USA > New York > Erie County > Buffalo > Manual, catalogue and history of the Lafayette St. Presbyterian Church of Buffalo, N.Y. > Part 27
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31
No conscientious young man passes through a course of preparation for the ministry without balancing carefully the question whether he is not called to leave country and friends, and go abroad to carry the Gospel to the heathen ? Perhaps the obligation to go has been sometimes too indiscriminately pressed on the minds of students-as, for instance, when they have been told that every man was bound to become a foreign missionary who could not make out a clear case of duty for staying at home. What portion of the great field, which in the world a man ought to occupy is to be decided, if decided intelligently and not under the influ- ence of mere urgency, or hasty enthusiasm, by various considerations connected with physical health, moral qualities, aptitude for acquiring language, demands for his services in this or that direction, etc., Dr. Heacock felt this subject pressing strongly upon his mind while in a course of study, and was for a long time almost convinced that it was his duty to offer himself for the foreign service. He leaned
241
LAFAYETTE STREET PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
strongly in that direction, because he felt that illegitimate influence, domestic or other, might bias him the opposite way. Men often conscientiously choose wrong, precisely because they are afraid of chosing wrong. His devout mother would never have undertaken to set herself against a clearly made up conviction of duty in his mind. But after he began to preach, and the tokens became clearer of his pos- * sessing great powers for usefulness as a minister of the Gospel at home, and espe- cially when first that promising older brother who had also studied for the ministry was taken away-by the same organic disease which has now after so long an inter- val terminated his life, and then another, in the full vigor and maturity of his powers, her heart clung so strongly to this third son that affection, joined with the judgment of friends, to forbid his tearing himself away.
In the early Church entrance upon a monastic life occupied somewhat the same relative place as going upon a foreign mission does in the modern. Young men were attracted to this sphere of self-sacrifice by the same kind of influences and con- siderations. There were no doubt enthusiastic friends of monachism who would insist that every young man was bound to be a monk who could not prove that he was called to serve God in some other career. The young preacher of Antioch, John, was strongly wrought upon by such considerations. If he were not willing to leave mother and friends, to sacrifice every human affection, to count all things but loss for Christ, he was not worthy of Him. It would have been a sad mistake for this great future pulpit orator if he had actually been lead to identify following Christ with entering a monastry.
The monastic life tended to narrow the intellect, to sour the temper, to encourage the growth of a blind fanaticism, and develope false views of Gospel justification. In a work John wrote, and long after " On the Ministry " (" De Sacendotio"), in the form of a dialogue with his friend Basil, he tells us here how he was weaned from this purpose. His mother, Antonia, already a widow, called him into her bed- chamber, the spot of his birth and of his cradled infancy, and entreated him not to leave her. " In the afflictions I have met with (she said) you have remained to me as my earthly hope and consolation ; I cannot stay here long to embarrass you in any of your plans or movements ; wait till I am laid by the side of your father in the graveyard ; then cross what seas, visit what lands you please, there will be none to hinder you, and do not think that I wish to lay any obstacle in the way of your pur- suing a career of usefulness and duty ; for, though many others may love you, there is none to whom your honor and happiness can be so dear as they are to me." To the same effect our young preacher's mother said to him, "I shall not be very long here to enjoy your society or contribute to your comfort ; wait till I am laid in the grave, and then if you still think it your duty to go abroad to the heathens, go." And who shall say that this was not a legitimate consideration to decide his choice ? True it is that when the question lies between obeying and disobeying Christ-ac- cepting or rejecting His Gospel, "whosoever loveth father or mother more than Him, is not worthy of Him ;" and then the choice must be that of the heroic young Christian mother who, immured in a dungeon, and with the fearful prospect of the amphitheatre before her, suffered her gray-haired pagan sire to kiss her hands and embrace her knees in vain, rather than go back to freedom and home at the expense of denying Christ. But the case is quite different when the question merely con- cerns the department or line of usefulness in which Christ may best be served; a
242
MANUAL OF THE
question to be decided by the weighing of all proper considerations ; and that in this decision the judgment and feelings of a venerated mother are not to be taken into account, let them say who are ready to blame the Divine sufferer on the cross for giving almost his last thoughts and words to his mother. Dr. Heacock began his ministry here in the city of his birth, at the age of twenty-four years, preaching first for a few months to the little congregation at Black Rock ; and then, as he grew stronger, laying hold of that poor, decayed, unlucky enterprise, then known as Park Church, and setting to work to reconstruct it with better materials and better spiritual masonry, as a wise master-builder, from the foundations. Thirty-two years ago exactly, on the eighth of June, 1845, he preached his first sermon on this spot. Five months later he was installed Pastor by the Presbytery of Buffalo, and from that time, until he was taken from you, this has been the exclusive scene of his pas- toral labors ; an experience, I presume, entirely unique in the history of the ministry. I do not mean that there have not been many pastorates as long as his, some longer ; but that a young man just entering the ministry should be adopted by his fellow- citizens, who had known him from childhood, as their Pastor ; that they should cling to him with ever-growing admiration and love for thirty-two years, absolutely refus- ing, almost with indignation and resentment, any suggestion of his leaving them, and should finally surrender him only to the inevitable summons that called him away from pastorate and life at once. This is probably something quite unparalleled by any other experience. He was repeatedly solicited to take charge of large and important Churches in other cities as his reputation increased and became broader. Strong congregations elsewhere, looking about for pastors, fixed their minds on him. Some of their calls were so urgent and were prefaced with such warmth of purpose that he could not but take them into consideration One or two he kept for some time in suspense. He consulted his friends and brethren in the ministry before giving an answer. It sometimes looked as if he almost wanted to be advised to accept them. Yet I doubt whether he really ever seriously entertained any thought of doing so. When he was pressed too hard he sometimes broke off the negotiation very abruptly. One such instance happened in the case of a leading Church in a great Western city. A call was proffered him on the kindest and most flattering terms by letter, various members of the congregation writing to urge his acceptance. After such respectful consideration as so generous an offer deserved, Dr. Heacock declined it. Telegrams then followed, one after another, begging him to reconsider his decision. He replied to the same effect ; and then satisfied that he had chosenl wisely, as he had deliberately and prayerfully, he felt relieved to think the matter was ended. Considerably to his surprise and annoyance, he was soon after waited on by a large committee to press the call in person. The thing was getting to be a little monotonous. This time he resolved there should be no mistaking his mean- ing. It would not do for me to quote here the very emphatic and wholly unprofes- sional phrase in which he clothed his refusal. The astonished committee were quite satisfied, and took their leave. It is true he might, as he sometimes seemed half inclined to think, when yet undetected disease was beginning to lay a heavy weight on his energies-it is true he might, under the stimulus of new demand in some swarming and stormy Western town, have exceeded, for a while, anything he felt able to do here. But it would only have been thie spur to the noble racer who is already doing his best ; and he would have fallen all the sooner in his tracks.
243
LAFAYETTE STREET PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
His own later judgment, and that of all his brethren and friends, approved the choice by which he decided to stay here among the people of his love.
The distinguished Oriental preacher, to whom I have referred, chose differently on an important occasion, and with disastrous results to his own happiness. He was born, as I have said, in Antioch, entered upon his ministry there, and preached for some years amid the enthusiastic love and admiration of his fellow-citizens. But Constantinople, like some great modern capitals, was looking about for brill- iant pulpit talents, and he was persuaded to accept an invitation to that city. It was the beginning of sorrow for him. His bold reproofs of fashionable sin ; his unsparing exposure of the vices of the court soon brought about a scism between him and the corrupt Church of the capital. A strong party was formed against . him. He was charged with various offenses ; cited to trial, condemned for con- tumacy, deposed and driven from his Church, and died a broken-spirited and banished man. Often, no doubt, did his heart turn back to the beautiful city on the banks of the Orontes, the place of his birth and of his early successes in the ministry with inexpressible regret that delusive hopes of greater usefulness should ever have tempted him into the stormy life and intense corruptions of a great metropolis. That love for this city itself had much to do with deciding your Pastor against any overtures looking to his removal elsewhere, no one who knew him can doubt. He loved it as the scene of his parents' early trials and struggles, as the place of his own childish sports, as the burial spot of his kindred. He loved its streets, its wharves, the noble lake on which it reposes. Put him in a dancing yacht on the waters of the harbor with the tiller in his hand and he was all the boy again. I half believe that any residence elsewhere would have been only a place of exile. You will easily recall the truly poetic, as well as generous, language in which on his last anniversary, only a year ago, he spoke of the growth of the city. “I remember," he said, " the city of my birth and boyhood when her jacket was home- spun and her kirtle was lindsey. As she grew more refined and womanly her children clad her in silks, placed a crown upon her motherly forehead and called her a queen, the 'Queen City of the Lakes ;' and now, these gowned and surpliced men have come and put a mitre above the crown. A mitred mother of more than 100,000 souls, mays't thou be as godly as thou art goodly ; the patron of hundreds of Christian Churches and the protectress of thousands of Christian homes." And I am led by this to go on and speak of the catholic and Christian spirit in which he contemplated the religious prosperity of the city, not of his own particular Church, nor of his own denomination merely, but of the Church in the largest application of the term. He had his own opinion, of course, as to the merits of different religious systems ; but, practically, he took a very broad view and satisfied himself that even those with which he felt the least sympathy, were, on the whole, subserving the interests of the Christian cause. Staunch Protestant as he was, his views of the Romish system were not indiscriminately unfavorable ; and with the Romish clergy he was invariably on terms of kindly intercourse. It was, perhaps, partly the result of his hereditary love of hospitality ; but he had a very high opinion of the moral benefits of people eating good things together. A well-spread table, I fancy, he counted among the means of grace, and careful as he had to be, from his dyspeptic habit, of his own eating, no man could be more reckless than he was of other men's powers of digestion. I am told that within a year or so before his
244
MANUAL OF THE
death, enlarging his gastronomic sympathies beyond his own clerical circle, he pro- posed to his brethern that there should be given once a year, a truly catholic dinner, at which all the clergy of this city, Bishops and Presbyters, Rabbis and Pastors should be invited to feed together as one " happy family." Disputatious as he was -dearly loving an argument, and fighting it out to extremity with an intense ap- preciation of the pleasure of logical battle and of victory-he never engaged, I believe, in any public controversy. He would argue till midnight with extraordinary fertility and reasoning, with unimpassioned earnestness and physical demonstration, and never, under any circumstances, own beaten. But his logic drew no blood and left no scar. What he was in his own more immediate pastoral circle, his brethren here present will for long years to come, love to remember and repeat. It is a generous testimony of their love to him and their sympathy with you, that they have again spontaneously closed their own churches and come here to unite with you in this service. He honored and loved them all ; appreciated their various gifts, and rejoiced in their usefulness. I never heard him utter one unkind or disrespectful word of any one of them, but often the contrary. If he was questioned in regard to any of the resident, or more recently-come, pastors, he always spoke generously of them ; made allowance for any difficulties or disagreements they suffered under, and prophesied nothing but good of them in the future. They are well aware of the high ministerial comity and delicacy with which he recognized their own rights as pastors. I do not speak of it as anything rare or exceptional. I have no doubt they exemplified their dealings with him ; but it is worthy of being mentioned with honor wherever exhibited. It is little to say he never sought to increase his own congregation at the expense of his brethren. He never would permit any such thing where it could possibly be avoided. Various causes lead men to shift about their ecclesiastical stations this way and that way-a prejudice, a preference, local convenience, providential events, etc. ; and such transfers are sometimes, of course, legitimate and necessary, as between different Churches of the same order in the same city. Dr. Heacock's invariable rule was to discourage any persons leaving . another Presbyterian congregation to unite with his. If a man had been brought to Christ under his ministry who naturally belonged elsewhere, he would say to him, " Go join your own proper Church ; you can do more good there than here ; go testify for Christ among those who have known you to be a neglecter of the great salvation." And there was sometimes the case where the accession would have been, in many respects, highly desirable. I presume, as I have already said, that the other Pastors acted under some principle of [honor] with him. A view of the Church, even as a denominational unity, would demand this course until we are able to rise to a still higlier conception of the unity of the Church. The congregations of the same faith and order in a city should be regarded as one body, of which the pastors have a kind of collegiate charge-each concerned for the prosperity of the whole-and while each no doubt labors for the general good, and labors best by laboring specially for the upbuilding of his own flock, yet it should be a very subordinate question which congregation, out of the whole, any person or family may choose to join. The general rule will be that the particular Church with which Providence has already converted a man, has the first claim on his allegiance.
In suggesting a comparison in many respects, of course, imperfect and superficial between your Pastor and the great pulpit orator of Antioch, I have special reference to their respective qualities as preachers of the Gospel.
245
LAFAYETTE STREET PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
The qualities that secured for Chrysostom such vast popularity during his life, and such undying renown continued, were his intense earnestness and boldness of expression, the richness of his style, the wealth of illustration and metaphor with which he ornamented his discourses, their adaptation to historical conditions, and their generally evangelical character; not that older John, who heralded the coming of the Lord, was a bolder preacher of righteousness ; a more pungent reprover of the vices of the court, the clergy, the soldiers and the people. His sermons were often long and elaborate, precomposed with great care; but they were sometimes brief, and suggested in whole or in part by immediate and casual circumstances. He had studied the art of oratory with great masters, and both in respect to style, voice and action it may easily be believed that no more impressive exhibitions of pulpit eloquence were ever made in early or in modern times, than those which John the Presbyter made in the church at Antioch, or John the Patriarch, in the great cathedral at Constantinople. According to the corrupt fashion of the time, against which he himself in vain protested, his sermons were received with frequent demon- strations of applause, with stamping and clapping of hands. But, notwithstanding all this, the discourses of John, considered as Gospel sermons, fell far below the standard of modern evangelical preaching. They seldom proceeded from any clear or satisfactory interpretation of the text. They were far too figurative and alle- gorical; they halt too much with external and superficial conditions, and too little with the fundamental principles of the Gospel ; they were wholly defective with regard to the ruin of man by sin, and the nature, necessity and source of regeneration, and with all the splendor of their rhetoric they seem to have had no influence in bring- ing the people to repentance. The fickle, fashionable orthodox believers of the time thronged to hear him in the morning, and with the same enthusiasm flocked into the theatre in the afternoon. Nothing that can be called a revival of religion seems to have attended Chrysostom's preaching. He made people angry, and got angry himself; indulged in personal reflections and vehement denunciations of sin, but sinners were not led by it to ask what they must do to be saved. Chrysostom was a transcendent "pulpit orator," but, as a preacher of the Gospel, I believe there is not a minister of Christ in this city that is not greater than he. The mod- ern evangelical sermon is distinguished in the first place by a careful exposition of the text, the result of diligent study of the original, with the aid of the best inter- preters. The text is then developed part after part, or a proposition is drawn from it and made the basis of discipline. The matter seldom relates to fasts or feasts or external observances or habits, but to the great principles involved in man's relation as a sinner to God and the Gospel of His son ; the sermon drives at a par- ticular point, and aims to fasten some definite impression on the hearers, and it is often attended with the demonstration of the Spirit, and with power in the conversion of men to God.
Such was the general character of your Pastor's sermons. Without being a pro- found or independent scholar in the original languages of Scripture, he was a conscientious student in them. He studied his text on his knees before God. He elaborated it in his mind by thought and perhaps by conversation with others ; when it was all done but the writing, he finished the mechanical part with great rapidity ; or, if he felt in his better moods, brought it forth unwritten from the full treasure of his mind and heart, with that readiness and unbroken flow of utterance,
246
MANUAL OF THE
that well-jointed sequence of ideas and topics, that natural unstudied cadence and melody of voice, those bursts of impassioned argument and appeal, which carried his best efforts up to near the ideal of the highest pulpit eloquence. The memory of his sermons still lingers in scores of sanctuaries. His tones of pathos or thun- der still echo in thousands of hearts. There are many in nearly all parts of your land who will remember him to their dying day as the grandest impersonation of the powers of the pulpit they ever beheld. There are many-how many the great day alone will reveal-and in many places, who will look back to the time when they received the Gospel from his lips as the turning point from which their faces were set toward Heaven.
I am not in the least undertaking in this discourse to give a biography of Dr. Hea- cock ; nor am I any the more pretending to present a full character or critical estimate of him. I must entirely pass over many things on which some of you might desire me to dwell. On particular developments of his power, or particular incidents in his career, I can only select a few among a great variety of topics that urge them- selves in my mind. One brief, but to him most interesting episode, was his experi- ence as chaplain in the dark days that preceded the third and fourth of July. You know with what a passion of patriotism he threw himself from the beginning into the cause of his country. His prayers, his sermons, his platform speeches were felt as a power in helping nerve us up to the prosecution of the great struggle. Fra- ternal affection came in to strengthen his impulses. The 49th regiment was passing northward, with the noble 6th corps, to intercept the march of the Confederates upon Philadelphia. He had done everything he could except set the example of personal devotion in the field, and he thought the time had now come for that. The various divisions of the army of the Potomac were concentrating towards Gettys- burg ; the supreme hour of the struggle had come, and the country held its breath waiting for tidings ; " and so it was (says a chronicler of the time) that as the men marched swiftly through the darkness before the dawn, they communed together with low voices within the ranks, and said one to another, let us die to- gether this day, my brother, but let us not turn back, and afterwards they were silent, and their hearts were homeward, and they said within themselves, 'God help us and this people.'" So the 74th marched swiftly southward, the men footsore and weary ; and the stalwart chaplain marched by their side, cheering and comforting them. But the succor was unnecessary. The great wave of invasion had been already shattered on Cemetery Ridge, and the army of the brave but mis- taken Confederates was in full retreat across the Potomac. Two years after he was long hunting on the field of Spottsylvania for the relics of one of the dead of that fight, by whose side he now sleeps in yonder cemetery. Something I ought to say of Dr. Heacock as a Pastor. It is the part of his activities which I feel least able, from any personal knowledge, to do justice to, and at the same time it is that in regard to which there is the least that is discriminating to be said. Like his breth- ren, the other faithful and exemplary pastors of the city, he was a dear lover of little children ; a friend of the young men of his charge ; a son of consolation to the afflicted ; a clear, intelligent guide to the inquiring ; a sound scriptural casuist in all cases of conscience. His great affectionateness of disposition ; his strong power of sympathy made his visits precious in the house of mourning, in the chamber of death. He bore his people in his heart as much, I believe, as any
er
t
e
a
247
LAFAYETTE STREET PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
pastor ever did. They seemed oftentimes to occupy his whole thoughts. His per- petual study was what more he could do for their good. How he could best reach this or that class, or person. For many of you he prayed, by name, over and over, and for long periods in his closet with almost an agony of solicitude for your salva- tion. He lamented and reproached himself that his ministry was not more fruitful of conversions. His joy when one of you was brought to Christ was the joy in the harvest, and as men rejoice when they gather the spoil. But I need not withhold the statement that even for those who were hopefully converted to God and brought into covenant with the Church he felt often a painful solicitude. He thought the standard of living, among the members of his flock, far below what it ought to be. He was pained and almost discouraged at what he thought was the deference to worldly maxims and habits, the too great lack of Christian courage and enthusiasm in the Church. He thought of various methods and tried some for securing greater holiness of living among Christians. No doubt every faithful pastor is grieved with the same experiences. There is often room for regret. But when we look back at the condition of the Church in earlier and what are sometimes represented as purer periods, we can find still a good deal to be thankful for. The Christians of Antioch and Constantinople in the time of Chrysostom, "in good and regular standing," (as we say) not only practiced many of the characteristic corruptions of the Church of Rome, such as invoking the saints and praying to images, but their morals were of an absurd, infamous character. They flocked to the theatre where grossly inde- cent spectacles were exhibited ; they looked on with delight while men were torn to pieces in combats with wild beasts ; drinking to intoxication was common ; they swore in the way that is most painful and shocking to our ears-by the name of Christ. I say nothing about other things-we could draw indeed a precisely similar picture of the Christian life of to-day, if we regarded the entire population as Christian (as was the case in Chrysostom's time) and then founded our description as the character of the most godless and profane part of them-only I ought to say that some of the men who did some of these things, such as profane swearing, hoped not only for Christians, but for saints and eminent ones. Chrysostom's soul was in bitterness at this degradation of the Christian name. He addressed himself most energetically to the work of reform. He preached with a severity of which the modern pulpit furnishes us parallel, against the offences, against swearing, against theatre-going, against drunkenness. The Christians received his splendid periods with sounds of applause and went on sinning.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.