CHAPTER XVIII.
THE CHILDREN OF THE MOTHER.
John Chambers used to boast of his three big W's—Walton, Wanamaker, and Whitaker. The two first-named are known to most of my readers. The third, who made a vow to give to the Lord all he had or made over the amount of sixty thousand dollars, was a generous helper of the pastor.
The first great offshoot from the mother church on Broad Street is the Bethany Presbyterian Church, in which Messrs. Wanamaker and Walton, were generously interested and unceasingly active.
In 1875 Mr. Chambers said, "Connected with our movements as a church, no single event in our history exceeds in point of grandeur or importance Bethany mission, ... A very few, some thirty, of the young workers of our church headed by that remarkable young man, John Wanamaker, left us and after there being a selection made in the southwestern part of the city, they started a Sabbath School in the working room of a little Irish shoemaker, with some ten little ragged children to begin with, and in the course of a very few weeks they had to take all the room in the little Irishman's home, pretty much, and then they had not enough. A tent was erected that would contain some four or five hundred, and then the congregation agreed that there should be a house put up, and a one-story house was put up that would contain some five or six hundred".
It seems almost like a fairy tale when one contrasts the condition of things in the Bethany neighborhood, as I first saw it in 1855, and as it is now. After our family had moved from Girard Avenue to the house on 20th street four doors below Chestnut on the east side, my mother took me one day to enter the public school situated, I believe, at 22nd and Shippen. Just as we turned the corner at Twentieth and Pine Street, I looked across to the southwest. For many hundred of acres, there was an expanse of vacant lots occupied here and there with squatters' cabins, goose pastures and roaming cows, the streets not being yet "cut through". Still in the days of the volunteer fire company, with all its lawlessness and also of abundance, yes, superabundance, of liquor saloons, it seemed one of the least promising portions of the city. Now, it is densely built up with elegant homes and is the center of wealth, comfort, and culture.
I remember well, too, when the first band of workers went out from the mother church and on the 14th of February, 1858, in two second story rooms of the house at No. 2135 South Street, began a Sunday School, with twenty-seven scholars and two teachers, the seating capacity being eked out, if I remember rightly, with rough scantling brought up out of the cellar and laid upon bricks. Long before hot weather, the rooms, halls, and stairway were crowded, so on the 18th of July a tent was set up on the North side of South street. After a summer under canvas, the corner stone for a chapel was laid on the 18th of October, Dr. Chambers with his brethren, Leyburn, Brainerd, and McLeod making addresses. The chapel which measured 40 by 60 feet was dedicated on January 27th, 1859, and on January 4th, 1862, Rev. Augustus Blauvelt began his labors as city missionary, becoming after a year a missionary to China. I remember him as preaching a remarkable sermon on the kingdom of Satan. He died in April, 1900.
The growth of Bethany was continuous and surprising. I remember how those most interested conversed with each other about the name of the child now fully born and ready for its clothing and christening. The walks and talks and experiences by the way, in going from the old home to the new enterprise, called up the words of the Scripture: "He led them out as far as Bethany and lifted up his hands and blessed them". So the name of Bethany was decided upon.
On September 25, 1865, the enterprise was organized into a Presbyterian Church under the care of the Presbytery of Philadelphia, Old School. The lot at the southeast corner of Twenty-second and Bainbridge streets, 112 by 138½ feet, was purchased, and on February 13, 1870, the new and commodious edifice was dedicated.