The history of the Broadway tabernacle church, from its organization in 1840 to the close of 1900, including factors influencing its formation, Part 14

Author: Ward, Susan Hayes, 1838- nn
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: New York [The Trow print]
Number of Pages: 408


USA > New York > New York City > The history of the Broadway tabernacle church, from its organization in 1840 to the close of 1900, including factors influencing its formation > Part 14


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


" He was a remarkable preacher. Year in and year out as I listened to him I could not help but feel that this was pre-eminently true. He always had an aim, and he always worked his sermon toward that aim with a scholarly carefulness of arrangement, a force of logic and method, which made the sermon culminate to a height and heat which are rarely known in pulpit ministrations. In the pulpit he was evidently master of his subject. He held his aim constantly in view, and every sentence was a step toward that aim. I could not help writing to him once in our early association together as pastor and parishioner, a brief note something like this: 'Charles Lamb said once "I do not know why we should say grace after meals, and not after Milton," and I feel like saying grace after the sermon we had to-day.' Tender and beautiful was his response, full of the overflow of his great, warm, generous heart."


A masculine, tender nature breathed through these sermons -manuscript sermons, which he read, it is true-but when with utter self-forgetfulness he poured out his soul through them in simple words that could be " understanded of the peo- ple," those words, written though they were, flashed straight from the heart of the preacher to the hearts of his hearers and fairly drove them into the kingdom. Not only were the preaching services crowded, but young people of the Sunday- school began to flock into the church. The church clerk writes, the year following that of Dr. Taylor's settlement :


" It was a joyous sight to see these new disciples coming forward to consecrate themselves publicly to the work of the Master, coming, two and three at a time, from one household; parents coming because their children had shown them the way; parents coming with their children;


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husband and wife, brother and sister, coming hand in hand. These scenes will long linger in our memories and mark this year as a precious one to us as a church."


At the end of twenty years Dr. Taylor had admitted six hundred to the church, on confession of faith.


Though the pew rentals were raised after the Tabernacle was altered and renovated, pews were readily let, and the manager of the department of strangers was sorely tried in his efforts to find seats for the throng from outside the so- ciety who pressed in, Sunday after Sunday, crowding the aisles ; many standing throughout the entire service after every seat had been filled. In 1876 the trustees passed a vote that any seat not occupied at the close of the first anthem at each ser- vice might be filled with strangers, by the ushers. Mr. Joel E. Fisher, who, until the close of 1886, managed this depart- ment, was obliged, year after year, to remind pew holders that their pews were reserved for them " only until the close of the opening chant." Since 1886 the responsibility of receiving and seating strangers, whether met by a " Reception Commit- tee " or a " Board of Ushers," has devolved upon Mr. Charles E. Whittemore. From 1876 there was a gradual rise in the number of pews let until 1888, when a decline set in, followed in 1898 by a rise that still continues.


According to the rules of the society any one who has paid for one or more sittings, who is of legal age and has been an attendant at the Tabernacle for a year, is registered as a member and is entitled to vote at its meetings. The rule read " every male person " until 1871, when, on motion of Deacon W. H. Smith, the words were changed to "any person."


A mortgage had been put on the Tabernacle property, in 1872, to raise the money pledged by the society to its former pastor; the repairs and alterations in the church building largely increased the indebtedness of the society. An assess- ment, on account of the widening of Broadway, was contested by the trustees, but decided adversely in 1875, when the amount due the city with interest amounted to $18,300. Four thousand dollars was paid that year to reduce the indebted-


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THE THIRD PASTOR, WILLIAM MACKERGO TAYLOR


ness which was reported at the close of the year as $106,000. , This widening of Broadway, and the building of the elevated road, cost the trustees many anxious hours. In 1873 a com- mittee was appointed to "oppose the Gilbert elevated rail- road bill " at Albany, but that effort, too, was unsuccessful. At the annual meeting in 1876, after a subscription of $50,000 had been paid, the debt was brought down to $62,000; in 1878, to $50,000; in 1880, to $41,000. In 1882, on Dr. Tay- lor's tenth anniversary, a subscription was raised of over $30,- 000 toward building a church for the Bethany Mission, and the next year the debt stood at $37,000 plus an indebtedness of $16,000 on account of the purchase of property and the building of the Bethany Church, making a total of $53,000. In 1885 the total was $50,000; in 1886, $47,000. In 1887, on the fifteenth anniversary of Dr. Taylor's settlement, after the sermon, $13,000 was raised in about fifteen minutes, $22,- 000 having been already pledged. That left the Thirty-fourth Street property clear of debt, though there was yet an in- debtedness of $10,000 on Bethany.


During these years the society was in various ways promot- ing the comfort of the pastor-now paying his cottage rent, now buying for him a lot where he might bury his dead, or voting an extra allowance for the travelling expenses of his family, or his own passage to Europe, or to the Ecumenical Conference in London, or $1,000 for extra expenses, and steadily advancing his salary until by 1881 it stood at $16,- 000. But the church debt had been from the first a burden on Dr. Taylor's mind. A few extracts from a letter writ- ten by him to an absent member of the Tabernacle Church, who had asked for a letter of dismissal, illustrates this, as well as another point upon which he had strong convictions. The letter is dated September 19, 1878. He says:


"I cannot write you on the subject without saying how heartily I approve the course you are following. Of course I am sorry to have the connection subsisting between us heretofore thus formally ended, but I know it can never be really ended, and I am sure that it will be more for your good, more for your efficiency as a Christian worker


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and a great deal more encouraging to Mr. - that you are enrolled among his church members. I have always held that as a general rule it is best for people to connect themselves with the church nearest to their stated residence, and I have a kind of contempt for those city ministers who make it difficult for their members to ask a dismission when they go into the country, merely that they may keep the number on their own roll up to some great figure. So while it is never pleasant to part with members, I am yet glad that you have resolved to go with all your heart into - church. I may add that I envy you the high privilege of belonging to a church that has no debt. Alas! the Taber- nacle is not in the honored list! By dint of a great effort-judged at least by the exertion I had to make, but not very great after all when judged by results-we have after three years paid nearly $50,000; but there are still $50,000, and I fear it will be some considerable time before any more will be done in the direction of liquidation. I am very sorry; because, if we had that debt paid, I would see my way at once, to get a permanent home for the mission on 36th St. and 9th Avenue (in which you and your sister were so deeply interested) ; and its support could then come out of the Tabernacle pew-rentals. But as it is, the surplus must go to pay off debt, and anything like a mission building of our own seems to me as yet in nubibus. I tell you all this to increase your gratitude at joining a church without debt, and to deepen in your heart the determination always to oppose the contracting of a debt by a Christian church. It is sure to cripple something, and generally, if it do not pare down the pastor's salary, it does contract the church's efforts for missions."


" The church's efforts for missions!" How often those words were on his lips! Next to preaching the Word to his own people " efforts for missions" absorbed Dr. Taylor's thoughts. To build up Congregationalism did not concern him. Though loyal by word and act to the denomination of which he had become a member, he never outgrew his sym- pathy with Presbyterianism. He fraternized with Presby- terians naturally, and, in New York City, found among them his ministerial brethren. He lectured at Yale and had warm friends there, but he loved Princeton, and Dr. McCosh, a fel- low Ayrshire man. Yet, though he cared nothing for de- nominational politics, he worked enthusiastically with all his heart for all our Congregational missionary enterprises. An hour with genial Dr. Clapp, in the Home Missionary rooms,


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THE THIRD PASTOR, WILLIAM MACKERGO TAYLOR


was more to him any Monday morning than the formal gath- ering of the Ministers' Club; the American Board with all its interests was dear to him; he was a member of its Execu- tive Committee; he was president of the American Mission- ary Association, and, long before he became its president, he had taken a deep interest in its work and brought to it his own personal influence. It was in the traditions of his church to be interested in the "A. M. A .; " Dr. Thomas Ritter, of the Tabernacle, had been one of its stanch upholders in the days when anti-slavery men looked askance at the American Board, and its Treasurer, Mr. Hubbard, was Dr. Taylor's parishioner. By the dignity of his manner, and his great force of character, he gave distinction to its anniversary meetings over which he presided from 1882 to 1892. He was also president of the American Congregational Union-now the Congregational Church Building Society-from 1885 to 1895. The story of Dr. Taylor's work in connection with the last-named society reads almost like a romance.


In February, 1882, Dr. L. H. Cobb had been called from service as Home Missionary Superintendent and Secretary to the secretaryship of the Congregational Union. Knowing as he did the needs of the home mission field, one of the first questions that occurred to him in his new work was: Why does not this society build parsonages as well as houses of worship for home missionary churches? Indeed, this had been one of the avowed objects of the Congregational Union at its first formation in the old Tabernacle nearly thirty years be- fore. At Dr. Cobb's suggestion, at the meeting of the Board in March, 1882, a committee had been appointed to devise a plan for aiding parsonage building. This committee consisted of two Tabernacle men, Treasurer N. A. Calkins and Dr. A. H. Clapp, with Secretary Cobb, who came into the church some years later. Dr. Taylor told the rest of the story in his sermon preached, in the Tabernacle Church, on " The Lit- tle Chamber on the Wall :"


" At the Annual Meeting of the American Congregational Union, held in May, 1883, I happened as one of the vice-presidents of the society,


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to occupy the chair, in the necessary absence of the president. On that occasion the secretary [Dr. Cobb] read a most admirable report which contained the following sentences: 'Grants to aid in parsonage build- ing have been voted to fourteen churches. . Six have finished their houses and the grants have been paid to them amounting to $1,433. No ink they can find is strong enough to write their gratitude. There will remain a balance of $21.03 with which to begin the work of the coming year. We desire to call special attention to the left-over legacy on this branch of our work. It is in the form of fifty-six urgent applications for aid in building greatly needed homes for ministers. To do anything like justice to our brethren at the front in their great need of homes, the Union will absolutely require and ought to have not less than $25,000 for this work during the year on which we have already entered. Will the churches take it up? . . There were many other important matters referred to in the report . but at its close the only thing I could think of was the appeal which I have read, the echoes of which have never ceased, since then, to reverberate in my heart."


Dr. Cobb says that when he mentioned the "left-over legacy " Dr. Taylor began to listen more intently, and at the close of this report he rose and said that he was deeply inter- ested in it, but there was one thing that warmly enlisted his sympathy. It was what the report had said of the need of homes for home missionaries :


" It distresses me to think of my brethren on the Home Missionary field living in board shanties, log huts and the like while doing our work."


Turning to Dr. Cobb he said, "If you wish it and my church will let me, I will go out with you among the churches and raise the $25,000 of which you have spoken."


" You may consider yourself invited," said Dr. Cobb. Then Dr. Taylor turned to Mr. William H. Smith, the senior deacon of his church, who was on the platform, and asked, "Can I go, Deacon?" " Yes, in vacation," answered the deacon, jok- ingly. "I won't go in vacation, I'll go in school time," re- plied the Doctor; "I want my church to share in the work of raising this fund."


It was not, however, until April, 1884, that a beginning was made in Providence and Pawtucket, R. I., when more


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than $1,000 was raised. His next attempt was made with Dr. Cobb, later in the year. He said of this trip, in the ser- mon quoted above :


" On Tuesday last, in Boston, after a meeting on Monday evening, we got in the course of four hours the sum of $2,700. No one on whom I called refused. One gentleman gave me $500. Some half dozen gave me $250 each, and others smaller sums. As I was returning to New York on the cars the same afternoon I met a gentleman belonging to the Episcopal Church . and in the course of conversation with him I happened to tell him as a matter of interest what I had been doing in Boston. He said little for a time, but when we went into the dining car for some refreshments he put thirty dollars in gold into my hand, saying : 'I know all about the hardships of these missionaries and would like to give you something myself.' Then after we got through dinner, he said, ' I find I have more money in my pocket than I thought I had. I would like to make that thirty into fifty dollars,' which he did. Dr. Cobb was in another car, and I hastened to tell him of the unexpected gift [happy as a boy, Dr. Cobb says]. As I was speaking to him, a gentleman in the seat before that in which he was sitting, overhearing what I was telling him, turned, and said: 'I read about that, this morn- ing, in the Boston paper, and I want to give you something too.' So he handed me five dollars. These unlooked-for incidents made me feel that God is, indeed, with me in this enterprise."


The Tabernacle Church, too, felt that God was with him and did not withhold their gifts. Besides supplying the pul- pit during the three Sabbaths of their pastor's absence they contributed $5,000 to the fund, and Dr. Taylor, after a Western trip with the secretary, after making appeals in several Brook- lyn churches, writing numerous letters early in 1885, and call- ing in person on many individuals, had the great joy of see- ing the fund, during that year, amount to $27,000. The April issue of the Church Building Quarterly, 1895, was a " Par- sonage Number," in commemoration of Dr. Taylor and his noble work for home missionaries. In it, among many pictures of parsonages built by help of this fund, is a view of the " Tay- lor Parsonage," named in his honor, in Great Bend, Kansas. The missionaries' letters written from their new parsonages overflow with gratitude. One of them wisely says: "These home missionary parsonages are Dr. Taylor's monuments."


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The Student Volunteer Movement owes its existence, indi- rectly, to Dr. Taylor. Mr. L. D. Wishard, who holds Dr. Taylor as " one of the greatest preachers and foreign mission- ary pastors this country ever had," writes as follows :


" In January, 1876, Dr. Taylor was suddenly called to Princeton to preach to the students on the Day of Prayer for Colleges. He delivered on that occasion one of the greatest sermons I ever heard from him on the text 'Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.' We who were identified with that greatest revival in Princeton's history have always felt that Dr. Taylor had an important part through that sermon in bringing about that great spiritual uprising. On the evening of that day, after hearing a second sermon from him in the village church, a large number of students made a public announcement of their accept- ance of Christ. Their action was not exclusively the result of Dr. Tay- lor's sermon. Nearly a hundred Christian men had been spending the entire day in personal appeals to the students to become Christians. The sermon, however, did its part, and a very important part it was.


" The uplift which the revival gave to the spiritual life of the insti- tution paved the way in a large measure for the movement which Princeton students made within a year to enlist the students of all of our leading colleges and universities in an intercollegiate Christian union. This union was known as the Intercollegiate Young Men's Christian Association. Two years after the Intercollegiate Association was formed a foreign missionary department was created in the Asso- ciation. This foreign missionary department is now known as the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions."


Mr. Wishard was connected with the movement as its originator and organizing secretary from 1877 until 1888. In January, 1880, Mr. Wishard submitted a statement concern- ing the aim and methods of the movement to Dr. Taylor, who gave his hearty endorsement of it. At that time Mr. Wishard was entertaining a call to an important position on the for- eign mission field, but his departure would leave the Inter- collegiate Movement without a leader. Again he sought Dr. Taylor's counsel, who gave him, says Mr. Wishard, advice in substance as follows:


" You fully realize how natural it would be for me with my deep interest in foreign missions to advise you to go to the foreign mission


!


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THE THIRD PASTOR, WILLIAM MACKERGO TAYLOR


field. I think I see, however, a service before you in this country as leader of the missionary movement among students which is far more significant than any service you can render single handed upon the mission field. You have evidently been providentially called to the direction of this movement at home, and my judgment is that you should not turn aside from such an opening unless God compels you to do so."


He said further :


" I have been guided about a number of matters in my life by a principle which I would commend to you. I have never felt at liberty to leave an existing work until I not only saw an open door before me but also a closed door behind me. I have recently had an urgent call to an important and attractive field in a neighboring city. The Taber- nacle, however, has very strong claims on me. They have assumed obligations in connection with my pastorate which I cannot ignore. The door before me is undoubtedly open, but the door behind me is not closed."


As a result of this counsel Mr. Wishard remained to carry on the Volunteer Movement. Until now more than 1,600 of its men have gone to foreign mission fields from this country, while five hundred more have gone from British universities.


From October, 1876, to June, 1880, Dr. Taylor was editor- in-chief of The Christian at Work-now Christian Work. Major Marshall H. Bright, editor of the Christian Work, writes of Dr. Taylor's connection with that journal as fol- lows :


" It was in October, 1876, that the precipitate retirement of the ther editor of the Christian Work, which occurred at the very instant when the paper was going to press, required an immediate selection of an editor-in-chief who should be a representative man and preferably a preacher and a strong one. It was also very desirable that the an- nouncement of his coming should be made without the delay of an issue. My suggestion at the time of the Rev. Dr. Taylor as the future editor was no sooner made than accepted, and I immediately called upon the doctor at his residence. The proposition was laid before him and it is a tribute to his decision of character that it only required the


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pause of a few minutes, when he replied, 'Yes-I will take the editor- ship you offer ; but each party must be at liberty to cancel the engage- ment at any time.' Dr. Taylor, as I have reason to believe, without the knowledge of any one outside of his immediate family, devoted his entire salary as editor to beneficence, appropriating no part to himself.


"Dr. Taylor's editorial work has long been recognized and will not be forgotten. But I may say this of it-it was emphatically up to date. No part of an old sermon, I believe, was ever made available for an editorial, although it might admirably have served the purpose. But Dr. Taylor would have none of it. He was a careful and close reader of the best current literature in philosophy and theology, and especially of the foreign reviews; and the fruits of his reading appeared in the leading editorial article, which generally comprised from eight hundred to a thousand words. Dr. Taylor did not believe in very short editorials, and displayed the same earnestness, intensity and clearness of thought, and accuracy of statement in journalistic work that characterized his


sermons. . Speaking of his editorial writing he once said to me, 'It seems easy; not only must but one subject be treated, but generally but one phase of a subject, and yet sometimes it comes more difficult for me to write an editorial than a sermon.'


" Dr. Taylor was a very conservative man in his views on the ques- tion of Evolution. He then regarded the doctrine as amenable to the Scotch verdict 'not proven'; and while he would not distinctly enter the lists against it, he was fond of quoting some jest or witticism put forth by an opponent of the doctrine. Conservative in the field of science his writings showed him a moderate conservative in the depart- ment of theology. Here perhaps he was more liberal in thought than in his expression of it.


"Dr. Taylor was not only of Scottish birth but a devoted Scot in feeling. He quite resented being spoken of as 'an Englishman.' Once when a religious paper alluded to him as ' Dr. Taylor, late of Liverpool,' he exclaimed 'Why do they do that? I am a Scotchman and not an Englishman. But they cannot expatriate me if they try.' For a long time, it may be added, Dr. Taylor refused to become naturalized, and this not so much because of his fondness for his native land, but chiefly because of the dominance of misrule in this city and elsewhere.


"Dr. Taylor's sense of justice was not the least attractive element of his character. On one occasion an editorial appeared in Christian Work reflecting, and as it afterward appeared unjustly, upon the man- agement of an important department of the work of the Presbyterian church. Expostulations and protests came in by nearly every mail. When I next saw him Dr. Taylor showed me some of the letters and inquired who the writer of the article was. Upon being informed, he said he would write him, which he did, asking for his authority. The


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reply giving the authority was regarded by him, and I believe rightly, as inadequate. Thereupon he wrote a short editorial article for the next issue recalling 'the censure so mistakenly and unjustly visited upon the Presbyterian Church by the writer of the editorial in ques- tion.' I may add that as the writer was a friend of both Dr. Taylor and myself, I asked him if he would not somewhat modify the expres- sion of his condemnation, but this he refused to do. He said an injustice had been perpetrated so distinctly that it must as distinctly be recalled.


" Only once was there the semblance of attrition between the doctor and myself. On this occasion there was pretty sharp discussion over the policy of the paper upon some matter-I forget now just what it was. I had expressed myself quite forcibly-more so probably than I had just cause for doing-when Dr. Taylor proceeded to answer me in his most emphatic manner : 'Let me tell you-let me tell you '-and then coming to an abrupt pause and evidently with effort putting him- self under control, his whole tone and bearing changing, he said, plac- ing his hand on my shoulder, 'If we discuss any further one or both of us will say something we shall regret. Come down and lunch with me.' That settled it: it was the end of all controversy: it was a fine example of self-control and served-as how could it fail ?- to increase my admiration for the man."




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