USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > The retrospect. A glance at thirty years of the history of Howard street Methodist Episcopal church of San Francisco > Part 4
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Some thought I was quite a young man to be placed in so responsible a position, and good Bro. Burns, of Powell Street Church, said to me one morning, at Allen & Spier's store, in a joking manner, " Go ahead now, Bro. Urmy, and beat Dr. Scott." The sarcasm of the remark received point from the fact that the Doctor was then at the height of his fame as pastor of Calvary
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Church, then situated on Bush street, just below Montgomery.
The prayer-meetings increased in interest and in the number attending, and from thir- teen, which we thought a good number, we soon went up to thirty or more. The class-meetings also became seasons of great spiritual profit, and it was necessary to have three or four where before one an- swered.
At one of the prayer-meetings an inei- dent occurred of rather a startling nature. Bro. McPhun, who then lived on First street, had come to the meeting with his wife, leaving the children at home, the resi- dence being back of a small store which they then kept. When the meeting was about half through the door opened, and Bro. McPhun, turning round, started up in af- fright, and making the exclamation, " Holy Mother," commenced to walk over the pews back of him. I looked toward the door, and saw a child coming in crying, and with its night dress all covered with blood. The meeting suddenly closed. It seems the children had supposed some one was about entering the house, and going to the front door had found it locked. In endeavoring to break through the window this one had cut itself quite badly, though not fatally.
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Member after member now joined and some were soundly converted, among them Bros. Nelson and Peterson. The Sunday school increased in size and interest ; im- provements were made, a brick wall being built in front of the lot and a sidewalk laid. The exterior of the building was painted, and the interior whitened ; and from that time, for several reasons, the prosperity of the charge was insured ; the principal fac- tor in the success being the firmness and persistence of the members, the living part of whom it may not be permissible for me to personally refer to, but it will not be out of place for me to mention Sammis and Beards- ley and Howard and Sisters Augusta Town- send and Stringer, and others of precious memory, who so nobly toiled and paid and attended with right royal perseverance, un- til a success was assured which we are now enjoying the results of, and the future out- come of which no man can imagine.
Capt. Charles Goodall said :
When this church was built there were in a very marked degree four characteristics shown in a single individual, viz. : piety, wisdom, energy, and perseverance. The individual possessing these four desirable qualifications for such a work was the Rev. J. D. Blain.
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The first-piety-meaning obedient love of the will of God, and zealous devotion to his service.
If I am any judge, after knowing a man intimately in sunshine and storm, in sickness and health, in prosperity and adversity, as I did know Brother Blain, he was en- tirely devoted to whatever he thought was the will of his Maker ; and no matter what it cost him if he saw it was his duty, he was sure to do it.
The second -- wisdom-which we under- stand to be the use of the best means to attain the best ends. This was shown in his management of the business of disposing of the old property and securing the new.
Third-energy-the capacity and will to pursue in a strong and vigorous manner whatever his duty called him to.
Ile was strong and vigorous, both in body and mind, and full of the resources of good health, common sense, keen and clear of intellect, a true embodiment of a Christian, and every inch a man.
Fourth - perseverance - continued pur- suit or prosecution of any business or enter- prise begun.
After the decision of himself and officiary, he left no stone unturned.
4
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Going from house to house, merchant to merchant, business man to business man, mechanic to mechanic, and all trades, avoca- tions and callings that could be reached. Rebuffs abashed him not; he would be heard, and generally accomplished his ob- ject.
He thought it was just as much serving God and preaching, with the plan of the church in his hand and arguing for a sub- scription, as it was to be in the pulpit with the Bible before him explaining and eluci- dating the scriptures.
It enabled him to make personal applica- tion to individuals, which was his strong forte. He would not be put off ; where others would be bluffed off in dismay, he would come off triumphant with a subscrip- tion.
Besides these virtues that characterized the Pastor, there were in the official Board and membership, a faith in the result, and a unity of action that was begotten thereby, and that was a harbinger of final triumph.
Tug of war-up guards, and at them.
It is said, separate the atoms which make the hammer, and each would fall on the stone as a snowflake ; weld it together, and wielded by the firm arm of the quarry man, it will break the massive rocks asunder.
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Divide the waters of Niagara into distinct and individual drops, and they will be no more than the falling rain; but in their united body they would quench the fires of Versuvius, and have some to spare for the volcanos of other mountains.
But he has gone and they have gone. The strong and manly bodies of Blain, Sammis, Howard, Harlow, Beardsley, Gaw- ley, and Sprague, of them that helped to build up this edifice, are no more on earth ; they have gone, as have also Peck and Guard, the learned and eloquent preachers whose efforts we shall always remember. Six trustees and three preachers have gone to join the innumerable company which no man can number; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
To-day they see and know what we are doing ; they join in joyous jubilee as we raise it here : it is answered and echoed in heaven ; we cannot hear their voices (except in memory ), but they can hear ours. If we live and die as they did (and I have faith to think we shall), we shall join with them.
" We shall meet, we shall sing, we shall reign In the land where the saved never die ; We shall rest free from sorrow and pain
With them in the sweet bye and bye."
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Rev. J. A. Bruner said :
I remember that on a certain Thursday night, October, 1858, with wife and ehil- dren, landing from the Sacramento steam- er, we were met by representative men of the charge, Wm. HI. Coddington, R. Mc- Elroy, and Capt. Charles Goodall, who for three successive nights had been awaiting our arrival at the wharf. We were hospit- ably entertained at the home of Capt. Goodall until the parsonage was ready for occupancy.
Though strangers to all, our reception was hearty, and our intercourse with the society and congregation cordial without exception during our stay.
Entering into the labors of my faithful predecessor, Rev. W. S. Urmy, I found an appreciative people prepared of the Lord.
Our official meetings were earnest, broth- erly, harmonious : no overshadowing power dietating the regimen : we all strove togeth- er in love.
Every man was loyal to the interests of the charge, ready to do, willing to work and to contribute.
A noticable feature of the society was its social atmosphere, more apt to be found in small churches, where each and all may
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have recognition and brotherly attention ; where equality largely prevails, and a com- mon interest unites hearts and hands in earnest church work.
My new little study in the rear of the church, a part of the parsonage, was com- fortable, quiet, shut in from the bustle and noise of the city. It also accommodated business meetings and class services, which were earnest. spiritual, and well sustained.
From a brief journal kept at the time, I am able to sketch some of the facts of spiritual life and progress at that time.
Dec. 15th, 1858. At our Wednesday night prayer meeting, towards its close, Hiram R -- an interesting young man, came unsolicited, and kneeling at the altar gave God his heart, and became a new crea- ture in Christ Jesus.
The following Sunday this young man spoke excellently in class, saying : " This Sabbath is worth more to me than all the days of my past life."
Jan. 19th, 1859. God has, in answer to prayer, begun a gracious work in my charge. The society is striving after a closer walk with God.
Last week a young man entered into perfect love. This week a sister who had
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lost the blessing of purity many years ago in Maine, had it restored. She seems the most active member of the charge.
Every evening professors and penitents kneel at the altar for pardon or purity. Last night two men found Jesus, and pub- licly acknowledged the gift of God. One of them is our organist. May the gracious work deepen and extend.
Jan. 23rd, Sunday morning. On Thurs- day and Friday evenings, from ten to thir- teen presented themselves as seekers of pardon. Satan strove hard to baffle, but both evenings the Lord saved souls. Some six or eight have found peace.
Jan. 24th, Monday. Yesterday my faith claimed the promises in behalf of God's work in our midst, and it was honored.
Jan. 28th. At no time since coming to the State have I felt such yearnings for sinners. Yesterday my heart was much drawn out in prayer and tender regard for souls.
Last night, after a short sermon by Bro. Thomas, a filled altar attested the fact of a deepening and widening of the work.
Jan. 29th. To-night Dr. Peck preached to a large audience, the altar was filled, several found peace, and six offered for pro- bation.
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Jan. 30th. This morning I was enabled to press the subject of a present salvation. After sermon Bro. E. Thomas consecrated the elements for and assisted in our first monthly communion. Some who lately found the Savior were deeply affected.
In the afternoon at the Sunday School, before the opening prayer, I asked "how many children and youth desire remem- brance in prayer ?" A number of young ladies and many of the children rose. Twenty adults were present in my Bible Class, some of whom were lately converted.
Wednesday and Friday, 9th and 11th Feb., were observed as days of fasting and prayer for extension of the work.
Sunday, 13th Feb., baptised four young men, and received four young men into full membership.
At close of sermon the whole congrega- tion knelt in silent prayer.
Bro. R. McElroy then concluded with appropriate petitions.
The presiding Elder, Rev. M. C. Briggs, called with me to see our well attended Sunday school. At close of evening service all except two persons remained for the prayer meeting.
Feb. 19th, Saturday afternoon, forty per-
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sons present at 2 o'clock, to hear Bro. Briggs' first sermon at our second quarterly meeting.
The next morning at 9 o'clock held Love- feast. The scene was thrilling, in part from the number of nationalities represented in a company of perhaps less than one hundred.
The story of salvation was told, not only by Americans, but subjects of the British crown from the Provinces, from London, various parts of Great Britain ; men from Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark ; the Russian from St. Petersburg ; the darker Spaniard from Malaga, each and all spoke the language of Canaan and rejoiced to- gether in Christ Jesus. The occasion will never be forgotten. Some of those who tes- tified that day to the power of saving grace have long since passed to their heavenly home. Among the number, Capt. Daniel S. Howard, who gave his heart to God in our midst during the revival, was a power for good in every department of the church ; a burning and shining light, until years after- ward he was suddenly called to his heavenly rest.
So also, the venerable Cady, who so heartily embraced the great salvation, and as a patriarch exemplifying the spirit of his
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divine Master, until several years since he was not, for God took him.
The following entry in my journal indi- cates the progress and results of the work up to that date :
Feb. 25th. Six weeks since I began a series of meetings in my charge which have continued every evening until the present.
About 20 persons or upwards have pro- fessed conversion, the principle part of whom within the first two weeks .. Also, some 12 or 14 joined by letter, which in- creased the society of Folsom street charge from 70 to 100 or more. The Sunday school has also doubled.
I have said that the charge were ready and willing workers. The benefactions of the church were all represented at the close of the year.
On Sunday morning, July 31st, after a sermon by Bishop Baker, in less than 15 minutes we raised $600 -- being in full of all indebtedness for parsonage, improvements, etc.
The following contains the last mem- oranda from my journal of that year:
Aug. 7, 1859. Held our fourth quarterly meeting. Rev. M. C. Briggs preached morning and evening, and administered the Lord's Supper. 4*
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During the year not one of our number have died ; no one been expelled ; no church trial ; no complaint ; no appeal. The Lord be praised !
Such is, in brief, a sketch of my happy twelve months' pastorate with this loving people ; at the close of which against their earnest protest I felt it duty, for the sake of the health of my family, to occupy a new field of labor. How swiftly those years have sped away ! Though a goodly pro- portion of the old Folsom street member- ship continue, a new generation has grown up around them ; another house of worship, spacious, commodious, contains the largely increased society and congregation ; hun- dreds of new Sunday school scholars attend the exercises of faithful teachers, and join in glad hosannas to the Great Head of the church.
Rev. S. D. Simonds said :
I suppose that in these Jubilee services some personal references are expected. In common with most ministers and all thought- ful men, in all ages, I have deeply pondered the question of human responsibility. I came early to the conclusion that the uni- versal law for each, man or woman, was to do all the good which the environments of
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each rendered possible to be done. To do good of every possible sort, both to the bodies and souls of men, is the life of re- ligion. Without this all piety is pretense ; all faith but the faith of devils.
This sense of responsibility led me to the Christian ministry, and as far as possi- ble with my surroundings kept me in it to the present. The Christian ministry, how- ever the declaration may excite surprise in the minds of mere naturalists, is the great- est source of blessing to the world. Un- less the light of spiritual truth and the affection of goodness and purity be in the mind, there is no power of self-help with man.
It takes a soul
To move a body. * *
It takes the ideal to blow a hair's breath off The dust of the actual. * * Life develops from within.
I have had the largest sympathy with re- formers, so called, but who has not marked their distressing failures. Reformers gen- erally have the greatest need to be reform- ed. Their shadow goes backward and not forward on the dial of progress.
The fact is, nothing in this world grows except from seed. And the seed of human
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growth is the word made flesh, then glori- fied, or made spirit and life. That word preached unto men brings divine light and divine love into the human soul as an orga- nizing force, and renders all progress possi- ble, and great progress in civilization cer- tain. Soon the German nation will celebrate the four-hundredth anniversary of the birth- day of Martin Luther. Well and nobly should it be done ; for Martin Luther gave them the Bible in German, which has done more for the nation than all her needle and Krupp guns. And its light is but just dawning. It will go on blessing the land while time shall last. Similar has been the power of the English Bible to advance and bless the English and American peoples. The word is the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night by which the modern Israel of all humanity journeys to a glorious Ca- naan of a perfect civilization, and each obe- dient soul comes to glory. The negations of unbelief and the dark tyrannies of ser- vice are but eddies in the stream, and parts of the onward movement before it is under- stood.
It was my most earnest effort for years to promote the spiritual life of the people. I never speculated. I never lost myself
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in forms. I tried to avoid beating the air with common-place expression. If I was not understood by others-for rarely is ad- vancing thought accepted at once-I under- stood myself to herald forth the light of the new day on which I felt the world had en- tered. And yet it was the Old World in- terpreted by the demonstrations of experi- ence, and in the light of that spirit which was promised to guide into all truth. If the Lord Jesus said more than eighteen hundred years ago, "I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now," was it not time to walk in the light of the Holy Comforter, even the Spirit of truth ?
Let your minds glance over the two great dispensations, the Mosaic and the Christian : the first, intensely external and natural ; the second, natural with inspira- tions of the Spirit. Both equally divine, but one of law, the other of grace and truth. Walk along the track of history to
Has the Kingdom the eighteenth century. of God come? The churches, whether Greek, Roman or Protestant, are altogether external; no more the Kingdom of God than the Empire of Charlemagne, Charles V. or Napoleon I. The prophetic periods
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are closed. No man carefully governed by Scripture can carry the prophetic periods beyond 1830, if he can later than 1750. After thirteen years of very intense and careful study of prophecy, I could find no point below 1730, or thereabout. I was utterly at sea, and could not accept the theories that brought the world to an end in 1843. It ought to have ended be- fore.
But let us look at God's commentary in Providence on his word. In 1729, Mr. Wesley organized his societies. It was not the first perception of a spiritual kingdom. The United Brethren and the Quakers ex- isted already. But it was the clearest, simplest, and most powerful organization for spiritual truth that the world had seen. And the doctrine of the witness of the Spir- it to the word of God was clearly announc- ed.
Such a phenomenon I call a new dispensa- tion of Christian truth and life. If the dogmas of the sixteenth century have been foisted upon it; if the ecclesiasticisms of the middle ages have laid their hands upon it in any degree ; they no more belong to it than the Judaism of the old Pharisees be- longs to Christianity. Methodism must
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cast them off, or God will raise another people to take her crown. Her mission is to hold forth God's written word, and pro- claim the demonstration of its truth in the hearts and lives of believers, a living faith a living, supernatural (higher nature) religion, the kingdom of God in men, which though small in its beginnings, will advance more and more forever. We are but in the dawn of the spiritual church, where the Lord Jesus is the all in all. I sought to pro- mote, as far as I was able, while pastor of this church, the spiritual life of the people. I made no effort to preach eloquent or learned sermons ; but I love eloquence and learning, and honor them every where ; but I was so intent on the spirit of regener- ation among men, that I had no time to pol- ish periods, or shape the climax with decla- mation. It was to make Christ known as the resurrection and the life, that filled the measure of my ambition. I felt that if I could plant spirituality in the people, it would be the greatest good to them, and the greatest good to the world, and lay the broadest foundation for the prosperity of the church. I hope it is not with any van- ity in my heart that I survey the past, in the confident belief that to the spiritual life
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then infused into the people, this church owes more of its prosperity than to any man or set of men. Such prosperity is not my honor. It is the honor of God, to whom be all glory forever-Amen.
PEN PICTURES.
BY ROBERT MC ELROY.
HAD RESPECT UNTO THE RECOMPENSE.
One evening, in the early part of 1862, a young man came into our prayer meeting and took a seat near the altar. His per- sonal appearance was prepossessing and his manner exceedingly devout. His face beamed with a heavenly radiancy, and his eye sparkled with the fire of pure devotion. His voice was clear and ringing, and when engaged in prayer, exhortation or song, seemed to melt all present into the most ex- quisite tenderness. He talked so eloquently of the love of Jesus ; he pleaded so prevail- ingly at the throne of grace : he sung, O! how sweetly, of that home where the glori- fied rest from life's weary toil. All eyes were upon him and all hearts were stirred to their profoundest depths by the magic of his manner and the exceeding sweetness of his religious exercises. Wonder who he
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is and whence he came? Such was the curious inquiry which came leaping from all lips, and yet none seemed able to answer the inquiry or satisfy the curiosity. There he was, stranger to all, and yet all hearts thrilling under the pathos and power of his devotions. Like the risen Christ when walking with his disciples by the way un- heralded and unknown, and yet producing the most exquisite sensations of pleasurable emotion by his gracious words. He drifted away from that evening meeting as silently and unknown as he came, and yet he had left the impress of his sweet spirit and in- tense fervor. Next was he seen in the Sunday morning congregation, when he presented his church letter from one of the New York pastors, and thus became identi- fied with us in church labor.
We look at this man's career and trace his short life's history in its many vicissi- tudes with the most intense interest, as it reveals to us such stupendous value of ad- hering to principle, no matter where such adherence leads or whatsoever sacrifice it in- volves. Precious indeed, in all ages of the church, have been the exhibitions of Christian steadfastness under the severest tests. Job's integrity, Daniel's faithfulness,
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and the Hebrew children's devotion shine out as the sparkle of the pure diamond, and beautifully illustrate how little does the de- vout heart care for the glitter of earthly emolument when offered for the sacrifice of stern Christian principle. And so did the conduct of this young man sparkle with in- tensest luster when the test came ; for come it did with terrible severity not long after he reached this city.
In that day of California history the pop- ular idea in all parts of the world seemed to be that if the impecunious could only reach our golden shores, they would want no more, as golden streams were constantly running down our streets in such swift and overflowing current that none need go un- supplied ; and so many under this delusion left their homes with only money enough to bring them here. Upon their arrival, how- ever, the hallucination vanished, and they found themselves in a strange land where life's necessities could not be secured with- out large expenditure of solid coin. It was not remarkable, under these circumstances, that much suffering was endured and much want and privation experienced. Nor was it strange that the labor market was over- stocked, insomuch that men were found by
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thousands who could not obtain remun- erative employment. Such was the state of things when this young man found his home among us, and he, having a wife to support and not much money to meet their ever re- curring wants, was extremely anxious to obtain employment. Many a day did he plod the streets, weary and disheartened, in search of some mode of honestly carning the necessary means of support. Although gifted with business talent of no mean order, yet the opportunity to put that talent to useful service did not occur till his money was about gone, and his courage had well nigh failed. And then that opportunity came only in the form of most severe temp- tation. He was offered a fine situation where the pay was large and the work not over exhaustive ; but with it was coupled the necessity of violating God's command- ment in the desecration of his holy day. None could acceptably fill the situation un- less he worked on the Sabbath, and without consenting to do this the situation was not at his command. What should he do-al- low his wife and himself to starve or accept the tempting offer ? On the one hand was comfort and plenty, on the other penury and want. On the one hand was independent
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