USA > New Jersey > A history of Baptists in New Jersey > Part 15
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A large German population had come into the city and demanded attention to reach it with Baptist views of truth. Members of the Central church had pledged twelve hundred dollars annually for the coming five years for mission work among them. But at a meeting on this behalf, the pastor, Mr. Miller, of the first church, was not ready for the movement, although his members present at the meeting were and the enterprise came to an untimely end. The Afro American people were also increasing and these needed provision for their care. Members of the Central church were sensitive to these conditions and with all, had the financial resources to meet them. In anticipation of these added calls, the pastor decided to retire, in hope of a more efficient successor and resigned to take effect in April 1870. This was a mistake in him, inasmuch as a stranger could not know the needs of the field. Had he remained these objects would have been effected.
On the next October, Rev. C. Keyser entered the pastorate. Mr. Keyser accomplished two important objects; the church edifice was vastly improved and a chapel was built for the Oilvet mission, through Deacon D. P. Forst advancing its cost. But unhappily, the improvements on the church edifice remained a debt, which in the reduced financial ability of the church, on account of alienations and removals imperilled the entire property. Pastor Keyser was valued by his people, but misapprehended them and lost his opportunity to do them the good in his power, by a staid conventionalism and lack of tact. He closed his pastorate in March 15th, 1875.
On the next October, T. R. Howlett was called to a second pas- torate by a majority vote against the spiritual, financial and social element of the church. An anticipated result happened. There was a virtual break up. His first pastorate had not been happy Old alienations revived, members who had sustained the church took letters, or withdrew and suffered expulsion. He remained till October 1878, three years. Arrearages on his salary were paid by sale of the parsonage. After his resignation while yet pastorless, the Holy Spirit visited the church, as of old.
Rev. L. B. Hartman was sent for. Being proved, he became pastor near the end of February 1879. Mr. Hartman was evidently the man divinely chosen to recover the church from impending wreck. Congregations grew and the pastor happily gathered again an efficient church. Lacking the financial and social element included in its membership from 1866 to 1870, but yet an efficient body. Pastor
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Hartman iserved the church twelve years closing his labors in 1891. His charge may be judged by its fruits, revivals were frequent; some who had left the church in its days of trouble returned; debts were paid; empty pews were filled; the pastor's salary was increased and the status of the church in the community was restored.
Rev. J. T. Craig was called to the pastoral office in September, 1891. In 1895, illness compelled his resignation. The church was very kind to him both in his long illness and in giving to him a pension for many months after his resignation. Tokens of good were enjoyed under Mr. Craig. The unity of the church was preserved, debts were paid, congregations were retained and converts were baptized.
Following Mr. Craig, Rev. A. W. Wishart entered the pastorate in July 1895, and is now (1900) pastor. Mr. Wishart makes a specialty of social Christianity-Christianity in the home, business and in the municipality. There has been more or less revival interest under his ministry. Men, especially, are attracted in the evenings. Mr. Wishart has made himself a power in Trenton, both with the officials of the city and in the community. The church is heartily united in him and is increasing its hold on a large class of non-church-going men. There have been many good men members of the church. Deacon D. P. Forst and his brother-in-law, J. E. Darrah, Deacons Cheeseman, McKee and Thomas C. Hill. Clinton Avenue church is indebted especially to T. C. Hill. Fuller allusion will be made to him in the history of Clinton Avenue church.
The origin of Clinton Avenue Church is stated in the history of Central Trenton Church. A mission was begun on Perry street in 1865, by the Central Church. Deacon T. C. Hill had it in special charge. It developed into the Clinton Avenue Baptist Church in 1873, having thirty-five members, nearly all of them dismissed from the Central church. At its beginning, the meetings were held in private houses and were accompanied with unusual spiritual interest. Numbers were converted and baptized into the Central church. Among the converts were saloon keepers, whose places were immediately closed. When in 1867, the chapel was built on Perry street, a Sunday school was possible and regular afternoon services were begun by pastor Griffiths of the Central Church. The Sunday school and week evening meetings were made up of the most crude and untutored elements. Then various factories and potteries were located in that section and many of its residents were of foreign birth. The boys who thronged the meetings evidently enjoyed this land of liberty and they had "great fun." Coatless and shoeless, with rents in their nether clothing, during prayer meeting playing leap frog in the aisle, turning somer-
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saults over the benches, whistling, crowing, mewing, as the temper took them. Often the pastor could not hear his own voice in prayer. Said a member of the church to him at the close of such a meeting, "This is dreadful. You must get a policeman to keep order." To her, he replied: "This chapel was not built for such as you, but for these boys and of those of their kind, wait and see." Within a year there were no more orderly meeting and Sunday school. Blessed reward they had who endured. It was one of those cases in which Christianity proved its mastery of ignorance and of the rudest home life.
In the Central Church, the pressure of restrained working forces for an outlet, excited a purpose for a change. In 1871, a city Baptist Mission Society was formed which employed Rev. James Thorn to act as their missionary. The Sunday services at the chapel on Perry street were renewed. The attendance and interest increased; some were converted and baptized, and when, in the spring of 1873, a com- mittee was appointed by the Central Church to examine the field, they reported favorably concerning the organization of a church. but it was not until May 28th, 1873, that the final organization was effected Thirty-five persons presented their letters and were organized as the Clinton Avenue Baptist Church. A lot having been bought on that avenue for the erection of a church edifice, a house was eventually built at enormous cost, far beyond the ability of the church to pay for. The welfare of the church was sacrificed for many years by the great debt with which it was burdened. The building would certainly have been sold by the sheriff, but for the thousands of dollars. which the con- vention board and the State at large raised to pay for the folly of its erection. In the second effort to cancel its debts, the Board of the Convention mortgaged another church property, which it had pledged its honor to be forever kept for Baptist uses, and to pay off that mort- gage has offered that property for sale. How just and true the old saying: "That corporations have no souls." This religious corpor- ation verifies thus its inability to be honest and just in a matter of dollars and cents. The Central Church gave to the Clinton Avenue Church the chapel and property on Perry street, which was later sold. the funds from its sale appropriated to cancel subsequent debts.
Mr. C. B. Perkins was ordained, became pastor in October, 1873. The church worshipped in the chapel on Perry street two and more years. Mr. Perkins closed his pastoral charge in February 1878.
Rev. N. W. Miner settled as pastor in September, 1878. His chief work was to collect funds to save the church edifice. Although engaged in these financial matters, the spiritual ties were not over-
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looked and many converts were baptized. But the load was burden- some and Mr. Miner resigned in March, 1881. Two years of discourage- ment passed and division grew out of these financial straits. A large number drew off and started an opposition church nearby. It dis- banded however, in a short time. Amid these troubles, the mother church had incumbered itself with debt for repairs and improvements and, distracted with divisions, appealed in behalf of Baptist interests, in the Capital city of New Jersey to the Board of the State Convention. In February, 1883, the Board agreed to assume the mortgage on the property and appropriated five hundred dollars the sum of the annual interest toward the pastor's support, collecting also, many thousands of dollars for the debt and by its annual appropriation saved the church property. It is only just to Deacon T. C. Hill, on whom re- sponsibility wholly lay for the erection of such a house, he paid thousands of dollars for the debts of the church, mortgaged his property for other thousands to pay claims against the church. It is also due to say, that had the Central Church retained the financial strength it had when Mr. Hill began his enterprise, different conditions would have pre- vailed, but the calamities of the Central Church involved its own existence. Had Deacon Hill accepted advice and built a ten or fifteen thousand dollar house, the Baptist cause would have been advanced instead of being retarded.
Rev. O. T. Walker once pastor of the First Church, entered the pastoral office in 1883, but he failed to draw his friends to a sinking craft, he gave up hope.
In February 1885, Rev. Judson Conklin settled as pastor in September, 1885. A remaining mortgage of ten thousand dollars was paid about this time. Deacon D. P. Forst having removed to New York City on account of the unwisdom of the majority of the Central Church, left a legacy of two thousand dollars to Clinton Avenue Church under given conditions. The church property which the Board pledged itself to keep intact was mortgaged for the balance of the debbt of Clinton Avenue Church. Thus there have been no entanglements of debt in Mr. Conklin's pastorate, that cut short those of his predecessors. Mr. Conklin is now pastor (1900). Clinton Avenue Church since relieved of debt, has had a uniform growth both by baptisms and by letters from the First and Central Churches, each of which, until within the last few years have had internal agitations and some of the strongest and best of their members have had a home in Clinton Avenue. These mature members constitute the church a center of power.
No other church in the State has had so much done for it by its sister churches. Lately, it has expended nineteen thousand
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dollars on improvements of its sanctuary. Had some of this money cancelled mortgages on conventon property, which the Board pledged its honor to keep forever, for Baptist uses (which property is now offered for sale, said mortgages being security for money borrowed to pay off the debts of Clinton Avenue Church) there would be more confidence in the convention as a guardian of trust funds. The future will show the appreciation of pastor and people of their opportunity. Mr. Hill was a deacon of the Central Church, was identified with Perry street mission from the first. He was a constituent of Clinton Avenue and was intensely active in all lines of Christian work. His wife as much so as himself. If, in her judgement, he lacked in giving or in doing, Mrs. Hill was an inspiration to make it up. Both of them were modest and lowly. He made his pastor his confidant in business and in his re- ligious forecasts; the single exception was in the kind and cost of the Clinton Avenue Church edifice, yet received his protests with utmost kindness. His pastor knew that he was first and always a Godly man. Business with him had its primal motive in what it enabled him to do for his Divine Master. Of the social meetings and the Sunday school in Perry street, he was the main stay. But one other member of the Central Church, Deacon D. P. Forst commanded a larger following. His purpose to build so large and costly a house of worship for Clinton Avenue Church illustrated his idea that nothing was too good for God. He had not, however, taken into account his own private resources, nor a coming financial crisis.
A lesson of this history of the intent of a good man is: that while desire and faith justify ventures that involve the honor of God's kingdom and the integrity of his servants, we need to be sure of His indorsement of both the means and of the end, exercising common sense as to the probability of commanding both the means and the end. God is to be trusted; not, however, in the anticipation that he will do what we think he ought to do. He is Himself, the best judge of what he ought to do. Clinton Avenue Church has had four pastors, and two houses of worship. The chapel on Perry street serving its use the first two years of its life.
· Baptist churches have various origin; a mission Sunday school, a chapel, an outgrowth of the mind of Christ in a few loving souls, cheered in their purpose by a missionary pastor of a nearby, possibly of a mother church, or through men and women who see in the wastes about them an invitation to possess the land. There is a great differ- ence in pastors. One limits himself to the church he serves. Quietude is to him, a condition of spiritual health; expansion is a waste. To an- other the noise and excitement of the battlefield are essential. Limitation
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stifles him. The sphere of these men in the Kingdom of God is as different as their temperament. Fields also are as unlike as the ax, the plow. There is use for both in the varied condition of humanity. The wiseman may have had this in mind when he said: "The fining pot for silver, and the furnace for gold." Prov. 27;21.
The pastor of Central Trenton church began a mission in East Trenton about 1868. The suburb was new, the people .widely scattered. Neither halls nor school houses suited for worship. However, there was a small room in a pottery above the oven, the top of which was its floor. Permission was given to hold meetings in it on Lord's Day afternoons. The place was very warm and small and the floor hot from the fire under it. At the first meeting, about twenty persons were present. It was a long and weary walk in the heat of summer from the parsonage to the place of meeting. A Sunday school could not be held, for while the church would supply needed books and other essentials, there was not a safe place for them. A change of place was necessary. Mr. Philips had a brick yard near by and he gave the use of his office for a Sunday school, where it met till a chapel was built. Under Pastor Keyser, who succeeded Mr. Griffiths in the fall of 1870, a chapel was built, Deacon D. P. Forst furnishing the means and Mr. Keyser maintained a Lord's Day afternoon service there, while pastor and having resigned in March, 1875, was followed by Rev. T. R. Howlett a former pastor. He advised the church to give up the Olivet Mission, and the property came into the possession of Deacon Forst and of J. E. Darrah, they assuming the indebtedness of the building due to Mr. Forst, he having advanced the funds for its erection. Eventually, the property belonged to the estate of Mr. Forst. In the meantime, a son of Deacon William McKee, of the Central Church and a son of a former pastor, who had begun the mission sustained the Sunday school when disasters befell the Central church from 1873 to 1879.
The Clinton Avenue Church was foster mother of the mission, caring for it, for four years, especially under the superintendence of Mr. William Ellis, whose devotion to the mission was tireless. Un- happily, a proviso in the deed of the lot returned it to the giver of the lot at the suspension of the mission. Whereupon, Deacon Forst bought the property and it became a part of his estate. Later arrange- ments were made by which it came to the Olivet Church. The Baptist City Mission Board, into whose charge the mission had come, in June 1895, appointed Mr. W. A. Pugsly, a Missionary on the field, and in April 1896, the Olivet Church was organized with thirty-four constituents. Twenty-six were from Clinton Avenue Church, that church being closely associated with the field. Rev. J. L. Coote became pastor in 10
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August 1896, remaining till 1900, when he resigned to enter another charge. While pastor, the house of worship has been extensively improved and enlarged and the church has fully occupied its field. Despite the uncertainties and changes experienced by the mission since 1868 to the organization of a church in 1896, twenty-eight years, one man, William B. Ellis has stood by the mission, kept the Sunday school alive, secured occasional preaching and through him, the Olivet church has become a possibility.
Mr. Ellis had been an unbeliever in Christianity, having large influence with young men and imbuing them with his enmities to Christianity. Mrs. Judge J. Buchanan, member of Central church, sent a note to Mr. Ellis inviting him to visit her in her sick room. He did so and induced him to go to the church with her husband. The pastor found them both on their knees in prayer. Mr. Ellis was converted and was baptized in February 1867, and from that time, had a new purpose in living, to save men and was most active in mis- sions and in personal work. Living near Olivet mission, he established a prayer meeting in his house. There had not been a religious meeting before in that neighborhood. At the first meeting the window glass were all broken with stones and his house battered and defaced. But the meeting went on. Factories employing children of foreign born people, instanced the need of Christian influence there. Mr. Ellis lived to see a great change about his home and the vicinity is as orderly as any other. Although Olivet Church sprang from the Central Church and its chapel was built by its members, it is, though cast off by the pastor of that body, really a fruitage of Clinton Avenue Church and of the City Mission Society. One house and one pastor has served the church.
Rev. G. W. Lasher was the first pastor of the First Baptist church of Trenton to occupy South Trenton with local missions. The church itself was ready to respond to the labors of its pastors to plant missions at home. But the pastors appear to have been content with their home work, excepting M. J. Rhees who preached in North Trenton, near by where the Central Trenton Church is located. At his removal the appointment ceased. Mr. Young, under the pretence of a Second Baptist Church in Upper Trenton, colonized there. But its unhappy beginning and wretched end, was a discredit to the Baptist cause in the city. To Pastor Lasher belongs the credit of seeing an opportunity and of having a "mind to work" and developing the forces of the First church to accomplish great things for God and men. His choice of the field for another church in South Trenton was a sound
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judgment, within the care, sympathy, financial aid, which the mission might need from the mother church.
Not only the location at the corner of Clinton and Roebling Ave- enues, but the provision of the large grounds, the size and type of the chapel built, evinced a comprehension of future needs, an intent to provide for them. The chapel was dedicated in May 1869. Ground and building costing nearly twenty-five hundred dollars. Previously, a city mission society was formed. Earlier propositions of the kind had failed because of jealousies growing out of the Young influence. Much credit is due to Mr. Lasher, that he not only refused to walk in leading strings, but broke them in pieces. The enterprise was named, "The Hamilton Mission." A missionary, Rev. James Thorn, had been employed by the City Mission Society, who labored in both the Perry street chapel and in the "Hamilton Mission."
On September 10th, 1874 the Hamilton Mission was organized into the Calvary Baptist Church with a constituency of fifty-four members, nearly all of them from the First Baptist Church. Rev. M. Johnson was the first pastor for two years, when illness caused his removal. Rev. F. Spencer followed for three years to 1877. Under his labors continuous refreshings were enjoyed. Also the meeting house was enlarged. Illness limited the stay of Rev. L. H. Copeland as pastor, to a few months. His successor, William H. Burlew, also had a pastorate of only about eighteen months.
In August 1883, E. J. Foote having been a "supply" for months, settled as pastor. During this charge, various gifts from without, were applied for repairs, the mortgage debt was reduced and other claims were paid. Mr. Foote resigned in 1889.
Next came as pastor, Rev. H. B. Harper in 1890. In 1891, plans were adopted for a new church edifice which was begun in August 1891. The next April, 1892, the unfinished audience room was occupied furnished with the old furniture of the old house. The church has never as yet, recovered from this folly. Had the old house been cleansed, painted and furnished anew, it would have saved the church from a debt that has paralyzed it and every pastor's work since. Mr. Harper resigned after three years and fled from the burden with which he had cursed the church. Some pastors have the gift of getting churches into trouble and then leaving them for more comfortable quarters and enjoying the disasters they have left. Mr. Foote was a member of the church and had he insisted upon a reasonable im- provement and enlargement of the building, it could have been made attractive. He also has gotten away to more pleasing surroundings in a church able to pay expenses.
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In 1893, Rev. D. S. Mulhern entered the pastorate. It devolved on him to complete the building, The audience room most unsightly, unfinished, with delapidated furniture, the debt and folly from which Mr. Harper had fled, was increased by this needful improvement. It was then decided to dedicate the house, which took place in June1895. A feature of the service was, that Rev. T. S. Griffiths, pastor of the Central Church, when the Perry street chapel was built, offered the prayer of dedication, also offered the prayer of dedication at the "Hamilton Mission" was sent to offer the prayer of dedication of this sanctuary. Mr. Mulhern was pastor about three years. In this short time there were almost as many baptized into the church as in the ten years before. The largest number of baptisms in one year, sev- enty-five, was in this charge.
Mr. Mulhern was succeeded by Rev. J. K. Manning. Good hopes were indulged for the church under Mr. Manning, but the hopeless relief from debt is a sufficient explanation of disappointment. Some suggest abandoning the property and locating elsewhere. But the large population about the house of worship must be cared for. If the First Baptist church would undertake relieving the church of debt, they could do it. Mr. Manning was still pastor in 1900. The church has had eight pastors. Two houses of worship, the first built and paid for by the First church, the Second which if the church could sell for its debt, would be in an improved condition. Three hundred and eighty-one have been baptized up to 1900, an annual average of nearly fourteen.
As said in the history of the First Baptist church of Trenton, under Mr. Lasher's enterprising and missionary pastorate lots were given in the sixth ward on which to build a chapel. In June 1870, the pastor induced the church to build the chapel and begin mission work. The building was dedicated on March 19th, 1871. A Sunday school and devotional meetings were maintained until 1891. When the fifth Baptist church was organized with a membership of thirty-one, twenty- eight of them were dismissed from the First Baptist church, under the pastoral care of Rev. Elijah Lucas. At its origin, T. C. Young was identified with the church first as "supply" then as pastor. He resigned in 1893, and in Septemper 1893, Rev. J. P. Hunter became pastor. In that year, lots in another location were bought, with the intent to move the building to the new lots. This was accomplished in 1894. Mr. Hunter terminated his pastorate in 1896. Rev. F. C. Brown followed him that year. Mr. Brown's coming was attended with tokens of Divine blessing and many converts were added to the church by baptism. Pastor Brown resigned in 1899. Mr. C. M.
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Angle in that year was called and ordained, becoming pastor. Mr. Angle is pastor in 1900.
Young churches in cities have a long, hard struggle into inde- pendence of outside aid. The more so, if under the shadow of a large and influential church. If, however, generosity and open heartedness be in the pastor of the mother church, toward the struggling band, the burden is shared and lightened. But if selfishness and home interests dominate the pastor and mother church and the younger is left to carry its own burdens, only those who know the hardships of building up a young church in the busy city, can know the cost and anxiety of such an enterprise. The word of the Apostle in II Cor. 12:14, "For the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children," is a rule of the relationship between a mother church and its daughter. Fifth Trenton church has had four pastors, one meeting house which has been r moved from one location to another.
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