USA > New York > Ulster County > Kingston > Semi-centennial celebration of the Rondout Presbyterian Church, Kingston, N.Y. 1833-1883 > Part 5
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
Rev. F. WASHBURN spoke as follows : - I am very highly pleased to stand in this presence, Dr. Magee, this evening and to congratulate you as a Christian man and these people here present as Christian people that they and myself are being brought nearer to God through the influence of that Man who two thousand years ago suffered upon the cross for our re- demption. I am thankful He has put it in our hearts to per- petuate His name through the few years He has given us to breathe of our experience here. He has given us a pastor full of holy impulses, a pastor whom we believe to have been a man of God. Men worship God because Christ brought them nigh to Him, and they establish churches or bodies representing Christ for the purpose of showing to God their love for Him and their love for those whom he came to save upon the earth. The great idea of our minds to-night is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The great impulse of our lives is to show ourselves worthy of that One who died upon the cross to re- deem us and we are symbolizing our faith in our works ; we are symbolizing our faith objectively in the Christ, in
57
Rev. F. Washburn.
the prayers, in the movements or attitudes we occupy in times of Divine service. We are under commanders ; we are under men whom God has ordained or set apart for certain specified work. We, under them, are the servants of Christ. We are bound by laws, laws made to serve the interests of Christ's kingdom, laws which were made for us to obey and serve. So while we differ in our systems and our symbols, let us not make this difference between men who have souls that were created by God, and we all represent that one God in these spirits which we have, these hearts so true to noble impulses when lighted up by Christ's grace, when under the influence of Christ's Holy Spirit.
I congratulate you as the representative of a work of fifty years. I congratulate this people that they stand by you and by Christ at the end of this fifty years, four hundred strong. Would you go back fifty years and live the lives that those men lived ? No! you would much rather enjoy the fruits of the labor of those who have passed away. And you are to be congratulated that you have reached this rich possession, this rich joy ; that you are still growing and will continue to increase in strength and influence. You begin to-night four hundred strong or more. What will this body be at the end of fifty years more ?
The English people ridicule us for making so much of half centuries and centuries, but young people always make a great deal of the years of their lives, and why should not we do so also ? We are a young people, we Americans, we Presbyte- rians, we Episcopalians, we Methodists, we Baptists are young people in a young country, and, therefore, like young people, make a great deal out of the years we have been here. I am thankful that I am a Christian in Christian America rather than a Christian in England or Scotland where they obey the command of the established Church Episcopal or the estab- lished Church Presbyterian. We belong in a sense to the es- tablished church in Great Britain.
8
58
Semi-Centennial Celebration.
We are all gathering flowers, we are all making bouquets, and these flowers are growing in a tropical clime. There may be winter outside but these flowers are in the conservatory of Christ, the atmosphere is that of love, and we will each of us carry the finest bouquet we can pluck of human soul to present to the Lamb of the Fold.
Dr. MAGEE : - I know it will be a keener and deeper satis- faction to you than even the great gratification is to myself, to listen to the words of the pastor of years that are gone, who is the first in the recollection of many of you. You will re- member his youthful days when he gave his strongest and best service to you, and you will look with reverence and love upon the crown of glory beneath which he sits to-night, and you will hear his voice once more as he shall speak in sounds endeared by many precious memories. I need not introduce to you Rev. Mr. Phillips whom you all know far better than I do.
Rev. B. T. PHILLIPS spoke as follows : Memories upon such an occasion crowd so upon the mind that it is very difficult to know what not to say rather than what ought to be said. But I may say at the outset in the line of pleasantry which has been characteristic of the delightful speeches we have listened to, I have felt to-night in look- ing back upon the past history of this church that if you were to eliminate Presbyterianism out of Rondout it would be like the play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out, so identified is the growth of the place with the Presbyterian church ; and the elements of its growth have in a large measure originated in the Presbyterian church. And, therefore, if my few remarks be considered some what personal, you will attribute it to the memories crowding upon one who is said to be an old man but who does not feel so except as he sees so many children around him who claim him as their father.
It was during a meeting on a Sunday in October, 1847, that the Rev. Mr. Johnson, of Newburg, the stated clerk of the
59
Rev. B. T. Phillips.
Presbytery of North River, notified me to come to supply a church at Rondout on the following Sabbath. That is the first intimation I had of the existence of such a place as Rondout and upon inquiry I felt so little interested in the place that I declined to go. I thought it rather beneath my notice, but on after consideration and through the suggestion and advice of my old pastor who thought a run in the country would do me good I concluded I would come, and accepted the invitation, which I did. After finding out the geography of the place and the method of getting here, I found myself an evening of that month, on a Friday night, at the dock in New York at the boat which was to carry me to the creek. It was very low tide; there had been a high wind and the boat was low down, and I slid upon the deck of the old Norwich, but I found on the boat such a pile of barrows and boxes and such an endless lot of truck that I turned away and went home, and concluded that Rondout should find some other supply. But upon sober reflection and advice by my dear good wife, who always ad- vised me well, I concluded I would go the other way, as I was told, by the Hudson river boat and land at Kingston Point and then go by hack to Rondout ; and the first introduction I had after I got here was in coming through what I regarded as the slough of despond, and I was struck with the change to- day in going through Ponckhockie as compared with my first ex- perience. I got to Rondout, and after a good dinner at my dear friends (Mrs. Crane knows how to get up a good dinner), I felt more pleasantly inclined to this place. But after going on the dock I promised myself if the Lord would spare me until Monday morning I would shake off the dust my feet and with that spirit I entered the pulpit Sunday morning. Like the boy I did'nt care whether school kept or not. I talked -at any rate there was one good woman said : "I prayed that the Lord might send you as our pastor," but I feared He never would after the first experiment. The discourse was accept- able, and I was requested by the session to come again which I promised to do if I could find a supply which I did not think
60
Semi-Centennial Celebration.
I could. I got one and I came here a second time without the first idea of staying at Rondout, no more than I have to- night of going to the moon. The second time I was requested by the session to allow my name to be brought before the Church. I was more surprised from the fact that they had had men whom I had been taught to honor and respect for their ability. I accepted the invitation, and after a nearly unanimous vote, to my surprise, but two or three dissenting at the first ballot, I was elected by a unanimous vote to be the pastor of the church. Taking that as an indication that my work should be here, I left the church in New York and accepted the past- orate. I have only regretted while I was pastor and since, that I did not make more full proof of my ministry than I did, but the failure was not from want of love for this people, the fail- ure was not from want of love for the ministry, for the Lord is my witness that I have loved it, and though I have felt very humble I think I can say, not that the body has been wearied by the work - it has been sometime wearied in the work - but not of it, especially as I think of the old times. The church was not in as good condition as it is now when I came here. It had a very high and antiquated pulpit, and it was entirely dispropor- tionate to the rest of the church and it was placed so high up that my voice would strike the center of the church and come back and make a terrible echo, and it was a long time before I got accustomed to it ; and there was a stove with a long line of pipe running through the pulpit intersecting in the gallery. The pipe in front of me was crooked and if I was crooked in my sermons I felt it was due to the pipe.
I wish I could speak of the house that I occupied. It was originally a carpenter shop, but I had a very pleasant time there with very pleasant people as Rondout people are wont to be, and there were good men and women there that are entitled to more credit than I am for the work done, and I feel like saying Amen to what a brother has said : If he did not do the church good ; the church did him good. It was not the first church I preached in, but the first church to which my heart
61
Rev. B. T. Phillips.
went out fully, to which the strength of my life went out in the pastorate ; and it was due to assistance, for I felt that with such men to back me I was not the man to prove a coward. The session stood firm with their pastor, and we did, I think, a good work. I do not want to boast, but after the beautiful eulogies we have had, I believe we have a right to take to our- selves some little credit. I do not know as I thought of these matters as I have, since I have heard these brethren of other churches in their kind and cordial salutations, but I feel as though we deserved some of them.
Among us was a man who is to be named with honor and respect ; that is Maurice Wurts. The honest man they say is the noblest work of God; that is Maurice Wurts. All his purposes were true and real ; he was a man you could rely upon ; a man you knew where to find ; whose right hand was never allowed to know what his left hand did. The man's record is on high. Of the influence of that man upon the temper and prosperity of this town, of the development he gave to the industrial resources of the town, it is not necessary for me to speak. I may say in regard to them as was said of St. Paul's : If you ask for my work, look about you. So Maurice Wurts could have said ; that Rondout and Maurice Wurts were identical, but it is not of these things that I want to speak of him so much as of some little traits that the people never gave him credit for - the kind- ness of his heart. All knew he was liberal, but there was a kind- ness and trueness about him that I have rarely found equaled. I recollect one little instance that will give the key of the man's character. He was a Whig and an ardent man and hated Seward, who was a Henry Clay man, and of course he did not like the course the Whig party was taking as it developed into the republican party. I was a democrat of the straightest sect - Jacksonian I believe we called ourselves, but I favored the rise. of the spirit of freedom and was one of the agents of the Underground Railroad. We had our stations along the river. Of the servitors of that work I may not speak because I have no authority to speak for them, but from time to time there
62
Semi-Centennial Celebration.
would be forwarded from Poughkeepsie some of those fugitives who were speeding toward the North Star of their liberty. Mr. Wurts was very free in the expression of his views as to this ser- vice. I one day said to him : " You would not certainly send back a fugitive into slavery." " What right had he to run away !" I said, "I thought a great deal more of you than that ; some of these days I may have an opportunity to test it ?" That very night a man came in with credentials that were hurrying him on his way to the North Pole. I went to Mr. Wurts. " You remember we were talking about the fugitive slaves. There is one in my house, if you want to remand him to slavery again you can do it, but I know you would not. I want you to help me." He said, "I would not give a cent for any such thing." I said, " very well," and turned to go, but he called me and handing me some money said : " Take it and do what you have a mind to with it but don't ask me to do any- thing about these runaway niggers." I came down to the passenger - this man and brother, though he was black as coal - brother Crane had a hand in that game- and we sent the poor man north in an hour or so, with more money than he had ever seen before.
There is another man that rises among the honored ones of that day, and that is good old Deacon Osterhoudt - Stephen Osterhoudt. If ever there was a man like the evangelist Stephen to be called a man full of faith and the Holy Ghost, it was Stephen Osterhoudt- a man who forty years conducted a Sunday school. Not cultivated, a man so strict that like the old maid he leaned over backwards in his strictness in regard to what was right. I asked him why he did it; he said I have got but one life to live and I don't want to make mistakes. Of him it may be said that his word was better than his bond -a man of faith and of prayer. The man's counsel seemed to me to be almost infallible - never had to be reversed, a man of grand and noble working qualities - every day qualities, just alike. His religion was not a thing to be put off with his Sunday clothes.
63
Rev. B. T. Phillips.
Time will hardly allow me to speak of others. I would like to speak of some nearer home, but modesty I know would be offended, but, with all the good things that might be said, I would like to say, I inaugurated the observation of thanksgiv- ing day by having a noon meeting, and it was agreed to by the ministers of the place. They all thought the services should be conducted by the oldest minister, thinking that I was the man, but it turned out that I was the youngest, and they turned the tables and said the youngest should preach. From that time a friendly feeling existed, and I do not know but it did before among all the churches.
In the year that the colera broke out it so happened that the other ministers were so situated that I was the only one in the town to deal with disease and death. Those of you who are living will remember the sad day when it came and the time when its ravages ceased. In all those days the pastor of the Presbyterian church had a hearty welcome in the homes of the other denominations ; I visited their sick and buried their dead, and I think the Presbyterian church had an additional hold upon the community from that interchange of christian sym- pathy. And so the church has gone on from that day to this. Those who have succeeded me can speak of the subsequent history of the church. My own history extends over fourteen years ; fourteen years, it may be said of the molding of the church; it was certainly the molding of my character.
I believed then and believe now in freedom of speech, and I never believed in an infallible church. Grand and noble as the church is and always has been, I have never admitted it to be the infallible church, and while I have given to it the best of my affections, and I have been entirely compliant to its decrees, I have always honored the other churches; I have always, I trust, been able to see the good qualities in other churches, and if I have not had the power to bring men up to angels I have never had the disposition to drag angels down and make men of them, and so it has been in the exercise of my ministerial work. You will pardon the garrulity of an old man who looks
64
Semi-Centennial Celebration.
back on forty years of ministerial work in saying what might be considered very immodest for him to say that he neither feared the face of man or woman. I would not say of myself, as the Scotch minister said to the elder, if you are a man after my own heart, you neither fear God nor woman, but I can say with the All Seeing Eye upon me, I never kept back any part of the truth from fear or to court favor, and believe this church honored me for it even when they felt hurt perhaps, and aggrieved sometimes by my utterances, but I believe they have given me credit for honesty and a certain degree of fear- lessness. If I have spoken harshly it has been in my earnest desire to make full proof of my ministry, and so I kept on during the fourteen years of my pastorate among you. While there were no revivals in the strict sense of the term, there was a continual healthful growth. I believe, as far as my memory serves, there was not a communion season when there was not at least one additional member added to the church. So we went on healthfully, and the church I can say for the credit of those who succeeded me has since gone on in the same line. May God make it always the line in which this church and other churches shall work.
I may say of these brethren who have succeeded that they have been true and loyal to their church as I have tried to be, and to my dear Brother Magee, whom I have learned to love in the short time I have known him as the pastor, I may say to him : may it always be true of this Church that she is to Christ and humanity true, and loyal to the truth as God gives her knowledge of that truth, that she may hold up high and far in advance the blue banner of the Covenant, that she may grow up a perfect body to be presented at the last without spot or wrinkle, and with this hope may I bid you farewell, I think, for the last time I am privileged to speak to you; I may never have the privilege again. If it be the last time it shall be my parting prayer that on these foundations that have been laid a glorious structure shall grow up, like the temple of old so quietly that the sound of the axe or the hammer shall
65
Rev. Wm. Irvin, D. D.
not be heard, and that the living stones that shall enter into its structure shall be at last pillars in the Church above, sowers in the ground of the spheres of righteousness, and make up the General Assembly and Church of the First-Born, whose names are written in Heaven, and that these my chil- dren, some of whom I have baptized, shall all make up one family above, and these others, by whatever name they are known, recognizing our common relationship to our Elder Brother, Jesus Christ, and known by that name, shall be wel- come to that sanctuary whence we shall no more go out, and to that service which shall not be counted by years, but shall be forever an unbroken act of devotion.
Rev. Dr. MAGEE : - We are now coming down to the period of modern history, and I said so many good things of these dear brethren last Sunday that I am not going to repeat them to you now. We look with great delight upon that religious father in the distance, but I do not know why the sunset of last night was not as beautiful as the night before, and so I do not know why the memories that cluster around our dear brother here should be any less bright than the memories of the more distant past. I need not introduce him to you.
Rev. WILLIAM IRVIN, D. D., spoke as follows : - Dr. Ma- gee evidently takes it for granted that everybody knows who I am. If I had prepared what I remember a reverend doctor once said to me an address of his would be "the most polished thing you ever read in your life " - a jest which some of you may remember was characteristic of that man whom we used to hear in the pulpit of the old church, the Rev. Dr. F. R. Masters -if I had prepared such an address for this occasion, I would not deliver it now. It seems to me that at this late hour it would be imposing upon your patience and overtaxing your time, however much you might want to hear any thing I might say. I believe there is a kindly desire to hear me, yet I feel like serving you better than even by mak-
9
66
Semi-Centennial Celebration.
ing, what Dr. Magee declared some of these speeches would be, a "splendid speech."
The utterances of the brethren here have been so kindly, so genial, so genuinely brilliant, that I feel the call for brilliant speeches has been fully answered, and there will be no fault found with me if I am unable to add to the list. I suppose the proper thing for me to do is to give you an autobiography of my five years of ministry here. I don't intend to do any such thing. But I remember the first time I came to Ron- dout. Unlike my imperfectly educated predecessor here I think my geography sufficed to tell me where Rondout was. I did not go astray on the road. I believe my thoughts were directed to the place through the medium of the Rev. Dr. At- water, of Princeton college, that noble servant of our church who has recently departed, and I think it was through him, probably at the request of his nephew, whom you all remem- ber, and whom I remember as one of the noblest of the laborers in the Church during my pastorate, that I came here. I was not so foolish as to take passage to Rondout on the old Norwich. I give you my word that I did not land at King- ston Point. I came up by the Hudson River Railroad, and I am surprised that Mr. Phillips ever came by any other con- veyance ; and I will hold to it that the Hudson River Railroad was easier and pleasanter to travel by than the old steamer Norwich. Of course there was no railroad when he came, but that I can't help. I remember coming over the river on the old ferry-boat Lark; I believe you have fairly worn out the Lark, and I remember occasions when I wished it might be worn out before I got on it, and that it would not wear out before I got off. I remember landing at the ferry-boat bridge or slip, and when the fatal moment came for the transit to the shore by that admirable contrivance which always threatens to crush one's toes ; I remember just when I reached that spot I saw a gentleman standing on the dock who wore a drab over- coat. I will never forget it, nor the greeting he gave me, and the way he took me under his wing - he has not yet sprouted
67
Rev. Wm. Irvin, D. D.
wings-he took me under his care and under his guidance, and I was perfectly willing to be guided. I would hardly dare to speak his name out plainly - the initials of his name are Walter B. Crane. And from that day to this, allow me just to say - for I heard Mr. Crane complain that too much had been said in his praise during these exercises, and I would not offend him for the world - from that day to this, I don't think there has been one single minute when Walter B. Crane has not been a warm, kind, helpful friend to me, from that moment when I saw him on the dock to the moment I stand here be- fore you to bear this testimony. That was in the month of December, 1861. I don't remember what I preached about the first Sunday, and I don't believe any of you will be inter- ested to know ; but I was asked to come again. In the course of a month or two there was a call sent, which I accepted, and on February 18, 1862, I was ordained just where Mr. Ledyard was before the old pulpit in the canary-colored church across the way. The color I believe was due to the special taste and positive Presbyterian doctrine of Mr. Robert H. Atwater. I don't know that the color stood for any decided theological complexion ; I would not call it brimstone, but it was not a great way from it. Of course I cannot forget the night that I was ordained; how my uncle, the Rev. Dr. John Proudfit, preached the sermon, and how those hands were laid upon me, many of which have long since ceased from earthly labors, among them being those of my dear friend Dr. John Lillie. Those five years were momentous for me; as Mr. Ledyard said, they were more notable for me than they were for you. I preached two sermons on Sunday, and lectured every Thurs- day night. It was very had work, and I broke down once with a fever. You were very kind to me, and very forbearing. I often look back to those first sermons. I could not think of writing two sermons a week, and with the evening sermon I did the best I could without writing. I remember those ser- mons, and I have wondered how the congregation stood them. As Jeremiah wrote, " My soul hath them still in remembrance,
68
Semi-Centennial Celebration.
and is humbled in me." There was an amount of Presbyte- rian forbearance, there was a degree of self-control which the people showed in bearing with me until I was able to do better, that now seems surprising. Perhaps, you remember a charac- ter and a remark in Dickens' "David Copperfield." One of the characters is Littimer, a servant, who comes in contact with Copperfield, and to Copperfield he seemed always to be saying when he looked at him, " You are very young, sir, you are very young," regarding him with a contempt that was absolutely in- expressible. So I have since thought that some of you must have then looked upon me as very young indeed.
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.