USA > New York > Orange County > Newburgh > Centennial celebration of the First Presbyterian Church, Newburgh, New York, 1784-1884 > Part 3
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After this fervent prayer the congregation united with the choir in singing the 36th Hymn, " Great is the Lord our God."
The Pastor then delivered the following Address of Welcome:
Brethren and Friends : It is with great personal satisfaction that I am privi- leged, as the pastor of this Church, to extend to you all its welcome upon the occa- sion of this, its Centennial Anniversary.
It is an occasion for joy ; it is a jubilee, our hearts throbbing with devout grat- itude to God for all His goodness and grace, and our lips showing forth His praise. In our joy and in our grateful praise, we desire that you, Ministers of Christ and Christian friends, should unite with us. While in a certain sense the history of any Church is its own, in another and very significant sense it belongs to the community, where its life is lived and where its influence is especially and constantly operative. We are all partakers in one way and another of the good that flows out fromn these centres of religious power and activity. We cannot bound and limit these streams of blessing that have their sources in these Churches of Christ by any parochial lines. And to day as we in- vite you to look at this single streamn that had its rise a hundred years ago in these hills, it is with the assured feeling that you will rejoice with us that its flowing has been continuous for so many years, and that its full and overflowing waters have given such moral and spiritual health to the people.
On the 12th day of August, 1734, a few disciples, who had been sustaining for nearly a score of years a religious society somewhat irregular in its ecclesiastical form, organized themselves into a Presbyterian Church according to the laws of the State. That date marks the beginning of the corporate existence of this Church. A hundred years of Church life !
But it is not solely in this fact of age that we to-day find our joy and that I have such satisfaction in extending to you this welcome. The Church has made a inost hon- orable record, of which it has a right to be proud. It has steadily upheld the truth as formulated in the doctrinal standards to which it first gave adherence. It has proved itself loyal to the form and order of Church Government which it first es- poused. It began its life when Newburgh was only a hamlet. In its earlier period, though weak in numbers and in material resources, it bravely lived on in spite of the virulent attacks of a strong infidel party in the conununity which was widely notor- ious for its bitter assaults upon Christianity and all its institutions. It grew with the community's growth, doing nobly and efficiently its part in the moral and spiritual ed- ucation of the people. Peace and harmony to a remarkable degree have per- vaded this long life. That it has had but three pastors, the two deceased, whose characters and works will be set before us this afternoon by those who were per- sonally acquainted with them, and the third, the one who extends to you in its name its welcome, is a striking proof of the spirit of concord that has generally prevailed.
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As these three pastorates do not cover the hundred years, a word of explanation is proper. In it earliest history it was served by stated supplies, who niinistered also to the still older but likewise feeble Church in New Windsor. Only one ininister was regularly installed over the two Churches previous to the settlement of the Rev. John Johnston. The Rev. Eleazer Burnet was ordained and installed pastor over them in November, 1805, but died at the expiration of the first year of his pastorate.
As Mr. Johnston, or as he was afterwards and is to-day more familiarly known as "Father Johnston," or Dr. Johnston, was the first pastor the Church had exclu- sively for its own, it has regarded him as its first pastor. His pastorate termin- ating with death he was soon succeeded by the Rev. Dr. Sprole, niy immediate predecessor.
It is certainly a just cause of pride in the history of one's Church that its pas- torates have been of such long duration ; that there has been such steadfast loyalty to those whoin it has chosen for its spiritual teachers and guides. And we welcome you to rejoice with us to-day in the memories their names awaken. The continuous prosperity of this Church is identified with these faithful servants of God, who left their impress upon this Church life, who to a great degree were instrumental under God in moulding and shaping that life.
We welcome you, furthermore, to a participation in the joy that comes from the conviction that the unwritten history of the Church is that after all which is its inost imperishable value. The history of human hearts-of the inner, secret lives of those who have here confessed Christ and have consecrated themselves to His service ; prayers that God has treasured in his book of remembrance ; the spiritual conflicts out of which have comne peace and strength ; the comforts and consolations of the Gospel ; the calm resignations to the will of God ; the triumph- ant departures for the glory above ; how all this unwritten history is suggested to us as we think of those hundred years of Church life. There are a host who have to glory gone, whose benedictions are upon us to-day; we seem to hear them bid- ding us rejoice, to keep high festival on this day of precious memories. They are the memories of a Church life of which they formed a part and to whose spiritual force and material prosperity they contributed; the inemories of struggles in which they shared ; the memories of prayers in which they joined.
Friends, these voices from out the past tuat come to us from the skies are for your joy as well as for ours. For He, in whom they live, is our life and our salvation.
It has been our desire upon this centennial anniversary, as ineinorial words were to be spoken of these deceased pastors, Dr. Johnston and Dr. Sprole, to place somewhere upon these walls a simple, unpretentious tablet that would be a reminder to those who are to come after us of the long service of these devoted Ministers of Christ. We had no desire to erect a tablet that from its elaborate design or expen- sive cost, or cunning workmanship would draw admiration to itself. Simplicity, durability, harmony with its surroundings were the main things sought for. Such a tablet has been placed upon these walls. It bears no fulsome inscriptions, no eulogistic words. If you would seek for the true monuments of these illen, you will find it in the history of this Church, that celebrates its hundredth birthday.
As the last words of the Address were uttered, Elder M. C. Belknap stepped forward and drew aside the red silk curtain that had veiled the tablet. For a few seconds silence was observed. The Rev. Dr. Hall then introduced the Reverend Dr. Prime, of New York, in the following words :
Friends : The Committee did not require much time to consider whom they should invite to give the Memorial Address upon the Rev. Dr. Johnston. There was one person who seemed to them especially adapted for this service; one who had a warm personal attachment for Dr. Johnston, who sat for some time under his min- istry and who afterward was the pastor of a neighboring Church. Therefore, from his own personal knowledge of Dr. Johnston's character and work, and out of a full treasury of pleasant and prized recollections, he will speak to us. I need hardly mention his name. It is in all our Churches-The Rev. Dr. S. I. Prime, of New York.
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DR. PRIME'S ADDRESS.
John Johnston was born in 1778, six years before the birth of this Church. His father was an intelligent fariner, who had been a school teacher. He lived in Montgomery, in Ulster now Orange County, New York. The lad worked on the farın, and when he was fourteen years old and had been employed awhile in a store, he decided, with his father's approbation, to get an education. He was pre- pared to enter college when his father died. This sad event crushed his hopes, but his mother was equal to the occasion, and resolved to accomplish the work. From the herd on the farin she selected some cattle, and the student boy with a drover to aid him, set off through the country to sell thein, for money to support him in college. They came to Newburgh, crossed the river, and going down into West- chester County, disposed of the cattle.
He lodged at Yorktown, and waking early he heard two boys in a bed near him discussing the great question, "Can God see us in the dark ?" That conversation led him to serious reflections that shaped his course in life .*
Returning home, with his money, he was soon on his way to Princeton and an education. This was in October, 1799.
George Washington died December 13th, 1799, only a few weeks after this youth entered college. The President of the college delivered a funeral oration at Tren- ton; and the young man walked ten miles to hear it, stood up in the crowd three hours and walked ten miles back, having had nothing to eat during the day. Yet it was no small part of a young man's education to hear a funeral sermon on the death of George Washington. Heaven send us another Washington, and to God shall be the glory.
He completed his course with honor, and was afterwards elected tutor in the college, performing the duties of that office so as to secure the respect of the offi- cers and students also.
The voice of God, which he heard by the boys in Yorktown, continued to call him, and he desired to preach the everlasting Gospel. Beyond the Allegheny Mountains was a great divine whose fame as a teacher of divinity had come over the hills to the college at Princeton. There was no School of Theology there at that time nor until ten years after. Coming back to Montgomery, to the home of his mother, the question of the Ministry was discussed in the councils of the family. A young lady in the neighborhood joined the council, for she was deeply interested in its decision She had already promised to be the wife of this ardent young man, and the question intimately concerned their future. Should he go away for a term of years, complete his studies, and then return to claim his bride, and with her begin life's great work as a Minister of the Gospel ? Many elements of doubt and fear entered into that discussion. There were no public conveyances then like our steamboats and railroads. Pittsburg was farther off than London is now. Pov- erty, illness, change of purpose, were all possible. Would time work no change in man or maiden ? If they parted now for three years would they be ever united to share the burdens and joys of wedded life ? They voted unanimously that he should go. Mounted on a little horse, his whole wardrobe in the saddle bags under him, he rode down into New Jersey, through it to Pennsylvania, Lancaster, Columbia, Chambersburg, Bedford and Somerset, he crossed the mountains, a solitary trav- eler, was charmed with the magnificent views, with the hills and the Juniata val- ley, and received impressions of grandeur and loveliness that were fresh in his memory fifty years afterwards. At Canonsburg he found Dr. McMillan, the Apostle of the West, at whose feet he was to sit. But his course was more of practice than of study. His teacher was a great revival Preacher and was continually called off to scenes of high religious interest, into which he plunged, taking all his students with him. At the end of a year and a half his money was exhausted, and he crossed the mountains again on horse-back, found employment as a teacher in Maryland, replenished his purse, went home after an absence of three years, found all right there and in the neighborhood, studied one year more at Princeton, and was licensed to preach the Gospel in October, 1805.
The Church in Newburgh was at that time connected with one at New Windsor. He was called to the united charge. Having been married to the woman he loved, he entered on his labors and was ordained on the 5th of August, 1807. That Min- istry continued without interruption during the full term of his long and useful
. Many long years afterwards Dr. Johnston, attending Synod in New York City, dined with the Rev. Dr. Potts, and a large party of ministers and elders. At table Dr. J. related this incident, and one of the elders said, " I was one of those boys."
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life. To pursue the history of his Ministry in the City of Newburgh (after New Windsor set up for itself) would be to rehearse the record of a pure. godly man, whose walk and conversation were without spot and blameless, and whose life was one long testimony to the power of simple goodness. He was the most like a good child of any educated man I ever saw. It was a blessedness of his that he found that patient girl in Montgomery waiting for him after so many years. She was a mother to hini as well as a wife. He has said, playfully, at my table when pressed to take this or that, "My wife does not allow it." It was her prudence and energy that caused the barrel of meal and the cruet of oil to hold out, when, but for her, a miracle would have been required to feed him. Oliver Goldsmith had him to sit for his portrait, when he drew the picture of the village Pastor, who "watched and wept, who prayed and felt for all." He rarely preached a sermon without weeping. But he was sincere. He felt all that he said, and when pleading with sinners to be reconciled to God and with saints to be more like the Saviour, tears would flow and his voice would break so that he could scarcely proceed with his discourse. This was not weakness, for he was not a weak man ; he had immense ener- gy, industry and endurance ; he went about doing good, with vitality and persever- ance rarely equalled in the ministry. I have seen and heard him when he was greatly excited. It was in his own church when the great disruption took place at Synod in the year 1838. It was agreed that the Synod inust be broken asunder, but how should it be done ? "I go," exclaimed Dr. Johnston, "with the men who are known as of my School. I cast my lot in with them, and let my right arm drop from my shoulder if I do not stand by them in this hour of peril."
There was in Newburgh in old times an association of men who cherished the infidel sentiments of the French Revolution, and sought to propagate them on American soil. Dr. Johnston had their names in his note book, and he kept a re- cord of their lives and deaths. Both were miserable. Intemperance, suicide, vio- lence of some kind for the most part sent them out of the world ; few of them died in peace in their beds. He did not repeat their names, for, thank God, it is not respectable to have infidel ancestors, and to perpetuate the memory of the dead would pain the living. But he was wise in dealing with the worst of theill, and the unbeliever, as truly as the Christian, had a place in his heart.
To have walked forty-eight years in one community, identified with every public movement, standing up bravely against iniquity in high places and low, his counsel sought for continually, and his opinion and advice being freely and honestly given, and to have borne himself under all circuinstances, religious and secular, above re- proach or suspicion, is an achievement which the grace of God and his own good sense enabled him to accomplish. He could say with Paul, "I have fought a good fight," and there was never a inan in Newburgh or elsewnere, who could take away his crown of a good name. He was a friend of my youth, and my father's friend, and I count it no light privilege after both of them have been dead for these many years, to take a part in these expressions of esteem for the memory of him who being dead yet speaketh. Long ago, when he first entered within the vail, a white stone was given to him with a new name written thereon. To-day we set up in this holy place a white stone, with his naine inscribed upon it. Long ago he expressed astonishment that he who once kept his father's sheep, was raised up to be a Shepherd of the flock of God, to rank with illustrious men in the government of the Church, and its institutions of learning. Now he sits with the greatest and best of all past ages, and with Jesus the Mediator, whose church he loved and served so long and well. We set up this stone to tell the generations who come after us what a noble, blessed, faithful Pastor fed this flock through the first half of the nineteenth century, that they may hold in honor perpetual the name of Dr. John Johnston.
THE REV. DR. HALL :- Very soon after I first came to Newburgh, about twelve years ago, I was fortunate in making the acquaintance of the gentleman who was at that time chaplain at West Point. He seemed to me to be a man in the vigor of his prime. But with the closer and more intimate acquaintance the years have brought, he has been grow- ing younger to my thought. I am sure that if the good Lord should spare him to us for twenty years more it will even then be said of him, "fresh to the end." He is among us, on his own native heath, to-day,
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and we are all confident that what our esteemed friend does not know about the early Ministers, and early religious life of Newburgh is not worth knowing. The Rev. Dr. Forsyth will now address us.
DR. FORSYTH'S ADDRESS.
My dear Friends: I find myself as it were sandwiched between my dear friend Dr. Primne, to whose admirable Memorial we have just listened, and my other dear friend, Judge Fancher, i.e. between the Gospel and the Law.
A few days ago I was asked by one of our editors for my manuscript. I re- plied that I would cheerfully give it if I had such a thing about me; but that I could not know what I might have to say until I had heard Dr. Prime. All that I could do would be to gather up the crumbs which Dr. Prime might leave, if indeed he left any. The same day Dr. Hall showed me the programme, and when I asked hini what was to be the theme or text of my address, he said, "you can talk about anything." That was certainly a very large liberty ; but it would be cruel to you if I availed myself of it. You would not wish me to give you a sermon under the guise of an address, especially as we are to have one this evening by my old friend and former colleague in Rutger's College, and which, I am sure, will be one of the best, and so I must take up the theine which, at this last moment, Dr. Hall has given me, and deal with it as best I may-"Reminiscences."
As a born Newburgher, I am sure that my memory of Dr. Johnston goes farther " back than any of my clerical brethren near me. I fancy that even Dr. Prime never saw him until after he had experienced a remarkable change in his personal appearance. My earliest remembrance is that of a most venerable man as bald as Dr. Prime himself, while the few remaining hairs were as white as the driven snow. Suddenly, while he and Mrs. Johnston were on a visit to New York, his head be- came covered with a thick crop of hair as brown and beautiful as those of my friend behind me, the present Pastor of this church. And they retained their color to his dying day. The story goes that on the evening of that day Mr. and Mrs. J. were at a little party in the house of a friend. The host asked Mrs. J. if Mr. J. had come. She looked around the company, and replied, "No, I don't see him," though he was sitting within a few feet of her. I have often wished that a portrait had been taken of him before this change occurred.
Here I must say a few words in regard to Mrs. Johnston-one of the grandest and noblest Christian women that ever lived in Newburgh. She was indeed a helpmeet for her husband-remarkable for her "large, sound roundabout" Chris- tian "sense." Dr. Johnston was, as Dr. Prime has told us, singularly emotional by nature. I think that I never heard him preach without his bedewing his sermon with his tears. Mrs. Johnston was remarkable for her calın, self-poised, energetic readiness for every good word and work. To homes visited by sickness or sorrow, or want she was quick to go, by day or by night, on a mission of sympathy, nurs- ing or help, as the case might be. Hundreds of families-many of them not be- longing to this church-could rise up and call her blessed. She was one of the founders of the Dorcas Society, now nearly seventy-five years old. She was one of the founders and teachers in the first and, for a long time, the only Sunday School in Newburgh. It met in the old church, as a sort of Union School, and so con- tinued until the interior and the exterior of the church were changed into the form which many of you will remember ; when the Presbyterian and the Associate Re- formed Church each set up a Sunday School of its own. Originally the pulpit stood in the north end of the church. It was neither a mere platform nor a desk, but-though irreverently called a tub-it was a true churchly pulpit, with a beau- tiful canopy over it, which was surmounted by a dove with an olive branch in its inouth.
Had Mrs. Johnston lived in Macedonia in apostolic times, I am sure that she would have taken her place among those concerning whom St. Paul wrote-" help those women who labored with me in the Gospel,"-whose names are in the Book of Life. And I am equally sure that if the present generation knew how much this noble woman did for this Church during the many years of her husband's pastor- ate, there would be another tablet beside the one just unveiled, to the memory of Mrs. Mary Johnston. Now, when Christian wonien are so largely " coming to the front," to use a military phrase, in all kinds of Christian work, I wish that there might be such a tablet, not merely to preserve the memory of a "mother in Israel,"
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but also to serve as a stimulus to the ladies of this Church to follow her, as she followed Christ, in all good works.
When Dr. Johnston first came to Newburgh, there were only two churches with pastors in the village-his own and the Associate Reformed. Our Methodist friends had indeed a small society. How small it was and continued to be for quite a num- ber of years may be inferred from the size of their first Meeting House, 32 feet by 45, which stood in what used to be called the Old Town, at the corner of Liberty Street and Gidney Avenue. That little society has, as you know, grown into three noble and mighty bands. If some of the good old Methodists of a hundred, or even seventy-five years ago could rise from their graves, and walk down Liberty Street until they came to Trinity Church, the venerable inother of the other two, I fancy that they would be utterly astonished when told that this is a Methodist Church, that the little seed that they had long ago planted had grown into this magnificent tree of righteousness. We may be sure that when convinced of the fact, they would there in the street have shouted Hallelujah with old-fashioned Methodist vigor.
The Associate Reformed church of that day stood between William and Ren- wick Streets, a little east of Grand, and quite out of town. Those who attended it must have been very "zealously affected" towards their own faith and forms of worship, when they were content to trudge there in summer's heat and winter's cold, through dust, and mud, and snow. At one time they had as their pastor, a young and very popular preacher, who, by the way, was called from here to the First Presbyterian Church of Albany. They naturally were counting a good deal on the eloquence of their young ininister as a means of growth. Some one was one day telling a very prominent merchant of the village, who probably looked at everything within as well as as without from a business point of view, about this popular minister. "O, yes," said the merchant, "Mr. Stansbury is an eloquent man, but Mr. Johnston has the best stand." So he had, for it was in the heart of the village. In due time the Associate Reformed people, becoming convinced that their " stand " was a very poor one, left it and built the church at the corner of Grand and First Streets, in 1821-22, the first minister in which was the late Rev. Dr. McCarrell, and also their parsonage -- the only one for many years in Newburgh, but which every church should have, at the corner of Liberty and First Street. Meanwhile, in 1819, that saintly veteran, the Rev. Dr. John Brown, whom only a few weeks ago devout men of various denominations "carried to his burial," in the almost 70th year of his ministry, but was then the young Rector of St. George's, by liis own untiring energy had erected the church at the corner of Second and Grand Streets. And thus was formed an ecclesiastical right angled triangle, at the several angles of which stood the Presbyterian, the Episcopal and the Associate Re- formed churches, the like of which I fancy, could not be found in any other town in the United States. At one angle stood the Presbyterian Church; at another the Episcopal ; at the third the Associate Reformned. When Dr. Johnston died he had been Pastor of this church fifty years. Dr. Brown had then been Rector of St. George's forty years; and Dr. McCarrell Minister of the Associate Reformed a lit- tle over thirty years. And these were their first and only charges. These three men differed physically, intellectually, in their literary and scientific tastes, as well as in regard to church polity and forms of worship; but they were one in their de- votion to their common Lord, and in zeal for the salvation of men. They never exchanged pulpits ; never sat together at the same communion table, but they were bound together by the closest and warmest friendship not only never broken, but never even for a moment disturbed during the many years they labored side by side, each in his own sphere and among his own people.
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