. The separating wall between time and eternity is bro- ken down ; future things become present, and in- visible things visible. We seem at such seasons to walk with God as Enoch walked, and to con- verse with him as the favored disciples did when he was transfigured before them. Moses felt this transforming power when he was in the mount with God, and his face shone with the lustre of the interview. Isaiah felt it, when in holy vision he saw this Jesus sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Paul felt it, when he was caught up to the third heavens ; and John felt it in Patmos, when One like unto the Son of man spake with him from the midst of the golden candlesticks. Other truths are fugitive in their influence, and melt away in comparison with those inwoven with this redemption. These elevate and purify. They have led millions, and will lead millions upon millions more, to communion with the eternal Mind, and to growing conformity to heaven. By nothing is man so transformed and
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God SO glorified as by tlie practical working of this redemption; "according as it is written, lie that glorieth let him glory in the Lord."
Such is this redemption ; great in the spiritual and immortal nature of its subjects ; in the means by which it has been effected ; in the subserviency of all things to its interests and advancement ; in its conflicts and triumphs, and in the progressive manifestations it furnishes of the glory of its author.
The views that have been presented suggest to us, 1. In the first place, to put a just estimate upon our religious privileges. There is a view in which the planet on which we dwell is a very insignifi- cant thing compared with some of the worlds which float above us. The Psalmist once ex- claimed, "When I consider the heavens which are the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained. Lord, what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou shouldest visit him ! " And there is a view in which this little world rises superior to any other part of the universe. Though not so large as some in the solar system ; not so exalted as heaven nor so abject as hell, it stands midway between the prison and the throne. These mate- rial worlds above us are obedient to the ordinances of Heaven. From the heavenly bodies to the young leaf of the forest, they all obey the eternal
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Lawgiver. This earth has violated the laws of its being, floated away from the high position origi- nally assigned to it, and joined in the revolt of the fallen. It is a condemned world ; it is the prisoner of justice, and under the sentence of out- raged law. But though the prisoner of justice, it is the " prisoner of hope," and placed in a state of reprieve between condemnation and the executed sentence. When angels fell, they were condemned to chains of darkness, and the sentence was exe- cuted. Man sinned, and this great redemption in- terposed for his rescue. It brought him within the reach of salvation, and placed him under a system of instruction and disci2:)line fitted to form his character for eternity. And now, as ever, it makes its appeals to his conscience and his heart, by truths and motives drawn from all that is bind- ing in the divine authority, all that is persuasive in the tenderness of infinite love, and all that is powerful in the notes of the redeemed in contrast with the wailings of despair. It has its alone place under the mediatorial reign of the Son of God, under proclamation of the " glad tidings of great joy," under the light of Sabbaths, under the faith- ful and earnest ministrations of the sanctuary, and under the strivings of the Holy Spirit. These are privileges which involve man's dearest interests for time and eternity ; privileges which will be remem- bered when pastors and people stand before God ;
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wlien all tlie nations are dead, the earth is burnt up, and the heavens are no more. They are privi- leges which, if rightly employed, secure to the heirs of immortality a holy and blessed inheritance beyond the grave. They are privileges which, by virtue of the believers union to Jesus Christ, assign him a place above the angels who never fell, and a song which none can learn but those who are the redeemed from among men. Apostate as it is, this redemj^tion gives an importance to the world in which we dwell, which belongs to no other world. It is destined to transform it, and make its wilder- ness like Eden, and its deserts like the garden of the Lord. It is honored and immortalized as the theatre of this wondrous work. Nor is there a son or daughter of Adam who makes its messages wel- come, but is immortalized from this wondrous alli- ance to the incarnate Deity, and these great achieve- ments of redeeming love. " Of Zion it shall be said. This and that man was born in her, and the highest himself shall establish her. The Lord shall count, when he writeth up the people, that this man was born there.". Honored genealogy, that traces its lineage to the house of God ! Earthly princes rarely boast of it. Not many mighty, not many noble, bear the armorial ensigns of the sanc- tuary ; yet the poorest may claim them, and sparkle in his coronet who Avears many crowns. This re- demption stamps a value on these Christian privi-
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leges, great as the worth of the soul and the glories of eternity.
2. This redemption, in the second place, magni- fies the office of the Chrisiian ministry. This may not seem the most modest remark fj'om lips that minister at the altar. Yet it was not egotism in the apostle Paul to " magnify his office." Nor may it be deemed presumption for him who addresses you to put a high estimate upon an office which sustains so intimate a relation to God's great work of redeeming mercy. When we say it is God's own appointment, and for the purpose of cooperat- ing with him in carrying into execution that all- comprehensive and glorious work of redeeming mercy, we have said only that which God has re- vealed. It pleased God "by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." What higher encomium on the ministerial office than is contained in this single sentence ! Well do we know that it has its trials, its solicitudes, its discouragenjeuts, its dependencies, its exposures, and above all, its tre- mendous responsibilities. Never is it relieved from that fearful burden, that to some we are the " savor of life unto life, and to some the savor of death unto death ;" and never will it be otherwise than that, if we prove faithless, the blood of those who die in their iniquity " will be required at our hands." The fact that the piety, the intelligence, the usefulness of every church stand abreast with
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tlie piety, the intelligence, the usefulness of their minister ; that their spiritual and intellectual at- tainments rise and fall with his ; that if he walks with God and diinks into the spirit of his divine Master, so will their hearts be filled with these glowing graces ; that if his study is deserted, and his prayers and preaching become feeble, his peo- ple will become even more feeble than their min- ister ; — all these show the magnitude of his office. Yet the thous^ht that mao-nifies it most is the near relation it sustains to the great redemption of the Son of God. The privilege and blessedness of sympathizing with the High Priest of the Chris- tian profession in his devotement to the glory of his Father ; in his love for the souls of men ; in his consecration to interests his/her than his own ; and in his expectations, honors, and reward, — these are the immunities of the sacred office. It is no ordinary privilege to be laid under the necessity of cultivating an intimacy with those re- vealed principles of truth and morals which lie at the foundation of the Christian system, and which are inwoven with all holy character on earth and in heaven. The business of a gospel minister is with the Bible, there to acquaint himself with the only living and true God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent ; his views the sweeter, as his faith is the more intense ; the brighter, as they are the more enlarged ; the more sure and undoubted,
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as they cordially embrace tlie great elements and relations of this redemption. I honor other pro- fessions ; but there is no service so important, so delightful, so honorable, as to be thus associated with tlie great prophet of the Christian pi'ofession, in the midst of those wondrous scenes and truths and realities so intimately associated with the man- ifold glory of God and the progressive conquests of his reigning Son. Statesmen may envy such a service. Monarchs on their thrones are not so favored as the minister of Christ. No laurels re- tain their freshness like those he is permitted to entwine around the head of his divine Lord. Go, ye who minister at God's altar ! go and proclaim salvation to dying men ! Go, tell the weary and heavy-laden, the tempest-tost and the desponding, of him who is a hiding-place from the storm ! Go, search out the mysteries of this redemption, and with every new truth illustrated, and every new subject of its transforming power, let your own heart and lips respond, " Glory to God in the high- est ; and on earth peace and good will to men ! "
Had my own allotment been a less favored one, I hope I could say, " I thank our Lord Jesus Christ for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry." Would that I had been, and were more worthy of the of&ce ; but I am more than satisfied that I am a minister of Christ. I never desired a higher station than to be the servant of
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the cliurcli for Jesus' sake. I ask no more of tlie world, nor of the church, nor of God my Saviour, if he will but make me faithful unto death, and give me a crown of life. When I think of the work itself in which I have been so long employed, I count " the laurels of a Cresar w^eeds," compared with the honors of the humblest minister of the everlasting gospel. Our subject, then,
3. In the last iAa.ce leads us to a brief review of 'my oivn prolonged oninistry among tliis iKOple. I have many things to say, and many which I must suppress. Fifty years ago this Sabbath I first occu- pied the pulpit of the Brick chui-ch as your pastor. I remember the day well ; some four or five of you remember it, when, in a crowded assembly of those who now sleep in the dust of the earth, I bowed my knees before the Grod and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and received this sacred trust from him, " through the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery." To me it was a solemn day, and asso- ciated with a sense of responsibility which followed me through the whole of my ministry. The half century is gone ; gone, like the dying cadence of distant minstrelsy as it vibrates into air; gone, like the phantom which in prospect had the sem- blance of reality, but which in the retrospect has melted away ; gone, like some small star that has been twinkling on the curtain of the night ; gone, like the leaves which the wind of autumn has swept
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away ; gone, like clouds whicli vanish into air, af- ter they have exhausted their treasures upon the land ; gone, as the word just spoken, for good or for evil, never to be recalled ; gone, as yesterday is gone : — all, all have vanished one by one into the mysterious past. Yet, short and rapid as has been the flight of these fifty years, they form an event- ful period. The wheels of providence have been revolving, sometimes high and terribly, sometimes in circles bright and radiant ; while those who have been spectators of these varied scenes, only wonder at the changes which a few short years have wi'ought, and gratefully admire the wisdom and goodness of him who is so rapidly preparing the agencies by which the final consummation of all things is hastening on. God's plans are large and comprehensive. His great heart is set upon the fulfilment of his gracious purpose to our lost world. As we have seen, all his designs stand re- lated to this great design ; nor is he slack concern- ing his promise as some men count slackness. " My Father worketh hitherto," says the Saviour, " and I work." He is the most diligent and efi*ective worker in the universe. His eye never slumbers, and his arm is never weary. This half century bears testimony to the fitness and cooperation of those second causes, both in the material and moral creation, by which his gracious purposes are accomplished. Epochs and events there have been
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during its progress, which seemed n,t first view to be of dark augury, and which threatened to put back the shadow on the dial of time, if not to defeat the counsels of the God only wise. But the " Lord seeth not as man seeth," His work never stands still — never goes backward. Onwaed is the motto of the upper sanctuary ; and as fast as infinite goodness and wisdom will admit, onward the work goes. Within these fifty years, two generations of men have passed away. They have done their work; the generation that followed them is in training for a mightier work to come. Thrones and dynas- ties have been demolished and overturned, and new thrones and policies established which, in de- fiance of the powers of darkness, contain the germs and elements of that " knowledge and strength of salvation" which are destined to be the stability of the world. Science and the arts, so long held in abeyance because the nations were not prepared to employ them to benevolent ends, we ourselves have seen making such progress as to change the face of human affairs. We have heard, indeed, and still hear of the battle of the warrior, and of garments rolled in blood ; but the splendor of war has vanished. The shock of armies no longer lends its bewildering fascinations to the poet's numbers ; and what is more, the storm is heralding the advent of the Prince of Peace, and sweeping away those otherwise insurmountable
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barriers to the propagation of the gospel among the nations. Let it be recorded with fervent grati- tude, tliat the past fifty years have accomplished more for the extension of the gospel to the dis- tant heathen, more for the dissemination of Grod's word, more for the circulation of religious truth, more for enlightening the ignorant and elevating the abject of our race, and more for the Christian occupancy of the talents God has given his church, than any ten preceding centuries. And they fur- nish, also, a delightful fulfilment of the promise, "He that watereth shall be watered himself." God's own Spirit has been descending on the broad lands of Christendom, pouring water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground. It has been a great privilege to live in such an age as this, and emphatically so to have occupied the place of a fellow-worker with God in the prose- cution of that design for which he stretched abroad the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth. We have no confidence in human inventions for the accomplishment of the great object for which the Son of God became incarnate, and died. Phi- losophy, legislation, science, different forms of gov- ernment, civilization, socialism, infidelity, philan- thropy, have done their best to eradicate the moral diseases of our nature, and renovate this apostate world ; but the highest achievements they can boast of, are some slight modifications of its symptoms,
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while they leave tlie deep-seated plague nntouclied. The gospel alone is the power of God aud the wis- dom of God, and the living ministry is his own appointed vehicle for conveying it to the minds of men. It is this which gives such unmeasured re- sponsibility^ to the position I have been allowed, for so long a period, to hold among you as your un- worthy pastor.
I cannot be too thankful to the Father of mercies that I was led to commence my minis- try among you, under a deep impression that it it must be a ministry of incessant watchfulness and toil, and that from the outset my mind Avas never bewildered by day-dreams of leisure and repose in the pastoral office. Dr. Johnson once said, that "he pitied the man who made the Cliristian min- istry an easy work." Whether or not I have made it so, and what have been my motives in laboring among you, is not for me to decide. God is wit- ness that my work has been my joy, and most my joy when it has been most severe. I did not enter the ministry as a secular calling, but because I loved, — nay, if you will pardon me for saying it, — ■ because I was enamored of the gospel. I did not enter it for its honor, nor for its wealth. I sought a rural charge ; but God sent me among the wealthy and bountiful, Avho adopted me in my youth, and have not forsaken me in my old age. I was thrown among religious teachers greatly my superioi-s, aud
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saw at a glance that I had everything to clo if I ever became an able minister of the New Testa- ■ ment. I could easily dazzle my audiences, and please their imagination, and excite their emotions, by a beautiful tableau of words ; but when I retired to my chamber I could not but ask myself. What does it all amount to ? Much I had to learn, in order to understand, illustrate, and defend the truths of the gospel, and enforce its duties ; and, instead of that blustering declamation which grat- ifies without instructing, which creates a sensation without sinking one thought into the soul, learn to present clear and forcible views of God's revealed will. It is not one truth merely that a minister is called to preach, or that the people ought to hear, but " the whole counsel of God " — all the truths and all the duties of the gospel.
To what extent the present age is in advance of the past, in consequence of its disrelish for doctrinal preaching, let the limited acquaintance with Chris- tian truth of the great mass, even of the more intel- ligent laymen, bear witness. The Bible everywhere insists on the belief of the truth as the basis of Christian character. What men do not believe they cannot practise. That piety and those active efforts cannot long be depended on that do not arise from the love of God's truth. Let the fire of God's truth be withdrawn, and though by its own momentum the sacred machinery will move a while,
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it is sure to stop. Men who complain of doctrinal preaching are strangers to the worth and power of practical preaching. When I read the works of Owen and "Doddridge, of Toplady and Baxter, of Howe and Charnock, of Edwards and Chalmers, of Bellamy and Dwight, of Griffin and Nettleton, of Alexander and Hodge, my conviction is strength- ened that the ministry which is richest in the fruits of holiness is richest in the inculcation of Christian doctrine. I do not see how any man can preach practically who does not preach doctrinally, for the obvious reason that Christian doctrine is truth in theory, and Christian practice is truth in action.
The period of the world which is just opening upon us, is the transition age from a servile submis- sion to ecclesiastical despotism, and the traditions of men to the rights and responsibilities of private judgment ; from dominant wickedness to dominant piety; from indifference and inaction to spiritual life and activity ; from greedy selfishness to open- handed bounty ; from popular ignorance to the wide dissemination of God's word ; from the gospel at home to the gospel among all nations ; from gross darkness to millennial light and glory. And we feel most deeply that the grand prerequisite to such an age is a more thorough imbuing of the Christian mind with the great truths of the Bible, and an honest, earnest, and abounding deliverance of those truths in distinction from all error, and an intelli-
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gent reception of tliem on the part of the people. If this is no easy matter in a city where the toil and perplexities and responsibilities of business are so urgent and unrelieved, on this very account there is the more reason that Christians, and espe- cially those who bear office in the house of God, should cultivate that enlarged, clear, and discrim- inating acquaintance with doctrines that shall not only enable them to distinguish between the pre- cious and the vile, but constrain them to require from their religious teachers a full and elaborate exhibition of the rich and varied truths of the glo- rious gospel of the blessed God.
Of the great object of my ministry, and the manner in which it has been pursued, it becomes me to speak with more than shrinking diffidence. Its revealed object and method are to save the souls of men, — to make them Christians, and the adornment of Christianity. To what extent I have kept this great object in view will be decided by him who will, ere long, judge every man accord- ino- to his work. Whether I have been devoted to winning souls to Christ, or to other and meaner ends ; whether I have declared the whole counsel of God, or have occupied my thoughts and yours on questions to no profit ; whether I have sought • the praise of men rather than the honor which Cometh from God only, and have been stimulated by secular and worldly considerations more than
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by the love of Christ and of the flock he has com- mitted to my trust ; whether I have been influ- enced by the all-absorbing desire to extend, and build up, and beautify that kingdom of righteous- ness and peace which shall never have an end, and whether or not, in being thus employed, I have put forth unhallowed hands to the Ark of God, are solemn questions — questions which neither you nor I may trifle with, and which will be decided on that day when appearances will not pass for reality, and nothing will stand the test but truth. I confess these are inquiries which, in this review of my ministiy, I am led to look at with mingled solici- tude and hope. You have doubtless seen that in me and in my public ministrations which has obscured the light and glory of the gospel I have preached. I implore God's forgiveness for it all, and beg him that it may not be laid to your charge. I ana deeply sensible -that in my public services there has been the want of a Christlike spirit and tenderness ; and that, not unfrequently, in my daily intercourse with you, when I should have been a living epistle, known and read of all men, and should have carried " the bundle of myrrh " in my bosom, I have savored, not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men. Oh ! hateful sins, that thus mar the sacred ministry, and cast their shadow over the reminis- cences of such a day as this ! I have but one refuge :
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" In mj hand no price I bring, Simply to thy Cross I ding,"
My obligations to the God of providence and grace are in every view boundless. He cared for me in my childhood, and kindly gave me the watchful supervision of Christian parents and a Christian training. He cared for me in my youth, and not only restrained me from the excesses of youthful folly and passion, but gave me the opjoortuuity, and directed my mind to the attainment of useful knowledge. He raised me up friends when I most needed them ; he encouraged me in my despond- ency ; and when I wandered from him, brought me into his fold. And he ])ut me into the minis- try, and made me the pastor of this beloved flock. "When I came among you, I thought it doubtful if I should remain a single year ; but he has kept me kere fifty years. In the midday of human life and in old age he has cared for me, and kept my feet from falling and my soul from death. He has alloAved me to pursue my delightful work with no inconsiderable success. He has given me seals to my ministry, which, if my motives have been right, will be my crown of rejoicing in the day of the Lord Jesus. He has given me the love and confidence of a united j^eople, and with these tokens of his favor, has also given me " all things richly to enjoy." From year to year he has been mindful of me, though I have
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SO often been unmindful of him. I have said that he has given me all things richly to enjoy; and I am happy to say that he has made yon his almo- ners. Your hearts, your hands, have been the dis- pensers of his bounty — the more valued that such have been the loved channels through which it has flowed. These tokens of your kindness have made an impression on my mind which it will be difficult to erase. There are trials in the ministry ; but it has also its endearments. Scenes and memories like these reflect their rays backward,. and diffuse them around us, and throw them onward to cheer those pensive scenes that must soon surround us all. I am looking for them as near at hand ; and while I desire to make good use of my last days among you, I know they must be few. I bless God that I do not feel bound to the world as my home, but am more and more sensible that I am a pilgrim and a stranger on the earth. Would that my asj^irings after another and better habitation were invigorated in the same proportion as the delusions of earth van- ish ! I would not build my tabernacle here ; it is not among the promises and expectations of time that I look for my resting-place.
Notwithstanding the reminiscences contained in the discourse delivered at the closing service in the old church, we may not suppress all notice of the endeared edifice where the greater part of these fifty years has been employed. We shall not for-
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get that time-lionored temple of our God and our fathers' God. We will carry the rememhrance through the remnant of our pilgrimage ; it shall be inmingled with our sweetest thoughts and hopes, when things earthly are forgotten and the unearthly are remembered ; and though they flow from "joys that are past," they shall not be "mournful to the soul." We will carry this remembrance to our dying pillow, and it shall strengthen us upon the bed of languishing. We will carry it beyond the grave, and we will dwell upon it at the bar of judgment. We love to look back upon these scenes. There were drops there upon the j^astures of the wilderness ; sometimes falling drop by drop, sometimes condensed in clouds, and sometimes rolling on like the river which makes glad the city of our God. We can- not help looking back upon them with something like the enthusiasm with which the aged warrior surveys the field of battles fought and victories won, — chastened, indeed, elevated, hallowed by the thought that they were victories won in the cause of truth and righteousness, and by a mightier than human arm. Beloved sanctuary ! There we were wont to carry our temporal as well as our spiritual troubles, and there were we led to the Rock that is higher than we. Oh ! how often, as the wing of the pestilence overshadowed us, and the sun smote us by day and the moon by night, have we found
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there the shadow of the great Rock in a weary land. Blessed, thrice blessed sanctuary, where He that walketh amid the golden candlesticks, and holds the stars in his right hand, made the place of his feet glorious ! And that memorable study — so embowered, so retired and tranquil amid noise and uproar, where a desponding heart was so often relieved by the promise, " My grace is sufficient for thee ; " where the old and the young so often resorted for consultation and prayer ; where vol- ume after volume of God's truth was thrown out upon the world; where the memorials of the divine faithfulness outnumbered even the memo- rials of man's infirmity ; where so many wiped away their tears and began their everlasting song : — Oh ! it was the house of God and the gate of heaven ! I had thought we had left it forever ; but we revisit it to-day : the past instructs us ; we retrace the footsteps of him who dwells with man on the earth ; we listen to the declaration coming back to us from those ruined walls, " In all places where I record my name, I will come unto thee, I will bless thee." Our locality is changed, but the promise remains. God grant that our character as a church may not change, except to growing grace and knowledge and usefulness ! We have gained much by the change of locality ; it was a struggle to effect it, and has been one of the important ob- jects secured by this ministry. In prospect I re-
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garded it as the last great eiFort of my life ; yet strange to say, at the advanced age of threescore and fifteen years I find that my work is not done. I welcome it still, and as gladly as in the days of my youth. It is God's favor to one sufficiently ill- deserving, to be permitted to bear an equal part in these pulpit ministrations with my more vigor- ous associate, and to see this beautiful edifice not only completed, but filled to overflowing. Of all the ministers of the gospel in this land, none has greater reason for thankfulness to the God of the sanctuary thau he who now addresses you. I can scarcely bring myself to believe that the present discourse is the fiftieth anniversary service I have been permitted to enjoy among this people. These fifty anniversary discourses — what a history of God's dealings with the Brick church and its pastor, fraught with some reflections that are painful, but with more that are joyous, and in their varied character calling for mingled emotions of sadness and praise !
It is with such emotions, my beloved friends, that I address you to-day. The nearer I approach the time of my departure, the more deeply do I feel interested for your welfixre; the more do I love you, and long for you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ. I can truly saj^ with the apostle John, " I have no greater joy than to know that my children walk in the truths Oh ! may the seed that has been
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planted ' here, be diligently and faithfully watered by him who is associated with me in the pastoral office. My earnest prayer for this dear flock has been, that God would give them a pastor after his own heart, who should feed them with knowledge and understanding. It would be no small grief to me to go to my grave, and leave this people with- out a laborious, instructive, faithful ministry. Our hearts, our studies, our consultations ought often to mingle together, that the souls committed to our trust may be saved. The great difficulty ministers find in preaching the gospel is, to lose sight of self. When we can lose sight of ourselves, and be ab- sorbed in the truths we utter ; when we can rise above this wicked love of praise, and our minds are wrought up to specik for God^ we always find that we then have communion with him ; and when we have communion with him in our discourses as well as in our prayers, we never fail to come near the consciences and hearts of the people. How sweet such Sabbaths ! O for more of the Saviour's compassion and love to the perishing! The Great Shepherd marks every step that we take, hears every prayer we offer, and every sermon we preach. "We have but to walk with God, and he shall sup- ply all our need according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.
I will utter but a sino;le thousrht more. Not a few who hear me, these hands and these lips have
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baptized into the Christian faith. You were my catechumens, learners of promise, and once bade fair for the kingdom of God. I see you now heads of famihes. I have performed the same sweet office toward the children God has given you. Yet I see you negligent and thoughtless, restraining prayer before God, turning your back upon the cross of Christ, and more than ever lightly esteeming the Rock of your salvation. I know not what more to say to you that I have not already said. This voice you will listen to but a little while. It is with pain that I utter one hard thousrht in this discourse. Yet I may not suppress the sentence that if this ministry of fifty years may prove a savor of death unto death, rude will the settlement be of wrath against the day of wrath. Will you not seize these passing hours ? You will soon be crushed before the moth, and in the day of your visitation you will need unearthly consolations, and the bosom of a heavenly Parent to lean upon. And if you have not this refuge, poor worm of the dust ! your house will be left unto you desolate, and the things that belong to your peace be hidden from your eyes. I shall soon meet you at that awful bar, where these fifty years will be remembered. Will you not go from this house believers in Jesus, and live and die in peace ? This is the only ark of safety for a dying world. How sweet to be in it when the windows of heaven are opened, and the deluge is
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coming down ! and there, safe from that desolating storm, and in their contrasted chords and comhined harmonies, sing " the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb!"
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PEOCEEDINGS
AT THE
MEMORIAL MEETING.
PKOCEE DINGS
AT THE
MEMORIAL MEETING.
The congregation of the Brick Cliurcli made ar- rangements, in August last, to present a memorial to their venerated j)astor on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his settlement over them.
On account of the illness of Mrs. Spring at that time, the meeting was postponed to the 15th Oc- tober, 1860.
At this time the congregation assembled for that purj)ose in their place of worship. At an early- hour the spacious edifice was filled to its utmost capacity.
The meeting was called to order by Shepheed Knapp, Esq., who opened the meeting with the fol- lowing remarks : — ■
We have assembled, my respected friends, first of all, as I ti-ust, to render to Almighty God 9
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thanks for having permitted so many of us to meet this evening to witness the scene we have here before us ; and secondly, to pay a tribute of respect to our beloved pastor, who has, for more than half a century, broken to us so satisfactorily the bread of life. And now, in order, that our proceedings may assume the proper form, I move that Horace HoLDEN, Escj[., be requested to take the chair.
The resolution was adopted.
On motion of Mr. Knapp, Augustus Whitlock and George De Forest Lord, Esqrs., were appointed Secretaries.
The CiiAiRMAisr on taking the chair spoke as fol- lows : — I thank, you my friends, for calling me to preside upon this occasion. I esteem it one of the sweetest privileges of my life to be permitted, in the good providence of God, to see this night. We have met as a great, affectionate, and united family, to express to our beloved pastor, on this, the fiftieth anniversary of his settlement over us, our undiminished confidence and affection.
As has been properly remarked by my Brother Knapp, in introducing these exercises, devout grati- tude and thanks should be first given to Almighty God for the continuance of his care and provi- dence toward this people, and especially for having preserved to us the uninterrupted services of our beloved pastor from the commencement of his ministry to the present hour.
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The Rev. Dr. Phillips, pastor of the First Pres- byterian church, being then called uj^on by the Chairman for that purpose, offered prayer and thanksgiving to Ahuighty God, approp>riate to the interesting occasion.
After the prayer, Mr. Holdeu continued his ad- dress as follows : —
Before proceeding to the principal duties of this evening, and the service to be performed by my brother Lord, I may be indulged in a few words to you, my revei'ed pastor — the friend of my youth — of my middle life — and of my grey hairs.
It is not at all probable that one of this vast as- sembly will ever witness another such occasion as this. Some of us, who have enjoyed the advantages of your ministry for half a century, from the fulness of our hearts may be allowed to speak with per- fect freedom.
In this country, of such vast extent, wonderful resources, and enterprise, the profession of tlie Imo from the very beginning of our national existence has always been considered the surest passport to fortune and to fame !
To this profession, alike honorable and useful, you had been destined in early life. For it you had been educated, and upon its arduous duties you had entered, with every prospect of usefulness and success. All its honors and emoluments were spread out l^efore you. The future was bright and
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tempting. Industry and learning, intellectual pow- ers, and an unblemished moral cliaracter, were capital enough, with which you began your pro- fessional career.
It was at an age of our country and of the world, when there was every thing in prospect, to gratify an honorable ambition, founded upon vir- tuous principle.
But, sir, we desire, here in these courts, thank- fully to express our gratitude to God, that at this interesting crisis in your history, you counted none of these things dear unto you, in comparison of the call of God, to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ.
I have been consulting the Records of this church, and I find, that at this juncture, the Brick church became disassociated from the First church.
The venerable Dr. Rodgers, then the sole pastor of this church, greatly beloved for a long life of devotion in his master's service, and bowed down by the infirmities of age, was incapable of dis- charging the duties of the pastoral office ; and the congregation after various ineffectual attempts to agree upon the settlement of a minister, invited you to spend a Sabbath, and preach for them. This invitation was accepted, and on the 4th of June, 1810, resulted in a unanimous call to you to become their pastor ; you gave an affirmative answer in the following words : —
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Andover, July eth, 1810. *' To the Congregation of the Brick Presbyterian Church in the City oflfew York.
Dear Beethreist : — Your communication, con- taining a call to me to settle among you, as a gos- pel minister, has been the subject of advice, prayer and serious deliberation : I hereby accept it : Be- lieve me, dear brethren, that I feel thankful for the unmei'ited attention and respect, which a call from so respectable a congregation has manifested.
By the blessing of God, I hope to be with you, in the course of a few weeks.
I have given myself to God : without recalling that act, I now give myself to yoio. Pray for me fathers and brethren that I may be sent in the fulness of the blessings of the gospel of peace.
Wishing you grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I am — dear brethren, Your servant in the Lord
Gaediner Spring.
Deriving no aid whatever, except the paternal advice and counsel of your aged and venerable associate, which you gratefully received and appre- ciated, the responsibilities of a large congregation were cast entirely upon you.
The next year, the respected and venerable Rodgers was gathered to his father's ; and thence- forward you were to stand alone — and you girded yourself for the combat. Of all the venerable
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men (including Millei\ Homeyn^ Milledoler and Perine) who assisted in your ordination and instal- lation, not one remains.
Here and there, is a solitary individual who stood by your side, when your brown locks, shaded the brow of your youthful j)rime, and who beheld your rising strength, and who have unceasingly rejoiced in your increasing usefulness.
Amid all the changes we have witnessed in church and state, — all the conflicts of opinion, and strife of parties, we have had reason to rejoice in your firm and unwavering consistency — and, now, that time has gently laid its hand upon you, and your silvered locks bespeak the length of your faith- ful services, We praise the God of Heaven, and give joyful thanks, that you are still able, in the matur- ity of your intellectual vigor, and without inter- ruption to preach the same glorious gospel, in all its simplicity and purity — in all its richness and power.
At the commencement of your ministry among us, the City contained about one hundred thousand inhabitants. Its numbers now approach nearly to a million. During this period, you have seen several generations pass off the stage.
In the venerable old edifice, where for so long a time we were accustomed to worship, you were allowed for fort3^-six j^ears to hold forth, the words of eternal life to multitudes now scattered throuo^h-
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out tliis city, and all over this broad land. They still live to record with thankfulness their obliga- tions, and in spirit are with us here to-day — and far greater multitudes, having received the truth in love, have departed in the faith and hopes of the gospel.
In view of our intimate, profitable and happy relations, " which time has made venerable, friend- ship sweet, and religion sacred," this people grate- fully embrace the opportunity, which this fiftieth anniversary affords, of testifying to you their aftec- tionate attachment.
I hope that I shall be excused, if on this occa- sion, I take the liberty of stating, the providential circumstances that first led my youthful footsteps to the old Brick church, because I shall describe the experience of many others.
In 1809, just one year preceding your settlement, I came, an inexperienced youth to this city to study my profession. Although originally a Presbyte- rian by education, I had been for a season in the habit of worshipping in an Episcopal church ; so that on my arrival here, with prayerbook in hand, I was attracted by the earnest zeal of the Rev. Dr., afterwards Bishop Hobart. Every Sabbath found me regularly in the gallery of old Trinity.
It so happened, that I was seldom fortunate enough to hear my favorite preacher ; I had not learned the routine of their collegiate mutations,
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SO that I was frequently a liearer of some one, not so caj)tivatiug to my youthful fancy.
The Rev. Dr. Romeyn had then been settled in Cedar street about one year. I was induced to go and hear him, and soon became a regular attendant in the gallery of his church.
In 1810, Dr. Mason on resigning his pastoral charge in Cedar Street (between Nassau Street and Broadway) occupied Dr. Romeyn's pulpit at half-past twelve o'clock at noon, and in the even- ing.
Here it was my happiness first to hear, that justly celebrated preacher. I followed him to his new church in Murray street, and was one of his constant hearers and admirers.
Just then New England was convulsed with the uprising of Unitarianism — and you may well sup- pose, that the anathemas of Dr. Mason, were not tame or infrequent against that monstrous heresy ; and there are some who will never forget his severe denunciations also, of New England divinity, and his unmistakable allusions to a certain rising preach- er, who was suspected of favoring some jDeculiar views of the New England school. So captivated was I by the matchless eloquence of Dr. Mason, that, without at first being conscious of the fact, I contracted so strong a prejudice against you, whose face I had never seen, that I could not bear even to hear the sound of the old Brick Church bell.
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Inexperienced youtli as I was, I sliall be pardoned — for I repented.
In justice to Dr. Mason, it becomes me to say, that afterwards lie became better acquainted with the young New England divine, and I had the pleasure of seeing him an interested listener to your preaching in the old Brick Church.
In 1814, Steplien Dodge^ a member of this church, (I mention his name because his Christian fidelity deserves to be recorded,) met me in the street, and invited me to accompany him to your TJiursday evening Lecture. I had never attended an evening religious lecture : I could not resist his polite en- treaty. He called for me. He took me to the old White Lecture-room, and seated me near the pulpit among the elders. The place was full. It was a new scene to me. I well remember the very spot I occupied on that memorable evening ; and well do I remember the text, "If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand ? " At the end of the meeting all my prejudices had vanished, — and from that night forward I became a regular attendant upon your ministry. That lecture decid- ed all my future. It becomes me, with unfeigned humility and deep shame, to confess what a misera- ble improvement I have made of the inestimable privilege of listening to the gosj^el from your lips for forty-six years ; and yet I must, before all these witnesses, gratefully acknowledge that for all I
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know of religious truth, I am indebted, under God, to you.
It is no difficult matter to discover the secret of the success which has attended your ministry. We would not "offend your Christian humility," nor indulge in a boastful spirit, in reviewing the past; but gratitude to God requires us to acknowledge the means which he has blessed in making your ministry eminently successful. Your mind^ in all its powers and faculties, moral and intellectual, has been cultivated with the greatest assiduity, and you have habitually shown that you had a high and grand, as well as single aim, in preaching the gospel.
Your studies have not only been thorough, sys- tematic, and profound, but various and extensive. Thus qualified, your object has been, not only to enlighten the understanding, but to reach the hearts and consciences of men, — that our fallen nature might be redeemed, purified, and ennobled, and immortal souls fitted for heaven.
In -^QViX iweacliing you have always exalted God, and abased the sinner. You have not failed to show men their dependence and their personal ill- desert. And how faithfully have you opened to them clear views of the way of Redemption through Jesus Christ ! This has been done, with unw^onted tenderness, fidelity, and affection, under a deep im- pression of divine truth, and with a fervent desire to win souls to Christ.
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It has often been matter of amazement to others, how a young man with so short a preparation (even with your intellectual furniture) could have taken the entire charge of so large a congregation, and maintained your position among the eminent preachers who adorned the pulpit of 1810.
To a fcAv who remain, who knew the liahits of your early and later years, and who have watched your course, the secret of your success is readily told. With your untiring industry, you have always borne in mind, and humbly and gratefully acknowl- edged, your entire dependence upon the gracious influences of the Holy Spirit.
Your conduct and life have always shown what a high estimate you placed upon the services of the sanctuary; and upon carefully prepared written discourses for the Sahhath. If the exercises of the pulpit were not sustained habitually and respecta- bly, it was easy to see, that in your view nothing could supply the defect.
God has appointed the Pulpit as the chief instru- mentality for the salvation of men, and we have been taught by you, from our youth up, that it deservedly holds the preeminence over every other department of ministerial labor.
Your whole life has exemplified this truth. You have not been satisfied with flashy discourses. You have taught us that that preaching is best which displays the most of God. You have mag-
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niiied your office in making everything subserve the pulpit, and have shown to us the wide difference between the eloquence of words and the eloquence of thought.
In order that the pulpit should exert its appro- priate influence, I can triumphantly inquire, Have you not striven to feel an interest in every subject presented to your peoj^le ? Have you not always aimed to be full of your theme ? How have you thoroughly studied it ! How have you prayed over it! How deeply has the subject of every sermon penetrated your own heart, and like the electric spark, how has it kindled the flame of devotion in the hearts of your hearers ; you have not affected a warmth you did not feel ; and I must not omit to add. How have all the services of the pulpit been distinguished for their elegant completeness, sim- plicity, and spirituality! and how have the bap- tismal font and the communion table been marked by the most delicate and refined dignity and 2:)ro- priety !
Pastoral visitation has always received an ap- propriate share of your attention. This you have taught us to esteem a valuable means of grace ; but if pastoral visitation or the pulpit must be neglected the former must give way.
There have been times, many memorable seasons in your history, when God, in his infinite mercy, has been jDleased to grant to this people the out-
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pouring of tlie Holy Spirit. Tlien wliat a delightful duty it was, and how cheerfully did you improve the privilege, of going from family to family to guide inquiring souls, cheer the faint, comfort the feeble- minded, to satiate the weary, and rej)lenish the sorrowful soul !
In these delightful seasons, not one weary, heavy- laden sinner was ever overlooked. There always have been, and always will be, very pressing, if not unreasonable demands upon a minister's time for pastoral visitation. It would be marvellous indeed, if there were not isolated instances in which there were not at least apparent omissions of this duty on your part. In all my long intercourse with you and with the people whom you have so faithfully served, I do not recollect to have heard of an instance in which a pastoral visit was neglected, if there was any real call for it, or the least prospect of doing any good.
Who was ever sick and languishing — smitten of God and afflicted — that did not receive your most prompt attention ! If sickness and death could speak, what revelations would be made of sweetest sympathy — of the kindest and most faithful instruc- tions ! What words of consolation and hoj^e to the afflicted and sorrowful believer ! How do the sounds of tender, sweet, soul-subduing prayer still linger on the ear ! And when death has come up into our windows, the sound of whose footsteps
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first broke upon our sad silence ! Whose voice of heavenly consolation first, soothed our bleeding hearts !
In a woi'd, you have always appropriated your time in such a way, in public and in private, that it should accomplish most for the honor of God, and the good of your fellow-men. Time^ with which so many trifle, and of which almost all men are prodigal, has been diligently employed by you in the service of this people.
To gratify the popular ear and taste has never been the object of your ministry. Your preaching has not been a mere playing with the imagination and passions at a distance from divine truth. Nor have you ever indulged in a style which pleased the fancy of worldly men without reaching their conscience. Your theology has afforded the best field for tender, solemn, and sublime eloquence. "The system of theology," prepared with great labor by you, not for the schools but for the j^eople, will never be forgotten by those who were so highly favored as to hear it.
In 1816 and onward, I was acquainted with a number of young men, of well-informed minds and cultivated taste, who were in the habit of listening to those doctrinal discourses, (among the most im- portant and effective, in my humble judgment, you ever preached ;) and when the sermon was the theme of discussion afterwards, while some apjjroved —
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none actually reviled — others bitterly complained that they were " hard sayings, who conld hear them." Mark the sequel : these very complaining young men were the first, on each successive Sab- bath, to occupy their wonted places in the sanc- tuary, and to listen with increasing interest to these searching, humbling, weighty truths. Many of these young men, if not all, became signal trophies of re- deeming grace. In this \v(xj you did much to ele- vate the tone of Biblical knowledge and piety. Multitudes with a new interest began to search the scriptures, and through your instrumentality a large number of them devoted themselves to the ministry.
In exhibiting the distinguishing doctrines of the gospel, without courting opposition or making your- self needlessly offensive, you have not shunned to resist fanaticism and spurious religious excitements. You have aimed to preach the whole truth in sim- plicity and godly sincerity.
During all these fifty years you have rebuked our pride and reproved our worldliness ; you have set our sins before us, you have warned us of the coming wrath, and you have exhibited to us the cross in all its sublime and holy attractions. In what persuasive accents have you commended to our acceptance the infinitely compassionate Saviour ! and how have you urged us, by all tbe allurements of his love, to the everlasting enjoyment of his rest!
IM BKICK CHUKCH MEMORIAL.
You liave baptized our cliildreu, and our chil- dren's children, for several generations ; and great numbers of them you have helped us to deposit in the grave, in the sweet hope of that glorious morn- ing, when they that sleep in Jesus shall awake in his likeness.
I need not allude to the many printed volumes which you have sent forth, to instruct and edify your fellow-men. They speak for themselves. They will prove an enduring monument of your intel- lectual vigor, and of your consistent, mature, and warm-hearted piety.
While an enlightened and liberal charity has ever ke]3t you within the bounds of kindness to- ward those who differed from you in opinion, you have not been induced to depart from the high standard of evangelical truth which has ever dis- tinguished your ministry.
In all seasons of calainity^ during plague and pestilence, personal peril and public danger, you have always been at your post, and, with unflinch- ing fidelity and devotion, ministered to the wants of the sick and the dying, and comforted the sorrow- ful and the bereaved.
During the many gracious visitations with which this church has been blessed under your labors, it were no easy task truthfully to describe the deep and sweet solemnity which has pervaded our as- semblies.
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" How sweet and liow awful was tlie place ! " What days of heaven upon earth ! no tongue can describe them. How lovely the sanctuary ! every pew filled, the galleries crowded in every part with anxious and devout worshij)pers. What tokens of the divine presence ! what pledges of his love ! What a beautiful and sublime spectacle, to behold the vast assembly, retiring after each ser- vice, in profound silence^ to meditate and pray.
Amid these scenes of mercy, it is delightful to know that almost every member of the church was actively employed.
In addition to the services of the sanctuary, the weekly lecture, and the ordinary prayer-meetings, there were maintained for a long period twelve neighborhood prayer-meetings, at private houses, on every Friday evening, in different parts of the congregation, sustained by committees averaging seven each, which were so distributed as every week to ensure a continual rotation. All these eftbrts received your watchful supervision.
The Old White Lectnre-room^ so redolent with the richest perfume during these halcyon days, claims here a passing tribute. What a fountain of sweet memories does its simple name unseal ! Here was the scene of some of your most successful la- bors. What deep and pungent convictions of sin ! What penitential sighings ! What tears of contri- tion ! What heart throbbings ! What numerous 10
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conversions ! What songs of triiimpliant rejoicing ! It must be reserved for eternity to recount the triumphs of grace witnessed in the Old White Lec- ture-room.
In these memorable days, the manifestation of the divine presence was often so evident, that we seemed every time we entered the sanctuary to hear God's declaration to Moses, as if audibly re- peated : " Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." Then did the great Master of Assemblies walk amid the golden candlesticks, and make the place of his feet glorious.
These were days and scenes never to be forgot- ten. It is refreshing to look back upon them, and give God thanks for these bright spots in your history.
That great and gracious Being, " in whose hand our breath is, and whose are all our ways," has been pleased to spare you, while you have seen all your compeers laid in the grave. It is pleasant, yet mournful at this hour, to recall the names of some of the officers of this church, who labored most harmoniously with you, and who have gone to their rest on high.
I may not omit to mention the sedate and ven- erable Bingliam ; the warm-hearted and heavenly- minded Wliitloch; the meek and childlike Oimning- ham; the intelligent and upright ^c^^z^(3-5 / the wise
BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL. 147
and useful Lockwood ; tlie respected and pious Ha- vens; tlie courteoMs BnlMey ; the conservative and gentlemanly De Forest ; the sober-minded Stepliens; the urbane and gentle Halsey ; the amiable and ex- emplary Oakley ; the earnest and devout Bokee ; the humble, lowly, and refined McComh ; the guile- less and unassuming Brown ; the modest and diffi- dent Luyster ; the sincere and unpretending Mead; the consistent and devoted Harding ; and Adams, the inflexible and just. Their record is on high.
It would be most gratifying, if time permitted, to review the rise and progress of the various be- nevolent and religious enterprises which have arisen during your ministry, and in which you have borne a conspicuous part. They are the glory of our land. The triumphs of the gospel, in this and in other lands, have distinguished this period beyond all others. Science and the arts, education and literature, have made advances such as the world never before saw.
During all this time, what could have been ac- complished without the xndpitf And may I not appeal to this great assembly, and confidently ask, " How important and appropriate a share has this pulpit borne in the glorious work of saving the world?"
The part you have been permitted to bear in these heaven-born enterprises, and in demonstra- ting the power of the pulpit as the most important
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agency in converting the world, will be remem- bered with sincerest gratitude by all coming gene- rations.
The joyful solemnities of this interesting hour, which must be limited in continuance, will not al- low of even a rapid glance at-numerous other topics which crowd u]3on our memories.
I cannot, I dare not, however, in justice to my- self, and to " all these children whom God hath given you," omit to say, that we are indebted to your ministry more than to anything and all things else beside, on earth. " Tlie things that are seen are temporaV We can only say, out of our full hearts. We love you sincerely, ardently love you, and here in these courts record it.
I should be derelict in duty, and do violence to the best feelings of my nature, if I should neg- lect on this occasion to pay my feeble tribute of grateful respect and love to the memory of that beloved Woman, who for upwards of fifty-four years was the companion of your toils and the sharer of your joys.
From the very beginning of your ministry, with a clear and sagacious intellect, and " a zeal accord- ing to knowledge," she identified herself with all your interests and duties as pastor of this people : to a clear and discriminating mind, she united ex- cellent judgment and piety.
Her social qualities were of a high order, and,
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combined with her courteous demeanor, secured the confidence and esteem of the whole congregation.
Those of this congregation who have known the large family which she reared, will require no enu- meration from me of her peculiar traits, to magnify the amount of care, of toil, of night-watchings ; or the patience, economy, prudence, and solicitude which she uniformly exhibited during your whole ministry.
"She worked willingly with her hands. She looked well to the ways of her household. She never ate the bread of idleness. Strength and honor were her clothing."
Comparatively very few of this people have ever known how much they were indebted to her watch- fulness and industry. When oppressed and over- burdened with the responsibilities and cares of a large congregation, how, with a device and fore- thought which faithful woman only knows, did she interpose her willing hand and heart to relieve you of domestic toil, and prudently, studiously, and in- dustriously superintend all your household affairs, with a vigilance that never slept !
It would be difficult to describe the labors, the anxieties, the perplexities of which she relieved you, when she knew that the claims of your people and your preparations for the pulpit made constant demands upon your time and vigor equal to your utmost capacity.
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Her encouraging look, lier prudent endearments and cheerful smile, amid all her cares and duties, have often chased away your despondency, and bade yon go on yonr way rejoicing.
God, in his infinite wisdom, has seen fit to take her to himself. " She has gone to a scene where her virtues will not miss their employment." " Her children arise up, and call her blessed. Her husband also, and he praiseth her."
But I must close.
Long, my revered pastor, may yon stand in this pulpit. May the rich lessons of experience and love from your exhaustless storehouse, (garnered there by fifty years of untiring industry,) continue to flow from your lips, to edify and comfort an affec- tionate and devoted people, for a great while to come.
May he, who hath hitherto so kindly watched over you, deal gently with you now in this hour of your trial. May he fill you with his Spirit, com- fort you with his presence, and ever enlighten your path, until the evening sun of a long and well-sjient day shall shine serenely upon the closing scene, and the blessed Saviour, taking you by the hand, lead you peacefully and triumphantly through the dark valley.
" His rod and his staff comfort you."
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DANIEL LORD'S ADDRESS.
The chairman having announced the order of the exercises, Dai^iel Lord, Esq., delivered the fol- lowing address. He said :
Fifty years ministering to the same people! What a remarkable event in the history of a con- gregation ! remarkable in the long service of the minister, and in the steady love and satisfaction of .his people. It calls for the expression of devout thankfulness to God by both. It deserves to be perpetuated by a durable memorial, and warrants a mutual congratulation.
Fifty years of labor in an intellectual, arduous, and painful vocation ! Fifty years of such toil per- mitted to be exercised by one pastor, and to be enjoyed by one community ! It involves a vast thouo-ht ! The venerated dead who have been named to you as once here, — where are they ? Fifty years upon them ! They have passed away ; but they are witnesses still with us. For here we have been taught, that the end of this gospel is to bring those who are faithful to the spirits of just men made perfect. It adds to the sacredness of this occasion and of this place, that we believe that the spirits of the "just made perfect" look down with favor at all that is worthy in these cele- brations.
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Fifty years of pastoral service ! What a mass of labor ! Two orations a week, one or two stud- ied discourses, and innumerable calls for intelligent instruction, and sacred and holy counsels ! Fifty years' service ! Why, w^hat effect ought it to pro- duce ! My friend has spoken of those who were aged. But how many have come up from child- hood, and grown old during those fifty years ! I remember the gentlemen who have been named, w^hen I was a boy, a child : they are gone, but are they the only ones w^ho have partaken in the ser- vices which we now commemorate ? Generations have risen up, grown old, and passed away, under this ministration of fifty years. Fifty years spared to an intellectual man ! Thanks are due to God for so great a mercy. Not fifty dragging years, which merely leave upon the calendar the marks of so many items of duration, but fifty years of labor, fifty years of motion, fifty years of eloquence, fifty years culminating, not in debility, but in vigor ; not in the leanness of old age, but in the fatness of intellectual strength ! Thanks be to God for so great a mercy !
This occasion calls on us to look at another thing in this result of fifty years. It has been fifty years of concord in this excited city — fifty years of Ameri- can life — fifty years of a changing population — fifty years of a congregation united, under circumstances not always the most easy to be harmonious in —
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fifty years of real Cliristian unity in one congrega- tion ! It is a circumstance not to be proud of, — for man alone could not do it ; but it is a thing to be thankful for, because it does seem to be an evi- dence of God's presence.
Let us look for a moment at the people among whom these fifty years have been spent, not in the way of self-gratulation, but of a sober estimate of the progress of which we are now speaking. It is a part of the history of this church, that in the Kevolution it was the Democratic part of the larg- er Presbyterian church which comprised it. It was the patriotic, in opposition to the conservative and Tory part of the Presbyterian body in this city. The Scotch and Irish elements were vastly conservative ; the American element, the New Eng- land element, settled itself in that edifice of which we, as the successors, are worshippers. Our prede- cessors were of those who, in the Presbyterian com- munity as in every other, form the middle class, and are at once the basis and the bond of society. As time rolled on, these men, according to the natural thrift of an industrious people, became a powerful community ; and in 1809, after this Revolutionary toil had all passed over, and its memory had be- come in some degree forgotten, there was a neces- sary division in the larger body of which this con- gregation was a part. But here remained the descendants of those hard working, hard thinking,
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indepeudent men. As I remember tMs community in early life, the Brick Clinrcli congregation was composed of men in the middle ranks of life — thinking, working, independent men — men whom you could not drive by fear, nor coax by favor, and with whom you could not deal without intel- lectual conviction. Convince them, and they were yours ; fail to convince them, and they were the most independent body of men that could be seen. Now it was among such a people as that, that this fifty years' ministry began. It was to a peoj^le like this, that our esteemed friend was called to minis- ter. This people underwent those changes in our history which, when I mark them to you, will show that there did exist causes of dissension, of diffi- culty, of controversy, things uncongenial with that harmony which always has existed among us. We had the war of 1812, with all its exciting political questions, — questions which, though they were po- litical, really went into the very bosom of every man's family. We had the most severe party con- troversies following- upon that war. Then came the period of religious enterprise — the establish- ment of the great charities outside of the church, endeavoring to combine men of all descriptions in the same course of charity. But that infirmity which belongs to all human things led to divisions of opinion, and to excitement respecting them. Then we came upon the times of slavery and anti-
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slavery. These questions touclied us at every point, and they were questions to which the pastor was not a stranger. He had his opinions, and they were not concealed nor withheld. But how did he deal with his people, amid these topics of excite- ment and distraction? He took the philosophic ground, that if the fountain was pure the stream would be clean. He did not go down to stop the mouth of the river, but he sought to clear it at the source. He went upon the gospel principle, that a regenerated heart with an enlightened conscience would follow out every religious principle to its true practice. It was his office, and charge me not with adulation for saying I think he fulfilled it. Those who would go too far, and were in danger of becoming fanatical, found in him the man to discourage them ; and those who were cold, and would not go far enough, felt the excitements of his preaching. It was not necessary for him to mingle otherwise with the controversies of the day ; it was enough for him to furnish the Christian man with the antidote against that which was within him, and the armor against that which was without. And it does seem to me that, under no other mode of ministration, in the circumstances through which \ we have passed, could the people have been kept so harmonious. Upon those great principles of the gospel all men could unite ; and by reason of that spirit of harmony we have passed through strug-
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gles and difficulties of the gravest sort. We passed tlirougli this period of trial through the difficult, the very difficult, although a23parently in- significant, process of settling upon a new place of worship, a subject upon which many congregations have broken. We have harmoniously called to his aid a colleague. All this has taken place in conse- quence of that spirit of harmony, which has grown out of the preaching of the simple gospel as the remedy for all the evils marking both the individ- ual and social state.
I have already spoken of the general drift of his ministrations; — the degree and manner in which they have been exercised we ought not to fail to notice. And I do it in no spirit of exaggeration, — in no spirit of wonder. The deeds of a giant, al- though they might be great in themselves, would be but a poor example to hold up, because but few can be giants ; and where the actions done are very extraordinary, the benefit of the examj^le is lost. What strikes me as particularly calling for our thanks to God upon this occasion is, that the re- sults which have been produced, so beautiful to look at, have been such as are within the reach of ordinary men, with ordinary prudence, zeal, and labor ; and that, while the endurance of life and vigor has in the present case been extraordinary, in no other respect has that which has been done here been that which may not be done any where.
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But it has been a toilsome and laborious office. I have no belief in genius, exceipt that it is a great capacity for labor. We have had labors in season and out of season, labors of the mind and labors of the heart, labors burdened with thou2:lits of the consequences which waited upon them : of these we have had the enjoyment, and of these we now reap the blessings. It was a duty to labor. I am sure that our friend would say, " Laboring as I have, I have not done all that I ought to have done." To us, who look at and have enjoyed them, his labors have been great ; we appreciate them, and we cheer- fully pay the tribute of our acknowledgment.
Dear Sir, you have labored, and you have labor- ed well.
Labored how ? In the ministry of the gospel : — a labor not of meditation and thinking merely, but of learning also — in which was involved not only the production of your own best thoughts, but of the rich thoughts given by holy men to the im- provement of the world. That ministry which is not enriched by the learning of the wise and holy is like the ]30ol into which no stream flows, which no spring supplies, and daily grows shallow, muddy, and unrefreshing. We therefore call upon the minister of the word, and do it rightly, that he shall not only be thoughtful, l^ut studious and learned, if we are to anoint him faithful.
Such a man we have had. The duties of such a
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life have been absorbing. Its requirements sliut out a routine of polite, or of merely civil and un- necessary participation in all the smaller concerns of the congregation. Those who, in this or any other considerate congregation, should have expect- ed this, ought to have been, and must have been, disappointed. Such a course would be inconsis- tent with the dignity of a learned, laborious, and painstaking minister. Such has been the ministry we acknowledge ; yet, when reverses, when afflic- tion, when distress came, in any shape, we never lacked his counsel and tenderest sympathy; espe- cially— and I turn to it with great emphasis — we never lacked fitting prayer. I cannot pass by the fact of the j^articular appropriateness of the services which we have enjoyed in the matter of occasional prayer. Let this congregation turn their memories to any event in which there was a peculiarity, an affliction, a calamity, or a remarkable cause of joy, and let me ask, if the supplications by their minister in his services, public or private, were not of the tenderest sympathy, of the wisest and best desires, pointing to the aid from on high which was most clearly needed.
It is but just that this congregation should, by the tribute which we now bring, acknowledge with thanks to God, these laborious services so long en- joyed.
But this memorial has another trait of deep sig-
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nificance. We do what we can to put honor, so far as man may, on the ministry as a lofty calling. It is intellectual in the highest degree. It demands great personal devotion, sacrifices, and efforts. It exacts a social and moral purity, for which unaided human nature almost seems incapable. When men in this calling have faithfully earned the approba- tion of those who have witnessed their achieve- ments, why should they not have their ovations and their triumphs ? Soldiers and statesmen have their inferior exploits celebrated by triumphs and tri- umphal arches, and perpetuated by the decorations of sculpture and of painting. Why should not this profession, renouncing to a great extent, as they do, the profitable emoluments of intellectual labor and secular enterprise, — why, I say, should not they receive something that shall be like a statue, a picture, or an arch, something which shall be, not to themselves only, but to their j)osterity and the world, an acknowledgment of excellence and success ?
It is in this sense that my heart unites in this tribute, both as a member of this congregation and as a man. Looking at large uj)on the influence of this magnanimous profession upon the great in- terests of the world, I can only say that it was well summed up in the account of his fifty years' min- istry by our esteemed friend, in the comprehensive thought. Redemption; — the Redemption of the
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world from sin, from the power of sin ; the buying out from captivity of the souls of men : Redemp- tion, the effect of which, as he showed us upon another still later occasion, is the bringing of those who receive it, to the spirits of just men made per- fect. On which occasion, was not the resurrection of the dead brought before us, not as a dogma, but as a household, personal, and domestic truth, tell- ing us (and it touches my very heart) that those of us who attain the average length of life, if we reach heaven, shall there find more to receive us with joy, than we shall have left here to mourn us ? This congregation, therefore, rightly judge and feel that the gift we have to make is justified and de- served by every consideration.
It is a gift of intrinsic value. It may well be that an earthen cup and pitcher would serve the material wants as well as the costly testimonial which we desire to lay before our Pastor. But that beautiful incident strikes me forcibly, wherein a woman took a box of very costly ointment, and poured it out in what seemed to be a waste ; and it was asked why it was not sold, and the price given to the poor. A lesson was then taught, that nothing can be a waste, however costly, which con- secrates, ornaments, and perj)etuates a great Chris- tain sentiment or principle. If it is a principle worth consecrating, worth perpetuating, that the ministry of the gospel is a great and an elevated
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office, and tliat it sliould be faithfully executed, and that it is deserving of honor when so executed, then, valuable as this gift is, nay, were it ten times more valuable, it would be but appropriate. With these views, and in behalf of those oifering this testimonial, I beg leave to read, for the sanction of this assembly, this letter of presentation : —
Reverend and Dear Sir : —
The people of your charge unite with you in thanks to God, for having enjoyed with you the fiftieth year of your ministry among them.
They gratefully acknowledge the faithfulness of your services to their fathers and themselves, in preaching to them the gospel of Christ, with sin- cerity and singleness of purpose, with prayer and labor, not having in your view the fear or favor of man, but the honor and glory of God, in advanc- ing the kingdom of his Son ; and having before you chiefly the consecration to him of the love and service of those who are committed to your charge.
They cannot (as they ought not) forbear to ex- press to you their thanks and love for your sym- pathy in their joys and prosperity, and in their afflictions and bereavements ; nor can they fail to acknowledge you as the tender friend, as well as the counsellor to sacred duties and the minister of heavenly consolation.
They, with the Christian multitudes of our coun- 11
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try, look upon you as having an honorable place in its sacred literature, whose printed words will continue to advance the object of your ministry after you shall have entered into rest.
They also bear witness to your usefulness as a public-spirited Christian man, in the councils of the church at large, and in the literary, religious, and benevolent institutions of your age, bringing, not only thoughts of wisdom, but words of peace.
As a slight mark of their esteem, they now ask your acceptance of a durable expression and me- morial of their friendship and love, and of their sincere and abiding reverence.
Me. Lord moved the adoption by the meeting of the Addi'ess of Presentation.
The motion was seconded by Jasper Corning, Esq., who spoke as follows : —
ADDRESS OF MR. CORNING.
I esteem it a great privilege, sir, to have the op- portunity of seconding this interesting memorial which has just been read by Mr. Lord. When I look around upon this large audience, and after the in- teresting history of this church which has been given by my two predecessors, it seems to be almost presumptuous for me to say anything ; but when I cast my mind back for about forty-nine years, to the time when I was first connected with this peo-
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pie, and with this beloved pastor, I must say a word of thankfulness and gratitude to hiin for the instructions which he gave me in my youth, and for my first vivid and solemn impressions of the truth of God caused by the Words that fell from his lips upon that Sabbath when I first entered the old Brick Church in 1811. Never shall I forget it. And when the first communion season came, — but I need not tell you, who have sat under his minis- try, of the solemnity which always pervades that interesting season of communion instituted by our Lord and Saviour, when he brake the bread and distributed it, with the cup. And when I heard our pastor's impressive remarks, his persuasive and soul-thrilling arguments, my heart and conscience were pierced. Those feelings never left me, and by the grace of God, I trust they were followed by the renovation of my heart. I thank you, my dear sir, [turning to Dr. Spring,] for all that affec- tionate instruction which you gave me in the heat of my youth, — in my forwardness and abruptness. I well remember when you placed your hand upon my head, and said, " Not so fast, my son ; gently." Never shall I forget it.
Very few of the persons here present know the fact that this beloved pastor, for the first two or three years of his ministry, was a delicate man. He was not little, as I was about to say, for he was tall ; but he was so feeble in health that the con-
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gregation obtained an assistant for three months at one time to aid him in his labors. What reasons for thankfulness to God have we when we see him here to-night, and when we heard him, a few weeks ago, deliver his fiftieth anniversary sermon in this second temjple. But when I think of those beloved departed ones to whom I once used to look up with such reverence, respect, and affection, I feel saddened : — Mills, Whitlock, Prince, Havens, Ad- ams, Cunningham, and many others— time would fail me to state the whole number, — for there was a period in the history of this church when there were sixty men upon whom that beloved pastor could call to lead in prayer. Where is there such a church now ? We have spoken and you have heard of the tribute of respect that is to be paid to him to-night ; but what is that compared with the glorious tribute which is all around him to- night ?
As I again look around upon your faces, and think of the generations, one by one, whom he has baptized and received into the fellowship of the church, I pray, and you will pray, that he may be spared yet many years, to gather in that other generation of children which is just arising here. Would not that be the crowning glory of his life ? to see another outpouring of the Spirit of God here, such as those which he has already seen, and I have seen, and many others, also, have seen, in
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this congregation, — to gather in one more blessed harvest of the lambs of the flock to present to his Saviour, before going on high to receive his crown of glory. Oh ! how blessed is the truth, that they who turn many unto righteousness shall shine as stars in the firmament for ever and ever ! I pray God that he may be spared yet many years for this holy service ; and that, when God in his holy providence shall say to him, Come up higher, his mantle may fall upon you, my beloved friend, [Dr. Hoge,] that you may be a happy and successful minister of the gospel ; and that you, too, may, if it is God's will, see your fiftieth anniversary.
I second that motion, sir, with the greatest pleasure.
The Chairman put the question, when the ad- dress was unanimously adopted. The service of plate was then formally presented.
REV. DR. SPRING'S REPLY.
It does not become me, Mr. Chairman, to occupy your time to-night. It is a very humble part which I may bear in these exercises. You have given me fifty years of active service among you ; and I am
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more than satisfied to resign to my friends this passing liour. They will certainly excuse me from preaching to them now ; it is their turn to preach to me. And I may well honor their ingenuity in that they have already been able to say so much upon so bald a theme.
I have listened with thankfulness to words of at- tachment and confidence, and even to words of high commendation. These kind thoughts, so commen- datory of my character and course, as well as this beautiful and splendid expression of your bounty, affect me. I am embarrassed by them. They op- press me. They make me ashamed, because they remind me of so many defects in my character, and so many shortcomings in my ministry. Indeed, my beloved flock, I am not worthy of such com- mendations.
But while they humble me, they make me thank- ful— thankful to God because he has given me a loving and munificent people, and thankful to you that you are not ashamed of your pastor. There are trials in the Christian ministry, and it also has its endearments. Scenes like these, and such ex- pressions of love and confidence from intelligent minds and sanctified hearts, are fitted to encourage me in my work ; and, next to the light of God's countenance, they will light up my passage to the grave. I have not anticipated a gloomy old age, though now and then a sombre coloring has flitted
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across my imagination in view of tlie future. But whatever have been my apprehensions, you have thrown light upon my path this evening, and I shall leave this sanctuary to-night, feeling that I may yet go on my way among you, and rejoice as I go. Many a time have I offered the prayer, that I might not be allowed to be a cumberer of the ground ; and I repeat it now. But while I do so, it is not with a desponding mind ; nor will I yield to discouragement so long as I have your testimony that my imperfect services are not only profitable to others, but creditable to myself. There are yet new fields of copious thought before me, which though I despair of overtaking, on the outskirts of which we may perhaps yet travel together and reap the ripening harvest.
As to the past fifty years of my ministry among you, I have little to say. " Ye are my glory and joy." My object has been single. It has been to do some good in the world, in the pulpit, and through the press. I have been " your servant for Jesus' sake," and the servant of no other set of men. My time, my studies, my influence, my heart, have been yours. I have ever regarded it as a wise maxim, to endeavor to do one thing well, rather than many things indifferently ; and therefore have been your minister. That I have come short of this high mark, I well know. Yet this has been my aim — often, I trust, calling to my remembrance
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that I am " set to watcli for souls as one who must give an account."
But, my fellow-men, mucli of tlie credit here to-niglit belongs to you ; and but a very small por- tion of it belongs to me. I have been surrounded by men for the past fifty years, who have held up my hands by their counsel, by their example, and by their prayers. Many a time, as was alluded to by my friend who introduced those resolutions, we were ujDon the very verge of dissolution, and it seemed to the most thoughtful actually impossible to keep the congregation from being cleaved asun- der ; but that God, whose hand is upon all things, spiritual and moral, came to our aid, and we re- mained a united people. As my friend Lord said, they were God's influences, added to the moral in- fluences of truth, that have preserved us as we are. It was my j)rivilege to have what in modern literature is called a prestige, which has been much in my favor. I entered upon the work under the influence of a great name.
My venerable predecessor, the Rev. Dr. John Rodgers, whose last official act was to lay his hands upon my youthful head and lead the Presbytery in the ordination service, on the 8th of August, 1810, may not be forgotten on such a day as this. He was the Father of Presbyterianism in this city, and the founder of the Brick Church. And I will ex- press the hope that ere long a tablet to his mem-
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ory will Ibe erected in the edifice in wliicli we stand.
There is another tablet too, you have lately erected, in memory of one who entered upon this field of labor with me, and whose cheerful devote- ment to your interests and mine deserves a place in all our hearts. Pardon me if I ask you to take a few steps to yonder vault, and aid me, in this glad hour, in weaving a laurel wreath around the head of her who for fifty years labored with me as an efficient helper in my responsible labors.
But above all would I give honor to the God of heaven, — and, what has not a little delighted me, my friends who have preceded me have thought of him. Mr. Chairman, let the God of Zion be exalted.
In thankfulness I have listened to those remarks, and I accept this token of your favor with grati- tude.
Dr. Spring then offered the following resolution, which was adopted : —
Mesolved^ That the Session and Board of Trustees of this church be requested to consider the propriety of erecting a suitable tablet to the memory of the late Dr. John Kodgers, in some part of this edifice.
Dr. Rodgers, grandson of Dr. John Bodgers, re- turned thanks.
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The Rev. De. Keebs then presented and read an Address from the Presbytery of New York, prefacing it with the following remarks :
ADDRESS OF THE REV. DR. KREBS.
De. Seeing : — My dear Sir, my honored Friend and Father : I think myself happy in having been selected by your Co-Presbyters and mine to be the organ of theii' communication with you upon this interesting occasion. But it would ill become me to occupy this time with the expression of my per- sonal feelings. I am charged with the presenta- tion to you of the sentiments of your brethren in the ministry of Jesus Christ. When it was made known to them, about the beginning of July, that the people of this congregation designed this com- memorative service, which was at first appointed for the sixth of August, they immediately arranged to be represented in it. And, although the ap- pointment was necessarily postponed by the affect- ing event which, when we call to mind its circum- stances and coincidences, we cannot help regarding as an EUTHANASIA, it has not been thought proper to make any alteration of the Address which had been prepared. I have now the happiness
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of presenting it to you in the name of tlie Presby tery
Dr. Krebs then read the Address as follows :
ADDRESS OF THE PRESBYTERY OF NEW YORK.
To THE Rev. Gardiner Spring, D.D., LL.D.,
Our Venerable Co-Presbyter and Beloved Bra. in the Gospel Ministry :
The Presbytery of New York, having learned with great satisfaction that it is proposed by the congregation of the Brick Presbyterian Church in this city to commemorate, on the sixth day of August, the fiftieth anniversary of your ordination and instalment as their pastor, unanimously agreed to avail themselves of the occasion to present to you, through the undersigned, their affectionate sal- utations and recognition of the interesting event.
During this period of your active life, you have been a spectator of the wonderful progress which has marked the history of the world and of our own country, recorded within this interval. You have seen the equally wonderful progress of the church of God, and of our own church, widely extended through this land, and spreading with missionary enterprise among the heathen. You have seen this great city growing from a few score
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thousands to nearly a million of inhabitants, and enriclied and adorned with wealth, with institu- tions of religion, learning, and art, and achieving mighty influence, until it has already become the third among the capitals of Christendom, and is aspiring to be the commercial capital of the world. You have seen the churches of our Order, from less than half a score in number, multiplied ten- fold, and strengthened with many tokens of gra- cious revival and divine blessing; and you have borne a favored part therein. You have seen many of them — including the Old Brick itself, venerable with sacred and historic associations — removed with the advance of population and pros- perity from the sites where they were originally established, to better positions, and more conven- ient and beautiful edifices.
It has pleased him who appoints the number of our months and determines the bounds of our habitation, to prolong your days with vigor, and your ministry with abundant usefulness, — while you have seen all who in this city were your con- temporaries in the ministry at the commencement of your own, passing away. The fathers, where are they ? and the prophets, do they live for ever ? The aged members of this congregation who, then here, solicited and witnessed your ordination, are all gone. Even that younger band, who stood around you and welcomed you as their pastor while
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yet tlie dew of your youth was upon you, and they too were blossoming with promise, are represented by a few hoary heads. The names of the rest of them have been transferred from the registries of this church to monumental stone. Their enduring record is on high.
Of the members of the Presbytery at the time of your ordination, not one survives among us. Of all who succeeded them, and compose it now, every one admitted with your consent, no small propor- tion has come into human life within the period of your prolonged pastorate.
We salute you as the Father of the Presbytery. We hail, with you, this day, the completion of half a century spent in the ministry of our adorable Lord and Saviour, and in your first and only pas- torate laboriously and happily devoted to the edi- fication of one congregation, — surpassing even the prolonged service of the sainted Kodgers in the same field, — an example, the first in our history as a Presbytery and in this city, and any where as rare as it is beautiful and touching, especially in these times of restlessness and change.
We are glad to acknowledge the dignity, cour- tesy, and kindness which have impressed upon your younger brethren the wise counsels by which our conferences and dehberations have been as- sisted,— the encouragement we have derived from your cooperation in works and labors of love, —
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the comfort of your sympatliy in trials, — and tlie force of your j^ersonal example and unstained char- acter, and of all tlie grace of God that was with you, — whereby the common salvation has been promoted, our intercourse with you and with each other has been so harmonious and so happy, and our love and veneration for your person and minis- try have been continually enlarged.
We rejoice with you in the long and beautiful attachment of the people among whom you have passed your ministry in all good prosperity and honor, — in their recent consideration and care to lighten the labors of your declining years by giv- ing to you a colleague in your pastoral office, — and in this present demonstration of their continued affection and respect.
Our prayers are joined with them that your days to come may yet be long, — ^like the palm-tree planted in the house of the Lord, and flourishing in the courts of our God, and bringing forth fruit in old age. And when all your work is done, may your last look on the world be cheered with the sight of the Redeemer's kingdom advancing, and your peaceful de^^arture be followed with an abun- dant entrance into that glorious kingdom, where they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to right- eousness as the stars for ever and ever.
We subscribe ourselve.s, your brethren in the
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gospel of our Lord, on behalf of tlie Presbytery of New York,
JOHN M. KREBS,
Pastor of the Rutgers Street Church.
W. W. PHILLIPS, Pastor of the \st Pres. Cli. in Kew York,
R. McCARTEE,
Pastor Westminster Church, New York.
EBENEZER PLATT,
Euling Elder in Rutgers Street Church.
WM. WALKER, Ruling Elder Pres. Ch., 5th Av. & 19iA St. New York, July, 1860.
At its conclusion. Dr. Spring replied by a bow. He then said tbat a beloved brother, Kev. Dr. Samuel Spring, of Hartford, bad expected to be present on this occasion, but as he had been de- tained by sickness, he had kindly sent his address in manuscript. Dr. Spring, therefore, moved that his son, Gardii^er Spring, Jr., Esq., should be re- quested to read it in behalf of his uncle. The motion was adopted, and Mr. Spring then read the address, as follows :
ADDKESS OF EEV. SAMUEL SPRING, D. D.
Mr. Chairman : — With no design of throwing a shade of pensiveness over a most joyous proceed-
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ing, I yet find it difficult to suppress the thouglit that there is one element wanting to complete our satisfaction here, where there is so much to animate, and so much to awaken gratitude. I look around upon this gathering of my brother's flock, and my brother's friends ; I look back upon fifty years of labor spent here in defence of the truth — how suc- cessfully, and how much to the approbation of the great Witness and Judge, another day will tell — and I find that language is but a poor medium to convey a just impression of our mutual thankfulness and joy. And yet I have a filial wish that cannot be gratified, but whose gratification, if such a thing might be, would fill our cup till it should run over. I do not now so much advert to the painfully felt want of lier presence, who, with your pastor, came among you in the days of her youth and loveliness, has shared with him these responsibilities, cheered him in many an hour of labor and lassitude, and has made his home — what the home of a minister should be, next to the pulpit — the dearest sj^ot on earth. None who knew her can doubt that her genial spirit would respond to every grateful affec- tion, which this occasion may well insj^ire. But my thoughts have been wandering to another ne- gation, and I could wish, despite its impossibility, that the father and mother, who watched over your pastor's infancy, guided his youth, saw him inducted into the sacred office, and led to this large
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field of usefulness, and often blessed God that lie permitted them to realize their fondest hopes con- cerning the son of their vows, — I could wish, though nature and providence almost alike forbid the ut- terance, that they were here to mingle their gratu- lations and thankssfivino^s with ours. But thouo^h they have long since joined the spirits of the just made perfect, we know the sentiments they would entertain, and what they would say, could their years have reached to this time. As their humble representative, let me give utterance to some of the thoughts which, were they here, they would be eager to express. I imagine I hear them say, " We received this our son from God, and we gave him back to God. At the baj^tismal font, at the family altar, and in our closets, this dedication was made and renewed. And it has been crowned with di- vine acceptance. We sought not for him tem23oral prosperity, the honor which cometh from men, official renown and popularity, nor even length of days, though all these have been vouchsafed be- yond our expectation. We sought for him the presence of Christ in his work, success in gathering God's elect into his kingdom, boldness in declaring the whole counsel of God, and a cheerful courage as he should see the work of the Lord prospering in the hands of a mediator. And all this and more we have been permitted to witness. And for this we would ascribe the honor where it is due. It 12
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was not we, but the grace of God wliicli was witli us. . We lay at the feet of tlie divine Saviour our tribute of acknowledgment of liis mercy, and adore Ms matchless, condescending grace."
Something like this would be their sentiments, could they speak to us to-day. They were wont to ascribe all they were, and all their children were, to the rich and sovereign grace of the Most High. And what if their voice is not heard here, and what if it be an unsupported hypothesis that they even now know what is transpiring in this j^lace of prayer — yet we know their spirit, and it is a spirit which children, who reverence their memory, may well cherish. One of them has left on record that she was " conscious of stronger actings of faith in God's covenant in the consecration of this son to him, than in the dedication of any other of her children ; " and in the more vigorous, masculine mind with which she was associated in the parental work, there was a coincidence with these opinions and hopes. And I speak not my own sentiments alone, but those of two others, when I say, Let God have all the glory of what our elder and long revered brother is and has done. If he has " in- creased while we have decreased," it has been with the "increase of God." And if we can read his heart, there is not, amid all the memories and ex- ultations of this day, one sentiment that takes the precedence of this, " Not I, but the grace of God
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whicli was with me." Your tribute, my friends, — his labors, more abundant than have fallen to the lot of most of the servants of our Master, — this rare completion of a life unusually favored, — ^he lays at the feet of the Crucified, with no more earnest or dearer wish than this, that " God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ."
At the conclusion of Dr. Spring's address. Rev. Dr. Kodgers, a grandson of Dr. John Rodgers, to whom Dr. Spring had alluded as having been the " Father of Presbyterianism in New York," arose and said :
ADDRESS OF REV. DR. RODGERS,
OF BOUNDBROOK, N. J.
Permit me, sir, to say how deeply grateful I feel to my venerated father and friend. Dr. Spring, for the proposition Avhich he makes to his Session and Trustees, on behalf of my venerable grandfather.
I feel myself honored, sir, in having been invited to attend upon this delightful and interesting oc- casion. I regarded it as a high privilege to have been present when your venerated pastor delivered his half century sermon from this desk, and to have been permitted to take an humble part in the ser- vices of that long to be remembered occasion. I consider it a very great privilege to be present to
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take part in tliese services, as tlie representative of that venerated man to whom illusion has already been made as having been the instrument, in the hands of God, in founding the Brick Presbyterian church, in the city of New York. You will per- mit me to rejoice with you, sir, at seeing so many of the children of the Bi'ick Church here to-night, while I regard myself as one of its grandchildren. My grandfather having been for so long a series of years its pastor, I am at any rate the grand- child of this church by ecclesiastical descent. Of very few of the churches, in this or any other land, can be said that which may be said of this old Brick Church, — that for ninety-three consecutive years it has never been vacant one hour, my grandfather having served this people as their pastor in the ministry of the gospel for forty-three years, and your present pastor having served for fifty years. It is true that Dr. Miller and Dr. McKnight were co-pastors with my grandfather for a number of years, but he was senior pastor of the church ; and when Dr. McKnight retired, after the breaking up of the collegiate charge in 1809, Dr. Miller took charge of the Wall Street church. The Wall Street and Brick churches came forward and asked that they might be permitted to bear an equal proportion of the salary of that old minister who had so long served both churches, and that he might be regarded, to the end of his days, as their senior
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pastor. The deed from the corporation of the city of New York, granting that piece of land upon which the old Brick Church stood so long, was dated on the 5th of February, 1T66. Soon after that deed was given, and that land came into the possession of the Presbyterian interest of this city, my grandfather went out and begged from door to door, as Dr. Spring has properly said, in order to the erection of the Brick Church, that there might be a second Presbyterian Church to accommodate the wants of the people in the upper part of the city of New York, and those who were living out of town. That was literally so, sir, for the Brick Church then stood almost outside the city of New York. On the 1st of January, 1768, the church having been built in 1767, my grandfather preached the dedication sermon from the text, " I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of Hosts." Sir, it was in the language of the Most High him- self that that temple was dedicated to his service ; and we all know, — those of us who can look back, for fifty years and over, upon the ministry of the gospel in that time-honored edifice, — we all know how gloriously that word was fulfilled in the out- pouring of the Spirit, and the descent of its influ- ences within that sacred temple. And we pray, — and the prayer is already granted to some extent, — that the same Spirit of the Most High God may fill this temple, and that the glory of the latter
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house may be greater than the glory of the former. Oh ! should this declaration be fully accomplished, how glorious would he the dealings of Jehovah with those who worship here, and what reason would they have for exclaiming with adoring grat- itude, " What hath God wrought ! "
I have before me a record made by the Presby- tery of New York, in the year 1810. At the meeting of the synod for that year, the Presbytery of New York sent up their statistical report, and this is a part of it : that they had " received under their care Mr. Gardiner Spring, a licentiate of the association of Westford, Mass., Aug. Yth, 1810, and that they had ordained Mr. Gardiner Spring to the work of the gosj^el ministiy, and installed him pastor of the congregation worshipping in the Brick Church, New York, Aug. 8th, 1810." Eefer- ence has been made by Dr. Spring himself to the laying on of hands of the Presbytery upon that occasion, so solemn to him, and so delightful to those who were looking forward to his ministry. It was the last official act of my grandfather's life ; it was the last ordination at which he attended.
Having laid his hands upon the head of his youthful colleague, and having asked for him the blessing of that God whom he had so long served, he retired from his labors ; and soon after (it was in the next May) he entered into his rest. It is pleasant to me — very pleasant, I assure you, sir —
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to meet tliis congregation liere this evening. It is very pleasant for me to rejoice in all tliat I have seen and heard here ; for you may well suppose, sir, that, my grandfather having been for so many years pastor of the Brick Church, I cannot but feel a deep interest in all that pertains to the prosperity of this congregation. Most heartily do I say, " Peace be within her walls, and prosperitj^ within her palaces." And when this servant of God, and our brother who is standing by his side as his asso- ciate in the pastoral office, shall have passed away from earth to joys on high, and others come to take their places, may we not humbly hope that the remarks that have been made with reference to many who have been connected with the old Brick Church, may be made of those who shall worship here, of this one and that one, that they have been born unto God in Zion, and that this church may be perpetuated until the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the peoj)le of the saints of the Most High ? Then, sir, shall come to pass the season when, in the lan- guage of one whom many of us loved, whose fune- ral sermon your pastor preached, by the side of whose grave your pastor wept — in the language of the sainted Whelpley :* " The arch of God's re-
* Mr. Whelpley was the pastor of tlie Wall St. church, and died while yet a young man. He was an accomplished scholar, and a very popular preacher.
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deeming covenant shall encircle these bright heav- ens, and all nations shall rejoice beneath it."
Again I say, " Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces." " For my brethren and my companions' sake, I will now say, Peace be within thee ! "
DE. HUMPHREY'S ADDRESS.
Me. Chairman : — For what my eyes have seen, my ears have heard, and my heart has felt in connection with this your sacred jubilee, I am indebted to the polite invitation of your commit- tee, which has brought me down from my home in the hill country of Berkshire to rejoice with you this evening in your devout reminiscences and thanksgivings to the great Head of the church for sparing to you the life and labors of your now aged and always beloved pastor, from the bud- ding of the almond tree, so full of promise, in this garden of the Lord, to its crown of glory in the fulness of its blossoms, still bringing forth fruit in its old age. .
These scenes carry me back more than half a century, to the day when my friend and brother
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was the file leader of our class on the day of our graduation at Yale college. Thence we went out, not knowing whitlier we went. But, having ob- tained help of God, we continue unto this day.
To make the few remarks which I have to offer harmonize with the occasion, I cannot think of a more fitting theme than the blessings of a perma- ne7it local ministry. Time was, and a few of us re- member it well, when pastors were settled for life. It was understood and expected that they were to live, and die, and be buried with their people. In those days of Puritan simplicity and continuance, dismissions were very rare. I remember but one within the whole range of more than thirty par- ishes, where I was brought up, till I bad grown to manhood. A dismission was a very strange event, and much talked about. In those good old times it was not uncommon for ministers to preach fifty years and more in the same pulpit where they were first settled ; and parishes might be named in which two ministers, in succession, labored, each, more than half a century. Nay, more. The records of some of the older chm-ches will show that they have had three pastors, the aggregate of whose ministry exceeded a hundred and fiftij years! "When they could no longer go in and out before the people, by reason of age, colleagues were settled, to bear the burden and heat of the day ; and when they died, "devout men carried them to their
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graves," followed by the lamentation of their whole flocks.
How great the change, within hardly two gen- erations, to rotary arrivals and departures ! Now, when a candidate receives and accepts a call, he does not expect to stay more than a few years at the longest ; and the people regard it very much as they do any other temporary contract, liable to be dissolved at any time by mutual agreement, or rather, ivWiout^ when either desires it. And, to make assurance doubly sure, it is often ex23ressly stipulated in the contract, that by giving tliree or six months' notice, either the minister may leave or the j)eople may send him away at any time. It is not so common now as it was some twenty-five years ago, and I suppose the main reason is, that the contract can be more promptly dissolved with- out any such stipulation than with it. It requires no six months' notice. If the pastor wishes to leave, he goes as soon as a Presbytery or a council can be called ; or the people, when they choose, can send him away whether he will or no.
Indeed, it is becoming a serious question in many places whether it is best to go through the formal- ity of installing and dismissing pastors at all ; and so they resort more and more to what on the min- utes are called stated supplies^ — a convenient term of modern invention, which may mean hiring preach- ing by the year, six months, or any shorter time,
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at their option. This is about as far as rotation has yet gone in the progress of modern improve- ments. The next step must be to hire by the day as the farmers do, or to have no preaching at all. In the large cities, I know the pastoral care is in general more permanent; but even here it is a good deal disturbed by the rotary system.
Time will not allow me to discuss the question at any length, between permanence and rotation in the sacred calling; but I must crave your indul- gence while I very briefly point out some of the advantages of the former over the latter. It takes time, in every profession and calling, to obtain the highest degree of influence and success. Men can- not, in any profession or responsible branch of busi- ness, break up often and remove from one place to another, without the danger of losing more than they can gain. It takes time to mature and carry out plans on which ultimate success essentially depends. It takes time, too, to gain friends and the widest personal influence. This is preeminently the case in our profession. A young preacher can't go and fully establish himself in any important parish in two or three years, or even in twice as many. He may be a first-rate preacher; he may be all the while gaining in the affections and confidence of his own people, and extending his influence into the surrounding. parishes ; but he cannot, except in rare cases, break up and change his location, without a
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great sacrifice of capital on wliicli tlie power of the pulpit so much depends. He may go and settle somewhere else ; (no, not settle^ but rent a house, or board out, with flattering prospects of usefulness ; but he cannot carry his personal and ministerial influence along with him. In these respects he has got to commence, not where he left oif, but where he began. He has got to form new acquaintances, and gradually rise in estimation and influence as before, instead of " going on unto jDerfection ; " and by the time he is fairly up to the point which he had reached when he last struck his tent, the rotary system sweeps round and takes him off, without the trouble of rooting him up, and he goes forth once more to find a third location, if he can, where he may gird up his loins for another stage of his ministei'ial pilgrimage. In this manner not a few worthy pastors change their location five or six times ; or, what is getting to be more common, before they are fifty years old they are set aside as quite too superannuated to keep up with the times. And how can ministers grow up to full stature in their profession, under such a system ? Why, it is very much like planting an oak, and pulling it up so often that it can take root nowhere, how- ever rich the soil. Like the oak, the ministry wants a great many summers, and to" stand a great many winters in one place, to strike its roots deep and spread its branches wide. I know there are ex-
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ceptions. There are some wayfaring bret-liren in our profession, who, in spite of all their disad- vantages, rise to high eminence and do a great deal of good; but this does not materially affect the general rule. Whatever may be said in favor of removals, ' few and far between," the present system of itinerancy, if persisted in, cannot fail, in the long run, to depreciate the ministry, and bring leanness upon the churches.
In striking contrast with this are the manifold advantages of the old system of permanent settle- ments. In those stabler times, as I have already remarked, when a young Timothy was ordained, it was a real settlement. It was understood and ex- pected, on both sides, to be for life. He looked upon the flock as his permanent ministerial charge, committed to his watch and care by the chief Shep- herd. And they received him as an ascension gift, not for two or three summers, more or less, but for life. He was their minister, and as they had no fears that some other parish would come and steal him away, they gave him their hearts at once. And he gave his young heart to them, as well as his time and services. However well the field might have been cultivated before he came, he saw there was more than enough left to tax the best powers of a much stronger man. He was under no temp- tation then to aim at immediate results, by novel measures and high pressure, at the expense of per-
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manent relio^ious usefulness. He felt that a life work was before him ; that much depended upon him. He could take time to survey the ground thoroughly, and lay his plans for "making full proof of his ministry." He could look upon the children, not only as the lambs of his flock, but that, by feeding them with the " sincere milk of the word," he might nourish them up to bear strong meat, " that in due time he might bring them into the church, lean upon them in his declining years, and receive them as his crown of rejoicing in the day of the Lord Jesus!" Such delightful antici- pations, a minister liable every year to be removed cannot indujge. How great the contrast, and how much in favor of a permanent ministry !
When a permanently settled pastor buries those who called him, their children, who have been trained up under him, naturally feel that it is their duty and their privilege to take their places, and sustain him. They have early attachments, which cannot be transferred to any stranger ; and they will stand by him, when they might turn their backs upon any successor.
How great the advantage of a permanent over a shifting pastorate is, in point of outside influence, it needs not many words to show. Though of slow growth at first, it becomes a mighty power in a long and faithful ministry. It gives a force and weight to its opinions and counsels, which a long
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acquaintance only can secure. It is a sweet, per- vading aroma, surpassing in fragrance every thing, save that in the song of songs, which is Solomon's.
And then, the outside influence which a good minister gains by remaining forty or fifty years in one place, hardly admits of calculation. Every body knows him, and knows where to find him. He is the father of the Presbytery ; — that gets to be his title, with all the younger brethren, in the wide and widening circle around. They go to him for advice. They avail themselves of his treasured experience ; they are helped by his counsels.
The churches, too, feel that they have a father to go to in their difficulties. In a word, by grow- ing up with the people, identifying himself with their interests, and remaining through all the ac- tive period of life in the same place where he first settled, till removed by death, he accumulates a capital of ministerial influence which he could never have acquired by frequent removals.
If these views are correct, there must have been blame somewhere in bringing the present disturb- ing influence into pastoral relations. Where the blame lies, whether with the pastors or the par- ishes, or both, is a fair question. That some preach- ers may become uneasy, and seek for dismission without any good reason, we do not deny. But I feel bound to say, in behalf of our brethren, that many of them, especially in the larger towns, feel
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constrained to leave, wlien they would be glad to remain, if they could do all that is expected and required of them. They love their people, and the thought of a removal is a sore trial. But " ne- cessity is laid upon them." They can't remain, as so much more is required of ministers now than there was fifty years ago, when comparatively little outside labor was called for ; when there were no missionary, Bible, tract, and a great many other kindred societies to take care of — no collections to be taken up — no anniversaries to be attended — and very few ordinations and dismissions, to take up the time of pastors and wear them out. And then, too, satisfactory preparations for the pulpit did not cost near so much time and study as are now demanded, almost everywhere. People will have more pojDular and finished sermons, or they will not be satisfied. The young preacher knows it, and soon finds himself overtasked. His health fails in trying to keep up with the times ; or, by taking care of it, work must be neglected, to the hazard of his standing in the estimation of his people. Under such circumstances, what can he do ? Many a pastor finds, early in his ministiy, that he must do one of three things. He must hredk down early by overwork ; or, by favoring himself must run down, and lose his standing as a preacher ; or, as the last resort, he must leave his beloved charge and try to find some other place, where he can
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avail himself of liis previous hard work and expe- rience. Will any one say that pastors so situated are to be charged with encouraging the rotation system by their example? The parishes, many of them, have " itching ears," that cannot long be satisfied with any one charmer, charm he never so wisely ! Like the Athenians in Paul's day, they want something "newer" almost every Sabbath, and under the present uprooting system, they are quite as strongly tempted as the pastors are to seek for a change.
And now, dear friends of the Old Brick Church, I congratulate you that neither you, nor your pres- ent pastor, nor your fathers before you, have had any experience of the working of the rotation sys- tem, and have not desired to try it. Fifty years ago my brother came to you in the vigor and fresh- ness of youth. You received him as an ascension gift, not only to yourselves, but your children. Without a break in the succession, he took up the mantle of that venerable father of the Presbyterian church, who lived to bury his generation, and by whom some of you were baptized. When " bap- tized himself for the dead," your now venerable pastor came at your call. He brought his heart with him into your pulpit and your families, and you gave him your hearts in return. " Having ob- tained help of God," he has gone in and out before you, till he has reached the latter part of the twelfth 13
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chapter of Ecclesiastes, with most of its infirmities light upon him, and is now able, with a vigor scarcely abated, to carry you back to the time when the dew of his youth was upon him, and to dis- course upon all the way in which God has led you and him up to this hour. When he has been invited to leave you for other attractive fields of labor, his answer has uniformly been, "I dwell among my own people." Hapj^y, thrice happy church ! Con- gregations change. Those who bear onward the ark of the covenant grow old and die, but the church never.
Here you have now gathered, dear friends, to meet him " whom you have always delighted to honor, and to set up your Ebenezer." Well may you in- scribe upon the monument, "Hitherto hath the Lord helped us." May he who dwelt in the bush still go before you. May he give you and the gen- erations following pastors after his own heart, till you and they shall all be gathered with the general assembly and church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven.
And now, in conclusion, my dear brother and classmate, I tender you my warmest congratula- tions, as to a spiritual father, revered and beloved by this great church and congregation. Highly favored of our blessed Master have you been, among his ministers. I cannot learn that, within the last hundred years at least, any one of his servants be-
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fore you, in this great city,. lias ever preachecl half a century as you have done in one pulpit.
To hold the commission of an " Ambassador for Christ " a few years only, and to be found faithful, is an honor infinitely surpassing the highest worldly distinctions. How much more to hold the same commission for fifty years, from the highest Court in the universe, charged with such amazingly re- sponible negotiations ! To do this in one pulpit is an honor and privilege which I am afraid that not one in a thousand of our younger brethren can ex- pect to enjoy. To " shine in courts," and be loaded with the highest rewards which royalty itself can bestow, — what is that, through the longest life, com- pared with "beseeching sinners, in Christ's stead, to be reconciled to God ; " to be faithful unto death, and then, returning the commission to him who gave it, to go up and be " crowned with glory and honor and immortality in his kingdom ! " Oh ! after turning many to righteousness in this lower sphere, to be orbed, and " shine as the sun in the firma- ment, and as the stars, for ever and ever ! " "What a glorious galaxy of apostles and martyrs and other faithful servants of Christ will there be, shining brighter and brighter in those heavenly spheres, through all the revolving cycles of eternity !
While most of our class have gone to the dead, you and I, having obtained help of God, continue unto this time. I entered the ministry three years
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before you ; but it has not been my privilege, as it has yours, to preach righteousness to one and the same great congregation for fifty years. I have labored as I could, by God's help, in two or three corners of om' Master's vineyard. And it is some- what remarkable, I think, that of the very few of our class that remain, four of the number. Marsh and McLean^ beside ourselves, brethren beloved, in whom is no guile, have been in the ministry more than fifty years.
You, my brother, as well as we, have almost finished your course. You have kept the faith. You have instructed thousands. The ministers, when you came to New York, — the fathers and mothers of your own congregation and church, — where are they ? You have lived to bury nearly two generations of your beloved flock. But their children and children's children, to " the third and fourth generation," have j'isen up to take their places, and call you blessed. The sun of your long day will ere long go down. It already gilds the eve- ning clouds and sky. The earthly house of your tabernacle, though still in so much better keeping than mine, must, in like manner, be dissolved ; and then, as you go up to take possession of the build- ing of God, the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, methinks I see your best beloved here below coming to meet you at the golden gate, and surrounded, as you enter, by a glorious com-
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pany, who are to be your "joy and crown of rejoic- ing in tlie day of tlie Lord Jesus."
ADDRESS OF REV. DR. MURRAY.
Me. Chairman : — We may Lave a great many teachers, but we can have but one father ; — so says the Sacred Record. We may be connected with many churches, but after all there is one church to which our affections always return, as the needle, which has been drawn from its true direction, trem- bles back to the pole. I have been, in the course of my ministry, acquainted with many ministers; but there is one minister who is associated with everything that is precious in my youthful years. I have been connected with many churches, but there is one church, in the aisle of which I stood when I devoted myself to God, and that church is ever before me. I came to this city, a mere boy, in the year 1818. I was, through the providence of God, cast into a Presbyterian family that wor- shipped in the Murray Street church, under the pas- toral care of Rev. Dr. Mason, and I went there oc- casionally to church. Dr. Mason was soon removed to the Presidency of Dickinson College, and on his removal, having no particular attachment there.
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save to hear the gospel from the lips of that elo- quent man, I passed over the Park to the Old Brick Church. There I became acquainted with a few young men, one of whom still lives, a pillar of a church in Liverpool. We went into the Sabbath- school together. I was not then a professor of re- ligion, but my mind became deeply interested, and I had a private conversation with Dr. Spring in ref- erence to my state of mind, which was then in a very doubting state, — indeed, it was wavering as to the truth of Christianity itself; and he talked with me in the kindest manner. I called again : and I attended the lectures in that Old White Lecture- room in the evenings. At that time this beloved man, who has just been carried out to the Lecture- room (Mr. Holden*), was an elder. One evening Dr. Spring was unwell, and that man arose and read a sermon which I remember well ; that sermon was from the text, " His feet stand on slippery places ; and in due time they shall slide," — a sermon in one of the volumes of the great Jonathan Edwards. It riveted my mind, and very deeply impressed my soul. I went again to see the pastor of the church, and he invited me to meet with the session, as it was my duty to become a communicant of the church. I went on a certain evening to meet with the session, and laid my -hand upon the latch of the door in order to enter. But my heart failed me,
* Alluding to the fact of Mr. Holden having fainted during the exercises.
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and I turned away. And for three months I stayed away. A notice was given again : I went to the same door and, laid my finger upon the latch, but faltered, and was turning upon my heel to go ay ay again, when that old and sainted man, Father Cun- ningham, came behind me, laid his hand upon the latch, opened the door, and said, " Walk in, young man ;" and, almost against my wdll, I was ushered into the room, — where I went throuofh such an ex- amination as was usually there given, with a very faint heart. The followino; Sabbath I was received to the church. I was baptized by Kev. Dr. Spring in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. By him I was led, in the private interviews to which I have alluded, to Christ ; under his minis- try I devoted myself to God ; and by his hand I was baptized and received into the church. I went about my business. Six or eight months had passed away, when on a certain afternoon two individuals came into the office in which I was employed : one was Father Cunningham, and the other was another sainted elder of this church, years ago gone to rest, — Peter Hawes. They asked me, after a little in- troduction, if I thought of devoting myself to the ministry. I told them. No ; that the thought had not entered my mind, and that there were other courses marked out before me. They told me to consider the subject, and that they would call to see me again. They saw me again : on a certain
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evening I had anotlier conversation with them in the Lecture-room, and the result was that in a few months more I was in a course of preparation for the ministry, under the care of this church, and by advice of its pastor; and from that day unto this day, the Lord has kept me. Therefore, I ought and must feel a great veneration for this beloved man, and a great veneration for the Old Brick Church. I look around me this evening, and I find that many whose names have been read by our be- loved Holden are absent : John Adams is gone ; and Mr. Lockwood, and Peter Hawes, and Mr. Cun- ningham, and Mr. Phelps, and Mr. De Forest, — all gone ! Mr. Fisher is yet living ; ]\Ir. Havens is gone ; Mr. Couch yet lives ; Mr. Holden has been here to-night ; Halsey, too, is gone. Those men I knew as a boy ; they were pillars of the church, — of the old house ; they have fallen, but the main pillar remains.
It is one thing, Mr. Chairman, to be a minister in New York, and quite another thing to be a min- ister of New York. Almost any body with or- dinary talent could be a minister in New York : John Smith could be a minister in New York — why, I myself could be that ; but it is a very dif- ferent thing to be a minister of New York. A minister in New York may be a very small minis- ter indeed, and his ministrations may be very lim- ited ; but a minister of New York must be every
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inch, a man. And this venerable man has been a minister of New York ; his hand, for fifty years, has been upon everything that has been good here. What great and good enterprise has arisen here in this city for fifty years, with which his name has not been connected ? Is it the Bible Society ? is it the American Tract Society ? is it any of onr great missionary societies? And, if we go from our church to our national societies, is it the American Board ? is it our own Presbyterian Board ? — Pray tell we what it is that has arisen within the last fifty years in this city or in this land to bless the world, with which this beloved man has not been connected. He has been a minister, not only in and of New York, but he has been a minister of the world. His name is known in Ireland and in Scotland and in England, almost as well as it is known in the city of New York. His works praise him in the gate, and in every gate in the world. He has been a minister here, and a minister at the same time to our common humanity. Hence we should honor and imitate him. Not merely in the way that his venerable classmate (Dr. Humphrey) has stated, has he been a blessing, but in many other ways. He has been here for fifty years ; the winds have beaten about him, and the floods have come up around him, but he has been as a pillar, un- moved. Why ? Because, as a minister of Christ, as a preacher of the gospel, he has been founded
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on tie Rock. Others have fallen and have been swept away, but he has remained strong and im- movable as the mountains that surrounded Jerusa- lem. He has stood firm. Changes have passed over other churches and other men ; clouds have passed over the characters of others, but the sun of this brother has shone clearly, summer and win- ter, for the last fifty years, and has been growing brighter and brighter and brighter, even unto the perfect day. Fifty years have passed over him, — and where in this city, or where in this land is the individual that can rise up and accuse him of say- ing any thing or doing any thing unworthy of his position as a Presbyterian minister of the gospel ? Why, sir, in the presence of such a man I feel very much as one feels in one of those old cathe- drals,— Westminster, for instance, — going around that old chapel of Henry VH. ; or, standing under the shadow of those old trees in Hyde Park. I ven- erate those things ; I look upon them with venera- tion; and we must venerate still more the man who, for fifty years, has gone on among the same people, preaching to them the truth, breaking to them the bread of life, — without a stain upon his character, and going down, quietly, the hill of life amid the admiration of those to whom he has so long ministered. Surely we must venerate such a man as that. But not in this way alone has he been a minister of New York. He has been a
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constant preacher, and, as I heard John Breckin- ridge say himself, one of the most impressive and eloquent men of his day, (and I repeat it now in his own presence,) the " prince of preachers." He has been not only a constant preacher, bnt he has been an industrious, laborious, and active man. He has made the most diligent preparation for the pulpit. He has brought out of his treasures things new and old, and has never drawn from the top of his mind, as a great many individuals do whose minds, unlike milk, make no cream. He gave them beaten oil from the sanctuary ; and in this respect, as well in every other, he stands up before the youthful ministry of this land as a man in every way worthy of their imitation. If I, on a future occasion, should have any thing to say in reference to this man when his work is ended, I should hold him up to the ministry of this country as every way worthy of their respect and imita- tion. The course which he has pursued has made a man of him, and it would have made a man of an individual far less endowed by nature than he is. But the evening is becoming late. I feel that, as a son of this church, I could not say less, than I have said.
There is one thing, however, that fills our hearts with mourning this evening, and that is, that the partner of his life should be absent from this ova- tion. But she has gone to a better and a higher
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world ; and when her venerable partner goes the way which she has trod before him, if we live we shall strive to follow him to his resting-place, good men shall carry him to his burial, and long after his sun shall have set in the west, will its heavenly light shine on the high places of our Zion.
At the conclusion of Dr. Murray's remarks, the Chairman stated that, although there were other gentlemen present prepared to speak, men whom the audience would be delighted to hear, yet, as the hour was so late, and as it had been already announced that Dr. Hoge would "gather up the fragments," he would now call upon him to do so.
ADDEESS OF JOHN G. ADAMS, M. D.
Me. Chairman : — As one born into and nurtured in this church, and as the representative of the de- parted who, for a period of more than fourscore years, worshipped in this " holy mountain," I claim your indulgence for a few moments.
I ought to feel at home here to-night, sir, in this large congregation, for I may say, in the words of the divinely inspired poet,
" Here my friends and kindred dwell"
During my whole life has it been my privilege to
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wait upon these ministrations ; my wliole history is identified with the history of this church, and I come up here to-night, sir, to bear my testimony on this most interesting occasion.
The memories of the past crowd upon me: I recall the services in the Old Brick Church and Wliite Lecture-room— the Tuesday evening prayer- meeting — the lecture on Thursday evening — the instruction in the shorter catechism — the Bible-class — the singing-school — and the inquiry meeting ; — I fondly cling to these memories ; they can never be obhterated ; they will abide with me forever.
I come to-night, sir, to bear my testimony to the faithful discharge of all the duties of the sacred office by my venerable pastor, whose friendship it has .been my privilege to enjoy during the entire course of his ministry. In storm and in sunshine, through evil report and through good report, in times of depression, atid under circumstances of great encouragement, in great infirmity of body, and in the fulness of his latter day strength, he has nobly fulfilled his mission. In the pulpit on the Sabbath, at the lecture and prayer-meeting during the week, in his visitation of the sick and dying, and in the last sad offices for the departed, he has ever been the faithful pastor, the consistent Christian, the constant friend. With the ideal of the great Irish poet,
" He has watched and wept, has prayed and felt for all."
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He has not only " allured to brigliter worlds," but by precept and example he has " led tlie wayT
Tell me, Mr. Chairman, is not this " the highest style of man ? " Once more, sir, I rejoice that I have been permitted to return to my native land in season for this most interesting occasion, and to offer up here, in this " second temple," my grateful tribute of praise and adoration.
May our venerated pastor be spared yet many years, to watch over this goodly heritage ; and when the shadows of the dark valley close around him, may he be gently translated to the everlasting habitations prepared for all those who, having "finished their course with joy, do rest from their labors."
ADDEESS OF DR. HOGE.
When brother Holden assigned to me, my friends, the office of "gathering up the fragments," he certainly gave me large latitude for a speech, and one rather alarming at this late hour, if you imagine the proportions of the ancient feast are to be observed : for there the " gathered fragments " greatly exceeded the unbroken loaves. I promise you it shall not be so now.
I think we have found it good to be here. The
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house of God has been both solemn and cheerful. It has been a most pleasant scene. It has seemed like the evening of a long, fine summer day in harvest. The hours have been many, and warm, and full of honest toil ; but now the west is golden, the air is dewy and full of balm, and we can look around over many a goodly sheaf of yellow grain. God bless the brave old reaper who has borne the burden and the heat of the day so long and so well ; whose " hand has never waxed weary, nor his heart waxed faint ! " Who does not envy him the song and gladness with which that harvest shall be shouted home ?
Much of this harvest, — whose every grain is a human soul bought by the blood of God's dear Son, and " born of incorruptible seed, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever," — has he seen borne before him, from this field of earthly toil, to the heavenly treasure-house. For God has oftentimes sent His angels, and they have garnered now " the bearded grain," drooping with its pre- cious weight, and now the " flowers that grow be- tween."
Oh ! friends, I behold two congregations to-night. I see you^ with your warm hearts beating in love and gratitude to God, and His servant, your spirit- ual father and pastor. And though you have as- sembled in crowds, your numbers must be swelled by ministers of the gospel, who first heard from his
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lips the glad tidings they now preach to others ; by elders, who were once of this membership, but are now ruling well, we trust, in. sister churches ; and by a host of brethren, who have gone out /rom your communion to the ends of the earth.
But " part of the host have crossed the flood ; " and can you believe that they are not here to- night ? Are we not still " One Church, above, be- neath ? " Aye, " the whole family in heaven and earth " is one. And as the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha, which he saw, while his servtmt saw them not, till the Lord opened his eyes, but saw then with won- der and jo3^, — so, I doubt not, we are often sur- rounded by " the spirits of the just made perfect," and that it is but a thin veil which hides them from our eyes. And is it not thinner still to an aged servant of God, meet for his inheritance in light ? " Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day." Though the eye of sense grow dim, and look feebly on " the things which are seen," does not the eye of faith, the eye of the inward man, grow bright, under this gracious renewing, and look clearly on " the things which are not seen ? " May not his hand almost reach theirs, and be grasped by their gentle palms ?
Behold, then, gathering above his head, that infant throng, on whose brows he put the bright seal of covenant grace, and God so early set the
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crowu of covenant glory. And there see those, who once came to him, wounded by the law, and with their " hearts choking them," as our brother MmTay came ; and those who hastened to tell, with joyous utterance, that they had "found Him of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth." There, too, with all who call him spiritual father, are all who, though " born " elsewhere, were " nourished and brought up " under his ministry.
And there I see that father and mother, whoso words, coming to us through a brother's lips, we have heard to-night, as if they sounded from the upper Sanctuary ; that godly father and mother, who consecrated him so fervently, and then trained him so diligently " in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," and now stand in thankful joy above him, and lay their hands in heavenly benediction on his head.
And is there not one more? Is she not here, who gave the dew of her morning beauty to his youth, and then walked by his side through a longer pilgrimage than the half century we are now cele- brating ; who, as she was the wife of his early man- hood and his age through the kindness of God, was also, through His grace, the child of His ministry, his daughter in the gosj)el of Jesus Christ ; whose unwearied energy and unfailing joyousness so great- ly assisted and cheered his toils, and whose dying 14
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smile, from wbicli the brightness was fading thougli all the sweetness was there, is now the dearest of earthly memories ? Yes, she too is here, to bless him, and take her old place by his heart.
" It is a good sight," says Thomas Watson, " to see an old disciple ; to see silver hairs adorned with golden virtues." That sight is, through the grace of God, before our eyes.
I have been constantly reminded, since my min- istry has been mingled with that of your senior pastor, of the beautiful picture in the first Psalm : " And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season ; his leaf also shall not wither ; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper."
As I came to this house to-night, and looked up to the clear sky filled with innumerable stars, I remembered, with solemn joy, that God had prom- ised that " They that be teachers [so it is in the margin] shall shine as the brightness of the firma- ment ; and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever."
When the holy Rutherford was exiled from his beloved charge at Anwoth, and dwelt, " the Lord's prisoner," in Aberdeen, he cheered his drooping heart with the thought that if one soul from An- woth should meet him at God's right hand, his heaven would be two heavens. Oh ! my brother, my father, how many heavens, then, hast thou !
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What sliall I call thee ? My colleague ? That thou art by the solemn act of the church, ratified, I trust, in heaven. My brother ? That thou art, in Christ, in the ministry, and in the love thou has shown me. My father ? That, too, thou art, in age, in thy long pastorate, and in the reverence I owe thee.
I said, a little while ago, that this scene was like the evening of a fine summer day in harvest. I did not say the close of the day. The sun is de- scending indeed ; but may He who heard the cry of his servant, " Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou. Moon, in the valley of Ajalon," hear this people's prayer, and prolong the rich sunset, for our comfort and joy, through many a golden hour ! May He permit us often to put in the sickle to- gether ! May He, indeed, make " the glory of this latter house greater than of the former," and per- mit your eyes to see it !
But I will not longer weary your heart. Amid all our joys this night, some gentle tears have fallen. But, lo ! even
" The dews of soitow are lustred o'er with love," —
God's love, the love of the departed, this people's love, and last, though its worth be least, my own.
A TEIBUTE
THE MEMORY OF A BELOYED WIFE.
A TRIBUTE
MEMORY OF A BELOVED WIFE.
" Neither can they die any more : for they are equal unto the angels, and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection." — Luke xx. 36.
"We are not left to suspense and perplexity as to the existence and state of tlie human family be- yond the grave. It is a dismal doctrine that the soul is annihilated when the body dies ; it finds no countenance in reason or conscience, in nature or revelation. Nor is there a suggestion from reason or conscience, from nature or revelation, that the soul sleeps in the interval between death and the judgment. There is no such state of dreary soli- tude, no such incoherent and dreamy existence. The gospel holds out brighter prospects to the Christian's hope than this. The immaterial and immortal spirit within him lives, and shall never die : lives in an uninterrupted and glorious immor- tality. And thanks be to Grod, he has better pi'os- pects even than this purely spiritual and immortal existence. The resurrection of our Lord Jesus
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Christ from the dead is the pledge that the whole being of his redeemed church, the body as well as the soul, the material as well as the immaterial, shall be presented at the Last Day, in a union for ever glorious and inviolable.
Such are the thoughts expressed in our text. When it declares, "Neither shall they die any more," the unavoidable implication is, that " it is appointed unto men once to die." The decree has gone forth, " Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." There is no discharge in that war. It is a condition of their existence, that they shall die. Ruthless, pitiless death is the destroyer of all ; all indiscriminately, all promiscuously. All, of every class and clime, either now form, or will form the dust on which we tread. When from the sealed book the Lamb opened the fourth seal, the apostle " looked, and behold a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death, Vi]idi]?ower was given unto him." Kings and peasants fall alike before the ravages of this Destroyer. Slaves and conquerors are his victims. Nations are his sub- jects. Empires that alternately rose and fell, armies that filled the earth with noise and conten- tion, navies whose thunder shook sea and land, cities whose business and bustle, whose laugh and song never thought of death, yield to his resistless sway. All that remains of them is the time worn memorial that they once 'were. His are world-wide
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conquests ; his standard a pall of sadness from the rising to the setting sun.
We are accustomed to speak of death as the law of nature, and as the debt of nature ; but it is the law of God, the debt to justice. If man had never sinned, his body as well as his soul would have been immortal. He is mortal, not because he is God's creature merely, but because he is a sinner ; not by the laws of his physical existence merely, but by the judicial sentence, "Death by sin." Death is God's decree for the sin of man. Men die as transgressors, bowing their head to the award that "death hath passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."
Why is it that the bed of death is so often the place of apprehension and suffering? Why, but that retributive justice there overtakes the suffer- er, and he finds that " the sting of death is sin ? " Other creatures die, but not as man dies. The lily of the valley droops, and the leaf of the forest fades. The lamb is led to the slaughter, and the eagle drops from his aerie without a thought of evil. Their death is not like man's. Sin has this condemning power.
The mystery of life^ that active principle that pervades all animated existence, and binds them, however unlike, in one class — what is it? The man of genius and the idiot have this in common — that they live. And what invisible power, what
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almiglity magnetism is it which causes inert matter to live, and move, and have a being ; to respond to outward influences, to receive impressions from surrounding objects and mould them to its uses, — itself inert when once the unseen hand that sustains it is withdrawn? And if the mystery of life is wonderful, how much more wonderful is the mys- tery of Death ! What an affecting transformation when vitality is departed, when the blight of death has crept upon that animated form, and when in an instant, from a thinking, sentient, active exist- ence, it has become a clod, motionless, senseless, thoughtless ! Draw aside the curtain from the couch where the stern messenger of God's justice is clasping its victim in its chill embrace. The spirit still lingers in its clay ; the current of life still flows sluggishly on. But mark that panting breath, shorter and shorter to the last ! It is a judicial infliction. The shadows are not now gathering; they are settled; the spirit is fled. This is death. Draw nigh where the being that we loved once lay, and view the form — heing it is now no longer — ^that lies before you. We gaze — there is no movement ; we speak — there is no answer. We kiss the brow — it is cold as marble. We press the hand — but there is no sign of recognition ; it moves not from the place where death first laid it. This is death. The moth flutters about the candle we hold over the dead one's pillow, and in that
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little insect there is life ; here, all is death. The soft breath that stirs that curl upon the cold brow has life ; here, all is death. That which is not and never shall be death's, is gone. The face, so often lighted up with smiles, the eye that beamed with intelligence, the tongue that uttered counsels of wisdom, are gone. Stoop down and look into that new sepulchre just hewn out of the rock. All, all is mouldering to dust. It is locked up in the grave. Speak to it tones of sweet remembrance, or sob- bing grief; chant over it the solemn dirge, and it hears not. That curious and complex mechanism which for so many years moved with such har- mony and regularity, is broken. Pour upon it the concentrated shouts of a thousand battles, and it wakes not. Heaven's lightning wakes it not till the voice of the archangel and the trump of God call it to the Judgment. Yes, this is death. It it an aifecting mystery in the government of the Most High ; nor could we solve it, if it were not the award of justice for the sin of man.
"Once to die," is a lesson we all must learn. Whence this aversion to think of death, when the arrow to which our sins have given the sting may strike us without a moment's warning ? Whence the strange stupidity that makes death a stranger, when we can scarcely leave our own dwellings without discovering some new avenue to the grave ? Oh ! how different would these Sabbaths be, and
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what different emotions should we brinsr to the house of God, if each of us felt that he must die !
But let us turn from this dark side of the pic- ture— it has a brighter one. It would he the ex- treme of sadness to know this much of death if we knew no more. " If in this life only we have hope, we are of all men most to be commiserated." This world would be shrouded in gloom, if there were not a world where death never enters.
" Neither shall they die any moreP Beautiful thought ! " Whose wife shall she be of the seven ? " was the question of the unbelieving Sadducees,in re- gard to the woman who, after having married seven husbands, herself died also. The Saviour's reply was, "Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage." There will be no renewing of such earthly bonds there. There will be mutual recognition, and sweet memories, and joyous rehearsals of the way in which God has led them, and mutual loves ; but it will be love true and holy, and like the love of God. It will em- brace all, and receive the response of sympathy from all. There will be thoughts and emotions that are new because they are sinless, — emotions of admiration at bright forms of beauty ; and as these beauties of holiness meet the eye, they will be the love, the admiration, the joy of heaven. There will be no unsubdued passions, no propensity to evil,
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no spirit of apostasy and revolt. No foe shall enter tliere ; no serpent to sting, and no roaring lion going about seeking whom he may devour. It is a world of light, — the light of inviolable holi- ness ; the light of eternal truth ; themselves the elements of the pure river of the water of life, proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb. And because there is no sin, there is no pain and no sorrow there ; no want to discourage, no anxiety to depress, no fear to agitate, no disappointment to break the heart. That last sigh, that last tear, that last breath that transmitted the living spirit to the land of immortality, closed its earthly history. There shall be no more wearisome days and wake- ful nights ; no more sad apprehension ; no more anxious watching the symptoms of decay ; no more counting of the heart's pulsations, and no more nar- row inspection of the earthly fabric to see if its pillars do not tremble. There is no circle of mourn- ers there. The pensive dirge, the solemn prayer, the funeral obsequies, this world of tears, this land of graves, are among "the former that are passed away." Death did its worst when it killed the body. That placid corpse is the last of his trophies. He has spent the last arrow in his quiver. His iron rod is broken ; his power is crushed ; the knell of his departure is sounded ; and his own grave, deep and lai'ge, is at length dug in this his own empire of rebellion and woe, and no descend-
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ing angel sliall ever roll away the stone from tlie monster's sepulchre.
It is rather an illustration, an enlargement of these thoughts, than any needed proof of them, when it is added in the text, "for they are equal unto the angels, and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection."
Tliey are equal unto the angels. Angels are the most glorious of all created intelligences. They stood their probation, and were confirmed in holi- ness, progressingly "proving what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God." St. Paul says of the redeemed church, " ye are come to an in- numerable company of angels''' — made like to them, pure spirits, themselves furnishing bright illustra- tions of the perfections of the Deity. Next to their perfect holiness, their noblest characteristic is their immortality. Once they were dying men ; now, like the angels of God, they are " living ones." Time does not diminish their lustre, while the flight of ages adds to their intelligence and beauty. They dwell together in the same glorious mansions, are occupied in the same employments, and united in the same praise with the unf alien. It is a thought we scarcely know how to admit, much more to ex- press, that when the souls of believers pass from the pillow of death to their reserved inheritance, they attain to this angelic dignity and glory. Yet we cannot mistake the Saviour's declaration in the text,
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when he affirms, " They are equal unto the angels." From the low service of this poor earth, where their views are so partial and obscure, their sancti- fied and their unsanctified nature in such collision, and their moral imperfection so interrupts them in doing God's will, they shall become kings and priests unto God, " s-wift to do his will, hearkening to the voice of his word." From the pupilage of earth they shall pass to the " stature of perfect men in Christ Jesus," and their work and service shall be Avorthy of their manhood. Differ they do, and differ they will, as the redeemed infant differs from the redeemed parent, as the converted thief differs from the sainted Paul, as " one star differ- eth from another star in glory ;" but all reflect- ing the bright rays of the Sun of Righteousness, luminous in his light, glowing with his beauty. Oh ! the infinite love and condescension of the Eter- nal One, to admit such worms into such sympathies and fellowship, and to have the same access to him which Gabriel has, who stands in the presence of God !
To this representation the Saviour adds,/(9;' the'}/ are the children of God. That they are the chil- dren of God by faith in Jesus Christ ; that they are adopted into the divine family, and have a right to all the privileges of sonship ; that he is a father to them, and they his sons and daughters ; and that, by virtue of their union to Chi'ist as the
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elder brother and kinsman Redeemer, they are "heirs of God, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ, are undoubted truths and unspeakably }3reciou8. Yet we cannot but regard the phrase "the chil- dren of God," in the connexion in which it stands, as designed to be exegetical of the words " Neither shall they die any more." The sj)ecial import of it would seem to be, that, as the children of God, they are partakers of the divine nature — the death- less nature of God himself. Is He immortal ? so are they. Will He exist eternally ? so will they. Here, they were creatures of yesterday : some ter- minated their existence in the cradle, some in the vigor of manhood, some in the decrepitude of age. There is an eternal duration, stretching on, onward for ever. We bury our dead out of our sight, not so fully and joyfully instructed as we ought, that they still live in the unbroken series of intermin- able ages. In this world they were in a state of exile ; beyond, they have come home to their Fa- ther's house. They dwell in his high and holy place, and inhabit eternit}^ I have stood by the dying-bed of multitudes who feared God and loved his Son. I have sighed at their last sigh. I have strewed flowers upon their sepulchre, and wept with those who wept as we turned away from the rock that covers them. But when, by the eye of faith, I beheld that immortal spirit soaring in its flight, I could not but congratulate the departed that
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they had broken the doors of their prison-house, gained the victory, and begun their everlasting song.
The text also subjoins another thought : " they are the children of God, heing the cJtildren, of the resurrection. This is the crowning reality, that they are the children of the resurrection. The resurrec- tion of the body rests upon the resurrection of the body of Jesus Christ from the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. The fact that he died is a fact recorded in history ; and the fact that he rose from the dead on the third day^ is also a purely historical fact, proved by recorded testimony. But the fact that "Ae died for our sins and arose again for our jus- tiflcatioii^'' is a great doctrine which all Christians receive on the testimony of God himself.
The remark deserves consideration, that the work of Christ on the earth was not completed until he rose from the dead.^"" He bore our sins in his own body on the tree ; they were upon him when he died. The burden sunk him to the dust of death ; nor did he throw it oif so long as he lay in the grave. He continued under the power of death for a time ; and if he had never risen, he would have continued under the burden of our sins. If he had not risen, his people would never have risen. Hence the apostle declares, " If Christ
* Sec a work by Dr. Candlesh, of Edinburgh, entitled " Life in a Risen Saviour."
15
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be not risen, tlien is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain ; ye are yet in your sins."
In that wonderful chapter, the fifteenth of his first Epistle to the Corinthians, in which he speaks of the resurrection of the redeemed, he lays the foundation of his argument upon the historical fact that Christ rose from the dead. His proof is, that Christ's resurrection is predicted in the Old Testa- ment : he rose " again the third day, according to the scripturesr He then goes on to say, that he appeared after his resurrection, first to Peter, then to the twelve, then to upwards of five hundred brethren at once, and last of all to St. Paul him- self, as to one born out of due time. What histor- ical event is established on surer evidence ? To deny it is to subvert the gospel, make its author and its preachers false witnesses, and destroy the faith and hopes of all the people of God. Never were witnesses more competent, more intelligent and informed, more disinterested and self-denying, than the witnesses of Christ's resurrection. Their constancy subjected them to privation, infamy, and death ; while the contumely, persecutions, and sufifer- ing entailed on them by it had no respite but in the grave.
If, then, Christ rose from the dead, his people will rise.* " As the first Adam secured the death
* For a liappy illustration of this argument, see Pool's Annotations and the Commentary of Dr. Hodge, in locis.
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of all who are in Mm, " so tlie " second Adam se- cures the life of all those who are in him." When his body was reunited to his soul, then his work was complete. Not until the chains of death were "broken was he free. And not until he was thus completely rid of the curse, could the deliverance of those who believe in him be looked for as glorious and complete. It is because he rose that their triumph is sure. When the soul and the body, separated at death, are reunited at the resur- rection, the condemning sentence, " the soul that sinneth shall die," is completely reversed. In his triumph, the bodies of his saints are not forgotten ; for "those who sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." His resurrection is a pledge of theirs ; for he is "become the first fruits of them that slept." They look for it, nor will they look in vain. What his resurrection secured for him, that it secures for them. They are under the power of death for a time, as he was ; and as he is, now that he is risen, that they are to be. " When he shall appear, they also shall appear with him in glory." They are his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all. " It is his body that lies wherever his buried saints lie ; nor will his resurrection be complete until they rise in him." It was a pensive chamber where they breathed their last ; the death-struggle was severe. It is a cheerless house, — that cold, dark vault ; and the slumber of the grave seems long.
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But at his coming wlio is tlie resurrection and tlie life, lie shall take them to be with him, and " their resurrection shall be the complement of his own." Away in some bright orb of light he shall gather his saints together, those who have made a cove- nant with him by sacrifice, where they " shall not die any more, for they are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection."
And is not this delightful truth confirmed by a thousand analomes of nature ? The lio:ht of the sun fades and dies, and the children of men, worn with toil, lose their active existence in sleep and darkness ; again, the day dawns, the darkness is past, and they awake to newness of life. The moon wanes and dies ; and then, with the regularity of nature's great chronometer, its faded glory is restored. Look first at the vegetable creation. Cold winter wraps in its icy winding-sheet the departed year; and forests and fields and harvests all fade as a leaf, and lie buried in the tomb. But at the vernal breath of the returning year, all nature comes forth refreshed from the sleep of the grave, and shouts for joy. And is there no resurrection ? Is it so, that death chills and freezes for ever the current of human existence ? Shall that cold clay bloom no more ? and that eye never more beam with lustre ? and no voice be ever again heard from those lips that moulder in the tomb ?
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" Shall life revisit (l5'ing worms,
And spread the joyous insect's wing; And, oh ! shall man awake no more Thy face to see, thy name to sing ? "
No : it is not in vain that we wander along the shores of that unseen world. A sound does reach us from this vast abyss of waters. Earth and sea shall give up their dead.
But lioiD are the dead raised up ? The men of Grecian culture asked the question, " With what hody do they come ? " St. Paul thought it a foolish question ; and his answer is substantially as fol- lows : "When we look beneath us, around us, above us, we see material substances in untold varieties and modifications, throughout the vegetable, animal, and stellar creation.
Look first at the vegetable creation. "That which thou sowest is not quickened except it die / and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain : it may chance of wheat, or some other grain. But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body." If then " the grain you cast into the earth cannot live and bring forth fruit unless it die, is it not absurd to say, the body cannot live because it dies ? You j)lant a seed, but it does not come up a seed, but a flower. Why then may not the future be to the present body what the flower is to the seed ? " From the vapors of the sea and
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the miasma of the slain on the field of battle, arise the beauty, the brilliancy, the glory of the west- ern sky ; and from the sand of the ocean's bed, and the charcoal of the forest, come forth the crys- tal and the diamond. And why, from this natural and corruptible body which sleeps in the grave, may there not come forth a body that is spiritual and incorruptible ?
Turn your thoughts then to the animal world, and you see the same varied modifications. Flesh and blood appear in a great variety of forms : " there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds." Mark the insects which move on the surface of the ground, or swim in the deep sea. They build their sepulchres, and seem to be dead and dis- solved in dust. Yet these lifeless insects rise in forms of beauty, "dance in the air, sleep on flowers, and feed on honey and dew." The silk- worm, at first a speck of matter scarcely visible to the naked eye, spins its own shroud, and enwraps itself in its own silken robe and dies ; and then bursts its prison and comes forth a new creature, in a gorgeous dress, and to live in a new world. And do not these transformations favor the thought that we may rise in a body more glorious than that which was deposited in the grave ?
Look now at the celestial bodies. "There are celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial ; but the
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glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the siin, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars ; for one star differeth from an- other star in glory." We know not the elements of which these heavenly bodies are compounded ; but they are material bodies, and more glorious mod- ifications of matter than the elements which form the seed you cast into the ground, or the reptile that crawls upon it. And if what you sow is not that which you reap ; if the meanest worm is not the splendid tenant of the air ; if matter exists in unnum- bered forms, from the decayed vegetable to the stars and the sun in the firmament, — why, when the grave receives a natural and corruptible body, may it not yield a body that is spiritual and incorruptible ? There is a great change from the infant in its moth- er's womb, to the full grown man ; yet is it the same creature of God, and has the same conscious identity and accountableness. So there is a great change from the corruptible body that is deposited in the grave, to the incorruptible at the resurrec- tion. " It is sown in corruption," enfeebled and cor- rupted by disease, subject to decay, and not unfre- quently in part dissolved before the tide of life ceases to flow ; and destined to dissolve in rotten- ness and dust. The form, once so fair and beauti- ful, is shrouded in darkness, and hurried away from the abodes of the living. But " it is raised in incor-
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ruption," reproduced and reembodied, never again to bo invaded by infirmity or disease, but to bloom in the regions of a living immortality. " It is sown in dishonor ;" and, though once sparkling in the cheerful circles of time, is now despoiled of its attractiveness — its loveliness fled, its lustre gone, and a place assigned to it where the worm feeds, and from which the eye turns away. But " it is raised in glory ; " its ignominy is wiped away in the grave. It rises in beauty and sj^lendor, and is fashioned " like unto Christ's glorious body." " It is sown in weakness." Nothing is more weak. It is powerless. It is a mere inert, lifeless corpse ; a skull, a skeleton, a mass of motionless dust. But " it is raised in power ; " its sprightliness and activ- ity all restored, revived in more than youthful vigor, instinct with energy, endowed with faculties of which we now have no conception, " always new and ever young." It is " sown a natural body ; " a body of which mere animal life is the animating principle; a body consisting of flesh and blood, and sustained by air, food, and rest ; a mere animal body, adapted to the condition of a mere earthly existence. And "it is raised a sj^iritual body." We know not the nature of spiritual bodies. We can only say, they are bodies of which something beyond animal life is the animating principle. It is a body, the animating principle of which is the soul, — the rational, immortal principle of our na-
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ture. It is a spiritual body fitted for the residence of tlie perfected spirit, for a spiritual service, a spir- itual eternity. In form, in conscious identity, it will be the same body that lived on the earth and was deposited in the grave. It is the same body that is born that dies, and the same that dies that shall rise again. It is no new creation ; it is a res- urrection of the same body. This corruption shall put on incorruption ; this mortal, immortality. All the examples of a resurrection, — the body of Christ, and the bodies of those who came out of their graves at his resurrection, — confirm the conclusion
THAT THE SAME BODY RISES THAT DIED. But whilc
they retain their essential identity, oh! how changed ! The chaos and darkness which inhabited the grave will then be lighted up into life, light, order, and beauty. It is a privilege to live, a privilege to die, thus to rise. There is a no more gloomy and affect- ing spectacle than that which is presented in the mansions of the dead ; and none more glorious than that which wiU be presented on the morning of the resurrection. When the night of death shall have passed away, what spot on the face of this globe will present to enraptured admiration a view so grand and beautiful as some densely populated graveyard !
You and I shall be witnesses of that wondrous transformation. The pomp of worldly grandeur, the glitter of worldly wealth, the refinement of
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worldly pleasure, will soon liave passed, and tlie last of days will dawn. And, oli ! what scenes of grandeur and beauty will then be presented to the astonished, the enraptured eye ! What amazing scenes, when, as this earth revolves in its last diur- nal circuit, the knell of a departed world shall have been sounded; when "the living shall be changed and the dead shall be raised ; " and all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and come forth ! From lands and seas, from every river, every cavern, from the sultry desert, from the polar glaciers, aye, from the am- bient atmosphere, where the dust of martyrs rose in fire and smoke and vapor, and was blown abroad to the winds, — all shall come forth, until the compact soil itself, crowded with the bodies of the dead, rises above the rock-ribbed skeleton of an expiring world. What an appalling spectacle to the awe-struck universe, when those celestial spirits who witnessed the primeval creation, now witness its final consummation ! Then the history of mortal man, of time, will be finished ; death shall be swallowed up in victory, and the book closed and sealed for ever. Glorious truth — " neither shall they die any more; for they are equal unto the an- gels, and are the children of God, being the chil- dren of the resurrection ! "
After the scenes that have recently taken place in the midst of us, and the kind references to the
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beloved woman so recently taken from us, it may seem to some that enough has been said on this mournful theme. I may be allowed, however, to say, that I owe it to this church, to which she has usefully sustained the delicate and responsible re- lation of the pastor's wife ; I owe it to her children, to her character, to my own heart, to her God and my God, to avail myself of the present opportun- ity in paying a brief tribute to the memory of one who has so long been my solace in the labors of this ministry.
She was a native of the city of New Haven, in the state of Connecticut, and was born on the first of September, 1785. In her person, she was beau- tiful to the last ; in her youth, very few were more attractive. She had a fine intellect, combining clear conceptions, strong reasoning powers, a warm heart, a lively and poetic imagination, keen wit, abounding j)leasantry, and a memory that rarely forgot any thing she had read, heard, or seen. Her mind was cultivated by extensive reading, and especially in the departments of biography and history. Her colloquial powers were of a rare or- der, and attractive to all classes. No matter what their station in life, she had a word in season for all ; few, if any, ever spent a leisure hour in her society without recalling it with pleasure. In her youth and in her maturity, she was a magnet to the young, enjoying their pleasures, elevating their
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character, and promoting tteir usefulness. Chil- dren loved and sought her society, even in her old age.
A prominent feature in her character was her cheerfulness. She was rarely pensive ; and when she was so, it was touching pensiveness, and among the most affecting expressions of female loveliness. But it was a rare occurrence, even in a life pro- tracted thus long, and so chequered with trials. How often have I wished that I could look on the bright side, and with the same sunshine of the mind with which she was favored ! In this partic- ular she was the charm of our domestic circle, shooting her beams of pleasantry like golden threads through the web of social life, infusing vivacity into its toil, giving tranquillity to its apprehensions, alleviation to its sorrows, and brightness to its joys. Her life, as I look back upon it, though one of in- cessant care and labor and responsibility, was, to an unusual degree, a happy hfe. She enjoyed it ; and never more than when others enjoyed it with her. Nor may I suppress the thought, that the cheerfulness she threw around those chambers of sickness where she was so often a sufferer, and es- pecially her last sickness, was perfectly beautiful. It was a rich treat to sit hour after hour by her bedside ; and while we saw that fair flower droop and gradually wither, we felt that its fragrance was exhaled from every decaying leaf Something
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bright, something encouraging, something charged with the fulness of her own hoping, cheered heart, was every now and then playing upon her features, or flowing from her lips.
She was married on the 25th of May, 1806. We lived together four and fifty years ; and our attachment, mutual and ardent in youth, was strong and sweet to the end. God was pleased to give us a large family, nine of which remain and six have fallen asleep. I had no friend on earth on whom I had such reliance ; no counsellor so wise, and no such comforter. Her discriminations of character wei-e remarkable, and rarely was she deceived in them. Her good judgment and practical common sense might almost alwaj^s be relied on. We have rarely differed in oj^inion in matters of any impor- tance; and when we did, I generally found in the end that she was right and I was wrong. Her practical wisdom was felt also in all those minor domestic arrangements, and those fitting adapta- tions of persons and things to times and places, which secure the greatest efficiency with the least interference. Matters like these may seem of triv- ial moment to those who are born and nursed in affluence ; but in a long series of years they are serious matters, especially in a wife of a minister of the gospel.
She was eminently a self-sacrificing woman. She had no earthly object so dear to her as her hus-
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band's usefulness and honor as an ambassador of Christ, and the spiritual and temporal prosperity of her children. To me she was an affectionate, watchful, self-denying wife ; to them an affectionate, w^atchful, self-sacrificing mother. Her husband and her children can bear witness that she preferred their interest and happiness to her own. I could state not a few touching instances of this self- devotement, were it proper to do so. By day and by night, at home and abroad, in sickness and in health, in prosperity and in adversity, and in all her pecuniary arrangements, I have never known, in all my ministry, her own convenience, or comfort, or pleasure stand in the way of my duty to God and this people. Would there were more such women, in this strong and beautiful feature of her character ! An aged brother in the ministry, who had long known her, and knew her well, very soon after her death wrote to me as follows : " In your sorrow I know you have abundant consolation. May God multiply it even more ; and to you and your children may it bring forth its ripest fruits ! As a minister's wife, I have long felt that the departed one was a model. Not one rare excellence, but many, qualified her to be the light of your house, and a blessing to your jieople. You have lost much. But I know you thankfully remember that you have long enjoyed the precious gift, and that you appreciate the privilege of having had so much
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to lose." A lady of our own churcli, a long-tried friend, very kindly sent me the following testimo- nial : " The impressions Mrs. Spring made upon me in my interviews with her were of the pleas- antest character. They were that she possessed rare and social qualities ; a strong and cultivated mind ; was an intelligent, well-informed, and mature Christian, — devoted to you and to the interests of the church of which God had made you overseer. Few, if any, interested me more than your departed wife ; and I always esteemed it a privilege to be admitted to her society."
Of her religious character I can speak with thank- fulness. We were neither of us the professed follow- ers of Christ at the time of our mariiage. The third day after our union, when on a tour to visit my pai'ents, and the wedding-party which had accom- panied us from New Haven to Hartford had sep- arated from us, and we had retired to our chamber, we kneeled together for the first time in prayer. I never shall forget the hour, nor the place. It was in a comfortable hotel, and in the quiet village of Lougmeadow, in the State of Massachusetts. And need I say, that from that hour we felt bound to- gether by new bonds of affection and confidence. It was the commencement of our family worship, and was continued and daily renewed to the eve- ning before her death. She did not make a public profession of her faith in Christ until seven years
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after lier marriage, and three years after she came to New York. But she did it intelligently, and with clear views of God's truth and her own duty. Christ was her refuge. She came to him humbly, but cheerfully ; with nothing but her sins for him to forgive, and nothing but her wants for him to supply. Her religion was made up of strong prin- ciples; devotement to duty; implicit confidence in the Deity, the atoning sacrifice, and justifying right- eousness of the Son of God ; a stern attachment to truth and right ; modest, but sometimes sarcastic rebukes of wickedness ; and a life of unostentatious and joyous consecration to higher interests than her own. There was no severity, no gloom thrown around the truths, the pi'ivileges, the obligations of the gospel where her influence w^as felt. Yet there was no lightness, and no reluctance to urge its claims. In those outpourings of the Spirit of God upon this people which form the brightest pages of our history, she was greatly useful among her young female friends. So accessible w^as she, that they often resorted to her; nor are there wanting, among the living and the dead, those who are witnesses of her sympathy and judicious coun- sels. She was not forgetful to entertain strangers, especially during the earlier pai't of her history ; and, if I mistake not, she will be long remembered b}" those ministers of the gospel who enjoyed her hospitality. In her attachment to the Shorter Gate-
BEICK CHUECH MEMOEIAL. 241
chism of the Westminster Assembly, and in her painstaking efforts to imbue the minds of her children with its truths, she was a true Puritan mother. She was a lover of the Bible. She had great reverence for it, and read it much ; and, though the best of commentaries were within her reach, she preferred to read it without note or comment, — comparing scripture with scripture. The Bible was her standard. " How readest thou ? " was a question not only familiar to her own mind, but one with which she often troubled self-conceited con- troversialists. She had no desire to be " wise above what is written ; " and would often say of certain new systems, and certain classes of men and loomen^ " They do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God."
Those who knew her only during the last few years of her life, did not hrioio lier. For two years before her death she was a sufferer ; not so much through pain as increasing debility. Yet these two years were years not of morbid melancholy, but of undiminished cheerfulness. The last few months of her life forbade all hope of her recovery. She saw her end approaching, and awaited it with submis- sion and hope, expressing only the wish that she might be spared until the approaching fiftieth anniversary of my ordination. And she did live eiglit and forty hours after that memorable and painful Sabbath. She had learned to l)Ow her will to the will of God. 16
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The most painful thought I heard from her lips was, " Oh ! I am a crushed worm ! " As I one day- held her in my arms, she remarked, " It is very pleasant for me to feel that I lie here in the hands of God." Then, after a moment's pause, she added, " I know of no thought more sweet, unless it be some bright views of the way of salvation by Jesus Christ." I asked her if the truths of the gospel appeared as realities to her own mind. She replied, " Of course they doT I asked her again if she took hold of them as strong truths, and if she rested her eternity upon them. Again she answered, in her own pithy language, '•''Of course I doP It was the custom of our dispersed children to meet in their mother's chamber every Saturday evening. About a fortnight before her death, and while she lay so enfeebled that we did not know she would notice the reading, I read to them the discourse lately delivered to you, entitled "Eedemption God's greatest work. " We did not know that she heard a word of it ; but, at the close, she audibly exclaimed, "Glorious Redemption! glorious Re- demption !"
She was fond of music ; she read its language easily, and her sweet voice in sacred song gave sweetness to our daily worship. We all sang with her ; and when she could no longer unite with us, she would select the hymns for us to sing. Very often the stanzas were from the hymn —
BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL. 243
" I'm a pilgrim and I'm a stranger ;
I can tarry but a night : Do not detain me, for I am going To where the fountains are ever flowing,
And my Kedeemer is the light."
On another occasion it was —
"Jesus, lover of my soul ! Let me to thy bosom fly,"
in the beautiful but neglected tune of Hotham. On other occasions it was —
"Just as I am, without one plea, But that thy blood was shed for me. And that thou bid'st me come to thee, 0 Lamb of God, I come, I come ! "
Our evening worship was always in her chamber ; and on the evening of the Lord's Day she almost uniformly selected that beautiful hymn of Watts,
" Father, I long, I faint to see The place of thine abode ; I'd leave thine earthly courts, and flee Up to thy seat, my God ! "
Ten days before her departure, her debility was extreme ; and we never retired for the night with- out the apprehension of being called to her bedside before morning, to see her die.. On the evening of the last Lord's Day but one before she died, we were singing the hymn,
"My God, the spring of all my joys, The life of my delights, The glory of my brightest days. And comfort of my nights,"
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when, wonderful to us all, as we were rehearsing the words,
"The opening heavens around me shine With beams of brightest bhss ; While Jesus shows his heart is mine, And whispers, I am Ms,'''' —
we heard her feeble voice uniting with us. Little did we expect ever to hear that voice of praise again this side of heaven ; but, as we came to the words,
" My soul would leave this heavy clay At that transporting word,"
that loving voice which had so often charmed us broke forth in heaven-imparted energy, and she sang —
" Fearless of hell and ghastly death, I'd break through every foe ; The wings of love and arms of faith Shall bear me conqueror through."
They were her last words ; it was our hist song on the earth.
This was on Sabbath evening. On the follow- ing morning there was a partial paralysis of her right side ; very obviously her life on the earth was drawing to its close. She could not speak dis- tinctly after this. Her mind was still clear, l)ut she could converse with us only by the expression of her countenance and the pressure of her hand. We were exceedingly anxious that God would
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grant her tlie power of speech to the last ; but in this our prayer was denied. Yet she did not leave us without some delightful witness of her faith, and hope, and joy. It was a week of trial, such as I hope never to see again. Yet was it a most delightful week to her and to us all : so full of sweetness, that it seemed to me it was given to us as the sweetest alleviation of our griefs — to her as an earnest of her heavenly rest. She knew us all until about two days before she died ; during which she was unconscious. Yet was it a great comfort to us to sit by her, and look on that calm and heavenly face. On the morning of the 7th of August, at half past eight o'clock, she was released from debility and suffering, and entered her Fa- ther's house. She died in the presence of her husband and her eight children, and her attached nurse and servants, all of whom ministered to her with constant and unwearied care, and great love and tenderness. She was buried in a vault beneath the tower of this church, where she herself had once intimated that it would be a pleasant resting- place, by the side of her husband, until the resur- rection.
I bless God for a helper so meet and fitted to my character and toils as a minister of the gospel. I bless him that he gave her to me, and that I had her so long. I bless him that I had so much joy in my attentions to her during her prolonged ill-
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ness, and so many tokens of her love. And, al- though these pages are not written without tears, I bless him that her course is finished, and that her aching head is at rest. I bless him that, through him who loved us both, she has gained the victory and wears the crown, and that at the resurrection of the just I shall see and recognize that dear form again. I watched her last breath, and could not but congratulate her that the former things are passed away. Oh, fairest flower ! bleak winter has but embosomed thee in his snow-soft arms, to bloom afresh in the Paradise above. Never did I appreciate the Christian doctrine of the resurrection until I deposited beneath yonder tower the mortal remains of the woman I so much loved. There they sleep ; that church-going bell telling of her depar- ture, that lofty spire her monument. There she sleeps, but only "till the heavens be no more." Believe me, there are joys in the assured anticipa- tion that " all that are in their graves shall hear his voice and come forth," which none but mourn- ers know. I marvel not that the New Testament magnifies it ; nor that the harp of ancient seers should strike the note, " Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust ! for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out her dead."
There is a touching incident in the divine record, in regard to the "father of the faithful," which has emboldened me, on the present occasion, to throw
BRICK CHURCH MEMORIAL. 247
myself on your indulgence. It is in the following words: "And Sarah died in Kirjatli-arba ; the same is Hebron, in the land of Canaan ; and Abra- ham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her." I may be allowed, my beloved people, to solicit an interest in your prayers for a sanctified improvement of a like affliction to my own soul, to our dear children, and to this congregation. I ask them for myself, that my grief may be neither dis- content, nor despondency, nor defiance, nor despair ; but tranquil submission and humble self-abasement under God's chastising hand. I think of coming solitude and sorrows, and feel that I need lier to encourasre and comfort me. I think of surround- ing mercies, and the increasing tokens of your favor, and say, What are they all without her ? I can not look to earth ; clouds darken on my path- way now.
Ere long, they will obscure your pathway as well as mine. These earthly ties must all be sun- dered. What you need is a w^ell-grounded hope of a holy and blissful immortality ; that, when the day of adversity comes, you " sorrow not as those who have no hope ;" and, when death approaches and the grave covers you, you and those who love you may have the joy that you sleep in Jesus. Life is a blessing so long as we live to life's great end. It is worthless but for this ; it is the happiest life even amid life's bitter sori'ows. Death too is
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a blessing when our work is done : it delivers from sins, and conflicts, and sorrows, and terminates in joys known only to the spirits of just men made perfect. We die, and sleep in the dust ; but over those who thus sleep intervening ages will pass rapidly away. There is no dial-plate there on which to count the hours of time. The busy world of life, which wakes at each morning and ceases every night, goes on above them ; but to them all is silent and unseen. The greetings of joy and the voice of grief, the revolution of em- pires and the lapse of ages, send no sound within that narrow cell. The inscription upon their mon- umental marble tells the centuries that have passed away ; but to the sleeping dead the long interval is unobserved. Everlasting thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is but a short winter's day between the period when the eye is closed in the grave and when it wakes at the res- urrection. "Behold, he cometh in clouds, and every eye shall see him ! " You will awake and be there, my hearers, and so shall I. And so will the loved ones we have buried out of our sight. God grant that there may be no painful separations on that Great and Last Day. If we part then, we part to meet no more — parted for ever, or for ever united to the general assembly and church of the First Born which ai'e written in heaven.
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