USA > New York > Albany County > Albany > St. Peter's Church in the city of Albany : commemoration of its two hundredth anniversary, November, A.D., 1916 > Part 3
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As I look over the Thirty-nine Articles of the Episco- palian Church I find there is a striking resemblance to the Augsburg Confession, and as I look at your splendid Book of Common Prayer and our own service I am also reminded that there is a family resemblance between us, and, there- fore, I am happy to bring the greetings of our church.
As I was thinking back over the history of these two hundred years I want to emphasize this fact, and bring to you our congratulations on the splendid history of St. Peter's during the past two hundred years; for as I have read Dr. Battershall's fine sermon and somewhat of Bishop
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Nelson's sermon, and have become in a measure familiar with the history of St. Peter's, I have learned that it is a splendid chapter that has been written during these past two hundred years. At the same time I would remind you that you have an unwritten history.
While you are recording facts and telling of achievements, remember that the real things cannot be tabulated, they cannot be written-the lives that have been touched and cheered and comforted and helped, the people whose char- acters have been moulded and shaped and who have gone out into the city to play their part and to do their work. These are the things that are unwritten. I congratulate St. Peter's on this splendid history during these two hun- dred years, and I also want to congratulate you upon the fact, the thought of which has already been suggested by Dr. Hopkins, that you have not attained unto the things which are possible for you, you have not reached your goal, and I am glad that it is true, and you must be, for it is sad, whether for an individual or an institution, to feel that they have done all that it is possible for them to do.
You must feel, it seems to me, as members of this Parish, with this splendid history behind you, that you have not yet attained, and your attitude with reference to the future of the church must be the attitude of the Great Apostle when he says, "Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the goal." For I take it that the noble history of the past is but an indication of the possibilities of the future. For if St. Peter's could write such a history under the circumstances under which it was written, then in view of the splendid opportunity which is presented to the Christian church today, and because of the loyal, self-sacrificing people who now are members of St. Peter's, I am justified in saying that the future promises even better things for you. That there is much yet to be done in this parish none will dispute.
I want to congratulate St. Peter's too on the fact that the history which has been written and the things which have been accomplished come to you as a noble inheri- tance. It is as true of you as it is true of any institution
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that other men have labored, and ye have entered into their labors. Think of the splendid rôle of the past-many of you know the names of those men and women who made consecrated sacrifices during these years, handing down to you, the present members of this church, a great inheri- tance, a sacred trust. But this sacred trust also brings responsibilities and opportunities, and I can do no better, it seems to me, in emphasizing your duty toward the future, than in asking that you, the present members of this parish, shall dedicate yourselves to the unfinished task remaining before you, and that from these two hundred years of consecrated service and sacrifices, you give your- selves with renewed courage to St. Peter's Church, to which those who have gone before gave the last full measure of devotion, and that you, the present members here, highly resolve that their sacrifices have not been in vain, and that St. Peter's under God, shall have a new birth, of larger service and greater usefulness in the city. I trust that the noble history of the past two hundred years may be a clarion call to you to move forward to greater things, so that you may write during the next two hundred years a chapter worthy of a place alongside of the splendid chapter written during the past two hundred years, as your evidence of appreciation of the services of those who have gone before. I congratulate you. (Applause.)
THE CHAIRMAN: Dr. Battershall is my authority for saying that the relations between St. Peter's and the Second Presbyterian Church membership have always been of the most kindly nature. One of our immediate neighbors, occu- pying a building which has stood since 1815, which was erected by a man who must have been more than usual in his ability and artistic touch as an architect, because he built the beautiful Academy building which we still have, our second City Hall, and the New York State Nation- al Bank Building, which still stands-we have the pastor of that church, a man highly respected in our community as a God-fearing worker and an eloquent preacher. I have the honor to present the Rev. Dr. Moldenhawer. (Applause.)
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The Rev. J. V. MOLDENHAWER: Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen-I never think of St. Peter's Church with- out remembering how very near it is. I go past it so frequently on the way to my own church in the morn- ings-I go past it with a sense of envy. It is so pleasant to pass St. Peter's and say, "This is the way the fathers ought to erect churches-put them out on State Street where they can be seen." And then I go on and enter at the back of my church, which I love so much, and wonder whether in the changes of the city something could not have been done to simply take that old building, which has much to commend it, and swing it around so that I might enter as old members of the Second Presbyterian Church used to, at the front of the church. (Laughter.) Only now I realize if that were done, we should find ourselves in a state of mind that is not at all after the modern. They appar- ently were willing in those days to enter a church facing the congregation at once. If we came into the Second Presbyterian Church in these days from the front door and dropped into a pew, we should be in the front pew (Laughter); a condition of things for which, of course, a good deal can be said.
I congratulate you of St. Peter's Church upon your two hundred years. It is a good thing for us to be able to remember, in the United States of America, that anything can be two hundred years old. We look at the things which are going on on the other side of the water, leaving the war on one side, and we are apt to be envious, because they can see so far back. They can see with the eye of the . mind things that happened hundreds of years ago. Yet, even we can look back and see things which happened two hundred years ago, and after all 1716 is a great deal more remote from us in 1916 than, let us say, the years 1216 or 1316 are over there.
I like to remember, as a minister of the Presbyterian Church, some of the things which belong to the Episcopal tradition. It is fitting for us to remember the Puritan fore- fathers, those men who in the early days of American his- tory gave something of which we shall always be proud. But it is good for us to remember that in the days when so
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many things were being written in contentions of faith, about which there is some possibility of argument, among the great spirits of that age, just before St. Peter's was built, there were a group of clergymen in England who exhibited that spirit of Christianity revealed here tonight in the fact that there are present so many Christians of so many different creeds and of feeling and sound Christian fellowship. I like to think of the names of Falkland and Hayes, and I like to think of the name of Hooker. I like to remember that these men were not Puritans except in that fine sense, that they were at once men of the world and Christians, whose words might stand today as models of the spirit that we all ought to bear toward each other. And I like to think of those men as being Episcopalians, because when I look back at the beginning of the eleven years or a little over that I have spent in the City of Albany, one of the first and most genial spirits that came to me with a sign of the cordiality that lives in the atmosphere of Albany, was the Rector then, the Rector Emeritus now, of St. Peter's Church. And when I came to know him better, it was very easy for me to think of Episcopacy in the City of Albany as representing those large and splendid expressions of the Christian spirit, and not those narrow and unsatisfying things that so often express the life of any Christian body when it has forgotten the other parts of the great Christian church. .
I congratulate you again upon your two hundred years. I expect, as all of us expect, that the best years are still to come, that they will be years great in service, as were those past years, so great in your remembrance. (Applause.)
THE CHAIRMAN: Before this ancient city received its charter from Governor Dongan in 1686, there stood as you all know, at the foot of the hill in Jonkers Street, now State Street, the Dutch Church of 1648, and from the days of Megapolensis to the days of Kittell the church has pros- pered. I remember once of reading that in the first edifice in making provision for the congregation, they arranged certain seats for the women and certain seats for the men, and the number for the women was 611 and the
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number for the men 79. Dr. Kittell and I often see each other, not in church but elsewhere, and I never have thought to ask him whether that was the idea of the good Dutch church people as to the comparative necessity for relig- ious guidance between the sexes. There is also a tradition that in the same edifice there were certain openings in the building through which the rifles might be pointed in case of attack, an evidence of preparedness in those early days of the Dutch Church in Albany ! The same Dutch Church, now Reformed, rich in its history, stands near the locality where was originally the North Gate, redeco- rated and rejuvenated physically by the skill and artistic touch of Louis Tiffany-ministered over by one of the most eloquent divines preaching in Albany, whom it is your pleasure now to see and to hear. (Applause.)
The Rev. JAMES S. KITTELL: Mr. Chairman, Rector Emeritus, Rector and members of St. Peter's Church- I feel that the presiding officer of this evening has handi- capped me at the very beginning by his description of me, and I am further handicapped by those who have spoken so eloquently, for into this bouquet that is being presented to St. Peter's Church tonight it is a very humble little flower that I would bring. I do congratulate you most sincerely, and I bring to you the heartiest greetings of the Reformed Church of Albany on your two hundredth anni- versary.
I might say, continuing the address of the presiding officer, that we have just about that same proportion of men now. (Laughter.) I judge-for I go into St. Peter's Church very often of Sunday afternoons-that the men attend in the morning. (Laughter.) The description of the rifles pointing through the holes in our church is not necessary, for we are a very peaceful people at this par- ticular time.
For two hundred years St. Peter's Church and the First Reformed Church have lived together as neighbors; each emphasizing, and sometimes strenuously emphasizing the dominant characteristics of our respective ecclesiastical bodies; but always neighbors in those hopes and trusts
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and charities that are the essentials of the Christian life of any community, the larger things and the more abiding.
We were warned that anything historical was barred out tonight, it having been intimated that Dr. Battershall had written all the history that could be written. Now, I read that sermon with a great deal of interest, and yet so keen a mind as that of Dr. Battershall, and a pen that is wielded so gracefully, can never write down the history of St. Peter's in this old Dutch community, for that deeper and more permanent part of her history no man can measure and no historian can set forth.
For two hundred years St. Peter's Church has been setting forth the tremendous fact that the greatest forces in our national life are the moral and spiritual forces, unsung and yet abiding and eternal. And tonight you are celebrating, I do sincerely believe, not your advantageous position in Albany, not your splendid history of success as a church, not the beautiful building which stands out, as Mr. Moldenhawer said, on the main thoroughfare of the city be to seen by all, but you are celebrating the fine qualities of the spiritual life of the men and women who have had a part in the making of the history of St. Peter's Church for these two hundred years.
And it is from a really high point that you are looking out, from which you will see the real and abiding forces of life in this city, and in the nation; not our material prosperity, not a blasting and shattering force in the nation's armaments, but the forces of righteousness that make a nation great. And from this high point of view, at the end of two hundred years of your history, you are looking into the future, and I believe looking on the sunnier side of life; and that you will " cling to faith beyond the forms of faith," and so I wish you Godspeed upon your way for the centuries to come. (Applause.)
THE CHAIRMAN: In the early part of the last century, fifteen years or so after the organization of Union College, that institution, which had been created in Albany by Albanians, placed in Schenectady to put it beyond the reach of the politicians at the capitol, came to Albany
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and took out of the pulpit of the First Presbyterian Church one of the greatest pulpit orators in this country, Eliphalet Nott, who for sixty-two years thereafter as the greatest educator this country ever produced, presided over Union College. Ninety years later Union College again came to Albany and took from the pulpit of the Fourth Presby- terian Church a president, Andrew V. V. Raymond, who remained at Union for a dozen years. Ten years or so after that again Union College turned its eyes toward Albany, and took out of a Presbyterian church pulpit another president, who has not as yet been there sixty years, but who we hope will there remain at least that length of time. In other words, Union took Richmond, (Applause) much to the loss of Albanians, because we love him here. He had been one of us for ten years. He often comes back. He is a member of our University Club. He is a Scotchman. He is a good fellow. He is a president. He is a divine, a poet, a musician, a litterateur-I present to you Dr. Richmond. (Applause.)
Dr. CHARLES A. RICHMOND: Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen-I am reminded of an occasion some years age in Albany when the Boys' Club needed some money-a perennial condition. Governor Hughes-near-president Hughes-was then at the Governor's Mansion, and I was asked to go there and deliver a lecture for the benefit of the Boys' Club, which I did. I took my harp with me-I confess to the soft impeachment, and also exhibited some slides of Southern Spain, and sang some old Spanish folk- songs, and the next morning I was delighted, as I have been delighted by this introduction, to read that I had delivered this lecture illustrated by songs and slides. (Laugh- ter.)
I suppose this is no time to say that all roads lead to Rome, but certainly all roads lead to St. Peter's, even from Schenectady. As my academic son here, Judge Rudd, has said, there is some reason why the President of Union College should have a small share in these proceedings. Alonzo Potter was the academic and spiritual father of all the Potters, an interesting assortment (Laughter), and a
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family that I understand had a corner in bishoprics (Laugh- ter). At any rate, Horatio Potter was one of our boys, Dr. Nott's boys, as was also his brother, Alonzo Potter, who was the father of Henry Potter, who was another bishop. I am not surprised that these Presbyterians succeeded so well among the Episcopalians. (Laughter.) My old Scotch father used to say it is wonderful what an education will do for a Scotch lad, especially if he has to make his career among the English. (Laughter.)
Now, two hundred years in this degenerate age seems a long time. In the days of Methusaleh it would represent merely the first flush of youth, and in an organization of this kind, it represents merely the first flush of youth. You have renewed your youth like the eagle, and you are look- ing back tonight on a grateful and reverent retrospect, and you are, of course, looking forward with all holy confidence.
Those who in the past have had a share in building this spiritual temple of God have attained a kind of immortality from their connection with this immortal work of yours, and those of you who are at present carrying on this work are to be congratulated, because you are associated and con- nected with a work that will last long after all of us have mingled our dust with the dust of the forgotten dead-and let me say that most of us will achieve an immortality in the memories of men because we have been connected with an immortal work.
I remember dining with a little collection of bishops, three bishops and others, and they were abusing John Calvin, and, of course, I was silent, and finally Bishop Doane looked at me and said, " What do you think of all this talk?" I said, "I don't know, but I think if John Calvin were here to defend himself, he would make you all look like thirty cents." (Laughter.) I added, "Perhaps you think you are going to be remembered for four hun- dred years, but I have my doubts !"
Now, one of the most inspiring things in all life is the fact that the work of God does not depend upon any one man or upon any group of men. The apostles come and go, the innumerable companies of holy men come and make their contributions and pass on, but the Church
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remains, and the continuity isn't broken or lost, and it goes on adding strength to strength through the generations. And may I observe also that the work of God does not de- pend upon any one church or any group of churches working under any denomination or name, if you will allow me to refer to you as a denomination for the sake of argument.
The presence here of these dissenters indicates that at least you recognize remotely and incidentally this truth. I suppose we all have our little mission-we are not exactly a union-I know we are not getting ten hours pay for eight hours work-but I assume we all have our mission. There is not exactly either a division of labor. It has been said that the Methodists pick a man out of the gutter, and the Baptists wash him, and the Presbyterians starch him. I suppose the Episcopalians finish him. (Laughter.) At least they put the frills on him (Laughter), and I must confess that not infrequently they make him a little more presentable, in the eyes of man at least, if not in the eyes of God. (Applause.)
But certainly at this time of day we shall all agree abso- lutely that recriminations and jealousies and suspicions and the waste of energy that comes through ecclesiastical dis- putes, is something we do not and will not tolerate. Thank God, that age is well nigh past. And for that reason, because we represent here tonight a body of Christians, thinking first, of course, of you, because this is your anniversary, but because we know that you as a body of Christians are devoted to the same cause, I like to dwell upon that note-Church unity.
I remember Bishop Doane once said to me that he meant to devote the last ten years of his life to the cause of church unity. The task before us, fellow Christians, is one that is staggering to contemplate, and there is no other organization in the world that even dare attempt that task. We have facing us the reconstruction of the world, and the world will not be reconstructed by science. It will not be the work of science, nor the work of com- merce, but the work of religion. To compose the warring elements, to bring order out of disorder, and the poetry and harmony of creation, and to make a cosmos out of
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chaos, called for no work of man's invention, but called for no less than the breath of the Almighty. "The spirit of God moved or brooded upon the face of the waters." And to bring any kind of harmony out of the present dis- cord, and to form any kind of cosmos, a moral and spiritual cosmos, out of the present chaos and tumult of human passion, will be no work of science or of commercial alli- ance or of the overpowering force of arms.
It will be the work of no less than the breath of God in the hearts of men, transformed into energy by the power of a united purpose and an untiring consecration and devo- tion to the cause of Jesus Christ. The peace the whole world has long been praying for is not the truce of God, but the peace of God, and the peace society which over all others must take the lead, is the church of God, for that is the home and the shelter and the guardian of peace. " Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself where she may lay her young, even thine altars, oh Lord of Hosts, my King and my God."
And so while you are thinking in this church, and while we are thinking in our churches of the peculiar work we are to do in our community, we must think at this near approach of the day of the anniversary of the Prince of Peace, we must think of this as a great mission, and the great contribution of the church of God, of which you are a part. (Applause.)
THE CHAIRMAN: I know that you will regret that the little group has been almost exhausted. When I came in this room this evening some one asked me if that was my jury. (Laughter.)
There is one still whom we always love to see, to hear, and to meet, not a man who wears the degree of D. D., but a man who wears and carries with great honor all the other degrees that have ever been conferred by any academic organization; a man who stands at the head of the educational work in the Empire State, our townsman, one who contributes so much of that which is right and inspiring in our life as a state. I have the honor of intro- ducing Dr. Finley. (Applause.)
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DR. JOHN H. FINLEY: I do not know to which group your Chairman referred when he said his group was nearly exhausted. I have not been in training for this night as the Bishop has been. In fact, save once, when I made a historical address in St. Peter's Church, I have never faced an Episcopalian audience. I do not know even how to address your presiding officer. In my church he is known as a moderator-one who moderates the length and vehemence of speeches.
I have hardly the courage to appear in and before such a company, but I could not resist the invitation of this near-Presbyterian, as he has been called, Justice Rudd, for I am willing to do anything in this world that he asks me to do, "so long as it is honorable."
I am reminded by the church-going comments of this evening of a recent experience of my own. I ventured a few weeks ago into All Saints Cathedral one morning for early prayers or mass, or whatever you call that matin service; but there was no one else visible in the church except the Assistant who was saying the prayers, in the course of which he made some reference to the short- comings of the congregation. This seemed to me very personal. I was very much embarrassed and I have never had the courage to go back.
I have said that I would speak but for a moment only. I cannot, of course, assume to speak in your presence of the past. There is nothing left for me except the future, and I am aware that you do not know any more about that tense than I do.
In an address which I made a little time ago in the hearing of Dr. Richmond-he has, of course, unconsciously reflected what I said-an address on old age, as he will now recall, I referred, I think, to Methusaleh and to Shem and others who lived somewhat more than nine hundred years, as I remember. Gradually, however, the span of life has been shortened until now, as I am informed, the average expectancy of the life of man according to the actuaries of the insurance companies is only thirty-five years. And man has with great ingenuity struggled against this shortened life, this early mortality. He has taken the
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aureate dust and the argent clay and made another crea- ture, a " corporation " we call it, and endowed it with the life that he could not himself enjoy. He has made a cor- poration, and endowed it with his purposes. He has taken the shadow of himself, as Emerson has defined an institu- tion, and has breathed his own spirit into it ;- has given it immortal life, as it were. And so this church-the thought has just come to me-is the shadow not of a mortal indi- vidual but of the Christ who was here upon earth. I under- stand now the meaning of those lines of O'Shaughnessy in which he tells how John the Baptist thought there should have been made for him a golden ladder upon which he could climb every day athwart some opening in the skies, and see His Face whose "shadow fills all time." The church is the white shadow of the Christ upon the earth.
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