USA > New York > Rensselaer County > East Greenbush > History of the Reformed church, at East Greenbush, Rensselaer County, New York > Part 6
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father, three uncles, three of his six brothers and his son, gave themselves to the work of the min- istry, and his children's children have caught the banners from their sires' failing hands, one of whom-Rev. James Romeyn Berry-has to-day been permitted to unfurl it again on the outmost wall of this citadel sanctuary of a hundred years. It is a royal priesthood race, a peculiar people, and their family emblem should be an altar smoking with incense in a temple whose lamps never go out.
The records say that, though he was disposed to remain here, yet he accepted an urgent call to Hackensack, where his ministry extended from 1799 to 1833. "It fell," says Dr. Berry, "upon the most troublous times in our denomination in this section of the country. Previous to his call to the church the signs of a fearful tempest were thickening on every hand. Hackensack already gave tokens of becoming the principal point of the great struggle which ensued. The great need was a man who should properly combine the elements of true piety, firmness, prudence and love of peace. These characteristics Mr. Romeyn was widely known to possess, and upon the basis of this repu- tation he was called to the pastorate of the churches of Hackensack and Schraalenburgh, without having been heard or seen among them. * Of his piety the sweetest memories have been cherished
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by those who knew him in the fond relations of his home, or in the confidence of personal friendship. His natural loving and sincere disposition was sanctified by his sincere and loving faith in Jesus. This gave his children that peculiar fondness with which they regarded him while living and revered his memory when dead." Rev. Herman Van Der- wart, his latest successor in the Hackensack church, says that Mr. Romeyn's pastorate was "the longest in the two hundred years of the church's history."
It was my privilege one day last month to copy from his family Bible at Princeton this tender tribute from his pen :
" Susan, my beloved wife, and the mother of the children recorded in the adjoining column, deceased of dropsy in the chest, April 22d, 1826, at fifteen minutes past three in the morning. She fell asleep in Jesus, with a hope full of immortality."
" One day in August, 1832," says another grand- son, Rev. Benjamin C. Taylor, " while sitting at his own table he was suddenly stricken with paralysis. He silently burst into tears, and received the stroke as a signal that his work was nearly done. As this attack was comparatively slight, he somewhat recovered from it and resumed his pulpit labor, and with great effort continued to serve at God's altar. But his work was done and well done." " It is doubtful," says Dr. Berry, "if the whole number of [7]
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the ministers of our church in that day could have furnished another who would have borne the trials and met the difficulties of his position better than he."
His last public service was a funeral sermon in the Dutch language over one of the most aged members of his church. In his last address at the Communion table, enfeebled by paralysis, and with broken utterance, he began his remarks in the affecting language of Job-" Have pity upon me, O ye my friends, for the hand of God hath touched me !"
During the last eight years of his life the earthly house of his tabernacle was shattered by repeated attacks of paralysis. His mind suffered in the feebleness of his body. Patiently he awaited the signal for his departure. The last token of earthly recognition was given in response to the question : "Do you know that you are almost home ?" In a few hours that home was reached and mortality was swallowed up of life. He died on the 27th day of June, 1840, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. His ashes repose in the cemetery at Hack- ensack, and his tombstone bears this legend :
"In memory of Rev. James V. C. Romeyn, who died June 27th, 1840, in the seventy-fifth year of his age and fifty-third of his ministry, having served the united congregations of Hackensack and Schraalenbergh thirty-five years.
" I have waited for thy salvation, O God."
JOHN LANSING ZABRISKIE. TAKEN BEFORE MARRIAGE.
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He was honored by the church with a trusteeship of Queen's College, and as president of Classis, and like his great namesake, the apostle James, presi- dent of the college at Jerusalem, was worthy of all honor.
I have lingered thus long and lovingly around this name partly because he was your first annointed teacher, partly because he was so grand and good, and partly because the materials for biography are so ample. I have scarcely opened them ; but duty to the occasion forbids indulgence in the grateful task.
II.
REV. JOHN LANSING ZABRISKIE.
1801-1811.
After an interval of about one year, Rev. John Lansing Zabriskie was ordained and installed. He was born at Albany in 1779, graduated at Union College in 1797, studied theology under Dr. Dirck Romeyn, and was licensed to preach by the Classis of Albany in the year 1800. Like Mr. Romeyn, he served this church ten years, when he accepted a call to Millstone (Hillsborough), N. J., where he preached for thirty-nine years, dying in 1850, aged seventy-one. His call to this church was approved by Classis August 19th, 1800. Greenbush and Wynantskill were his charges, and the parsonage
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was at Blooming Grove. His first record is of the baptism of two infants on February 15th, 1801- Henry Smith, born December 25th, 1800, and Peter Breesey, born October 30th, 1800.
The church records, which, unfortunately, are very incomplete, show an addition during his min- istry of forty-eight members to the Greenbush por- tion of his pastoral charge. There are a few persons yet lingering here who remember him as the minister of their childhood.
On the first page of the first account book in the archives of this church appears this entry :
" Received from the Consistory of Greenbush by the hands of Peter Whitaker the sum of One Hun- dred and thirty-three dollars and twenty-five cents. August 17th, 1801. JOHN L. ZABRISKIE."
An interesting item of history is written near the close of his ministry here :
" The Consistory having taken into their serious consideration, so far as it relates to the preaching in the Dutch language, and feeling inclined to accommodate such Persons belonging to the church who do not understand Dutch and who are no way benefited when the service is performed in that language-considering also the general Prevalence of the English Language, and the daily desire of the Dutch, are induced to Resolve as follows :
"Resolved unanimously, that the service in this
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church shall in future be two-thirds in the English Language and one-third in the Dutch.
" And also Resolved that the Rev. Mr. Zabriskie Publish this Resolution to the Congregation."
Here is also an interesting item :
"30th June, 1806, received of the consistory of Greenbush by the hands of John Ostrander, Dea- con, the sum of Three Dollars, in full for one year's salary as sexton of said church.
$3.
ADAM COOK.
In October, 1810, Mr. Zabriskie applied to Classis for release from the charge. Both the Con- sistories-Greenbush and Wynantskill-refused to unite with him in the request, and Classis denied it at first, but on the next day, October 17th, recon- sidered their action and dissolved the relation. At a meeting held in Greenbush February 19th, 1811, the two congregations sent in a remonstrance against the action and prayed for its reconsidera- tion. The Classis endeavored to secure the release of Mr. Zabriskie from the church of Millstone, to which he had accepted a call, but failed. *
Rev. Dr. Abram Messler, in an appreciative biographical account, says of him : "During his long pastorate at Millstone he maintained his influ- ence and his standing to the end. All who knew
* Rensselaer Classis Records ..
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him loved him, and those who knew him best esteemed him most.
" He was one of the most laborious and success- ful pastors in Somerset county. He preached and lectured more, visited more families and attended more carefully to all his public duties than almost any other pastor of his time. He was considered by all not only an example, but a monitor in his official life. He was an excellent preacher, and though he seldom wrote his sermons, they were solid, sensible, full of evangelical thought, and listened to with profit by all the earnest-hearted and godly of his congregations. Few men could speak more judiciously and appropriately from the impulse of the moment on any given theme.
" His life was unstained by even a breath of evil. In a word, he was a good man, useful in his day, and he has left a name which will have a savor of excellence for many generations among those whose fathers and mothers he led in the way of life."
NOTE .- Rev. John L. Zabriskie was a judicious, sensible, wise man; an excellent "old-fashioned " preacher. He was in person short and stout, with a large head and face, genial in expression, and easy in manners. With all his habitual gravity and professional air, at times in his social inter- course he would astonish and excite you by his wit,
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his sarcasm, and even drollery. He knew the Gos- pel, and felt it, and preached it with clearness, zeal, and often with great power of immediate impres- sion .- (W. J. R. T.)
NOTE .- "One of the most Nathaniel-like men was John L. Jabriskie. He was eminently a man of peace, and of great simplicity of character. With- out any pretensions to greatness, his ministry was truly evangelical, and he saw the children and the children's children come into the church. His house was the much-loved place of ministerial meeting." -(Rev. Isaac Ferris, D.D.)
NOTE .- Quite near the entrance of the Millstone Church stands an imposing monument of marble with the following inscription on its eastern front : In memory of The Reverend John Lansing Zabriskie. Born March 4, 1779. Died August 15, 1850.
For more than 50 years a minister of God. From 1811 until his death Pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church at Millstone.
Pure in life, sincere in purpose, with zeal, perse- verance and prudence, devoted to the service of his Master, here, amid the loved people of his charge, his earthly remains await the resurrection of the just .- (P. T. P.)
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III.
REV. ISAAC LABAGH.
1811-1814.
The call upon the third pastor, Rev. Isaac Labagh, was approved November 19th, 1811, and he was dismissed June 15th, 1813. This was the fourth of his seven pastoral charges, and, like that of Mr. Zabriskie, his ministry extended through forty-nine years. He was licensed in 1788, and his pastoral calendar is as follows : Kinderhook, 1789- 1801; Canajoharie, Stone Arabia and Sharon, 1801-1803; New Rhinebeck and Sharon, 1803- 11; Greenbush and Wynantskill, 1811-14; German Church, New York city, 1815-22; New Rhinebeck, again, 1823-7; Missionary to Utica, 1827-37, when he died.
No further biographical account of this minister of Christ is accessible. He served his first church twelve years, and his last, Utica, ten; and his average in all his pastorates was seven years, yet the accessions to the church membership here were largely in excess of his predecessor, and at the close of his term, Wynantskill felt strong enough to support a pastor alone, and its connection with Greenbush was dissolved. His residence also appears to have been at Blooming Grove.
Soon after the commencement of his ministry
.........
ISAAC LABAGH. AT THE AGE OF 55. (From Oil Painting.)
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here, the Consistory resolved to discourage bap- tisms at private houses and strongly advised that they should be administered in the church.
Like Paul, that "Hebrew of the Hebrews," Mr. Labagh was a Dutchman of Dutchmen. His name was pronounced broadly Labaache, and I suspect that the prime cause of his early removal was the action of Consistory in 1812, that the English lan- guage alone should be used in the exercises of worship. For several years only one-third of the service had been allowed to the tongue of Mother Holland, and it was probably asking too much of a descendant of the Conferentie that he should think and write, and preach and pray only in a language foreign to his birth. The suspicion finds cogency in two facts-the pastor was absent from the Con- sistory meeting of December 5th, 1812, when Eng- lish alone was resolved on; and secondly, he went from here to a Holland church in New York city, where he preached in Dutch only for seven years, and no doubt rejoiced at his riddance of the degen- erate Reformed Dutch of Greenbush.
A notable resolution was taken in Consistory, December 25th, 1811-a Christmas greeting to the pastor :
"On motion Resolved, that whereas the call made by this Consistory on the Rev'd. Isaac La- bagh, their present minister, they have agreed to
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allow him yearly the sum of Two hundred and sixty-five dollars, together with the use and occu- pation of the one-half of the parsonage and glebe ; and whereas, as no free Sabbaths have been allowed the said Isaac Labagh, therefore Resolved unani- mously, that until the Consistory of this church do augment the salary of Mr. Labagh to the sum of $300 annually, he be allowed yearly, and every year, two free Sabbaths."
His pastorate in this church closed seventy-three years ago, but several members of the congregation remember his ministry.
NOTE .- Mr. Labagh was instrumental in getting his younger brother, Peter, to study for the min- istry. Peter afterwards became a very influential minister in the Reformed Church .- (P. T. P.)
IV.
NICHOLAS J. MARSELUS.
1815-1822.
In the year 1814 the connection of this church with Wynantskill was dissolved, and a union effected with the newly-organized church of Bloom- ing Grove. The two congregations united in a call on Rev. Nicholas J. Marselus. The call was ap- proved by Classis August 7th, 1815; he was ordained and installed over the two churches in
NICHOLAS J. MARSELUS. IN HIS 79TH YEAR.
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September, and dismissed March 26th, 1822. He was born in Mohawk Valley in 1792, graduated at Union College in 1810, and New Brunswick Semi- nary in 1815. From here he went to New York city (Greenwich) 1822-1858. After forty-three years of labor, he retired from the pastoral min- istry at the age of sixty-six, and died in 1876, at the age of eighty-four. In 1844 Rutgers Col- lege gave him the degree of Doctor of Divinity.
His residence while here was at Blooming Grove. The division line between the two congregations at this time was defined as follows: "Commencing at the Rensselaer and Columbia Turnpike Road, where the road along the north side of the Canton- ment intersects the first turnpike, then running eastward along the said road till near the house of Stephen Hansen, leaving Thomas I. Witbeck in Blooming Grove; then from near the said house of Stephen Hansen an easterly course, so as to leave Stephen Miller in the congregation of Greenbush."
His ministry of over six and a half years was very marked and memorable. About one hundred and fifty persons were received into membership- nearly all by confession of faith. In the year 1820 the first great revival known in Greenbush occurred, and the traditions of it are familiar to us all. Some subjects of saving grace are still living as witnesses of that shower of mercy and the faithfulness of the
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messenger of Christ. The report to Classis in Sep- tember, 1820, was that "nearly one hundred have passed from death unto life." At a "joyful Com- munion season held about the middle of August, with the church overflowing, many anxious listeners filled the wagons driven up close under the win- dows." Dr. Marselus' subsequent ministry was very successful, but thirty years afterward he wrote : "There are many scenes which I witnessed, and consolations which I enjoyed, during that season of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, which stand out prominent among those which have marked the whole course of my protracted labors in the Gospel of the Son of God. I have enjoyed similar seasons of the right hand of the Lord in my present charge, but none equal to that which was experienced in the spring and summer of 1820."
"It is quite impossible," says Dr. Corwin, "to err in estimating the personal qualities and dis- tinctive forces which combined in the character of Dr. Marselus. He was a man of faith and of in- tense convictions. He had great will power, not in any wise akin to stubbornness or obstinate preju- dice, but power to abide in the service of truth and righteousness. This quality he never failed to exhibit all through his much labor and many trials. His solid and firm mind gave shape and purpose to his sermons. He preached to reach a mark. Ser-
BENJ. C. TAYLOR.
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mons for him were tools to accomplish results. He believed in the power of God's Word. Converts were constantly added to his church, many of whom survive to attest his zeal and fidelity. Over thirty of these converts entered the ministry of grace, and thus extended the influence of the good man of God who had brought them to Christ."
At the commencement of his term of service both congregations adopted the new edition of the Psalm-book for use in public worship.
He was granted five "free Sabbaths" every two years.
V.
REV. BENJAMIN C. TAYLOR.
1822-1825.
Benjamin C. Taylor was born in Philadelphia February 24th, 1801, and died in Bergen, N. J., February 2d, 1881. His parents, William Taylor and Mary Alice Gazzam, were natives of Cam- bridge, England, and came to this country immedi- ately after their marriage. Benjamin was their fourth son, and one of eleven children. He was converted during a revival at Baskingridge, N. J., in 1815.
" His parents had devoutly consecrated him to the Lord in his infancy. His mother especially, with a Hannah's maternal piety, had devoted him
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to the work of the ministry, and she followed up that consecration by a course of action which attested her sincerity and earnestness. She was one of a circle of ladies who met statedly to pray for their children and their pastor. She never mailed a letter to her absent boy at school until she had first laid it before her, and on bended knees supplicated God's blessing upon it." *
He graduated at Princeton and New Brunswick, and was licensed May 31st, 1822. Shortly after this he went into the northern part of the State of New York and visited vacant and destitute congre- gations in the Classes of Rensselaer and Washing- ton. He soon received a call from the united churches of Greenbush and Blooming Grove, and about the same time another from the churches of Waterford and Schaghticoke, the former of which he accepted, and began his labors on the 10th of November following. He was ordained to the work of the ministry and installed as pastor of these two churches by the Classis of Rensselaer December 17th, 1822. On the 30th of September of that year he was united in marriage with Miss Anna Romeyn, daughter of the first pastor of this church. Immediately after their marriage at Hackensack, N. J., the youthful pair drove in a carriage to this, their new home-the parsonage in Schodack, one
* Dr. Van Cleef's Memorial Sermon.
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mile south of this spot. He served these congrega- tions for two years and eight months, when, finding the pastoral care of two hundred and ninety fami- lies too great, and the climate too severe, he re- turned to New Jersey, being called to the church of Acquackanonk, Classis of Paramus. During his work here a debt on the parsonage was paid and the languishing church greatly quickened. Rev. James R. Talmage, in a historical discourse, says of him : "He immediately began to develop those traits of character which afterward gained for him such an honorable place in the ministerial ranks."
He served Acquackanonk for three years, and in 1828 was called to the church in Bergen, where he remained fifty-three years-forty-two in active min- istry and eleven as pastor emeritus-dying in 1881, in the eightieth year of his age and the fifty-ninth of his ministerial life. The church at Bergen cele- brated the jubilee year of his residence among them by a grateful ovation, the associate pastor, Rev. C. Brett, preaching on the occasion the same sermon Mr. Taylor had preached there on taking charge of the church fifty years previously.
Time would fail me to tell of the tributes to his excellence of character and remarkable qualifica- tions with which the literature of the church abounds, but I must ask you to listen to a tender monograph which his son, Rev. William James
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Romeyn Taylor, of Newark, and who was born in your parsonage, has contributed to this centennial :
NEWARK, N. J., Nov. 10, 1887.
Rev. J. F. Yates :
DEAR BROTHER :- Being unable to attend the celebration of the centennial of the Reformed Church at East Greenbush, and re- gretting the necessity that deprives me of the pleasure of sharing the interesting service of the occasion, I comply with your request to contribute somewhat to the reminiscences of the past, by sending the accompanying brief memoranda of my father's ministry in that field.
It was his first pastoral charge, the church at Blooming Grove being then united with that of East Greenbush. He was fresh from the seminary at New Brunswick, full of zeal and enthu- siasm and love for his work, and like many another young min- ister, he often went beyond his strength in his endeavors to fulfill his calling.
The united parishes covered a large extent of country, the people were widely scattered over it, and pastoral service at all seasons, and particularly in bad weather, and the long winters made serious inroads upon his health and shortened his period of labor there. But he never lost his attachments to the good people who warmly reciprocated his love, and valued his ser- vices in the pulpit and in their own homes.
There, too, was the anchorage of the old parsonage home, where he and my mother, both sainted now in the home above, began their happy and long married life.
His method of preaching, at first, was from manuscript ser- mons, carefully prepared and committed to memory. One Sab- bath morning he said to my mother: "I have made such thor- ough preparation that I shall leave my sermon at home and preach without any notes." But in reading the scripture lesson a text struck him which took such hold of his mind, that he could not recall any part of his sermon, nor even the text. He
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called a deacon and sent him for the manuscript while the sing- ing and the pastoral prayer were in progress, but the man re- turned, unable to find it. At last he rose and told the congrega- tion what had happened, and said that he would try and say something about the new text that had so completely displaced his studied discourse.
"As the spirit gave him utterance," he poured forth the streams from the unsealed fountain of living truth into their souls. That was his first lesson in preaching extempore. His people felt its power and said it was the best sermon he had ever preached to them, and it changed the methods of his pulpit ser- vices. He made careful analyses, and never gave his congrega- tions any slip-shod discourses. But excepting some special occa- sional efforts, and also a brief period in his later ministry, when he wrote out his sermons to shorten them, he adhered to the way into which he was led at the turning point in his early ministry.
In 1825, after nearly three years of active labors, he accepted a call from the Reformed Dutch Church at Acquackanonk, N. J. (now Passaic); a principal reason for the change being the necessity of a milder climate, and also having but one congrega- tion to serve within smaller bounds.
The minutes of the Consistory and other records of the Green- bush Church, and that of Blooming Grove, as well, still attest the systematic order and precision of his attention to all church work-a habit which strengthened with his years, and ended only with his life. Every denominational interest that engaged his care was faithfully served in love, and nothing that he could do for his own flock, or for the church at large, was neglected O.I grudgingly done.
Of the immediate fruits of those first years of the nearly three score that he completed in the ministry, by the grace of God, the records may tell the story; but of their far-reaching results in the development of character and services, and in the shaping of his after life-work, none but the Lord whom he loved and served so long, can ever know.
[8]
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Had he lived to celebrate with the church of his first love, this centennial commemoration, the fires of youth would have glowed again in his aged face, and in that heart that never grew cold until it ceased to beat, he would have overflowed with reminis- cences which he loved to cherish and repeat.
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