USA > New York > Onondaga County > Pompey > Addresses delivered at the centennial anniversary of the First Congregrational Church, Pompey, N. Y. June 21st-23rd, 1896 : together with a historical sketch of the church > Part 5
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why it has rested there for a quarter of a century and in close connection with this centennial celebration be made to appear to me, is a coincidence that I do not attempt to explain, but I simply acknowledge that it helped me think again of my fiftieth of a century.
In speaking of that reunion twenty-five years ago, af- ter the great dinner in the grove and the toasts, it is said that the time intervening between that and the evening meeting was spent in social intercourse, in taking rides and walks to familiar places, which wakened the slum- bering memories of early days. Some visited the old homestead, now in the hands of strangers and the vari- ous parties sought the places dearest to memory, and walked again upon the soil that gave them birth. Who could catch in imagination the panorama of thought and feeling that must have passed in review, as the thousand recollections of youthful days crowded upon their minds ? So on this occasion we can say a good deal, we can look a good deal, we can put very much in our hearty hand- shakes, but it is impossible for us in our addresses, or speeches, or in our words in any shape or by any man- ner of expression to show forth to others the feelings of our hearts within. Much that lies there is too deep and too tender for expression.
Some of us are looking for many a day to go by, and many a year to close for us while we stay here, and all through these years there will be bright glowing memor- ies of the hours we have spent together on this happy oc- casion. And how much richer will we be for this coming together ! We will all take much inspiration with us as
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we go back once more to our old life. But there are others whose spirits can begin to catch gleams of light from the other shore; their part in the making of a church, and of training character is nearly finished, and as I look into their faces to-day, I behold the calmness with which they are waiting, before them the opening of the gates of the eternal city.
Beginnings for them are nearly finished. To you on whom the burden falls of beginning another century of service, allow one interested to say to you to keep right on giving souls a good start heavenward. Whether they continue with you or not they will ever bless the day they came in touch with this church.
To you my brother, the pastor of this people, you have behind you a glorious history in this church over which you have the charge. On you will rest the responsibility for commencing another period of heaven-guiding influ- ences. To you will your people look for guidance. May you ever be most wisely guided.
I find I have only made a beginning myself and I must follow the one law to close with only a beginning, and as we turn away from this old historic spot in the words that were used here twenty-five years ago, "Let us remember with a faith that reaches beyond the shores of time and spans the endless cycles of eternity, that upon the resurrection morn, will be another reunion of Pom- pey's children, past, present and future, more glorious and enduring when high upon the seroll of eternity amid the honored names of the renotest generations and the succession of generations down through the long vistas of the ages past, we shall see the names of all Pompey's children who have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb."
Greeting from the Churches of our Neighbor- ing City.
AN EXTRACT FROM AN ADDRESS BY THE REV. GEO. B. SPALDING, D. D.
At first my speaking here seems to me almost an in- trusion, this joyful celebration is so largely all your own. But there are members of your family who are not here to-day to share in these festivities and to express their congratulations. These absent ones, sons of "old Pom- pey" and once members of this ancient church, now citi- zens of Syracuse and honored members of her churches have commissioned me to bear to you their tender greet- ings. It is a great pleasure to me then to bring back to you these blessings of so many of your own children. Our churches feel how great is their debt to you. This church antedates by nearly a quarter of a century the oldest church among us. From our first beginning you have been contributing to our growth. Through all these years you have been bestowing upon our city churches God's richest gifts, noble, Christian men and women. Here they were born; here you trained them; here you im- parted to them your own grand spirit, then sent them forth to repeat your character and virtues in the best life of our city. It is with warmest gratitude in her heart
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that Syracuse greets Pompey on this glad occasion.
How all differences of faith and distinctions of names go down before the deep current of any large and gener- ous feeling. We feel to-day how these churches of so various creed and title are really one. Love such as this occasion generates levels all barriers. The gospel which is our common heritage, holds us in a unity which no party nor church can divide. At such a time as this our prayers become prophecies. The day seems sure, how- ever far, when the Christian church will come back not only to its first love but to its first faith "and there shall be one flock, one shepherd."
This celebration takes hold upon one's deepest and most reverencing feelings. As one grows older, if he have any large soul within him, he becomes historic in his spirit, clinging with a true affection to all that is no- ble in the past. I love dearly old persons, old furniture, old homes. I love anything old save old theology. Re- ligion is not theology. The older religion is the better, for that is life, and life is ever young, even from the be- ginning.
A church must have a history before it really amounts to much. It is so with a family. But an ancestry is one thing and a record of it is another. It is a poor family that has not a record of its noble generations written in the hearts and on the page of the present generation. I count it a great thing to be a member of a church that can point to a century of service to God, to a long line of Christian men and women who have wrought for right- eousness, and have built their splendid virtues into insti-
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tutions and into living souls which long survive them. The gathered memories of such a past are the mightiest inspirations for all the living. This old town, this old church are full of such inexhaustible springs of purest and strongest influences for all the future.
How the radiant beauty of this day seems like heav- en's own benizon on this occasion ! What bluer sky bends over any other part of earth, what other day ever brought such sweetness of air, and such splendor of sun- shine !
I asked an old resident this morning if this was a speci- men day. "Oh yes," he replied without a bit of hesita - tion, "we have 'em right along."
"Well, my friend," I said, "I'm afraid heaven will not bring you much pleasure."
"Well you see, it's a little different in the winter," said he. ( Great laugliter. )
But this is a beautiful country. The great prophets and singers of Israel were from her villages which nested among the hills.
I believe that this principle will hold good to the last day of time. I beseech you not to be discouraged as you look back with such fondness and regret to the old prosperous times when Pompey was the seat of learning, the throne of ecclesiastical power and the paradise of homes.
For the salvation of your own souls, for the blessing of your children, for the purity of the growing city which lies at your feet, keep the sacred fire burning on this altar. Here is the source of your best life and of our security. In the name of the churches of Syracuse, I beg of you: "Be ye faithful even unto death."
Indebtedness to the Country Church.
BY THE REV. A. J. ABEEL.
Let us place ourselves in a school room and listen. Teacher-" Name some of the most important things existing to-day that were unknown one hundred years ago." Tommy-" You and me."
It is certainly a wonderful thing to exist at all; a great thing to exist recently, to be a modern inhabitant of this earthly sphere, in this civilized and Christianized period, in times of almost miraculous advance.
We pride ourselves upon our attainments as though our own efforts have purchased them and call ourselves self-made; when in fact we have only appropriated much that at our birth we found ready-made for our use. We have been inheritors, legatees, instead of earners and for- tune makers. We are debtors instead of creditors; and 'tis well now and then to get out a balance sheet and make a just estimate of our obligations. The creditors of the past are not here to plead their case. "Being dead they yet speak." We cannot ignore their silent pleas for on this occasion out of the grave of a hundred years there comes immortal evidence of what we owe to those who lived and wrought before us.
Were I to state in general the theme of my further re-
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mark, it would be: " Our Indebtedness to the Count- ry Church." Perhaps we may find that other import- tant personages have existed in a hundred years besides you and me.
No one who has thought on the subject but will agree in the statement that the greatest people are the most indebted people, the greatest man the most indebted man, -- that present attainment has been made possible only by previous attainment. Take modern inventions, mar- vels of human ingenuity; they have been made possible by what seem the childish experiments of former years, by the patient investigations of men long since gone. When we stop to search into our underpinning, lo, we find that we are borne aloft on the shoulders of the past. " Others have labored and we are entered into their lab- ors."
Thus in every department of human progress. Thus in the divine walk of the Christian church. The pick- axe and shovel are yearly showing how much the world owes to buried civilizations. Centennial celebrations are performing a similiar office in behalf of works and work- ers alınost forgotten.
Though our country and institutions are young in comparison with the orient, yet American history has been made so rapidly that we find occasions to build monuments, erect statues and mark historic events. What more wholesome lessons can be found than the search into these principles whose personifications made an American nation. We believe much good will come from looking up ancestral records and learning the se-
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crets of the heroic past. We are to-day amid scenes his- toric. Pompey Hill, Pompey Academy, Pompey Church have an honored history-clear titles to our ven- erations.
Let us specify some who are debtors to this old church.
No one owes a greater debt to this dear old church than they who in their childhood enjoyed its ministra- tions; of many it can be said " this one and that one was born there." Here the school and the church were set up when men could not put down their hund- reds and millions for them-but yet set up and perpet- uated with sacrifice and self-denial that their children might be intelligent, know the truth and love it. No doubt 7 those fathers and mothers made mistakes (they were human, ) had prejudices; were, perhaps, severe in Christian doctrine, and strict about amuse- ments and Sunday. Sometimes you may have thought them very Puritanical when children, but, now that you know the world better, do not many of you give thanks to God that you were not merely " trained but re- strained " and so saved from ways of temptation? Will not many rise to honestly say, "We are what we are because of the training, the restraining, the ex- ample, the influence that was brought to bear upon us in the days and years that are gone!"' This all centered around the hearthstone and the hearthstone centered around the church. Though the meeting-house had form- erly no stoves in winter, and live coals in foot-warmers made the zero atmosphere less severe on the feet, yet fidelity to religious belief, firm family government, a two-
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hour pulpit instruction twice on Sunday, developed men and women. The church pew held a family gathering and all, adults and children, were fed on the same spirit- ual diet.
What memories must throng this sacred edifice ! What scenes of inward conflict, decision and tragedy here tran- spired ! Souls born into the kingdom of God's dear Son, here sanctified by His truth, here prepared for life on earth and for eternal residence in heaven; here the vows of holy wedlock taken, here brought the caskets of citizen and Christian, amid the tolling of yonder bell, as if say- ing "passing away, passing away." Verily this has been Bethel with a ladder as of old, and the angels de- scending and ascending upon it !
To a former resident returning, how comforting to find the old family pew, owned by deed for generations; even the swinging door creaking amid the solemn prayer, has a holy sound to the wanderer's ear, and the vibrations of the old, old bell, shakes every room in the innermost soul. Ancestral memories came and the sacred place is peopled again as in days of yore, and the visitor is a child again ! Ah, friends, this old church is not only built upon Pom- pey Hill, where for so long it has withstood the four- cornered blasts; but it has been builded in Christ's name into hearts and lives and souls so firmly that against it the gates of hell cannot prevail. Indebtedness ! Can any disciples of the Master who found here their early church home ever discharge it? Can they see the old church suffer for support in any way and not respond, "as of the ability that God giveth ?" Will not the tender
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words of the poet be their words too ?
"Oh sacred hour ! Oh hallowed spot ! Where love divine first found me; Wherever falls my distant lot My thoughts shall linger round thee. And as I rise from earthi to soar Up to my home in Heaven,
Down will I cast my eyes once more Where I was first forgiven."
Then the city and city churches are debtors to this old church.
Pompey Hill is so distinguished an object physically and historically that I have been thinking of some his- toric mountain in scripture story to which it might com. pare. None fits it so well as Mount Lebanon, the white mountain-so called because perpetually covered with snow. You know how white this hill is with snow for many months in the year, alway crowned with the white steeple seen from afar, and now crowned with a white headed church. But the comparison holds better in other things.
The woods for Solomon's temple were cut from Leban- on's slopes, and many of the sacred utensils were made from its fragrant cedars. Even Jerusalem itself was sometimes called Lebanon because the temple and the houses were built almost entirely from its timbers.
How like the Christian timber in the old church that has been taken from its membership and been built into other churches in cities and distant states. We congratu- late this church on its ability to live for a century despite the large emigration of its members and supporters. An'
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authority tells us that our cities grow not so much from the immigrants that tumble out of the ships at Castle Garden as from the contiguous country. This has gone on until one-third of our population is in our cities. They are still filling by large annual additions of those leaving the country and settling in the town. The city is the gainer, and so are the city churches. They are also debtors. This accounts in large measure for the success of some city pastors-not because they are all abler men or better preachers or pastors, but because of the force of social gravity city-ward. They throw out the gospel net, and these sturdy, country Christians run right into it seemingly anxious to be caught. They yield easily to the yoke, and readily become deacons, elders, Sunday School workers, prayer-meeting supporters. They come to the top because they are cream. Go to Syracuse and inquire who are the leading men and women in our churches, and see if you will not find the pleasant odor and memory of new mown hay among the majority. In many cases it seems to me that the city church has only furnished the hive and the honeycomb while the country church has filled its cells with honey; nay, rather, has furnished the working swarm that has been the life of the hive.
The people from the hills have played a conspicuous part in all heroic history, and is not without Bible precedent, The Book tells us of a band of young men from the hill country of Gad-a distinguished eleven-Ezer, first; Oba- diah, second; Eliab, third; Mishmannah, fourth; Jere- miah, fifth; Altai, sixth; Eliel, seventh; Johanan, eighth;
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Elzabad, ninth; Jeremiah, tentlı; Machbannai, eleventh- "These were of the sons of Gad, captains of the host; one of the least was over an hundred; and the greatest over a thousand." Hardy sons of the mountains, they had the stuff of heroes in their make-up and became King David's captains. They led to victory. An inci- dent is related of a fariner who had a flock of sheep in the valley, and another flock in the mountain and when asked the difference between said that those in the valley made the best meat, but those in the hills had the stout- est horns. The city youth laugh at the hayseed boy nourished on the hill side, but his vigor and back bone soon changes the laugh into respect, for the young coun- tryman easily gets to the head where constancy and grit are required. Men of that highland stamp are the kind this old church has been rearing and exporting to other towns and to other churches, and after a hundred years is alive yet to rejoice, not over her loss, but over her grand, unselfish work in behalf of her enlarging parish. It surely shows wondrous vitality to stand bleeding so often and so profusely as has this church, and yet not be bled to death.
Again, there is an indebtedness which many young ministers owe the church. I wish to acknowledge my per- sonal obligations to this dear church which has certainly been an influential factor in my life. What a power first things have over us! First place of ministry! First convert! First communion! The first things live and fructify in memory and life. Very vivid the recollection now when as a theologue I came here from the seminary wondering
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if a congregation could be found that would accept crude efforts, "bob veal" instead of mature beef, that would be willing to take milk instead of butter and cream. What a debt of gratitude I owe this congregation for their long- suffering kindness in giving me a chance to try to preach. I fear that, sometimes, the experiments were like those of "Darius Green and His Flying Machine," but the prac- tice was worth much to me. The tones of no other bell awakened such a nervous, anxious feeling in my heart and trembling in my soul as did the tolling of the bell in yon steeple during the summer of 1885, calling me from my study to face the congregation. I believe that I voice to-day the gratitude of many another Auburn Theologi- cal Seminary theologue, for the privilege we had in practicing our maiden sermons here. Surely, it is only another token of the vitality of this church that it sur- vived the long line of student supply like myself.
But chiefest and deepest, do I owe this dear church an- other debt of gratitude for what it was my joy to be able to take away. It is a clear case of habeas corpus. What- ever other converts were made in this our first preaching station, there was one with whom my pleading resulted in an "effectual calling, "who promised to be "faithful till death us do part." While not formally married to the church as other pastors have been, yet I married all the civil law would allow. When Sir Humphrey Davy was asked to give a list of his discoveries which made him easily the first chemist of his time, he gave the list and added-"The greatest discovery of my life was Michael Farrady." I too must say the greatest discovery
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of my life has been the discovery here of my "better half"-a member from infancy of this dear church. Surely, I cannot place too high an estimate upon that discovery if Dr. Adam Clarke's equation be true in which he "set down one woman as equal to seven men and a half."
Not only has this church reared and nourished minis- ters' wives but also wives for other men. The balance has been kept true, for the church has also reared and nourished husbands for young women who will rise up and call her blessed.
It seems to me that this old church has done good duty on the field of action, and were it to die to-day would be crowned with glory and honor. Especially in one respect are her obligations discharged. Many churches are con- tent to receive the ministrations of pastors without a thought of sending some of their own sons into the min- istry. The excellent records of men who have gone into the ministry of the word from this church is cause for congratulation. To them must be added the four young men who now are in the pastorate or on their way to it. These certainly show that the church has ability to bring forth fruit in old age and that the Saviour's commanded prayer, to pray for laborers in the harvest, is here finding gracious answer.
Looking over the attainments of the church for a cell- tury we cannot but feel the force of gathering momen- tum in church life, church character and power, that came from years of Christian education, consecration and prayer. We see the beauty of the Divine blessing in the
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fruits of others' toil. Their sacrifice has not been in vain. As 110 atom of matter is lost or cast away, so God is not prodigal of moral or spiritual force, but harbors and guards it with jealous care. Then let us stay here or go forth to labor for God anywhere and everywhere, not wearying in well doing for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.
As we behold the influences, legible and pulsating among us to-day, of men and women long since gone, "who rule us even from their tombs," let us catch the inspiration that was theirs-to pray and to do, to labor and to trust, to mould the present and guide the future, and at length "departing leave behind us, footprints on the sands of time."
Letter from Hon. Luther Marsh.
MIDDLETOWN, ORANGE Co., N. Y., June 6th, 1896. To the Officers of the First Congregational Church of Pompey .-
GENTLEMEN :- It would give me great pleasure, if cir- cuinstances permitted, to visit the airy old top, where, seventeen years before I was born, the First Congrega- tional church of Pompey started into life. I have not been there since the reunion of the sons and daughters of Pompey, in 1871. Since then, in that quarter of a century-how many of her children, who, scattered over the states, came from their homes and mounted the sacred uprise to the Pompey green, that they might shake the warm hands of fellowship-of townsmanship-have left this earthly sphere, and risen to a higher !
There come to me the names of our then president, Sen- ator Daniel P. Wood, Governor Horatio Seymour and his brother, John F. Seymour; Charles B. Sedgwick, the elo- quent lawyer; Charles Mason, Commissioner of Patents and Judge of Iowa; our great General, Henry W. Slocum; Judge Le Roy Morgan, Rev. Homer Wheaton of Dutchess county, Hon. James Noxon of Syracuse, Judge Lucien Birdseye of Brooklyn, Leonard W. Jerome of New York, Henry Sheldon of New York, William G. Fargo of Buffalo, J. Haskell Stearns of California, Edwin C.
牙份
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Litchfield of Brooklyn, Judge Hiram K. Jerome of Pal- myra, and, doubtless, there are many others of the sons and daughters of the grand old summit, who have since plumed their flight from the scenes of time. Suggestive, indeed, is this enumeration; and it is not likely that many of us will listen to the suggestions that may be inade when the next quarter of a century shall have come to an end.
I wonder if the old village is about the same as when visited by the ten thousand guests of 1871, its churches, its academy, its two greens, the street, the houses and the new landscape ! I can traverse it now, in memory, as it was seventy years ago; and should be disappointed to find it changed and revolutionized by modern improve- ments.
Would I recognize, and nod to a single acquaintance on the street, of all the men and women I used to revere, and of all the boys and girls I played with? Would my own grey top,-though yet full-crowned, be remembered as the curly head of the running, jumping, wrestling boy ? I fear that I should feel alone, in a lofty solitude, with no familiar tones in my ear, and no familiar form approaching.
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