USA > New York > Orange County > Newburgh > Centennial celebration of the First Presbyterian Church, Newburgh, New York, 1784-1884 > Part 8
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Our father's God and ours, In these centennial hours, Praises delight; And the glad song we raise, Does but prolong the praise, That through the vanished days, Has been Thy right.
II. Changeless 'mid change we trace] Thy care, Thy love, Thy grace, From those far years. Now strength and beauty crown, Centennial gifts adorn The infant Church then born, 'Mid faith and prayers.
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III.
Thanks for the men bestowed, Who with Thy grace endowed, Thy people led; Who toiled through praise and blame, Workmen who did not shame The Gospel, or the Name of our great Head.
IV.
Brave, loyal, true, the dead, Christ sanctified, Christ led, Our heritage ! Help us, dear Lord, that we As brave and true inay be, Writing such deeds for Thee. On our new page.
v. Our father's God, and ours, In these centennial hours, Grant us Thy grace. And may the song we raise, Prolong Thy glorious praise, Till in millennial days We see Thy face.
The Benediction was pronounced by the Rev. C. W. Fritts, of Fish- kill-on-Hudson.
CONGRATULATORY LETTERS.
Among the many congratulatory letters received, the following have been selected as a sample :
NEWBURGH, New York, Nov. 12th, 1884.
My Dear Doctor Hall : I regret that I cannot be with you during the anniver- sary services of your church.
One hundred years of work for Jesus ! This is something worth recalling and commemorating. It is a grand record for heaven as well as for earth. May it be counted worthy to be held in everlasting remembrance by the great Head of the Church.
I rejoice with you on the occasion, and in all the good your church has been instrumental in accomplishing during the past hundred years. To my own cordial greetings, I feel assured that I can add those of my brethren of the Reformed Epis- copal Church. We wish you peace and prosperity in the name of our one Lord. In your accomplished work we sympathize ; to your present rejoicings we respond with hearty Amens ; and for your future we ask the continued guidance and help of the Divine Spirt.
May your Church continue to be a bulwark for the truth, useful and faithful, even to the day of the manifesting of the Lord Jesus Christ.
With fraternal regards, I remain, my dear Doctor, Yours truly, B. B. LEACOCK.
Rev. W. K. HALL, D. D.
PARSONAGE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ) RACINE, Wis., Nov. 7, 1884.
My esteemed Brother Hall : Your kind invitation to be present at the centennial celebration of the First Presbyterian Church in Newburgh, N. Y., on the 13th, is in hand. If the journey were not so long and expensive, and the cares of a large parish so pressing, I should be delighted to accept it and be with you. Noother insti- tution on earth can seein to me exactly like that church of my childhood in which, at the early age of 13, I stood up to confess Christ in company with an aged woman brought late into the fold, for she was more than four score years of age. With fond affection my memory goes back to those childhood days : When good father Johnston, as we reverently called him, ministered to us so faithfully, speaking the truth in love. Portions of some of his discourses I remember to this day. Under his iministry from 1832 to 1844, I received impressions which I can never forget. As I remember him he was peculiarly earnest and interesting in the prayer meetings, and yet more so in the monthly concerts held on Monday evenings in the old Ses-
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sion Room, which was so often packed with people gifted in prayer and very earn- est in pleading for God's blessing upon the church and the world,
The blessing did come. There was church growth and the missionary spirit was kindled in the children of the church.
The strong choir in the high north gallery; what hearty, whole-souled music they made without an organ but with a well-played bass viol, and at times violins and other instruments. There were inany fine voices in that choir, for public taste and culture had not then outgrown the old-fashioned singing school which brought forward a constant supply of new material for the choir and for good congrega- tional singing.
Dr. N. S. Prime was for some of those years teacher in the Academy, and his elo- quent voice, as well as that of his gifted sons, was often heard in that high pulpit from which one might speak with a voice of authority as somewhat above the peo- ple.
But no scene in that old Church seemed to me so historic and full of thrilling interest as that meeting of the Synod of New York and New Jersey, when it split into three factions-Old School, New School and Protestants, or those who protested against the right of the Synod to ask its members to which General Assembly they adhered.
How many years of misunderstanding and aversion, if we may not say of mutual misrepresentation and bitterness, followed that sad schism which required so many years of patient, prayerful waiting, and such consummate wisdom for its final heal- ing. Happily those days of distrust and division have passed, and the Presbyte- rian Church. redoubled in power and usefulness, as a reunited host knows no schools but the school of Christ.
Wishing prosperity and peace to the dear old Church, my first spiritual home : and praying that God's richest blessings may abide with it in all the future,
I remain yours in Christian fellowship, E. CORWIN,
Pastor First Presbyterian Church, Racine, Wis.
The following letter from the venerable Dr. Wickham, written upon reading an article in the New York Observer upon the Church Centen- nial, is of such general interest as to warrant its insertion in this Re- port :
MANCHESTER, Vt., Nov. 24th, 1884.
Dear Mr. Prime : Your interesting and truthful notice of that venerable man of God whom we were wont to call Father Johnston, has awakened reminiscences of which it may interest you personally to have me write:
When he was ordained to the ministry and installed pastor of the united Pres- byterian Churches of New Windsor and Newburgh, August 5th, 1807. I was present. I was then a lad of ten years, and as my mother had taken me with her on a visit with friends at New Windsor, I was permitted to accompany her to the public exercises of that occasion. It was the first time I had witnessed a service of that character; and now after the lapse of nearly fourscore years I have a vivid remembrance of the impression made upon my youthful mind by what I witnessed and heard on that occasion, and of most of those who participated in the ordina- tion of the candidate.
I was conscious then of a vague desire that when I should become a man I might be a minister of the Gospel. Twenty-seven years from that time, having becoine a member of the same Presbytery with Father Johnston, and called to the pastorate of the Church of which you was subsequently pastor, at iny installation he it was to whom the part was assigned of giving mne the charge. Nor can I ever forget the pathos and tenderness of liis utterance as he set forth to his much younger brother the duty and responsibility of the pastoral office.
The Church at New Windsor at the time of the ordination of Mr. Johnston had the precedence of that of Newburgh, and it was acknowledged to have the prior claim to have the services of that occasion performed within its house of worship. But in the course of a single generation, while the population of the latter place had greatly increased, that of the former was relatively diminished. The Church at Newburgh after a few years was so enlarged that it separated from that at New Windsor, and thenceforth enjoyed the exclusive ministerial labors of Dr. Johnston, until in a ripe old age he was called to his reward.
On August 5, 1837, just thirty years from the date of Mr. Johnston's installation
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as pastor of the united churches, the house of worship within which that ceremony was performed had been taken down. Its timbers were removed to another part of the town, and when a new house of worship had been constructed within which the saine timbers were used, the sanie Presbytery which had ordained Mr. Johnston, though with the single exception of himself consisting of other inen, was assembled both to dedicate the new structure to the worship of Jehovah and to ordain to the work of the ministry and install as pastor of the Church and congre- gation worshipping therein, Rev. James M. Sherwood, who is doubtless well known to you. The chief performance on that occasion was by Father Johnston, in deference to whose wishes the day fixed for those solemnities was, at the comple- tion of thirty years from the day of his own ordination within what was sub- stantially the same structure, though in a different location. It fell to ine on that occasion to give the charge to Mr. Sherwood. Residing with his parents in the town of Fishkill, he was licensed to preach by the same Presbytery with which he became connected by ordination-the Presbytery of North River.
To yourself, but not to the public, the facts stated above inay have some interest.
In regard to the good man who is the subject of your notice, I will say that when attending the Synod, which at that period uniformly met in the city. he was always a welcome guest at the house of iny parents. The acquaintance forined in childhood was cherished through life, and it added to iny happiness during the time I spent in Matteawan, that it gave ine opportunity often to enjoy his society and to have the benefit of his counsel and Christian example.
Affectionately yours,
J. D. WICKHAM.
Report of the Centennial Exercises from the Newburgh Journal. 1784-1884.
A NOTABLE CENTENNIAL-OBSERVANCE OF THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH-AFTERNOON AND EVENING EXER- CISES OF GREAT INTEREST -UNVEILING OF A MEMORIAL TABLET-AD- DRESSES BY SEVERAL MINISTERS-SERMON BY THE REV. DR. HOWARD CROSBY, OF NEW YORK-FINE DECORATIONS, MUSIC, ETC.
The Centennial observance of the organization of the Presbyterian Church in this city was finished at the First Presbyterian Church yesterday, services having been held both afternoon and evening. The day was a very pleasant one for the Celebration of the event,-one of the finest and most balmy days of " Indian Sum- mer." The attendance of members of various denominations in the afternoon was large, many of the number having come from other places to participate in the noted event. The services began at 2:30 o'clock. The church was lighted with the electric light, among the number of lights being one in the form of a large star, placed on the front of the organ. The globes of this consisted of glass of various colors-red, blue, green, white, etc .- and it added mnuch to the beauty of the scene presented. Many parts of the church were decorated with flowers, plants, ever- greens, etc., the whole presenting a beautiful scene. Upon the front of the pulpit desk were placed lilies, evergreens, and flowers, both sides of it also being banked with choice potted plants. At the back of the pulpit, on the wall, was the follow- ing inscription, in large letters: "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day and for- ever." Beneath it were the dates, "1784" and "1884" resting against a bank of evergreens. Flowers and other decorations were placed in great abundance near the window back of the pulpit, at each of the other windows of the church, and at the front of the organ. On the front of the pulpit, resting in a bank of evergreens, was a large floral anchor of pure white flowers. Upon the wall at the north side of the sacred desk was the tablet, erected to the memory of the first two pastors of the church, while beneath it hung an elegant floral wreath, composed of various hued flowers, in the center of which were the initials " J. J." This was made by Miss Ferguson of this city, a niece of the late Rev, Dr. John Johnston. The appear-
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ance of the interior of the church was beautiful in the extreme, and very much to the credit of the ladies of the church, who had spent niany hours in the work of properly decorating the sacred edifice.
The following ministers and others occupied places on the pulpit platform or among the congregation in the afternoon and evening: Dr. Howard Crosby, of New York; Dr. S. Irenæus Prime, editor of the New York Observer; Dr. F. B. Wheeler, D.D., of Poughkeepsie; Dr. Irving Magee, D.D., of Rondout; Rev. C. W. Fritts, of Fishkill; D. J. Atwater, Bethlehem; Thomas Reeves, Matteawan; Wil- liam B. Darragh, Walden: Mr. Sherwood, Washingtonville: G. P. Noble, Cornwall; F. E. Kavanaugh, Wappingers Falls ; Judge E. L. Fancher, New York. The following city pastors were present at the services : Rev. Dr. W. K. Hall, pastor of the church, Rev. Dr. John Forsyth, and Rev. Messrs. C. R. North, J. G. D. Findley, S. H. Jagger, Jeremiah Searle, J. Otis Denniston, John Macnaughtan, F. B. Savage, C. C. Manz, J. R. Thompson, W. H. Decker, Samuel Carlisle, H. V. S. Meyers, Arthur Jones, Frederick Hinckley.
At the evening service, the Rev. Dr. Crosby, the Rev. Dr. Hall and the Rev. Messrs. Searle, Macnaughtan and Savage wore the Genevan or teacher's gown, thus reviving the ancient Presbyterian usage, which has always been retained in Scotland and in many of our American cities.
THE MEMORIAL TABLET.
It is made of grey stone of a shade very similar to that of the columns of the church, quarried, as we are informed, in Illinois. It is very chaste in its design, without elaboration or excessive ornamentation, and in perfect harmony with the interior of the church in the simplicity and purity of its outlines. It has a rich and substantial appearance, and evidently was designed by one who has a refined taste. Its position is on the west end of the church, about a foot or so from the north side of the pulpit arch.
The inscription upon it is in gilt and is as follows :
In Memoriam. The Reverend John Johnston, D.D., Pastor of this Church from 1807 to 1855. Died August 23, 1855, Aged 77 years.
The Reverend W. T. Sprole, D.D., Pastor of this Church from 1856 to 1872. Died June 9, 1883, Aged 74 years.
This tablet was erected by the congre- gation upon the centennial anniversary of the organization of the church, Novem- ber 13, 1884.
Editorially the NEWBURGH JOURNAL published the following : YESTERDAY'S CENTENNIAL.
Yesterday's Centennial observances, while of special interest to the members of one of our religious organizations, possessed features of interest to all our citizens. The occasion recalled the times iminediately after the close of the Revolution, when, if the historians report correctly, the cause of religion and even of morality was at a low ebb, here and elsewhere in the country. It recalled also the valiant service in behalf of religion and morality rendered in their respective fields of de- nominational toil by inen of cherislied memory like Doctors Johnston and Mc- Carrell, long since passed away, and Sprole and Brown, who recently entered into rest. It is well that these memorial days should be set apart, when the younger generation, in Church or State, may pause in the rush of business long enough to pay reverence to the memory of the fathers, study their inotives and imethods, and inquire how much we of this day owe to their devotion and their patriotism. How- ever progressive may be the views of the man of the present. he will not deny that he may learn useful lessons from the past. In centennial and other memorial ob- servances here such lessons have been impressively enforced by capable inen, close students of contemporaneous events and the history of former times. In the record of yesterday's observances, which we publish elsewhere in this issue, there will be found much food for thought.
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