USA > New York > The earliest churches of New York and its vicinity > Part 10
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CHAPTER XIIL
WALL STREET AND BRICK CHURCHES -- REV. DR. RODGERS THE "FATHER OF PRESBYTERIANISM" IN NEW YORK - REV. GARDINER SPRING CALLED TO BRICK CHURCH-HIS CHURCHI TURNED INTO A HOSPITAL IN THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION-SORROWFUL SCENES IN IT- WALL STREET CHURCH " CHARITY SCHOOL -RUTGERS AND CEDAR STREET CHURCHIES BUILT-DRS. MILLER AND MCKNIGHT -- REV. MR. WHIELPLEY -DR. PHILLIPS-WALL STREET CHURCH REMOVED TO JERSEY CITY-MEMBERS OF THE BRICK CHURCHI-ANSON G. PHELPS -HORACE HOLDEN.
DURING the month of September, 1844, the corner- stone of the new and elegant Presbyterian church, one hundred and nineteen feet long and eighty-five wide, was laid on Fifth Avenue, between Eleventh and Twelfth streets. It cost fifty-five thousand dollars, and opened for divine worship January 11, 1846-the old pastor, Dr. Phillips (who had preached to this people twenty years), delivering the dedication sermon from Psalm exxiv. 1-3: " If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, now may Israel say ; if it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when mon rose up . against us : then they had swallowed us up quick. when their wrath was kindled against us." One hun- dred and thirty years before, the first movements had been made to organize a Presbyterian congregation in our city ; and the preacher, adopting the language of the text, recalled to the minds of his congregation the
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marked, successful, and gracious history of this branch of Christ's Church." Well might he record the faithful- ness and the loving kindness of the Lord, who had for so long a period supplied this people with able and pious ministers. Truly may Dr. Phillips and his flock be thankful to the Great Shepherd of souls, that after thirty-eight years' zeal, labors, and prayers, he is still permitted to continue their spiritual oversight !
The angular lot apon which the "Brick Church," afterwards known as "Dr. Spring's," was built, tradi- tionally had borne the name of "The Vineyard." It was granted by the City Corporation, at a rent of forty pounds per annum, to Dr. Rodgers and Joseph Treat, ministers, with John Morris Scott. Peter R. Livingston, and others, trustees, for an indefinite period. Its iron railing, for so many years enclosing the old church, was removed and placed around the residence of Mr. J. T. Stranahan, South Brooklyn.
After the dissolution of the collegiate connection between the Wall Street and the Brick Churches, Dr. Rodgers became sole pastor of the latter: but his infirm- ities and age soon released him from public duty. A call was presented, then. to the Rev. Dr. John McDowell, of Elizabethtown, New Jersey ; next, to the Rev. Dr. Andrew Gates. East Hartford ; but both were declined. Three efforts were also made to induce the Rev. Lyman Beecher, of East Hampton, Long Island, but for want of harmony this measure also failed, and so did the attempt to procure the services of the Rev. Dr. Spence, of Virginia.
* Dr. Phillips's " Memorial of the Goodness of God."
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The last official act of Mr. Spring's venerable prede- cessor, the Rev. Dr. Rodgers, was to lay his hands upon his youthful head in the ordination service, August 8, 1810. Soon after, in the following May, this beloved and eminent preacher of Christ entered into the upper sanctuary. Dr. Rodgers has been justly called the "Father of Presbyterianism" in the city of New York ; Dr. Miller and Dr. MeKnight were copastors with him, but he was their senior in their sacred office. The Wall Street and Brick Churches united in asking that both might equally provide the salary for this veteran of the cross, and that he might be regarded, to the end of his life, as their senior pastor. He literally went from door to door soliciting help to erect the "Brick Church," and thus accommodate the people then living out of town .*
On the 28th of May, 1810, the session passed a resolu- tion inviting the Rev. Gardiner Spring to this pulpit. Accepting the invitation, he occupied the pulpit on the first Sabbath in June, preaching in the morning from the words: "Wherefore, como ye out from among them and be ye separate, and touch not the unelean thing, and I will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." In the even- ing his text was, to a crowded audience, " By the grace of God. I am what I am."
Dr. Milledoler, pastor of the Rutgers street congrega- tion, presided at the meeting called to make the applica- tion to Mr. Spring. He was then ordained by the Pres- bytery of New York, and installed pastor August 8, 1810. The Presbytery which performed this solemn # Dr. Spring's Memoria Meeting
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duty consisted of Dr. Rodgers, Rev. George Fatoute, Rev. Peter Fish, Rev. Philip Milledoler, Rev. Samuel Miller, Rev. John B. Romeyn, with the Rev. Ezra Stiles Ely-and not one now remains! "The fathers, where are they ?. And the prophets, do they live for- ever ?"
Pleasant and favorable as this new era was in the history of the congregation, the old church had wit- nessed strange and sorrowful scenes in its earlier days. When the British forces held the city, this sacred edi- fice was used for a soldier's hospital; and we find an interesting reminiscence from the narrative of Levi Han- ford, Delaware county, New York. In 1775 he entered Lee's army, at the early age of sixteen, and was ordered to break ground for the first fortifications on Governor's Island. Afterwards, captured by the Tories, he was imprisoned in that horrid " Black Hole," the "Old Sugar House." Here, crowded with four hundred or five hundred American prisoners, amidst its bad air and . diet, he took the small-pox, and was removed to the small-pox hospital. Some of his brave companions there ended their sufferings by death; bat, recovering him- self, he soon again returned to the prison. Sickness once more prostrated him, and he was taken to the "Quaker Meeting Hospital"' -- the old Quaker Meeting- house in Liberty street-but slowly recovered, amidst scenes of disease and death. Hanford was next trans- ferred, with two hundred others, to the dreadful hold of the prison-ship " Good Intent," at anchor in the North River. Famine and pestilence soon reduced the poor, crowded, captive soldiers, in two short months, to less 10
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than one hundred ! When the river began to freeze, in December (1777), this floating pest-house removed to the Wallabout, alongside of the well-known "Jersey," of terrific memory, where her decayed hulk long re- mained, a striking monument of the spot where thou- sands of brave hearts and lives were sacrificed to British cruelty.
Here, again, our prisoner being taken sick, with sev- eral companions, amidst snow and floating ice, was sent, in a leaky boat, half filled with water, to the " hospital in Dr. Rodgers' Brick Meeting-house." Hanford writes: "One poor fellow that could not sit up, we had to haul on the gunnel of the boat, to keep his head out of water; but he got wet, and died in a few minutes after he was got on shore." . "From the yard I carried one end of a bunk, from which some person had just died. into the church, and got into it, exhausted and overcome."
"I had now to remain here a long time, on account ยท of my feet. And of all places, that was the last to be coveted; disease and death reigned there in all their terrors. I have had men die by the side of me in the night, and have seen fifteen dead bodies, sewed up in their blankets, laid in the corner of the yard at one time, the product of one twenty-four hours. Every morning. at eight o'clock, the dead-cart came, the bodies were pu! in, the men drew their rum, and the cart was driven off to the trenches."
Such were the horrors of war onee exhibited in the "Old Brick Church ;" and few, comparatively, of the myriads who have there joyfully and quietly worship- ped God, ever imagined that such melancholy scenes
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were once witnessed on this time-honored and sacred spot !
We have seen when the "Brick Church" was built and dedicated, on January 1, 1768-ninety-six years ago-and that it was a branch of the Wall street con- gregation. Its corner-stone was laid in the autumn of 1766. The Rev. Dr. Rodgers, its first pastor, preached the opening discourse, and a large congregation soon assembled, having the same trustees, eldership, and ministry, with the one worshipping in Wall street. The Revolutionary War, not long after, scattered most of the members, as the Presbyterians generally espoused the American cause. Most of the Wall Street Church, with their pastors, at the commencement of the struggle. retired from the city. There was but little progress in religion, of course, during a state of war, just as was its patriotic cause. Confusion and ruin followed its path -- evils of sanguinary warfare, and of even victory itself. Wall Street Church was occupied as barracks by British soldiers, and the " Brick Church" turned into a hospi- tal. Their ministers retired from the city, Mr. Treat never returning ; his pastoral relation dissolved Octo- ber 2, 1785. Dr. Rodgers came back during the fall of 1783, delivering a sermon on that occasion in St. George's Chapel, which edifice, with St. Paul's, were generously offered to the Presbyterians by the vestry of Trinity. until their churches should be repaired. This is an instance of true Christian liberality, and worthy of record and imitation. At a subsequent period, Trinity presented a lot of ground, in Robinson street, for the use of the " senior Presbyterian minister."
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The Brick Church was repaired at great expense, and was reopened in June, 1784, by a discourse from Dr. Rodgers, from the words of the Psalmist: "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord." The Wall Street Church also commenced once more its regular services the following year, when the Rev. James Wilson was installed as colleague with Dr. Rodgers, Angust 10, 1785. IIe remained, however, only two years, when, his health requiring a milder climate (1788), he settled in Charleston, South Carolina. The congregation, for a few months, was then supplied by two candidates-the Rev. James Muir, from Scotland, with the Rev. Jedediah Morse, the author of the well- known American Geography. As the two churches became about equally divided in their choice of these ministers, they could not unite in a call for either. The next year, however, they called the Rev. John Mc- Knight, who was installed as copastor with Dr. Rodgers over the united churches.
About this period the trustees purchased a lot on Nassau street, joining the one occupied by the Wall Street Church. Here they erected a building for a "Charity School," under care of the session and trus- tees of the Church. Its funds partly consisted of lega- cies left for this pious objeet, as well as from voluntary subscriptions. It went into operation in 1799, and an annual collection was also taken for its benefit in both churches. This institution continued in useful opera- tion until, with similar schools of other denominations, it was placed under the care of our Public School Society. So parochial schools cannot claim to be a
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modern institution. We think they should be annexed to every evangelical church. Relinquishing their funds to the public schools of the city, it was expressly and wisely stipulated, by the trustees, that no child whom they recommended should be excluded, and that the Bible should also be daily read in the schools. Prudent and pious forethought :
On the fifth of June, 1789, the Rev. Samuel Miller was ordained, and called to assist Drs. Rodgers and McKnight.
In the year 1798, a third Presbyterian Church was opened on Rutgers street. It was a spacious frame building. Its ground was the generous gift of Colonel Henry Rutgers, a member of the Reformed Dutch Church, and one of the most honored, liberal, and excellent men of that day. The Rev. Dr. Milledoler became its first minister, with the understanding that his labors be confined to that charge. During 1807, a colony from the Wall Street and Brick Churches founded the "Cedar Street" Church, as no pews could now be obtained in either of the others, from their crowded congregations. Dr. Rodgers laid the corner-stones and delivered the opening sermons in both of these new houses of worship.
Much inconvenience attended the arrangement of this collegiate charge : and in the year 1809 the two congre- gations, till then united, amicably became distinct and separate churches. The Rev. Dr. Rodgers retained his connection with both, the Rev. Dr. Millor remaining in Wall street ; Dr. MeKnight voluntarily continued his connection with both.
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During this and the following year the church on Wall street was rebuilt ; in the interim, from December 9, 1809, to August 11, 1811, the congregation continued their religious services in the old French Protestant, or Huguenot Church, Pine street. The new house of the Lord was a costly, noble, and large brown stone edifice, and furnished by the voluntary contributions of its members. Dr. Rodgers closed his useful and pious labors for the church militant in the month of May, 1811, leaving Dr. Miller the sole pastor. He was an eminent and honored servant of the Lord, and his colleague, Dr. Miller, has written his life-a biography worthy a place in every Christian's library. In the year 1813, Dr. Miller removed to Princeton, for more extensive useful- ness as a professor of the Theological Seminary, and all know how highly he became respected by the Christian community at large.
During 1815, the Rev. Philip Melancthon Whelpley accepted a call to the Wall Street Church. An eminent writer, an able divine, his course of duty was brief, rest- ing from his holy work July 17, 1824, at the early age of thirty years. Then, for a year, the church had no pastor, when the Rev. Dr. William W. Phillips, minister of the "Pearl Street Church," received the charge of the Wall street congregation, Jannary 19, 1826. This sacred edi- fice was partially destroyed by fire in 1810. but immedi- ately rebuilt, the congregation, in the mean while, occupy- ing the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Chambers street. During the month of May. 1842, this new beautiful temple was vacated by the congregation, sold for three thou- sand dollars, and, stone by stone, removed to Jersey
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City, where it is still used for God's holy service as a Presbyterian church. Those who love the awakened, pious associations of former days, and to cherish them, may visit this ballowed spot, and, delighted, walk about Zion.
Among our remarks, mention has been made that many have fallen asleep in Christ, members of the Old Brick Church congregation -- and among them John Adams, Mr. Lockwood, Peter Hawes, Mr. Cunningham, Mr. De For- est, Mr. Havens, Messrs. Halsey, Mills, Whitlock, Prince, Bingham, Bulkley, Oakley, Bokee, McComb, Brown, Langster, Harding, and Phelps. They were pillars of the church militant, and their record is on high. Time would fail, as it were, to state the whole number; but let us dwell a moment on the beloved memory of Anson G. Phelps, who early joined the Brick Church. The writer knew him intimately, and esteemed him as a model Christian, and consequently worthy of all imita- tion. His house was ever open to Christian ministers and to prayer, and, as Mr. Horace Holden once remarked (who has since joined him in the heavenly land), "His parlors were never too good to be used for meetings of prayer." He was unostentatious amidst his great worldly prosperity, and the means which many of us spend in extravagance, pride, and vain show, ho devo- ted to charity and Christian benevolence-"not slothful in business, forvent in spirit, serving the Lord, distribu- ting to the necessity of saints, given to hospitality." These were emphatically his noble traits. A more lib- eral Christian we never knew, and . the first twenty-five dollars he was ever master of, all he was worth, indeed,
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save a few pennies," he contributed towards the educa- tion of a young man in his native village, Simsbury., Connecticut, for the ministry, and who had been a well- known Universalist. Benevolence and liberality formed an essential part in his religious character. He was among the few men of large property who may be called their own executors-living givers. His last will contained magnificent bequests, and among them the noble sums of one hundred thousand dollars each to the African Colonization and Bible causes -- favorite ones in life and death ! In these great charities we often met. We visited the dying chamber of our departed friend, and found him
"Strong in the strength that God supplies, And His eternal Son."
His only regret expressed was that he had done no more to promote the cause of Christ. He was resigned and happy, loving the "Songs of Zion" to the last, especially those animating lines which have cheered so many pil- grims crossing over the narrow Jordan of death :
"There is a fountain filled with blood."
He could sing them with trembling voice and streaming, joyful tears. Just before his departure, one of his be- loved children said to him : " Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us-a place for you, dear father ;" and, with strong emphasis, he replied : "I believe it. I believe it." Thus. leaning upon the world's Redeemer. one of the most eminent, liberal, and pious members of the "Old Brick Church" entered into the everlasting rewards promised to the faithful.
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The Brick Church has taken a prominent part in all the great and benevolent enterprises for which our age is so much distinguished. No religious society in the land, probably, has given more generously to foreign and domestic missions, with greater liberality in the impor- tant duty of educating poor and indigent young men for the Gospel ministry. Princeton. Elizabethtown, New York, Boston, the West, &c., have eminent ministers, once the beneficiaries of this church.
What tears of repentance, what songs of triumphant believers, have mingled in this time-honored, holy sanctuary of the Most High ! Children and children's children, for several generations, have been baptized by its holy ministers, and multitudes laid in the silent grave, who have sweetly fallen asleep in Jesus ! Thou- sands could sing-
"Here my kind friends, my kindred, dwell; Here God, my Saviour, reigns."
The vine, planted so many years before in the Old Brick Church, and so long watered with the early and the latter rains and the dews of heaven, was now trans- planted, as it were. to a new spot for far more abundant fruit. This people had very long been blessed with a succession of pious, able, and faithful ministers of salva- tion, and that same pure and blessed Gospel of Christ is still declared in the new church, to the comfort of believers and the preparation of immortal souls for heaven. May the successors of the Old Brick Church ever walk worthy of their high vocation, and transmit the true faith, with the form of sound words, to their
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successors, as they received them, uncorrupted, from their pious fathers.
Many of the sacramental host "have crossed the flood" from the original communicants of the "Old Brick Church," and Horace Holden is now among this number. When he went to his heavenly crown, the congregation mourned the loss of a most exemplary, useful, and pious member. His venerable pastor, who had loved him so long and so well, selected for the funeral sermon. Jolin xi. 35: "Jesus wept ;" and the preacher beautifully said : "We must expect to weep. And we may weep. . . . Yes, ye sons and daughters of affliction, ye may weep. In a world where sin has dug the grave of all that is lovely and beloved, you may not look for attachments that never die. In some views, the death of such a man as Mr. Holden is most undesira- ble and afflictive ; in others, it is an event of the most joyous kind. He is safe ; he is holy; he is happy. He shall hunger no more, nor thirst any more ; nor suffer, nor sigh any more." "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."
Mr. Holden was born at Sudbury, Massachusetts, November 5, 1793. Coming to New York (1809), he entered the law office of Mr. Ezra Bliss, and was admit- ted to the bar in 1811, and, during the war of 1812, sta- tioned at Sandy Hook, became attached to the staff of General Colfax. At first, he attended the ministry of the Rev. Dr. Mason, but became a member of the Brick Church, July, 1820. In the year 1823 he was ordained one of its ruling elders, and his pastor has declared, "No man was more punctual, more prompt, or more dili-
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gent in his high vocation." Girt with spiritual armor, Horace Holden was always in the place where duty called him. His religion had a cheerful character. It had a charm for him. How many remember his prayers, and those cheering words of his : " O never let us leave thy side, nor let go the hand that guides us !"
Mr. Holden was known among us as a safe, wise coun- sellor, and an earnest, faithful, able member of the bar. We will add, he was a Christian lawyer, never advising or defending that which an honest man and a Christian could not maintain and justify. His last illness was painful, from inflammation of the brain, but he knew his old, beloved minister, saying :
"It is Dr. Spring, my dear pastor !"
" Are you going to leave us ? Are you going home ?" asked the Doctor.
With emphasis, the dying man replied: "Yes, I believe I am ; I am going home."
As his last hour drew near, he repeated those beauti- ful lines of Dr. Watts :
" A guilty, weak, and helpless worm, On thy kind arms I fall;"
when, his voice failing, he said to his weeping wife and daughter, "Finish"-and they added :
" Be Thou my strength and righteousness, My Jesus and my all."
Shortly after, the conflict was over, " the last enemy" conquered, and he was singing the "everlasting song!"
We might mention here, too, the many beautiful testi- monials of sympathy offered to his afflicted family and friends. They came from the Bible, and Tract, and Sun-
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day School Societies, &c., for all of which he was an active laborer ; but we need not name them, as his fame was in all the churches.
On the 25th day of May, 1856, the Rev. Dr. Spring delivered a discourse, "The Memorial of God's Good- ness," as the closing sermon in the Old Brick Church. He selected for his text Psalm xlviii. 9-14: " We have thought of thy loving kindness, O God, in the midst of thy temple. That ye may fell it to the generations fol- lowing : for this God is our God for over and over; he will be our guide even unto death."
The religious services on this occasion closed the pub- lic worship of God in a sacred temple where it had been continued and enjoyed for eighty-eight years. A sketch was given of the Brick Church from its origin, and the preacher said : "Of God's goodness towards myself I might write volumes without exhausting the theme. . . . It is a coincidence which an old man may be pardoned for taking notice of, that this day, on which we now meet, completes the fiftieth year of our married life. It was on the twenty-fifth of May, 1806, the Lord's day, that we were united in bonds not to be severed but by death. This twenty-fifth of May, 1856. also the Lord's day, celebrates our . golden wedding.' . . . . Thirteen of our children were born in the midst of you, and bap- tized in this house of God. Six of the fifteen have died since our connection with you, and you have sympa- thized with our trials and liberally provided for our wants. . . . Your unexpected bounty to us, two years ago, when I was thousands of miles from you. and knew not of the generous arrangement so nobly made in order
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to relieve the solicitude of the evening of our days, demands this grateful and public acknowledgment."
This was a munificent benefaction of five thousand dollars a year salary from the congregation to their faithful pastor, and communicated to him by letter of June 13, 1854, and signed by a committee of the fol- lowing gentlemen : Horace Holden, Samuel Marsh, Mo- ses Allen, Ira Bliss, and Guy Richards, -some of whom, to use their own language, "have sat under your minis- try for more than forty years, and during that long pe- riod can bear testimony to your untiring industry, your unbending integrity in the exhibition of Gospel truth amid conflicts and parties, and your entire devotion to the appropriate duties of the ministry."
In the most tender and pathetic manner, the venerable preacher closed his discourse, and among his last words on this occasion were : " Farewell, then, thou endeared . house of God ! thou companion and friend of my youth, thou comforter of my later years, thou scene of trial and of repose, of apprehension and of hope, of sorrow and of joy, of man's infirmity and of God's omnipotent grace. farewell ! Sweet pulpit, farewell ! Blessed altar, fare- well ! Throne of grace, as here erected, and where God no longer records his name, farewell !"'
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