The history of the Broadway tabernacle church, from its organization in 1840 to the close of 1900, including factors influencing its formation, Part 4

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 4


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


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Finney arose and told the story of his conversion. With this his revival work began. Night by night the people gathered for conference and prayer, and the community of the town, reaching far into its outskirts, was powerfully moved, the re- vival going on all winter. Soon he visited his parents in Hen- derson, staying but a few days, and there the same results followed his words. His father and mother were among the first converts.


In the spring he offered himself to the presbytery as a can- didate for the Gospel ministry. They urged upon him a theo- logical course in Princeton, which he declined. His pastor was then appointed to superintend his theological studies; but the two were diametrically opposed to each other in theological thought. Mr. Gale urged the doctrine of original sin, of man's inability to comply with the Gospel terms. He taught, so Mr. Finney understood, that the Spirit of God acted directly upon the nature and substance of man's soul without any action of the will itself; that man was passive in regeneration and that Jesus literally paid the debt of the elect. He limited the atone- ment to the elect and held that men were free to all evil but not free to all good, and that God condemned them for the sinful nature they inherited. This old straw they threshed over and over again. Mr. Finney would go away discouraged, saying he could find none of these doctrines in the Bible, and a saintly old elder who believed in the Old School doctrines, but also in Mr. Finney, and who prayed for him daily as long as he lived, would go with him to his room, where till late in the evening they would pray together for more light and strength and faith.


Notwithstanding his New School theology, after two years of study, Mr. Finney was licensed to preach by the presbytery, though he refused to surrender his judgment or reason to the teaching of his theological guide. It speaks well for both of these men that they remained warm friends, respecting and lov- ing each other through all their differences. Later Mr. Gale came around in many respects to his pupil's way of thinking.


In ministerial practice, too, Mr. Finney differed from the


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DR. FINNEY'S WORK IN NEW YORK


preachers about him. His training had been for the law, and he believed in the lawyer's practice of presenting his proposi- tions and repeating points and arguments over and over until he had persuaded and convinced his hearers of their truth. He refused to read his sermons, but persisted in arguing his case for an hour or more, frequently preaching an hour and a half, with irresistible force. The hearer all the time felt that Mr. Finney was talking to him personally rather than preaching before an audience. That was the usual effect upon his hearers. It was the effect he aimed at. He did not speak about sinners in the abstract, but he talked to the individual sinners before him. The simplicity of his manner and diction was in marked contrast with that of most preachers of his time. Their ser- mons were apt to degenerate into literary essays with fine writ- ing and classical illustrations. Mr. Finney, like our Lord, drew his illustrations from common every-day life; he used the words of daily speech that all could understand; his one aim was to persuade and convert men, and he meant to hold their atten- tion at all hazards.


In March, 1824, he began work as a home missionary in the northern part of the county, having taken a commission for six months from a woman's missionary society in Oneida County. Revivals began wherever he went. The means used he enumerates : "preaching, prayer, and conference meetings, much private prayer, much personal conversation, and meetings for the instruction of earnest inquirers." * No other means were employed by him in this missionary work.


To illustrate the simplicity of Mr. Finney's sermons, we are told that some one on being asked if he had heard the revivalist preach replied, "I have been to Mr. Finney's meeting. He doesn't preach; he only explains what other people preach." But his whole nature was simple, and he took no thought as to manner or style in public or private prayer, or pulpit utter- ances; he merely went straight to his point, a habit he carried through life which gave rise to many popular stories about him. Mrs. Olive Thorne Miller tells an incident which illus-


* Finney's Memoirs of Charles G. Finney, p. 77.


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trates this. Her mother, though not a trained singer, had a sweet and sympathetic voice most acceptable in the choir, and Mr. Finney set a high value upon music in church services. Perhaps the famous church choir of Oberlin, and Dr. Warner's magnificent gifts to Oberlin's musical department, may be traced to Dr. Finney's influence. However that may be, seeing one Sunday morning this lady seated in the audience at the Oberlin church, just as he was about to give out a hymn, he beckoned her with his finger, and, motioning toward the choir, called out, " Mary, Mary, come up here." In his " Memoirs " * he tells very simply of one of his prayers and its answer: "I had begun to need clothes and had once, not long before, spoken to the Lord about it, that my clothes were getting shabby, but it had not occurred to me again." The sequel hardly needs to be told. Some kind-hearted man who had attended his services and had recognized his need sent a tailor from a neighboring city to take his measure for a new suit.


A marked feature of the revivals that followed Mr. Finney's labors was the prevailing spirit of prayer. He, and the Chris- tians who worked with him, felt the burden of souls, and prayed with intense fervor. He says: +


" A spirit of importunity sometimes came upon me so that I would say to God that He had made a promise to answer prayer, and I could not, and would not be denied. I felt so certain He would hear me, and that faithfulness to His promises and to Himself rendered it impossible that He should not hear and answer, that frequently I found myself saying to Him, 'I hope Thou dost not think that I can be denied. I come with Thy faithful promises in my hand, and I cannot be denied.' I cannot tell how absurd unbelief looked to me, and how certain it was, in my mind, that God would answer prayer-those prayers that, from day to day, and from hour to hour, I found myself offering in such agony and faith."


The more powerful outpouring of the Spirit of God for which he had agonized began in his visit to Western, in Oneida County. This was the beginning of a remarkable series known as the " Western revivals." Three thousand souls were numbered


* P. 138. + Memoirs, p. 142.


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DR. FINNEY'S WORK IN NEW YORK


among the converts within the limits of Oneida Presbytery. Large towns-Rome, Utica, Auburn, Troy-were included in this movement, which covered the years 1826 and 1827. Mr. Finney went from town to town, and in every place multitudes were gathered into the churches. Such a wonderful religious upheaval could not fail to provoke criticism. Some reports de- rogatory to Mr. Finney's doctrines and practices were circulated industriously at the East, and Dr. Lyman Beecher, and Mr. Net- tleton, the New England revivalist, opposed Mr. Finney and showed suspicion of his " new revival methods " in a convention held in New Lebanon, N. Y., for the sake of examining into this evangelistic work which had begun to attract the attention of all Christian leaders in the country. The charges, which ap- pear to have been brought in a friendly way, without acrimony, were not sustained or proven, and Mr. Finney continued his work with increasing success, going still farther afield. He vis- ited Wilmington, Del .; Reading, Pa .; and Philadelphia, spend- ing more than a year in the latter city, and growing more as- sured of his methods as God gave him success, and more con- fident of results.


Up to this time he had not preached in New York. Although many earnest Christians were eager for him to begin work in the city, the ministers hesitated to ask him. It was Anson G. Phelps, the Christian layman and philanthropist, who, having learned that Mr. Finney had not been invited to any New York pulpit, hired a vacant church in Vandewater Street and urged him to come and preach there. Dr. Lansing, of Auburn, and Dr. Beman, of Troy, who had rejoiced in his labors in their own churches, accompanied him and remained with him for a week at Mr. Phelps's house, where a succession of prayer- meetings was held. As the church could be hired for only three months, before the time expired Mr. Phelps bought a house of worship in Prince Street, where a church was soon organized.


The New York Evangelist, established about the time that Mr. Finney first appeared in New York, was devoted to the interests of evangelistic revival work, and maintained the prin-


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ciples of the New School party, though this was some years before the division of the Presbyterian Church. In an issue of The Evangelist, May 29, 1830, appears a note on Mr. Finney's revival work. It states that the Union Presbyterian Church was organized October 13, 1829,* and goes on to say :


" Soon afterwards Rev. C. G. Finney commenced a course of labor there which has continued until the present time. . . . From the re- sults of this revival one hundred and three persons have joined this church by profession and forty-two by letter. Many have united with other churches. Probably more than two hundred have been hope- fully renewed by the power of the Holy Ghost. The work is still progressing."


But little more than a month later another result of Mr. Fin- ney's work is noticed in the issue of June 20th :


" A Hall has been hired in Thames Street, near Broadway, being a room formerly occupied by the Rev. Dr. Romeyn's church as a lecture room. It is conveniently fitted up and will contain about four hundred persons. Several people belonging to other churches have formed an association to worship in this place. An invitation has been given to the Rev. Joel Parker, of Rochester, New York, to become the minister. He has accepted the call and will commence his ministry in this city the next Lord's Day."


.


Mr. Parker, it should be noted, had been an active worker with Mr. Finney in the " Western revivals." This church to which Mr. Parker was called became known as the First Free Presbyterian Church of New York, and was organized by Mr. Lewis Tappan, aided by his brother Arthur, Dr. James C. Bliss, and some others who wished to introduce new and more practical measures for the conversion of men. They upheld the theory, popular with the more active evangelistic workers of that period and not yet wholly out of date, that churches should be free to all, and that they should be planted where the population is densest. There was no rapid transit in those days; horse cars were unknown, and church goers went to their Sabbath Day services on foot or by private conveyance. It seemed necessary


* Mr. Finney gives the date of his first preaching in New York as 1830, but it could not have been later than August, 1829.


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to these devoted brethren, the Christian Endeavorers of their day, to multiply churches, in order to accommodate the grow- ing population of the city. The cost of the work fell upon the few men who had both means and Christian enthusiasm. Mr. Arthur Tappan, whose princely generosity always equalled if it did not outrun his financial ability, gave the use of the Masonic Hall, of which he had the lease, until the term ex- pired and aided the enterprise materially in other ways. Seven of these churches were formed in the course of a few years in New York City, and great numbers of people were attracted to them and brought into their membership.


Shortly after the formation of this church, Mr. Finney closed his meetings in New York City, and took up his evangelistic work in other towns in New York State and in New England, especially in Boston. During the eighteen months following Mr. Finney's departure, New York churches and ministers did much to promote a more earnest religious life in the city. Pro- tracted meetings were held in several churches lasting three or four days, and summer morning prayer-meetings at half-past five were frequent and well attended. Churches multiplied. A Congregational Church was organized, December, 1831, and on Tuesday, February 14, 1832, the Second Free Presbyterian Church of the city of New York was constituted with forty-one members, mostly colonists from the First Free Church under Rev. Joel Parker's care. Their first place of worship was Broadway Hall, just above Canal Street. Out of this Second Free Church, in the course of eight years, the present Broad- way Tabernacle Church was evolved.


For ten years Mr. Finney had gone from place to place, labor- ing incessantly as an evangelist ; now with strength overstrained and with a strong desire to establish for his wife, three children, and himself a settled home, it is not surprising that he felt in- clined to listen to the suggestion that he should become the pas- tor of this new church.


Six months before, July 23, 1831, The Evangelist had pub- lished an account of a plan for a large, substantial building in a central part of the city, to accommodate from 5,000 to 6,000


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persons, with seats free and open to all; three preaching ser- vices on the Lord's day, and one or two during the week; the pulpit to be supplied by the different clergymen of the city, in turn, except occasionally by clergymen from abroad visiting in town. Such a building, the writer declared, was much needed as a place for the annual meetings of the various benevolent societies. These " May Meetings " brought many strangers to the city, and, for want of such a central house, many hundreds of Christians were debarred from attendance. This subject was offered for the consideration of business men, especially, who would be likely to see the need of some such accommodation as the resort of many strangers constantly visiting the city. The appeal closed, " I feel confident that there are many thou- sands in this city who are not professedly Christians who would contribute liberally toward this object if they had oppor- tunity."


It was soon decided to secure, if possible, the lease of the Chatham Street Theatre; and a public meeting was held at which Mr. Arthur Tappan presided. Eight thousand dollars was subscribed, and Messrs. Lewis Tappan, William Green, Jr., and others associated in this enterprise, purchased the lease of the theatre for a period of ten years, and fitted it up as a place of worship for the Second Free Presbyterian Church. It would seat at least 2,000 persons, and Mr. Fin- ney accepted the call to become pastor of the church. The opening of this building, known for some years as the Chat- ham Street Chapel, and used for May Meetings and for anti- slavery gatherings, was an important occasion for those in- terested in the movement for bringing the church to the people and drawing them in to hear the gospel. The chapel was dedicated Monday, April 23, 1832, at half-past five in the morning, to allow business men and their employees to be present. From 1,000 to 2,000 attended the solemn ser- vices at that early hour. The second Sunday following, Mr. Finney preached morning and evening, administering the Lord's Supper in the afternoon, the First Free Church join- ing in the ordinance. Vast congregations attended during all


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the exercises, and the speaker's voice-so the newspaper report read-was distinctly heard in all parts of the house.


At once revival work began, continuing through the spring and summer; but that was the trying cholera year, and the panic in New York sent vast crowds into the country, from 70,000 to 100,000 people leaving the city. Mr. Finney re- mained at his post, not wishing to leave while the mortality was so great, especially in the vicinity of his own house, where he once counted five hearses drawn up at the same time at different doors within sight. After a few weeks' rest, late in the summer, he returned for his installation on the even- ing of October 5th; but during the services he was taken ill. His next door neighbor, who was also seized with the cholera about the same time, died that night, but in three weeks Mr. Finney was well on the road to recovery, and, toward spring, he resumed his church work. For twenty evenings in succes- sion he preached, in addition to his Sunday services, and as a result of this faithful seed-sowing, five hundred converts were numbered, and a new colony set off, organized, Decem- ber 6th, as the Third Free Presbyterian Church.


Mr. Finney himself describes the workers who were united in the Free Church of which he was pastor. Many of them were, later, gathered into the first organization of the Broad- way Tabernacle. He says of them:


" The Church were a working, praying people. They were thor- oughly united, were well trained in regard to labors for the conversion of sinners, and were a most devoted and efficient church of Christ. They would go out into the highways and hedges, and bring people to hear preaching, whenever they were called upon to do so. Both men and women would undertake this work. When we wished to give notice of any extra meetings, little slips of paper, on which was printed an invitation to attend the services, would be carried from house to house, in every direction, by the members of the church; especially in that part of the city in which Chatham Street Chapel, as we called it, was located. . Our ladies were not afraid to go and gather in all classes from the neighborhood round about. There were three rooms, connected with the front part of the theatre, long, large rooms, which were fitted up for prayer meetings and for a lecture room. . I instructed my church members to scatter themselves over the whole


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house, and to keep their eyes open in regard to any that were seriously affected under preaching, for conversation and prayer. They were true to their teaching and were on the lookout at every meeting to see with whom the word of God was taking effect; and they had faith enough to dismiss their fears and to speak to any whom they saw to be affected by the Word. In this way the conversion of a great many souls was secured. They would invite them into those rooms, and there we could converse and pray with them, and thus gather up the results of every sermon. . .


. A more harmonious, prayerful, and efficient people I never knew than were the members of those free churches. They were not among the rich, although there were several men of property be- longing to them. In general they were gathered from the middle and lower classes of the people. This was what we aimed to accomplish, to preach the Gospel especially to the poor." *


In its issue of November 2, 1833, The Evangelist stated in defending the "Free Church " system that the original com- pany of four families had been enlarged into three congrega- tions who had gathered already six hundred converts and put forward thirty of their young men to study for the ministry.


In the autumn of 1834 Rev. Joel Parker, after having preached for some months in New Orleans, was dismissed from the First Free Presbyterian Church to accept a call to that city, where $40,000 had been subscribed to build a church if he would consent to occupy its pulpit. His farewell sermon was preached before an immense audience in Chatham Street Chapel.


During the year 1834 Mr. Finney took a voyage for his health to the Mediterranean, and was absent until late autumn. While abroad, the mob riots of 1834 occurred in which Aboli- tion leaders and clergymen of anti-slavery sentiment were attacked, their houses beaten in, or otherwise injured, while many colored citizens had not only their houses wrecked, but a school and seven of their houses of worship destroyed or badly injured. Mr. Finney's anti-slavery sentiments were pro- nounced and well known, although before leaving home he had counselled his zealous friend and supporter, Rev. Joshua Leavitt, editor of The Evangelist, to hasten slowly along that good way. On Mr. Finney's return, at the communion service * Memoirs of Charles G. Finney, pp. 321-324.


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at the chapel, November 3d, he invited to the communion pro- fessing Christians, but forbade slave-holders, not recognizing as Christians those who held men in slavery, and who claimed a right of property in the bodies and souls of their fellow- men. A slave-holder present said: " The preacher was rather hard upon me, but he was right." Mr. Finney said that he would not undertake to say all slave-holders were not Chris- tians, but, for one, he could not recognize men as such who trafficked in the bodies and souls of men .* Thus he placed himself squarely with the unpopular altruistic party.


Owing to Mr. Leavitt's enthusiastic advocacy of anti-slavery sentiments, subscribers fell off so rapidly from his paper that he appealed to Mr. Finney for aid, and, December 5th, the preacher began that famous series of " Lectures on Revivals," which, when issued in a volume, had an enormous sale in both Europe and America. This series continued for many Friday evenings. Mr. Leavitt made copious notes and pre- pared careful abstracts of these lectures which he published, and their popularity brought up his subscription list once more.


In February, 1835, Mr. Finney was appointed professor of theology in the new Collegiate Institute of Oberlin, which was about to establish a theological department. He accepted the appointment with the understanding that he was to con- tinue his preaching services in New York during the winter months.


The following winter, 1835 and 1836, he was back again at Chatham Street Chapel, and he began another course of Friday evening lectures December 18th, which Mr. Leavitt also reported. But Mr. Finney had been growing more and more out of touch with the discipline of the Presbyterian Church and with the Old School doctrines. The Princeton Biblical Repertory called upon him vehemently to leave the Presbyterian Church, and when a Sixth Free Church was organized March 13, 1836, its constitution was largely Congregational (though the deacons were made trustees of the property, and the board, for the sake of being better


* The Evangelist, November 8, 1834.


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comprehended by the public, was denominated a session), and Mr. Finney accompanied that portion of his church that organized it as their pastor. The Rev. Charles Fitch, pastor of the Free Church of Hartford, preached on that occa- sion and read the names of those who had obtained letters of dismission to constitute the new church, one hundred and eighteen in number. He also read the declaration of Prin- ciples, Rules, Confession of Faith, and Covenant * which had been agreed on, to which they gave their public assent, and then pronounced them a church, the Broadway Tabernacle Church. A prayer and anthem closed the services.


The Tabernacle from which the church took its name was situated on the east side of Broadway, between Worth, now known as Anthony Street, and Catharine Lane. The building, modified and enlarged, is now occupied by the firm of Messrs. James H. Dunham & Co. It was one hundred feet square, one hundred feet back from Broadway. Its entrance on Broad- way, about twenty-five feet wide, in the middle of the block, was secured by a lease of two lots in front of the edifice, and the rent of the double building over these nearly met the ex- pense. This entrance, extending east one hundred feet to the small yard in front of the building, when not in use, was closed with iron gates swinging in from the street. The Tabernacle stood on four lots of ground, one of which was purchased, the others hired from the estate of Peter Lorillard. It would seat comfortably about 2,500 persons; thus a great audience-room was secured in the heart of the city, yet removed from the noise of traffic and travel. The whole cost of land purchased and building, with entrance, was $66,500. The men who con- tributed the most for its erection were Mr. William Green, Jr., who paid $5,000 and lent $25,000; and Mr. Isaac M. Dimond, who contributed the same sum and lent $20,000, which was never refunded. Other subscriptions amounted to $6,000; and $5,500 was secured by bond and mortgage. The builder was Mr. Joseph Ditto. Upon Mr. Dimond and Mr. Finney de- volved almost the whole charge of superintending the contracts


.* See Appendix B.


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and the building. Of the two pictures extant of the interior of this great audience-room, that in the Memoir of David Hale is probably the earlier.


The acoustic properties of this building were unusually good. The seats were arranged in a circular fashion and wide galleries with eight tiers of seats extended the entire circuit. The orchestra and choir occupied the space back of the pul- pit, a stairway running up from the floor to the gallery in which the choir was seated, and, under the stairway, to the left, a mysterious passageway led to the pastor's study, Bible and infant class-rooms, and other departments. The offici- ating clergyman usually came from the pastor's study by a nearer way on the right of the pulpit.




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