History of the First Presbyterian Church, Morristown, N.J., 1742-1882 pt 1, Part 43

Author: First Presbyterian Church in Morristown (N.J.)
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Morristown, N.J. : "Banner" Steam Print
Number of Pages: 942

USA > New Jersey > Morris County > Morristown > History of the First Presbyterian Church, Morristown, N.J., 1742-1882 pt 1 > Part 43

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Martha, wife of John Lindsly, marked " to New Vernon ;" but when ?

22. Elizabeth Coe.

Sophia, wife of Elisha Cameron.

.. Ruth, wife of Jonathan Miller. marked " to New Vernon ; " but when ?

.. Huldah Ayers, marked " dis- missed ;" but when and where ? " .€ Nathanael Wilson, son of Jonathan Hathaway.

Ann, widow of David Halliday, marked "to New Vernon ;" but when ?

Susan R., daughter of Thomas Guerin.

26. Hannah Wooley, widow. from Spring Street Church, N. Y.

Mary, daughter of Hannah Wooley, from same, and wife of James Van Fleet, Sr., marked "to Newark ;" but when and where !

1824.

June 4. Hannah, wife of Francis Casterline. Dec. 2. Phebe Canfield, widow, "from Hanover, daughter of Jacob, wife of Wm. Wisner, marked as having died "Aug. 1838" on one roll, and " Jan. 8, 1849, aet. '41," on another. Which is correct.

If we divide the known regions of this world into thirty equal parts ; the Christian part is as five ; the Mahometan's as six . and the Idolaters as nineteen .- Brerewood 1674.

CLIPPINGS.

THE LAURENTIAN LIBRARY.

Passing up a staircase at one corner of this cloister, I came out on its upper gallery, close to the door of the vestibule to the Laurentian Library. Entering at this door, one finds one's self at the foot of the fine triple staircase built by Vasari, whose an- ple and majestic lines form a fitting introduc- tion to the chamber to which it conducts ; a long, narrow hall, that at first sight reminds you of a modern church. Rows of benches and racks, resembling slips, stretch on either hand throughout its length, with a central aisle and a desk at its farther end. On ex- amination you see that the eighty-eight racks are bookcases, where, each fastened by a chain, the books are laid ready for the occupant of the bench to turn their leaves. This was the method adopted when this hall was finished in 1571, and it has been left unchanged to the present day. When readers were few it was not an inconvenient system, but now all books desired for refer- ence are taken from their places and carried to an adjoining room, fitted up with modern conveniences for the student. The main

hall, therefore, presents no appearance of a library, all the racks being covered with curtains, and the clerks, with a few chance visitors, being the only occupants of the room. The dark ceiling and pavement, and the racks of beautifully carved wood almost black with time, the ancient stained win- dows, the work of a scholar of Raphael, John of Udine, give it a solemn and impressive magnificence. It seems a fitting home for the relics of antiquity. A long, narrow panel, inscribed with the names of the books in that division, is attached to each rack. The attendant lifts the green cloth from these treasures with a reverent hand. He shows you a Syrian Bible of the sixth century, a Greek Gospel of the eighth, and, earliest of all, a Virgil, with annota- tions made in the year 494. Later manu- scripts, many of them richly illuminated, abound; among the illustrations more in- teresting to ordinary eyes are the contem- porary portraits of Dante, of Petrarch and Laura .- Springfield Republican.

The Laurentian Library is at Florence, in

THE RECORD.

Italy, and is so called from Lorenzo de Me- dici, its real founder. It was begun by Cos- mo de Medici, the grandfather of Lorenzo. Cosmo was a merchant who accumulated an immense fortune. but, notwithstanding his intense application to his business pursuits, gave great attention to letters. He in- structed his friends and correspondents to procure for him ancient manuscripts in every language. The Eastern Empire was then falling to pieces, and this enabled him to obtain many inestimable works in Heb- rew, Greek. Chaldaic, Arabic and in the In- dian languages.

These books thus gathered were the nu- cleus of the great librarv. Lorenzo made many additions, donating his own library to it, and enriching it with books collected by him from every part of the earth. He em- ployed every available means to procure the rarest volumes on every subject. Politian and Pico, two celebrated bibliophilists of his time, were, under his guidance, diligently engaged in purchasing, arranging and cata- loguing books.

Lorenzo at last erected the present build- ing occupied by this library, also using the talent and genius of Vasari, as the architect, in its erection.

During the troublous time attendant upon the ascendancy to power of Savonarola and his subsequent downfall, great loss to the library was feared from pillage by the pop- ulace. But, while the trenzy of the people was at its greatest height, some of the youth of the noblest families of Florence guarded it until the fury was over.

Prior to this many of the volumes had been distributed as presents by Savonarola to the cardinals and other eminent men, whose favor he desired to obtain.

Many of its volumes had been seized for the use of the State, which was afterwards obliged to sell these volumes to raise money for its needs.

Leo X. purchased ali he could obtain-re- moved the library to Rome in 1508, where it was kept until the accession of Clement VII., who restored it to Florence where it has since remained.

Prior to this, in 1494, during the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII. of France, this in- valuable library had been plundered by the French-aided, to their eternal disgrace be

it written-by the Florentines themselves. who openly carried off or secretly purloined whatever they could lay their hands upon, that was interesting, or rare, or valuable. Manuscripts of inestimable worth, exquisite sculptures, vases and other works of art, shared in the general ruin. so that the vast storehouses, which, Lorenzo and his ancestry had been able through their wealth and assiduity, to ac- cumulate during half a century, were de- molished in a day.

The present library contains 120,000 printed volumes and 6,000 manuscripts.

EDITOR.

FALSE MESSIAHS.

THREE REMARKABLE SPECIMENS.

Sabatai Sevi about the middle of the seventeenth century, appeared at Smyrna and proclaimed himself to the Jews as their Messiah. Evelyn says that "the report of Sabatai and his doctrine flew through those parts of Turkey which the Jews inhabited : they were so deeply possessed of their new kingdom and their promotion to honor, that none of them attended to business of any kind, except to prepare for a journey to Jerusalem." Unfortunately Sabatai was so zealous that he was locked up in the Castle of Abydos, where, we are told, "he composed a new mode of worship." He was carried to Adrianople and his divinity put to a singular test. The Grand Seignior ordered him to be stripped naked and set up as a target for the archers to shoot at. If his skin proved arrow- proof his pretensions were to be ad- mitted. Upon this Sabatai, to save his life, turned Turk, declaring that he had long been desirous of making so glorious a pro- fession. The Jews, who were all ready to start for Jerusalem, were much chagrined at this proceeding-the historian says that they "were overcome with confusion and dejection of spirit."

Richard Brothers was one of the last of the False Messiahs, and he made a good deal of noise and not a few converts in Eng- land toward the close of the last century. He undertook to restore the blind to sight ; he saw visions ; he emitted prophecies ; he published a new gospel, entitled : " A Re- vealed Knowledge of the Prophecies and Times." Among his disciples was Sharpe,

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the celebrated engraver, together with a Mr. Halked, M. P., who is said to have been a man of considerable learning.

One last example of religious pretension will bring us nearer home. Robert Mat- thews, better known as Matthias, came to New York to work as a house carpenter. About 1829 he began to preach in the streets of Albany. He permitted his beard to grow ; he wore grotesque clothing ; he was repeat- edly arrested for making a disturbance ; he professed to be a Jew ; he declaimed against Freemasonry ; sometimes he mounted an old and half-starved horse. He declared to them that " He was the Spirit of Truth ; that the Spirit of Truth had disappeared from the earth at the death of the Matthias men- tioned in the New Testament; that the Spirit of Christ had entered into Matthias, and that he was the same Matthias, the Apostle of the New Testament, risen from the dead." Some of his dupes conveyed their property to him, and then went into insolvency. Ultimately he was found out and discarded. Of the subsequent career of the prophet nothing is known, except that he died in Arkansas.

THE CHURCH AND PROHIBITION.

The fact is that prohibitionists have crowded a question of civil policy back into the domain of ethical principles, and while sometimes, perhaps, right on the question of policy, they have generally gone wrong on the question of principle. It is true that human laws derive their binding force from their conformity with divine enactments, and the better the Catholic citizen under- stands his duties to the church the purer will be his conceptions of, and the readier will be his compliance with, his duties to the State. But farther than this it is scarcely prudent to combine their respective spheres of authority. While the State may well hesitate, under present circumstances, to enforce personal temperance by law, so the church açts wisely by confining her applica- tion of great moral principles to the private conscience rather than that of the general public. In short, the question of prohibi- tion as it concerns whole communities, and properly understood, belongs to the domain of politics rather than theology, and it would be a grave mistake to assert that there was

dogmatic authority binding Catholics on any side of such question. What the State may do is to say that the liquor traffic is the prolific source of certain evils and inimical to the general welfare ; and public authority being specially organized to preserve and not destroy, it cannot be a party to the de- struction of its own existence by permitting the continuance of so destructive an agent. The State has the power to do any and all things needed to fulfil the end of organized society -- viz., the preservation of the general welfare of the people. If the State comes to regard the liquor traffic as a disorganizing agent, or as destroying its members or other- wise rendering them unable to fulfil their part of that mutual relationship and obliga- tion which exists between the citizen and the State, then the question of restriction or prohibition stands forth plain and simple as one for state settlement. Viewed thus, the church could find nothing in prohibition to oppose. For instance, from judicial statis- tics it is ascertained that a very large per- centage of crime originates from frequenting liquor saloons ; this fact alone is enough to place prohibition on the list of preventives to be used against crime-a basis which the church could not and would not oppose, since the State has a right to prevent as well as to punish crime. Again, equally as large a proportion of pauperism and lunacy, which demands State aid to provide for, is traceable to the convivial drinking com- monly practised in liquor saloons ; that may fairly place prohibition among the prevent- ives of pauperism. Now, the church could not say it was otherwise than right for the State to seek relief from these burdens, which right might be extended to prohibi- tion without infringing in the least upon the province of the church. It will thus be seen that prohibition, when it appears in politics, should be treated as a question of public policy, one of a variety of means for pro- curing the well-being of the State, the dis- cussion of which by no means necessarily involves a conflict of religious principle between the parties for and against it .- The Catholic World.

At the recent ninth annual meeting of the Dakota Sunday School Association about

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150 delegates were in attendance. "The most marked interest and enthusiasm char- acterized each session. The statistics of the past year were inspiring ; 464 schools were reported (an increase of over one-half from last year's report), having 20,579 members (an increase of 100 per cent). There are four missionaries of the American Sunday School Union at work in Southern Dakota, and the excellent reports are largely due to their efforts. Our work never looked so en- couraging as now." So reports the Secre- tary.

It is part of the irony of fate that Voltaire's house is now occupied by the Geneva Bible Society. Similar coincidences are found in London. The Religious Tract Society's premises are where Bibles were at one time publicly burned, and the British Bible So- ciety's house at Blackfriar stands where a council in 1378 forbade Wycliffe from circu- lating portions of the Scriptures, and where he uttered the famous words : "The truth shall prevail."

We picture death as coming to destroy ; let us rather picture Christ as coming to save. We think of death as ending ; let us rather think of life as beginning, and that more abundantly. We think of losing ; let us think of gaining. We think of parting ; let us think of meeting. We think of going away ; let us think of arriving. And as the voice of Death whispers : "You must go from earth," let us hear the voice of Christ saying, "You are but coming to Me."- Norman McLeod.

There is a scientific principle called " the survival of the fittest" and we can study the growth of the church of God from his stand point. How grandly the religion of Jesus appears when we try it by this test. It has now stood two thousand years, and how many systems, during that time have come up, blossomed and died. How many of them are now on the brink of destruc- tion, only waiting for some one to push them over .- Rev. Mr. Vanalstyne, Mt. Tabor Record.

BAPTISMS AND MARRIAGES.

The records of infant baptisms and of marriages, from July, 1866, to June, 1877, are at present inaccessible. Members of the congregation during that time who had children baptised, will confer a favor by sending a note, or card, to the pastor, with the birthdays of such children, and the probable year of baptism. Notices of mar- riages, with names and dates, during the same period, are also requested, Family Bibles probably contain the facts desired.

DATE ON THE BANNER OF SUNDAY SCHOOL.

In a former issue of THE RECORD, refer- ence was made to this subject. To obtain, if possible, the true date of the organization of the Sunday school, application was made to that true friend of the school, J. D. Ste- venson, Esq., now at San Antonio, Texas. He says in his answer, recently received :- " In regard to the history of the Sunday school, I am not so well posted as you think. I tried, while Superintendent, to be- come so, but found it almost impossible. The particular incident leading to my efforts was the occasion of the grand Sunday school rally at Mount Tabor under Mr. Page. We had no fit Sunday school banner, and I inter- ested our teachers in procuring one. After raising the money-some $60-one of our most active teachers, then Miss Mary Voor- hees, afterwards Mrs. Stoutenburg, accom- panied me to New York and bought the materials.

Our next trouble was to get the true date of the organization of the school and to se- lect a motto. The only information I could find as to the date was from Miss Sarah Johnson, who remembered that in 1816 she and others took part in the establishment of the school. We, therefore, put that date upon our new banner, where I suppose it is to-day. The motto we chose at the same time, and, after a meeting of the teachers interested, and making and putting our en- sign together, it was unfurled at the head of our school August 6th, (I think that was the date)-1870."

THE RECORD

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, MORRISTOWN, N. J. " THIS SHALL BE WRITTEN FOR THE GENERATION TO COME."-Psalms 102 : 18.

VOLUME III. OCTOBER, 1883. NUMBER 10

[Printed with the Approval of the Session.]

THE RECORD

Will be published monthly at Morristown. N. J. Terms $1.00 per annum, in advance.

Subscriptions may be made at the book- stores of Messrs. Runyon and Emmell, or to Messrs. James R. Voorhees and William D. Johnson, or by letter addressed to the

EDITOR OF THE RECORD,

Morristown, N. J.

Entered at the Post Office at Morristown. N. J., as second class matter.

MR. BARNES' MANUAL.

In 1828, Mr. Barnes, then pastor of the Church, published a Manual, part of which follows this. Its title page is this :-

"Church Manual, for the members of the Presbyterian Church, Morris-Town, N. J. Compiled

By Albert Barnes, Pastor ; and published by order of the Session of said Church. Morris-Town, Printed by Jacob Mann, 1828."

This Manual is very scarce, and should be preserved. A copy has been kindly placed at the disposal of THE RECORD, and this method is taken to put it in the possession of every member of the congregation.

SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, MORRIS-TOWN.

At what time, or by whom, Morristown was first settled, is not certainly known. The records of the County of Morris contain no notices of its settlement, and there are

no documents extant, as far as can be ascer tained, which throw any light on the first organization of its civil and ecclesiastical society. It is probable, however, that it was settled in the early part of the last century and that the inhabitants were chiefly from Elizabeth-Town, Newark, and Long-Island. They were undoubtedly principally, or en- tirely, descendants of the settlers of New- England ; and may therefore be supposed to have brought with them habits of morality, and a disposition early to possess the ordi- nances of religion.

Among the regulations made by the Duke of York for settlers in the province, under which regulations Morristown was probably settled, we find the following, respecting the support of the Gospel :- " Every township is obliged to pay their own minister, accord- ing to such agreement as they shall make with him, and no man to refuse his own pro- portion ; the minister being elected by the major part of the householders and inhabi- tants of the town."

The charter of the Church and congrega- tion was granted by Johnathan Belcher, Esq., Captain-General and Governor in chief over the Province of New Jersey, Sept. 18, 1756.

At what time the Presbyterian Church was organized is unknown ; but the Gospel was probably preached regularly soon after the settlement of the town. It is known that there was preaching here, before the installation of the first Pastor ;* but of the circumstances, and of the influence of those labours, there is no record. Neither is it known under what form of church govern- ment, whether Congregational or Presby- terian, the congregation was first organized. As Ruling Elders are mentioned, however, as early as the year 1747, it is probable that

*By the Rev. John Cleverly. who died Dec. 1776, aged 81 years.

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the first organization of the Church, as it has continued since, was Presbyterian.

The authentic records of the church com- mence in 1742. The following is the title of counsellor and friend. No man could have the records of the Church, kept by its first pastor :- " The Record of the Church, in the town of Morris, from the first Erection and founding of it there :- and, under Christ, as Collected, and Setled, and Watered (in much weakness) by Timo. Johnes, Pastor ; who first came, Aug. 13th, 1742, stayed' 6 Sab., and then fetched my Family, and was ordained, Feb. 9, 1743," 42 till after equinox.

· Dr. Johnes was pastor of the church more than half a century. He was a native of Southampton, on Long-Island, and was edu- cated at Yale College, in Connecticut. From the catalogue of that college, it appears that he graduated in 1737. From the same col- lege, he some years afterwards received the degree of Doctor of Divinity.

Dr. Johnes has left nothing, except the general impression of his labours on the minds of the church and congregation, by which the nature and value of his services can now be distinctly known. None of his sermons were printed ; and few of his manu- scripts are now remaining. The fact, how- ever, that he received the highest honours of a college, deservedly ranking among the first in the United States, and that at a time when literary degrees were not conferred in- discriminately, and were therefore proof of merit, is a sufficient evidence that his stand- ing in the ministry was of a very respectable order, and that he was well known in the American churches.

He was a man of respectable literary at- tainments ; but he was rather distinguished for his fidelity as a Pastor. As a preacher, he is said to have been clear, plain, practical, and persuasive. His discourses were rather an affectionate appeal to the heart, than pro- found and elaborate disquisitions on abstruse points of theology. He aimed rather to win men to the practice of holiness, than to ter- rify, and denounce them. Though faithful in reproving and warning, yet it was with mildness, and in the spirit of true Christian affection. He suffered no public vice to es- cape without reproof; but the reproof was administered, in order that he might show them " a more excellent way." He seems to

have come to his people, particularly to- wards the latter part of his ministry, as an affectionate Christian pastor ; their father, had a better claim to the title of Father in the Gospel ; and no man probably would have used the influence thus derived, more to the practical benefit of the people.

Though not elaborate, or remarkably pro- found, or highly eloquent in the pulpit, yet Dr. Johnes had the faculty of instilling the principles of religion into the minds of the people. He was much with them. He visited much from house to house. He had become acquainted with the circumstances of every family. He had the moulding and training of the congregation. He had the power therefore of stamping his own senti- ments on their minds. Beloved as their pastor, and venerated as their Spiritual Father, his sentiments on religion were re- ceived always with high respect, and almost uniformly with cordial approbation. He en- deavoured to bring religion home to the business and bosoms of men-to associate it with their ordinary notions of living-of bargain and sale-of social, and political in- tercourse-with all their attachments and hopes and fears. By being much with the people, and by a faculty of adapting his in- structions to their circumstances and capa- cities, he laboured successfully to instil into their minds pure sentiments ; to form them to good habits ; and to train them up to holy living. The consequence was that, at his death, there were probably few congrega- tions, that were so thoroughly instructed in all that pertained to the practical duties of religion.

Dr. Johnes was eminently a peace-maker. His respectable standing, his high character, his long experience, his practical wisdom, and his undoubted integrity, secured the confidence of the people, and led them to listen with profound deference to him as the arbiter of their disputes. Without in- terfering, farther than became him as the venerable pastor of a people, in the contro- versies which arose in neighborhoods, he yet contrived, successfully, to suppress a spirit of litigation, and to produce an adjustment of difficulties in consistency with the laws of affection and concord. Habits of litiga- tion he regarded as eminently inconsistent

.75

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with the spirit of the Gospel, and he there- fore laboured that his people might en- deavour to " hold the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace." Nor did he labour in vain. He was regarded as the tried friend of his people, and they unhesitatingly re- posed with confidence on his judgment.

Dr. Johnes was a warm and decided friend to revivals of religion. He received his edu- cation in the time of President Edwards, and Whitfield, and the Tennants. He came to this place, in the period of the greatest ex- citement on the subject of religion that this country has ever known. Many of the older inhabitants of this place, can still recollect the interest with which he read to his con- gregation, accounts of revivals in other parts of the country. He laboured, and prayed fervently that his own congregation might be brought also to a participation of the blessings that descended on other parts of the land. His sentiments on this subject are recorded in incidental notices attached to the names of those who were added to the church during these seasons of special mercy. In one place he says, "These the sweet fruites of yt wonderful effusion of God's adorable Grace began on our Sacra- ment Day, July 1, 1764." In another, "These yt follow the ingatherings of yt Divine harvest A.D. 1774 .- Sweet drops of ye morn- ing dew."

Few men have ever been more successful, as ministers of the Gospel, than Dr. Johnes. To have been the instrument of founding a large and flourishing church, to have been regarded as its affectionate Father and Guide ; to have established the ordinances of the Gospel, and formed the people to re- spect its institutions ; to have produced that outward order, and morality, and love of good institutions now observable in this congregation, was itself worthy of the toils of his life. In being permitted to regard himself as, under God, the originator of habits, and good institutions which are to run into coming generations, he could not but look upon his toils as amply recom- pensed. But he was permitted also to see higher fruit of the labour of his ministry. It pleased a gracious God, not only to grant a gradual increase of the church, but also at two different times to visit the congregation with a special revival of religion. The first

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History of the First Presbyterian Church, Morristown, N.J., 1742-1882 pt 1, Part 43

Author: First Presbyterian Church in Morristown (N.J.) Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Morristown, N.J. : "Banner" Steam Print Number of Pages: 942

Author: First Presbyterian Church in Morristown (N.J.)
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Morristown, N.J. : "Banner" Steam Print
Number of Pages: 942