USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume II > Part 28
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church as a society. There seemed to be nothing left of it; it was a most complete collapse. In spite of the enormous crowds that had still continued to flock to the pastor's sermons, it was impossible to continue the work or rebuild the church now. Dr. Talmage, in 1895, was called to Washington, D. C., as associate pastor of Dr. Sunder- land, of the First Presbyterian Church. But since Talmage has de- parted from Brooklyn, he seems to have gone out of the public mind or eye. It would seem as if that city was a necessary setting to so unique a personality; and now that he has no longer this background the spell and the charm have passed from the people's idol. We do not know how it is in Washington, but so things appear from the point of view of Brooklyn and vicinity.
It was during this period that the Roman Catholics attained to sufficient numbers and strength to contemplate the erection of a worthy monument to their faith. On June 21, 1868, in the presence of a great concourse of people, was laid the cornerstone of a noble cathedral on the block bounded by Lafayette, Vanderbilt, Greene, and Clermont avenues. But a very small part of the impressive pile that will here some day adorn and dignify the city has even to this hour gone up to gratify the sight. But from that little the great whole can to some degree be surmised. The use of a dark granite will give a solid and imposing appearance to the finished structure, rather than that impression of grace and elegance conveyed by the view of the Cathedral in New York. And like that also it is likely to consume many a year in building, under the excellent and honest policy ever addicted to by the Roman Catholic Church of not expending on build- ing enterprises more money than they have secured to pay for them. Men of all faiths or none whose joy awakens when the art of man succeeds in raising a splendid edifice as an eloquent witness in stone to the genius of the constructing mind and the skill of the construct- ing handicraft, will await with eagerness the time when this cathe- dral shall stand complete upon the streets of Brooklyn. Another company of devout people deserve to be mentioned as adding to the churches of Brooklyn; those of the ancient faith of Israel. It was not till after the opening of the Civil War that the JJewish citizens here resident undertook to creet houses of worship of their own. In 1856 the first society was organized, and the cornerstone of their synagogue was laid in January, 1862, which was completed in August following. Its site was the corner of State Street and Boerum Place, the cost was $10,000, and it is known as that of the Congregation " Beth Israel." Yet another congregation was really a little in advance of it in owning and occupying a building. A society branching out or se- ceding from the Beth Israel, and calling itself Beth Elohim, bought ready-made the Calvary Protestant Episcopal Church on Pearl Street, between Concord and Nassau, and after some alterations, dedicated and occupied it in March, 1862. Prosperity attending their enter-
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prise, which was conducted on lines more liberal than that of Beth Israel, a bold stroke was made in 1870 by the purchase of the Central Presbyterian Church, on Schermerhorn Street, between Powers and Nevins, which Talmage and his congregation were just leaving for their more ambitions Tabernacle. In 1869, there were abont a thou- sand Jewish families in Brooklyn. Still another advance, therefore, was made by them in that year. A society was organized by the name of Temple Israel. They committed themselves unreservedly to the progress of the age, as affecting also Jewish methods of worship.
INEBRIATE HOME, FORT HAMILTON.
The services were to be held in English, only the Psalms to be read in Hebrew. This congregation held services for a while in the old Young Men's Christian Association building on Fulton Street, corner of Gallatin Place. But, wealth accumulating among the members, a very handsome structure, in the basilica style, was erected in the year 1892, on Bedford Avenue, corner of Lafayette.
It would be impossible to write a worthy history of Brooklyn with- out reference in it to a feature of annual occurrence, which has be- come so popular as to have passed beyond the merely religions circle
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wherein it originated, and to be appropriated as an event of munici- pal significance and interest. This is the Sunday-school Parade, on some day in May or June, each year. The origin of Sunday-school work in Brooklyn has been duly recounted in an earlier chapter. The idea of a parade of all the schools once a year through the streets, was first carried into effect in 1861. Brooklyn proper was the first to start it, but the annexed eastern districts soon fell in with it, and while the former has its annual parade in May, Williamsburgh schools have theirs in June. It is a great day for the children, and a great day for the whole city. Flags are ont from every house possessing one, the streets are gay with the light dresses and flowery adornments of the little ones. Grown people take a holiday and line the route of march in great multitudes, a band precedes each school at the head of which is carried a handsome silk banner embroidered with characters telling its name and date of organization. Usually some point is selected where a large number of the schools pass by in review before some person of distinction. Presidents of the United States and Governors of New York State have not disdained to honor the occasion with their presence. In 1897, in view of the imminent consolidation, the Mayors of the three cities involved occupied the reviewing stand in Prospect Park. In 1882, the public school chil- dren also joined in the march, and as many as sixty thousand persons were in line on May 24. In 1893, the parade of Sunday-school chil- dren numbered eighteen thonsand in thirty-two divisions. It is a sight to stir and melt the heart, and while there may be fluctua- tions in the numbers taking part, owing to weather or other causes, there are always several thousands on the march from year to year. Brooklyn never grows tired of the event, and each year with new eagerness prepares to make it a success and welcomes the day with unbounded enthusiasm. It is something quite sui generis for the city, and Beecher, with his characteristic happiness of hitting a thing off in word or sentiment, was accustomed to call it " Saint Children's Day."
We can not leave the subject of church life in Brooklyn without emphasizing a circumstance which the facts belonging to this period and already related in this chapter bring to our notice. This is that in Brooklyn were and are yet found the most prominent churches and men in several denominations extending over the entire Union. This is true of the Episcopal communion. If it be not quite so patent in regard to their churches, there can be no dispute as to their men. In former times one of the Onderdonks was a rector in Brooklyn, and was raised to the dignity of Bishop, and other such instances have already been cited. In later years these instances have con- tinned to multiply. Rev. Dr. Abram N. Littlejohn, as we saw, Rector of Holy Trinity, was made the first Bishop of Long Island; Dr. George F. Seymour, once Rector of old St. John's, became Bishop of Western
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Illinois; Dr. William A. Leonard, Rector of the Church of the Re- deemer, was elected Bishop of Ohio; Dr. Chauncey B. Brewster, once Rector of Grace Church on the Heights, was later made Bishop Co- adjutor of Connecticut. Again, in the Roman Catholic Church, there have been bishops who once were priests in Brooklyn parishes. Fa- ther Bacon, of the Church of the Assumption, and founder of St. Mary Star of the Sea, became Bishop of Portland, Me. It is well known too that Cardinal and Archbishop John McCloskey was a Brooklyn boy, and used to play on the hillsides of Fort Greene Park, where his father's dairy farm was located. The present Bishop of Brook- lyn, Charles E. MeDonnell, was born and educated in the city whose Roman Catholic Church he now rules. As we mention the Congrega- tional denomination, at once there spring to mind the Pilgrim and Plymouth churches, with their famous pastors, Dr. Richard S. Storrs and Henry Ward Beecher. For scholarship and finish of oratory, no one will dispute the palm of the Congregational ministry to Dr. Storrs, and his church, too, is, withont question, and has been for half a century. in the very forefront of its denomination. Plymonth Church, too, has a record of financial strength and benevolent work, which is only overshadowed by the unigne fame of its pastor, by the side of whom all other facts and figures about it, however remarkable in themselves, fall away into neglect. In 1853, the sum contributed for the year then ending was reported to be $11,157. In 1863 the amount was $23,396; in 1873, it was $59,114, and, in 1875, under the stress of the peculiar and unhappy episode to be mentioned shortly. when the people rallied around their pastor with especial fervor and loyalty, the total amount of money raised was no less than $68,997. A method of raising funds was instituted here which was quite origi- nal, and was called forth by the extraordinary popularity of the pas- tor. It was not deemed proper to affix to pews the prices men of wealth were willing to pay for them. Hence, there was a fixed sched- ule, and then the privilege of choice of this or that pew was auctioned off to the highest bidder. In this way great sums were realized; the highest figure paid as a premium at any time was $800 for the choice of a pew renting for $110 per annum, so that the person holding it paid $910 as his contribution to the church. The salary of Mr. Beecher was for many years $20,000 per annum. At the time of the trial, to be soon noted, it was raised for that one year to the amazing sum of $100,000. The former sum far exceeded the salary paid to any other pastor of a Protestant church on this side the Atlantic. A man of note, also, in the Congregational Church was the Rev. Dr. W. Ives Budington, a pastor in Brooklyn.
The Methodist denomination found for its Dickinson College at Carlisle, Pa., a president in Rev. Dr. George E. Reed, the pastor of one of its churches in Brooklyn. Congressman Hyatt, whose promi- nence in a Baptist pulpit in Brooklyn led to the unusual event of his
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running as a candidate for the House of Representatives, and his election thereto; Rev. Justin D. Fulton, strenuous and conscien- tious in his antagonism to the Church of Rome, and the mercurial but eloquent Gallagher, were among the chief men of the Baptist denomi- nation. But it is especially the Presbyterians whose eyes were turned with interest and admiration to the success and pre-eminence of the churches representing that communion in Brooklyn. Lafayette Ave- nue was certainly for many years the strongest society in the denomi- nation. Its membership exceeded that of any other church in number. with the single exception of another Brooklyn church, Talmage's Tabernacle, which reported 3,100. But the subsequent collapse, and the long-time notorious fact that but small returns came from these alleged thousands for the general missionary or other denominational operations of the Presbyterian body, made one doubt whether the tally was kept quite rigidly, and whether a good many might not have been among the " missing " if it had come to a strict count, such as would have fully vindicated the two thousand or more reported by Lafayette, every " man " of whom did his duty and made a church of spiritual and financial power unequaled in the demomination. None the less did the Tabernacle deserve distinction as a church gathering to- gether the largest audiences of any in the denomination, and as hav- ing by far the most famous and popular Presbyterian minister as its pastor. In other lines, Cuyler, of Lafayette, enjoyed a foremost posi- tion in that church, and was known and sought as a writer and speak- er far and wide throughout the land. His present successor, Dr. Gregg, enjoys an enviable prominence also as a preacher, but it can not be expected that he has yet equaled the standing acquired by a lifelong pastorate such as Dr. Cuyler's.
We have dwelt hitherto only on the prominence of the churches and the men connected with them, in their relative denominational posi- tion. Taking a little wider view and we behold Brooklyn standing out perfectly unique and alone in the history of pulpit eloquence and the power of drawing the multitudes to church. In earlier days, the most eloquent pulpit orator of his time was Dr. Bethune, of the Re- formed Church on the Heights, in Pierrepont Street. Crowds game to the Academy of Music in the days that Dr. Storrs was awaiting the rebuilding of his church after a fire. Then and there he laid aside a method of preaching he had always followed before, and be- came a master in extempore delivery, so that sentences flowed from his richly-stored mind in the perfect shape and the final polish that only writing usually can secure. The, for that time, extraordinarily large auditorium of the Classon Avenue Church, seating its seventeen or eighteen hundred, was always more than filled to hear Dr. Duryea. For him the gift of unprepared speech was one of nature's rich be- stowal, and was his from the beginning of his ministry. At any moment, with any one, in the precious tête-à-têtes which many of
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his friends remember, in the larger circles of ministerial associations, as well as in the presence of the largest and most cultured audience. that wonderful brain would pour out its clear and clean-eut thoughts in choicest and aptest language. In three minutes or in thirty, any topic, however profound or practical, would be made by his marvelous power of stating and systematizing his ideas, to stand out satisfac- torily before the listening mind, and the impression of the beauty would inevitably accompany that of the truth of the thoughts con- veyed. No wonder thousands hung upon the eloquence which the fervor of pulpit ministrations naturally imparted, and which a vigor- ous manner and ringing voice greatly enhanced. But nothing, of course, in the history of pulpit efforts or effects can equal the phe- nomenon presented by Brooklyn when Beecher and Talmage both held forth here. The ferries on Sundays presented a scene the reverse of week days: then the crowds came Brooklynward. Plymouth Church was near Fulton Ferry, though up a steep hill, and most people, after crossing, would walk to the church. Hours before service the streets were often thronged, and passage through Orange Street past the entrance was impossible until the doors had been opened. From all parts of the world men, visiting New York, must go over to Brooklyn on Sundays to hear the marvel there to be enjoyed. It was the regu- lar thing for Presidents and princes to make their way to the east side of the river, nothing in New York itself equaling the attraction of that pulpit speaker. It must be said that in a few years Talmage di- vided with Beecher this great honor. Men must hear him as well as the older preacher, if ever they came anywhere near them, and hun- dreds of New York people regularly crossed over for the Tabernacle as for Plymouth. Was there ever another city where there would be heard proceeding from car conductors or drivers the cry that their cars would conduct the eagerly inquiring and pushing crowds to this or that preacher? Yet it was a common thing in the streets of Brooklyn, or at the ferries, to hear these men call ont : " This way for Beecher "; " this car for Talmage!"
And now, before we can dismiss the subject of church life in Brook- lyn for this period, we are compelled to record an event of unhappy import, casting clouds of darkness and threatened humiliation about one of these men who made Brooklyn famons. None who were alive at that time, and old enough to be observers of men and events, will ever forget the celebrated Beecher trial of the year 1875. We do not intend to soil these pages with a recital of the particular charges, or of the persons who brought this calamity upon Mr. Beecher and upon the American public. The trial lingered along from January 11, to July 2, 1875, and, upon each side was engaged the finest legal talent in the land, upon that of Mr. Beecher appearing such men as Benjamin F. Tracy and William M. Evarts. After all the testimony and pleas, and the charge of the Judge, the jury were eight days in deliberating.
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At the first ballot nine were for acquittal and three for conviction. but two changed to acquittal, and the third wavered for a while; and then settled down into the determination to convict. Hence, there had to be reported a disagreement of the jury, the only satisfaction the enemies of Mr. Beecher could gather out of the case. It was a pity they had even that, for it warranted them to a faint degree in their contention of guilt, and it confirmed the same opinion in those who wished to think him guilty. And there were many who cherished that wish-libertines, who knew themselves black with the sin charged, who were glad to point to a shining example to excuse their own fault; men who did not have the grace to slink away, like those Jewish offenders of old, when challenged by Christ to cast the first stone if guiltless of the crime they charged upon another, but eagerly casting those stones just because they were guilty. Then there were the vast scores of resentment to be paid for the brave utterances that
Fall
YACHTS LAID UP AT ERIE BASIN-VIEW ON THE PIER.
fell from the mouth of the Plymouth pastor before and during the war. Many a pusillanimous conscience was riddled through and through by the shots aimed at moral cowardice and the compromise with wrong and cruelty for the money there was in it. If it was hardly safe for Mr. Beecher to walk the streets in those days, for fear of the murderous enmity his words then excited, we may well believe the conscience-stricken cowards took it out in abuse and denunciation when this trial was upon their lion-hearted accuser, and with deep satisfaction hugged to themselves the belief of his impossible guilt. The most damaging testimony against Mr. Beecher was that regard- ing the sums of money extorted from him. It was alleged that this was hush-money. The Judge, in his charge, did not hesitate to declare it was nothing of the sort. The conspirators played upon Mr. Beecher's unbounded generosity in money matters, and his tenderness of heart. A man like that could be bled to any extent. Let there be the suggestion of need on the part of the family whose name was chiefly involved in the proceedings, and he would give to the utmost
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of his ability. Let there be coupled with that the hint or the threat of what they might do, and did do finally, and for the sake of the in- nocent creature whose name would have to be bandied about in the process, and for whom her own abandoned husband had no pity, he would almost compromise himself to shield her from such fate. And these very contributions of money, shamelessly extracted, and finally ceasing, would change the disappointed greed into a fierce and un- serupulous rage, sticking at nothing to ruin the man whose eyes were opening to the enormity of the wickedness that was perpetrating against him. No fair-minded and pure-hearted person can read the testimony-can read that culminating climax of it, when pointed questions were directly put, and the unvarnished accusation was ut- terly and unequivocally denied,-and doubt for a moment, or remain patient under the further disenssion of it, that Mr. Beecher was alto- gether innocent. It might be possible for a man to fall in a moment of weakness as it was charged Mr. Beecher had fallen, and still be a good man and a Christian. To have fallen and then take the stand he did, and make the denials he made at the trial, he must have been a monster of irredeemable wickedness, a consummate seoundrel hard- ened in vice, without a conscience and without a God. This theory is one that no sensible man can adopt. It was only prejudice that conld obscure the logic of the situation: prejudice of the kind above noted; prejudice of professional jealousy and rivalry; and, finally, that hatred of hide-bound orthodoxy toward the wider and more rea- sonable presentation of the faith, which has always bidden it cover with calumny the heretic, to convince an otherwise unwilling world that looseness of doctrine is inevitably identified with looseness of life. People who were able to rise above these prejudices had no difficulty in reading the perfect innocence of the accused preacher then. And the calmness of vision produced by a growing distance from the event has dissipated many a doubt which then still lingered. It was a sad dispensation and mysterious Providence that so awful an ordeal was put upon so conspicuously useful a servant of God. But the very height of the pinnacle of glory which he was permitted to attain may have been dangerous to his Christian character, and out of the fiery trial a clearer inward light and peace and strength must have grown. Certain it is, and convincing it is, that while others as much in the public eye, and sharing with him a remarkable popu- larity, have left not a trace of the work they did behind them, and though still living, their labors have already gone up in smoke .- Ply- month Church continues in the spirit of him who made it what it was, the champion of a reasonable faith, the vigorous administrator of missions planted by their never-to-be-forgotten, pastor, an abiding force in the religions life of the city.
A few events remain to be noted illustrating the social life of Brooklyn, showing its commercial progress, and relating to municipal
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affairs during this period. Of the societies promoting sociability. and casting back loving remembrances toward the days of old, the New England Society, organized in 1846, and the St. Nicholas Society, branching off from the New York one two years later, were constantly adding to their numbers, and deepening the historic impressions from year to year by elaborate banquets and eloquent speeches. On be- nevolent lines work was taken up by a branch society of the one in New York for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. At a public meeting, called at the Academy of Music in April, 1867, Brooklyn citi- zens resolved that the time had come to follow the good example of the sister city in this respect, and the organization of the society was resolved upon. In 1866 was organized the Brooklyn Liberal Christian Union. Its purpose was to unite all Christian denomina- tions in the work of mutnal improvement and practical benevolence. It established its headquarters at first in the Hamilton Buildings, on the corner of Court and Joralemon streets, where a free reading- room was provided, and also opportunities for innocent and whole- some amusements. In 1870 it had so expanded its work and increased by the favor of the public that it transferred its quarters to a house on Fulton Street, opposite Elm Place, where three stories were ntil- ized for its various departments. Another benevolent organization effected about this time was the Kings County Inebriates' Home, in- corporated by the Legislature in May, 1867. It was a movement nn- dertaken by those who were convinced that some other methods were needed to reclaim the dronkard than the harsh one of the penal code, or the sentimental one of the temperance societies. The facts that proved the failure of these methods, and the argument for a new and scientific plan convinced the Legislature of the practicalness of the movement, and, by its act, twelve per cent. of the excise tax. and all the fines paid in the county for infraction of the liquor laws, were directed to be devoted to its enterprise. At once a place for the experiment was secured at the corner of Bushwick Avenue and Chest- unt Street, which was opened for the reception of patients or subjects on October 10, 1867. Meantime a block had been purchased on Fourth Avenne, bounded by Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth streets, and Fifth Avenne, npon which it was proposed to erect a suitable building. During the first two years two hundred and sixty-one persons were treated, of which one hundred and sixty were men, and the remainder women, some paying board, but the most of them receiving the bene- fits of the institution free of cost. A sum of two hundred thousand dollars was ready to be used for a proper asylum on the site pur- chased, but ere it was erected it was deemed better to remove it to a more delectable sitnation. Hence, a large piece of ground, covering twenty-six acres, was bought near Fort Hamilton, upon the Narrows, or Bayside Road. Here the asylum was finally erected. We find as its president that name ever foremost in good work, James S. T. Strana-
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