Good friends, I have told you what aspirations led me to the pulpit as a place in which to serve my Master; and I thank Christ, the Lord, for putting me into the ministry. The forty-four years I have spent in that office have been unspeakably happy. Many a far better man has not been as happy from causes beyond control. He may have had to contend with feeble health as I never have; or a despondent temperament, as I never have; or have struggled to maintain a large household on a slender purse; he may have been placed in a stubborn field, where the Gospel was shattered to pieces on flinty hearts. From all such trials a kind Providence has delivered your pastor.
My ministry began in a very small church. For that I am thankful. Let no young minister covet a large parish at the outset. The clock that is not content to strike one will never strike twelve. In that little parish at Burlington, N.J., I had opportunity for the two most valuable studies for any minister—God's Book and individual hearts. My next call was to organize and serve an infant church in Trenton, N.J., and for that I am thankful. Laying the foundation of a new church affords capital tuition in spiritual masonry, and the walls of that church have stood firm and solid for forty years. The crowning mercy of my Trenton ministry was this, that one Sunday while I was watering the flock, a goodlier vision than that of Rebecca appeared at the well's mouth, and the sweet sunshine of that presence has never departed from the pathway of my life. To this hour the prosaic old capital of New Jersey has a halo of poetry floating over it, and I never go through it without waving a benediction from the passing train.
The next stage of my life's work was a seven years' pastorate of Market Street Church in the city of New York. To those seven years of hard and happy labor I look back with joy. The congregation swarmed with young men, many of whom have risen to prominence in the commercial and religious life of the great metropolis. The name of Market Street is graven indelibly on my heart. I rejoice that the quaint old edifice still stands and welcomes every Sabbath a congregation of landsmen and of sailors. During the year 1858 occurred the great revival, when a mighty wind from Heaven filled every house where the people of God were sitting, and the glorious work of that revival kept many of us busy for six months, night and day.
Early in the year 1860 a signal was made to me from this side of the East River. It came from a brave little band then known as the Park Presbyterian Church, who had never had any installed pastor. The signal at first was unheeded; but a higher than human hand seemed to be behind it, and I had only to obey. That little flock stood like the man of Macedonia, saying, "Come over and help us," and after I had seen the vision immediately I decided to come, assuredly concluding that God had called me to preach the Gospel unto them.
This morning my memory goes back to that chilly, stormy April Sunday when my labors began as your first pastor. About two hundred and fifty people, full of grace and grit, gathered on that Easter morning to see how God could roll away stones that for two years had blocked their path with discouragement. My first message many of you remember. It was, "I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." Of that little company the large majority has departed. Many of them are among the white-robed that now behold their risen Lord in glory. Of the seventeen church officers—elders, deacons and trustees—then in office, who greeted me that day, only four are living, and of that number only one, Mr. Albion P. Higgins, is now a member of this congregation. I wonder how many there are here this morning that gathered before my pulpit on that Easter Sunday thirty years ago? As many of you as there are present that were at that service thirty years ago will do me a favor if you will rise in your pews.
(Thirteen people here stood up.)
God bless you! If it hadn't been for you this ark would never have been built.
Ah! we had happy days in that modest chapel. The tempest of civil war was raging, with Lincoln's steady hand at the helm. We got our share of the gale; but we set our storm-sails, and every one that could handle ropes stood at his or her place. Just think of the money contributions that small church made during the first year of my pastorate—$20,000, not in paper, but in gold. The little band in that chapel was not only generous in donations but valiant in spirit, and it was under the gracious shower of a revival that we removed into this edifice on the 16th of March, 1862.
The subsequent history of the church was published so fully at the notable anniversary five years ago that I need only repeat the chief head-lines in a very few sentences. In 1863 Mr. William Wickes started a mission school, which afterward grew into the present Cumberland Street Church. In 1866 occurred that wonderful work of grace that resulted in the addition of 320 souls to our membership, one hundred of them heads of families. As a thank-offering to God for that rich blessing the Memorial Mission School was established, which was soon organized into the Memorial Presbyterian Church, now on Seventh Avenue, under the excellent pastorate of my Brother Nelson. During the winter of 1867 a conference of gentlemen was held in yonder study which set on foot the present Classon Avenue Church, where my Brother Chamberlain administers equally satisfactorily. Olivet Mission was organized in 1874. It will always be fragrant with the memory of Horace B. Griffing, its first superintendent. The Cuyler Chapel was opened on Atlantic Avenue in March, 1886, by our Young People's Association, who are maintaining it most vigorously. The little Corwin Mission on Myrtle Avenue was established by a member of the church to perpetuate his name, and is largely sustained by members of this church.
Of all the efficient, successful labors of the Lafayette Avenue Temperance Society, the Women's Home and Foreign Missionary Society, their Benevolent Society, the Cuyler Mission Band, the Daughters of the Temple, and other kindred organizations. I have no time or place to speak this morning. But I must repeat now what I have said in years past, that the two strong arms of this church are its Sunday School and its Young People's Association. The former has been kept well up to the ideal of such an institution. It is that of a training school of young hearts for this life and for the life to come. God's blessing has descended upon it like the morning dew. Of the large number of children that have been enrolled in its classes 730 have been received into membership with this church alone, and to the profession of faith in Christ—to say nothing of those who have joined elsewhere. Warmly do I thank and heartily do I congratulate our beloved brother, Daniel W. McWilliams, and his faithful group of teachers, and the Superintendent of the primary department and her group of assistants, on the seal which God has set upon their loving work. They contemplate the long array of children whom they have guided to Jesus; and they, too, can exclaim, "What is our joy or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the Lord?"