USA > New York > Monroe County > Rochester > First Church chronicles, 1815-1915 : centennial history of the First Presbyterian Church, Rochester, New York > Part 4
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But it must not be imagined that the chil- dren of the church were lazy. A note record- ing Dr. Penney's presentation of books to those children who recited the greatest num- ber of Bible verses gives the following figures, among others that are equally impressive, for 1823: Emily Strong, aged eight, 1070 verses in seven days; Mary Ann Bissell, aged seven, 1496 verses in twelve days; Amelia Ely, aged nine, 2127 in ten days; John Living-
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ston, aged twelve, 1394 in eleven days; Samuel Livingston, aged ten, 1548 in eleven days; Priscilla Wilson, aged twelve, 4002 in eleven days. After poor little Priscilla's name the word " dead " has been entered, in an ink that seems no fresher than that which recorded her triumph.
The composition of special hymns for spe- cial occasions seems to have been popular, for in addition to the record of that used at the Sunday School Union anniversary we have records of several others, as of one with which the children welcomed Dr. Penney, June, 1828, after his return from an absence; and later of a hymn especially composed for a missionary event.
VIII
Subjects of Thought
In 1826 the Franklin Institute of Rochester was founded. This is of interest here because Dr. Penney of the First Church was one of its original projectors and a dominant force in it. The Institute later was known as the Athenæum, and was the first important literary association to be organized in Roches- ter. Much later still it was absorbed, as re- spects its funds and charter, into the Mechan-
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ics' Institute, with which the First Church of to-day maintains such neighborly relations, while its books formed the nucleus of the Reynolds Library. In fact, it has been well said of Dr. Penney, by one of his contempor- aries, that " whatever aimed to advance the people intellectually, as well as religiously, received his cordial sympathy and earnest co-operation "; and there is general tribute to the vigor of his intellect, to his scholastic attainments and to the charm of his conver- sation. He had a special interest in the natural sciences and often visited the village schools, cheering the pupils in their studies, attending the examinations, and offering prizes for excellence in study. It was he, also, who constructed the sun dial which stood from 1825 to 1870 on the green between the Court House and the church. As there were few public clocks in the early days, the accuracy which Dr. Penney gave to the famous sun dial's setting meant much to the com- munity. Dr. Penney has been also described as " quite a genius in mechanics," who might have won distinction as an inventor. His portrait, painted at public expense by the famous Gilbert, long adorned the walls of the Athenæum; and in the study of it one can
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easily believe all the good things that were said of him.
In the last days of 1827, Abraham Plumb and Patty, his wife, transferred to the "First Presbyterian Society of Rochester " the deed for the church property which they had been holding in trust. The event is interesting as being the first use of the title by which the society has ever since been legally known. In this year the Third Presbyterian Church was organized, twenty-two persons taking letters to it from the First. Among those who went from the First were Elisha and Han- nah Ely, who had been of the original sixteen and always prominent in the church. Other very important losses were Josiah Bissell, Jr., and Elder Salmon Scofield. These latter two were elected Elders of the new church.
The strength which at this time went out of the Mother Church to her third daughter is representative of that which, throughout all her long life, she has given to her children. But their success is her success; in their joy is her joy; and she realizes that through their ministry her service to the community has been far larger than it could have been through efforts of her own. So we see the forest trail branched into many parallel paths,
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and these becoming the religious highways of the town.
In 1827 also, two members of the church, Rev. Jonathan S. Green and Miss Delia Stone (later Mrs. J. R. Bishop) sailed for the Sandwich Islands to be missionaries; and in 1828 the First Church elected new Elders in the persons of Charles J. Hill and Frederick Starr.
The subject of intemperance began strongly to agitate the community at this time. In the summer of 1827, Presbytery adopted a resolution to the effect that " the intemperate use of ardent spirits is an evil which the friends of the Redeemer ought to unite in suppress- ing," and it urged, with an explanation which surely was needed, "that the temperate use of ardent spirits ought, in all ordinary cases, to be conscientiously avoided and discouraged." In the following year, the first public temper- ance meeting was held in Rochester; and it was in part, perhaps, because of this agita- tion, that when, in 1829, Dr. Penney " left the care of his people for a season and went to Ireland to visit his aged mother and friends," he took with him a zeal for temperance which resulted in his having a large part, perhaps the leading part, in organizing the first efforts
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made in Ireland, and some say even in Great Britain, for the suppression of intoxication. He held public meetings, made many speeches and organized societies.
It may be well imagined that after his return the First Church took a prominent part in tem- perance propaganda. One member, indeed, Col. A. W. Riley, not only attained in this country a nation-wide reputation as a tem- perance advocate, but spent two years in Great Britain, and many years in travel through other countries, lecturing to crowds upon total abstinence, and always at his own expense; and one of the missionaries of the church, Rev. Dr. Ward, "edited the first paper in any language of India devoted to the cause of total abstinence."
But other public matters than temperance were agitating the community and the First Church in these days. It was the time of " the Morgan Affair." With Rochester as the center of the anti-Masonic feeling, many clergymen renounced the order and an over- ture on the subject of Masonry was intro- duced in Presbytery. It was a time of strong feeling also on the subject of public amuse- ments, a feeling that was much intensified by the actual opening of a theatre.
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The First Church was never far from the center of any public affair, and late in Decem- ber, 1829, Dr. Penney preached a sermon entitled " The House of Mirth " which went straight to the hearts of a large number of the community. Two days after its delivery, four young men-Seth D. Chapin, George A. Avery, Thomas J. Paterson and Levi Burnell, addressed the following letter to him:
Reverend and dear Sir:
Believing that the subject of your discourse, preached in the evening of the 20th inst., is one which should be frequently and forcibly pressed upon the minds of all, and especially the young, the undersigned, with other young, as well as elder members of your congregation, feeling desirous that the impressions which we hope and trust were produced by the preaching of said discourse, may be more widely extended, respectfully solicit a copy of the same for publication.
Dr. Penney replied at once, his note begin- ning, " Young Gentlemen and Friends." After disclaiming thought of publication in the preparation of the " discourse," he sent it to them, with the words, " It is herewith sub- mitted to your disposal with ardent wishes for your temporal and eternal welfare. I am, etc., Your friend and Pastor, Joseph Penney." E. Peck and Company promptly
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printed the sermon in a pamphlet, which, with other published discourses by Dr. Penney, may be seen in the rooms of the Rochester Historical Society. It pictures the dangers of frivolous amusements and asks what the community is doing in the way of offering counter wholesome entertainments.
A few words will suffice to indicate Dr. Penney's pulpit style. "See," he said, "the youth of fair and early promise. Genius sparkled in his eye, and an honorable ambition sat upon his manly forehead; his heart was yet warm with tender emotions of filial and domestick love." Then he pictures his grad- ual downfall as a result of indulging in com- mercialized amusements, and says:
Yes, the theatre, the circus, and the billiard rooms, of our own village, that many look on as harmless amuse- ments, have been, to my own knowledge, the beginnings and effectual and rapid promoters of deep corruption, infamy and ruin to some promising young men; and there is reason to fear that others ... are, by frequenting these places, now insensibly sliding into the paths of destruction.
His peroration is:
What provision, we ask, is made for meeting and improving this unalterable law of nature in the character of the young? None! One class of the community proscribes and frowns upon all youthful amusements, provoking those under their care to hypocritical con-
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cealment or upon disobedience. Another class has no particular scruples. Both agree to withdraw their presence and patronage from this whole department of the publick interests, and leave the matter to the direction of the strolling, irresponsible and mercenary panders of pleasure. ... We leave these thoughts for your reflection. ... We leave you to answer this to your conscience, as you shall to God.
May God direct you to such a sense of truth and duty on this subject as shall issue in your final comfort and joy, and in that of your dear children. Amen.
It may be well to remark at this point that Dr. Penney was given to long sermons. The practice of course was common, sermons of an hour's duration being quite the expected thing. But Dr. Penney went even beyond the customary limit, so that on one occasion a delegation of First Church people waited upon him and with some trepidation asked him whether, in mercy to the children, he might not somewhat shorten his discourses. He heard them through with perfect courtesy and then, tradition says, he answered, “ Breth- ren, I should be glad to do so, but I have not time."
During this period also the church was not without some differences of opinion in regard to doctrine. But tolerance and good feeling prevailed, and in the catalogue of members which was printed in 1829, there is included
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a brief form of Christian doctrine for the acceptance of those who found the full Con- fession of Faith more than they could wrestle with. This does not mean, however, that the church was taking itself less seriously. A member was tried by Session at this time, and suspended, for having said, "Devil!" and "I swear "; and for having stated that " he had united with the church because a certain young lady was a member of the church,-to the great reproach of his own sincerity in his Christian profession, and the scandal of the church of Christ."
IX
A Revival and an Accident
It seems clear, as one looks back, that the popular mind was ready for a religious re- vival; and in 1830, in response to an invita- tion of Presbytery, Rev. Charles G. Finney came to begin his preaching. He commenced about the first of September and continued for a full six months. For a while he preached each week two sermons in the First Church, two in the Second, and two in the Third, and in addition there were three sermons on Sunday.
Of those sermons, usually an hour long,
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but sometimes lasting for two hours and a half, we have striking descriptions: "First," says one writer, " came his clear, searching awful sermons to a dead church. Sometimes he scarcely preached a word to the impeni- tent for a week or ten days. But false hopes were torn up by the roots. Backsliders and worldly professors were brought trembling and astonished to the feet of the Savior.
The church being aroused and praying fer- vently for God's blessing, he was then pre- pared to preach to sinners. Beginning with the law, he showed how just are its require- ments, how fearful the violation of them. . As the preacher's clear shrill voice rose to its highest pitch, and penetrated every nook and corner of the vast congregation with that terrific sound, it was almost enough to raise the dead-there were no sleepers there. And yet, that same mighty man, when speaking of the love of Christ, or the peril of the soul, was not wanting in tenderness. At times, indeed, he was moved to tears and entreaties enough to break the stoniest heart."
It has seemed worth while to give this de- scription somewhat fully, for the period of Mr. Finney's visit was one marked by revivals that spread throughout all Western New York,
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so that Dr. Hotchkin in his history has called it, the "year of the right hand of the Most High."
Presbytery reported accessions of 635 mem- bers to the three Presbyterian churches of Rochester-a truly remarkable record in a town of 10,000 population. Of this number, the First Church received, in the year ending April 1, 1831, "one hundred and fifty per- sons from the world-ninety-two at one time." " The grandeur of that revival," it has been stated,* " is not to be estimated by numbers alone. The whole community was stirred, the highest and the lowest. Religion was the
one topic of conversation. . The change wrought by that revival in the whole face of society was simply amazing. Noise and con- fusion, rowdyism and lawlessness passed away. Sobriety and order, industry and thrift had taken their place. The only theatre, with which the village had been dishonored, was closed. So the meetings continued, week after week, and month after month, rising in inter- est and deepening in solemnity .. It is worthy of special notice that an unusually large number of the leading men of the place,
* Rev. Charles P. Bush, D.D., in Historical Address at the semi-centennial of Rochester Presbytery, 1869.
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the lawyers, the judges, the physicians, the merchants and master mechanics were among the converts. . That most of them were truly converted is attested by their lives. . . . And, to his honor be it said, that Rev. Dr. Penney, then pastor of the First Church of this place, although highly conservative and cautious, both by nature and foreign educa- tion, took Mr. Finney by the hand when he first came, and stood by him to the last. His church was open for a part of the meetings until that disaster, the separating of the walls, by which it came so near falling on our heads. . .. The revival of 1831 did not end suddenly. It seemed to run on for a series of years, 1832, '33, '34 and '35 all being dis- tinguished by special effusions of the Spirit." In fact in 1833 another revivalist, Rev. Jedediah Burchard, visited the village with notable results.
As to the disaster to the First Church build- ing, it occurred on the evening of October I, 1830, when the structure was crowded with people who had gathered to hear Mr. Finney. From the auditorium, no columns supported the roof, and when the pressure spread the walls, a scantling or rafter fell over the ceiling and broke through the plastering.
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There was immediate panic. Dr. Penney at the moment was making the first prayer, and Mr. Finney was kneeling behind him, "in front of the sofa." It appears from Mr. Finney's "Memoirs," "written by him- self," that in the crisis the First Church pastor did not act with that assurance and calmness which might have been expected of the leader of a flock, in the attitude of prayer before a crowded house. On the con- trary, he "leaped from the pulpit," almost jumping over Mr. Finney, and ran into the street. Mr. Finney, however, got to his feet and then, to quote his own words, “put up my hands and cried at the top of my voice, 'Be quiet, be quiet!' Directly a couple of women, rushing up into the pulpit, one on the one side and the other on the other side, caught hold of me in a state of dis- traction. . The scene looked so ludicrous to me that I could scarcely refrain from laughing."
But it was no laughing matter, and though no one was seriously injured everybody tried to get out of the building at once. There is a tradition that one of the ladies of the church raised a window and was about to jump into the canal, when she saw "one of
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the most stately gentlemen of the city " jump through an adjacent window. The results to him led her to prefer to take her chances at the door. But many persons did go through the windows. It is also said that many women had come to the church that evening directly from a meeting of the sewing society, their needlework and sewing bags with them. Next morning a collection of these articles, together with bonnets and other things, was displayed in the windows of a store, where owners were invited to come in and identify their property.
The fact is, the church had not been con- sidered safe for some time, so that for the three preceding weeks the Sunday School had met in the Court House. It was now necessary to close the auditorium, until supports for the roof could be set up in the middle aisle and the outer walls strengthened. The latter was done by constructing buttresses between the windows. These, rising above the eaves, were surmounted by spires, the aspect of the church being thus quite altered. Dr. McIlvain, a later pastor, has left in a news- paper interview this reminiscence of its changed appearance: "It was a queer old church. The outside was of stucco, and upon the roof
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were eight battlements-turrets, I guess you would call them-and capping the summit of each turret was a bright tin star." If Dr. McIlvain's counting of the stars was correct, we may now, from the end of the century, look back upon their number as prophetic. For the Mother-church gave birth to seven children, the one church growing into eight. It might be said of it, as in the vision of John, " the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches."
The vestry of St. Luke's and the vestry of St. Paul's offered their church buildings to the congregation of the First, during the making of the repairs. As St. Paul's was without a rector, the latter invitation was accepted, Dr. Penney preaching there until the latter part of the winter. It is interest- ing to note that the First Church congrega- tion took their bell and organ with them. But the Communion service of January 2, 1831, when the First Church received a hun- dred new members, was held in the building of the Second Church; and a year after the accident, when a fire damaged St. Luke's early on Sunday morning, Dec. 23, 1832, the Presbyterians were able to reciprocate the courtesy which the vestry of that church
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had shown them-an invitation which St. Luke's accepted.
The year 1831 made history for the church in various ways. Besides the repair and strengthening of the edifice, a brick chapel was built on the east, or Irving Place, side, separated from the church building by a walk. The Sunday School was held in this structure, in which a striking feature of the interior decoration was a tablet on either side of the Superintendent's platform, bearing in gilt let- ters the names and ages of the children who had died-the girls on the one side, the boys on the other-an impressive reminder to youthful exuberance that Death seizes upon the young as well as upon the old. Directly back of the platform was a map of Palestine.
The first Mission School was started in 1831 by Mrs. Penney and Miss Harriet Hatch. " They made," says the History of Rochester Presbytery, " special efforts to gather in the neglected little children from the highways and resorts of dissipation. The lady members of the church furnished a band of devoted helpers, while the church sustained the enter- prise with liberal contributions, so that the work was prosecuted with much vigor and suc- cess." In that year also there was a wonderful
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temperance meeting in the (old) Brick Church. Theodore D. Weld, who delivered the address, spoke for two hours to "a vast and breath- less audience." When the speaker had fin- ished, Dr. Penney, who was present, waited for a moment and then, advancing to the front of the platform, asked those to rise who, being in the "habit of using, manu- facturing, or vending ardent spirits," were willing to pledge publicly that they would do so no more. Several rose in response. Immediately afterwards several bars closed, and demijohns and liquor casks were emptied on the ground.
The year 1832 was marked by the first cholera epidemic in Rochester. The com- mittee appointed to deal with it was mainly made up of First Church men, and the grue- some story of the year is illumined by the special heroism of one of them-Ashbel W. Riley. It is recorded of him that he went day and night fearlessly and tirelessly among the sufferers and with his own hands laid eighty of them in their coffins.
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X
Dr. Penney Leaves
On November 22, 1832, Dr. Penney ad- dressed a letter of resignation " to the Elders and Trustees of the First Presbyterian Church." The letter, which is still extant, is a most affectionate document. It states that he had contemplated the step for some time, and had " hitherto been prevented only by the re- monstrances of some of your number who urged that such a step would seriously injure the interests of the congregation." He adds, " The late distracted and scattered state of the Society, in consequence of the failure of the Church Edifice, seemed to bind me to the Society. . . This is now past, and I know of no embarrassments now remaining." He gave as his reasons for the step his great interest in education and wish to devote him- self more fully to it; and, especially, the injurious effect of the climate upon his health. He said: " I shall part with every member of the congregation as from a dear friend and shall never, never think of this people but with affection, gratitude and esteem. I shall leave them with many precious recol- lections and retain no painful ones."
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Very regretfully, his people accepted the resignation. They adopted resolutions which record the feeling "that in losing him they have lost an able advocate of the cross and a firm and confiding friend; and our village, as a man of service and sound judgment, one of its leading ornaments." A personal letter which was written at the time says, " His leaving will be a great source of sorrow to other congregations as well as our own."
Dr. Penney preached his farewell sermon April 28, 1833, taking as his text the words (Second Corinthians, XIII, II) "Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you."
The church was, as he had said, in a highly prosperous condition. Its membership had risen to 477, the highest figure it had ever reached; for the fiscal years of '31 and '32 there was reported a total of 251 additions, of whom 205 were by confession, and in one of the years there were 85 baptisms. The Sunday before Dr. Penney left, Ashley Samp- son and James K. Livingston were ordained as Elders, having been elected, in accord- ance with custom, by " the male members of the Church." The letter in which they
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accepted their election to that office breathes a spirit that must have meant much to the church. Stating themselves to be " deeply sensible of incompetence and unworthiness," they say: " Of ourselves we can do nothing. We need the Holy Spirit's influence. The peculiar circumstances of our church seem to call for increased effort, prayer, faith, humility, brotherly love, and every Christian grace. Shall we not rally around the standard of the cross, renew our covenant vows, draw closer the chords of Christian love? "
In connection with Dr. Penney's interest in education, it is interesting to note that in 1832 the church made its first contribution to educational purposes, so far as the records show. The sum was the very substantial amount of $675.
After leaving Rochester, Dr. Penney went to Northampton, Mass., as pastor of the First Congregational Church. Two years later, he accepted the presidency of Hamilton College, remaining about four years. During this period, some of the members of the First Presbyterian Church in Rochester made them- selves responsible for his salary, offering to be thus responsible for ten years. Brief resi- dences followed at Nyack and Grand Rapids,
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and then Dr. Penney returned to Rochester, the place which seems always to have been nearest his heart. For some years he suffered greatly from a nervous affection, and finally, in 1860, died. His wife had died a few years earlier, and both are buried at Mt. Hope.
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