USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > Annals of the First Presbyterian church of Cleveland, 1820-1895 > Part 2
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Dr. W. W. Atterbury, of New York, once Pastor pro tem. in Dr. Goodrich's day, writes warmly :
"Though unable to accept in person the invitation to attend the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the dear Old Stone Church, I am with you in spirit, rejoicing with you, both in the rich memories of the past, and in confident assurance through God's grace of even larger blessing and greater service in the years to come.
"I look back to my brief connection, of a little less than a year, with the First Church as one of the happiest seasons of my life. It was a privilege to preach in the pulpit of my much loved friend, Dr. Goodrich, to minister to his people as a pastor during his enforced absence, and for his sake to be received into the hearts and homes of those who so tenderly loved him. It has, too, been a privilege to maintain the friendships then formed ; and the hope of meeting again those elect men and women, whom I then learned to know and love, makes Heaven seem less strange and unreal.
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"But though some of the choicest and dearest have finished their work here and gone before, doubtless others, faithful and true, have been and will be raised up to take the vacant places, and thus the Lord's work will be carried on by that grand church, until he come again, and saints on earth and saints in Heaven unite in celebrating his completed work."
Mr. H. M. Flagler writes from New York :
"I am in receipt of your invitation to be present at and participate in the exercises commemorative of the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the organization of the First Presbyterian Church of Cleveland, and I desire to express in more than a formal manner, my regret that I will be unable to be present.
"I have ever held in thankful remembrance the memory of my connection with the Old Stone Church, and I recall the years of my connection with it as the most profitable of my Christian experience. You may rest assured that you have my best wishes and most earnest prayers for its spiritual and temporal prosperity."
Mr. G. W. Stockley, a former member, writes from Lakewood, N. J .:
"I am sincerely obliged to the committee for the invitation to attend the commemorative exercises of the dear old 'First Church,' or the 'Stone Church,' as I like to remember it. It will always retain a warm place in my affections, as will all those with whom I
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was associated in it for so many years. The church, the Sunday school, and the associations with pastors, officers and members have had, I am sure, a great influence for good upon my whole life, and I am sincerely grateful."
Prof. Perrin, of Yale, but once of our congregation, writes :
"I wish I could be in Cleveland at the 75th anniversary exercises of the Old Stone Church, the program for which looks so inviting. But I am submerged in work. I hope the week will be an encouraging one to all the many friends of the grand old church."
Dr. James Taylor, of Rome, N. Y., who has often occupied the First Church pulpit, says :
"I would gladly be with you, and should, I have no doubt, be cheered by the rehearsal of your growth and the good accomplished for others. But my duties are here, where I serve a church that was born more than a hundred years ago, and needs to be born again. 'New graces ever gaining,' etc., is the only hope and evidence of pure and permanent spiritual life- permanent because pure."
Rev. H. C. Applegarth, of this city, salutes the Church and Pastor:
"Permit me to extend to you my heartiest con- gratulations upon the notable event you and your
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people are to celebrate the coming week, 75 years of loving labor for and with our Risen Lord! Whatever statistics may be gathered in the attempt to determine the results of that toil, and however full they may be, only eternity can unfold the sublime history. May increasing years bring to the Church only increasing fruitage and joy."
Miss Agnes Foot, writes from Italy,
Of her regret at not being here, and after telling with genuine enthusiasm of all the wonderful things she has seen : "I would not take Europe's grandest cathedral in exchange for our dear old church, nor the grandest ritual of them all for our simple service. The godly men and women who founded it, and those who have loyally upheld its services and carried forward its work to the present time, are worthy the grateful remembrance of all who knew them. I believe that our old Stone Church is beloved by all who know her, and that her refusal to desert her old location has won the esteem and approval of every one."
A letter comes from Mr. John A. Foot, now in Lugano, Switzerland, full of warm affection for the Old Church:
"Only once since I have been in Europe have I wished I was back in America, and specially in Cleve- land, and that is now, that I might join in the celebra- tion of the 75th anniversary of the dear Old Stone
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Church. I have attended the services almost fifty years. When three years of age, my mother, after long persuasion, and many promises of being good, took me into the infant class, and fearing I would not keep my word kept a sharp lookout for me. I remember my teachers, among them Miss Fitch, Messrs. Boise, Backus, Smith and Flagler. I remem- ber well the old Church, the new one that was burned, and the last one that met the same fate and was rebuilt. My pastors have been Drs. Aiken, Goodrich, Mitchell and yourself. I remember well, at the storm- ing of Sumter, how Dr. Goodrich, Mr. Cogswell and myself hoisted the American flag on the east steeple, which was not as high as it was when torn down. I remember, with others, stealing into the Church and ringing out the Old and in the New Year. That Church has been almost a part of me ever since I was born. How, when we had revivals in Dr. Goodrich's time, the sexton, John Hurd and I, used to take turns in the evening in taking in chairs and opening the room for the lectures and prayer meetings. I remem- ber well when the first Young People's meeting was started at Miss Florence Wick's, now Mrs. D. B. Chambers.
"I remember Dr. Goodrich's illness and Mr. De- Witt sending me to sit by his side and watch with him. (My strongest recollection is how startled I was when I saw him without any hair, never thinking he wore a wig). How well I remember when you came, if I mistake not about 24 years, almost a quarter of a century, ago. What changes have taken place since
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then. * * * Still with you at the helm and our dear Heavenly Father's blessing, the dear old Church stands and celebrates its 75th anniversary with a goodly following. Myself and all of my children were baptized in this same dear old Church. I have known all of the superintendents except Miss Taylor and Mr. Penfield. Possibly I knew Mr. Pen- field but have forgotten him. Well Dr. Haydn I think you must be very happy to feel that you have been the instrument of doing so much good and that your work has been so blessed ; and that all who have been members of the church must feel, as I am sure they do, that it is well that they have been associated with it. Yours affectionately,
JOHN A. FOOT."
HOUSE OF BISHOPS, MINNEAPOLIS, - October 9th, 1895. $
MY DEAR DR. HAYDN:
"Your polite invitation to be present and partici- pate in the jubilee of the Stone Church is just received, and I hasten to acknowledge it with regrets that my duties here in General Convention will of course pre- vent my attendance at any of your reunions. But you will accept my thanks for the kind invitation, and my expression of good will and fraternal congratula- tion. The noble work for Christ and for humanity accomplished by the First Presbyterian Church in Cleveland is conspicuous and too well known in our entire community to require further description. It
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has been an inspiration and an example for all the churches, and we thank God for His manifest blessing vouchsafed to this work. Under your own wise and untiring administration, the limitations of your local care of souls have been enlarged to the weaker places, to the outskirts of our great city, and among the poor and ignorant and fallen. For this, your brethren in Christ's work, give Him thanks and praise. May your work in the remaining years of your service be abundantly blessed by Him who alone giveth the increase. I am, dear Dr. Haydn, faithfully,
WILLIAM ANDREW LEONARD,
Bishop of Ohio."
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ABSTRACT OF A DISCOURSE,
ANTICIPATORY OF THE ANNIVERSARY, BY THE PASTOR, HIRAM C. HAYDN, IN JULY, 1895.
Psalm 22 : 3-5 and 30 :1: "But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in thee ; they trusted and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto thee and were delivered ; they trusted in thee and were not ashamed. * *
A seed shall serve him. It shall be counted unto the Lord for his generation. They shall come and declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born that he hath done it."
As we near the seventy-fifth anniversary of the First Church of Cleveland, we find ourselves turning over in our minds the significance of the event. We are seeking after the fitting mode of its recog- nition-how, with no blare of trumpets, and without self-adulation, to worthily commemorate an event, at once so tender and so significant. For, first of all, this is a church of Christ. He has been its inspiration. And surely it is quite possible to speak of the fruit of this tree and duly honor the tree, while out of our heart of hearts we say : "To thy name, O Christ, be all the glory. Thou hast made us, and not we our- selves." Whatever of good is found along the course of three-quarters of a century is from him. This being understood, we may go on and speak without reservation.
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The thing to do in 1820 was to plant the sapling, whence the tree, leaving the future to God and his people. It was needed then and has been needed ever since-is needed now. Its shade was blessed then ; it has been ever since.
People make the church, and the church the people. That is to say-what a church shall be depends upon the personnel of its member- ship, its official boards, and its pastorate, and they, in turn, are influenced by one another, and their asso- ciate life-their service together, and the weekly ministrations of their worship.
It is natural for us to look upon the people who constituted this church in the first twenty-five years of its history as of larger stature than the men of to-day. This is not wholly an imaginary view of the matter. The pioneers of any time or place are apt to be a winnowed people. To pioneer calls for a cer- tain stamina which is not possessed by all. To clear forests, and plant foundations, and inaugurate the movements which grow into churches, schools, col- leges, hospitals and municipal governments, may seem to many who enjoy the full bloom of these things an easy if not a holiday affair. If there be such they need to be disabused, and to expect to find that such sturdy work found ready for the momentous enter- prise men and women equal to the task. For the first fifty years, and some of them to a still later period, these pioneers survived. A few remain, but the greater part have fallen asleep.
An anniversary like this should call them up. Their names are precious, their service for God and
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man, valued. They made possible what we have enjoyed. They labored and we have entered into the inheritance they made their own. Such retrospect along starred names is not wholly a sorry business. It is attended with feelings of pride and satisfaction that we knew them and fellowshipped them, were in- fluenced by them, prayed and sang, rejoiced and wept with them. Moreover, we feel that their works and their influence survive them in the church of to-day, in the unity of the work of all the years, the living organism, which may have changed its constituents many times, but is still the same organism. Influence persists. Personality outlasts the mutations of time. Our work is not done when we die. Though dead the fathers speak. It is a pleasure to call them up, and to repeople these pews as they were occupied twenty- five-years ago.
This retrospect should become more specific, and bring to mind the pastors of this church-Aiken, Goodrich, and Mitchell-all of them in glory. The associate pastors and the outreaching work with which they were associated, all of whom still live and are fighting life's battles for themselves and others in fields of blessed usefulness. Then come the eldership and trusteeship of the church and society, which, through all these years have cared for the spiritual and temporal interests of this historic church, which has survived two fires, and, once and again, outgrown its quarters, and branched out into other localities, all of which brought with it many and varied respon- sibilities. The history of these trusts should be writ-
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ten and the personnel of these boards once more rise up before us.
The work of the women of the elder society was duly chronicled by a gifted pen, years ago. This story should be continued into this, the fortieth year of its useful ministration. The twenty-ninth year of the Goodrich Society should be signalized in the same manner. And the twenty-third of the Woman's Missionary Society tell what the numbered years of its life have done for the world. These stories of faith and work cannot be written apart from the life history of many who once were all alive to this work of women for women, which has been a deepening, widening river from the start. The Sunday school has a history which is vitally related to the life of the church right through, its officers and teachers being the picked men and women of each generation, and with them the work of the children which has always kept step with the church. Here is another worthy field for the pen of the chronicler.
There have been two stages of outgrowth, contin- uous with the growth of the city. The first was of one into three-the Second, 1844; and Euclid ave- nue, 1853. And then, the one again branched into the North, 1870 ; Bethany, 1889 ; Calvary, 1892 ; and Bolton avenue branch, 1890 ; the Madison avenue and Glenville churches, our granddaughters, whom the grandmother, mainly, set up at housekeeping. Into these organizations we have dismissed about 450 mem- bers-the Bolton avenue membership still remaining with us-and put into them, for their equipment, about $123,000.
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This second period of enlargement has mainly come within the last fifteen years, and synchronizes with, as yet, the most rapid period of the city's growth. Into East Cleveland developments, the old First church and Windermere chapel, has gone the sum of six thousand dollars additional. Whatever may have been thought or said of these outreaching movements, nothing is hazarded in saying that the next century, now at our threshold, will find, from its dawn, onward, an ample field for each, fully justifying the planting. This outreaching has been supplement- ed by the Presbyterian Union, and a similar work of expansion has been carried forward by other denominations. Within the area thus practically covered can comfortably settle down a million or two more of people. So, for the present, this sort of work can take a rest. What will be needed next, after awhile, will be the enlargement of these plants to accommodate a denser population.
No adequate history of this church and society should fail to tell our relation to higher education in this city and elsewhere, of which it suffices now to say that within seventeen years we have put into this cause $2,909,000. Into our church have been received (members and pewholders) from the first, 3,991; and the present enrollment of the entire church is 947. We are not as numerous as we were, and the stated income from the pews is less than once it was, and the work- ers are fewer, but the audiences, morning and evening, are up to the average of former years, the bulk of our charities has not dwindled, and the work in hand was
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never greater or more necessary to be done, or more immediately fruitful of desired results.
And this brings me to say that such an anniver- sary cannot content itself with retrospect. We of to-day have a work in hand, a present status, a part of which was made for us, a part of which we are; a responsibility to meet which calls for wisdom, courage, and consecration. We recognize the changed conditions, but we also face the powers, human and divine, which are the same yesterday, to-day and forever. These were the inspiration of the fathers, and they are ours. The elements which have made any age notable, any lives heroic, are ours. Any age is great which is great in faith. Faith multiplies fewness into a mighty host. A cause which is truly great and adequately grasped makes men who are equal to the day. Our past is measured by the amount and quality of its ministration. All lives, all churches are thus to be measured. As the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to minister, so runs the commission of the church. The greatest shall be servant of all.
Now, it is my happiness to know that this has been a ministering church. It was early trained to this-it must have been-and led along broad and outreaching lines. The magnanimity of Dr. Aiken, when the church was young, giving out colonies that cut to the quick ; the wise and persuasive leadership of Dr. Goodrich over the church of his day, which is still felt among us, have always impressed me deeply and won my admiration. And no church thus shep-
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herded in its youth could fail to see in Dr. Arthur Mitchell the very embodiment of Christ-like devotion and loveliness, and be impressed by it. I have never seen, I never expect to see nobler representatives of the faith of Christ, or a more lovely and beneficent use of wealth, than I have found here ; nor, on the whole, a readier willingness on the part of the strong to be helpful to the weak. What we need is to glory in this very thing ; to see its Christ-like beauty, and to be won to it for his sake. What we are called to do is only to follow out what I found in progress here in 1872. We must continue the thoughtful and loving care of the district which environs the church, and which was "then visited systematically by the women of the ladies' society, many of whom still survive but can do that work no longer. But they can remember the days when they did, and the good that came of it, and give to the larger work of to-day a sympathy and an encouragement for which their own experience has prepared them.
Now, I understand, perhaps as well as anybody, the difficulties of our situation. But we are not solitary in this. I read with utmost attention what is being done by churches similarly situated in other large cities, eager for any fruits of experience which I may garner from them. One thing I observe -they are not contracting their work, but broadening it. Dr. Alexander and the University Place Church, Dr. Thompson and the Madison Avenue Church, Dr. Judson's, Washington Square, and many others in New York are only driving the more firmly the stakes
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that fix them to their localities. * * * I must * confess that my heart is with them, and I pray that yours may be, and that more and more. That is the more honorable church connection which has in it most of the ministering spirit, and the amplest field for its illustration. Men identify themselves with this or that church from various considerations-not seldom of a purely social and selfish sort. But I am sure the opportunity to serve our fellows in the spirit of Christ ought to outweigh these politic reasons a thousand fold. We ought to put first, and rank as greatest, what Christ so designates, himself illustrated, and declares will be the standard of judgment in the last day.
For this we have an ample field, and are started along lines which may be broadened and deepened, embracing the transient people, the worthy poor, and especially the children and youth of the vicinage. The latter work is so fruitful and far-reaching, and evidence of good accomplished so manifest, the grati- tude of parents so pronounced, that to extend and better it is at once our duty and our privilege, and, happily, our expectation. Our dependence must be, for the most part, upon the hearty appreciation of those long identified with this church, their tried loyalty and their full persuasion that we have still a mission and a work that can be reached from this place, as from nowhere else; that it is worthy of us and the best that is in us; that goes right down to the roots of things and lays foundations of character and life in the betterment of
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homes and the saving of individuals from wanton and wasteful life.
Nor do I share the estimate sometimes put upon our strength to do these things. In the face of the fact of great losses, deeply felt, and that recruits from people of wealth coming into the city cannot here be expected, there is still a strong contingent that have every qualification for doing great things. In evidence I appeal to the annual report of things accomplished by those who are at work-to gifts of money, largely, it is true, from few sources, the past year amounting to $154,504. I appeal to the fact that the income from pews has varied so little in the past three years, for all the times were so depressed last year and the year before, and to the further fact that the strength of the parish for service, at any rate, has not yet been called out. Perhaps this never will be.
There are people everywhere whose sympathies cannot be enlisted to go or to give, but I am happy to think they are few here among us. I would be glad to see the younger men and women more generally putting their best into this work, and touching it more helpfully ; and the wisest and most versatile, making the work here more of a study ; and all of us concentrating here, from this time on, more of thought, time and resources. For one, my purpose is fixed, as my duty is clear, to give myself, more exclusively to work at this center, and I want, bespeak, and must have your earnest co-opera- tion in a forward movement. Of this I am confident, that no one has put personal service into the
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work here without finding an adequate reward. And we do not become deeply interested in anything that does not command our personal presence to see, hear, and lend a hand; or, if this be impossible, that we do not take time to study, learn about, and so bring intelligently home to us.
In this day, when, as never before, wealth, culture, and learning lend themselves to the problem of bettering things, let us make it our business to do our part of it, and set afresh about the study of conditions hereabouts, and how they may be improved and men saved. Let us determine that this anniversary year shall be used, not mainly in retrospect and vain regrets, but in a resolute and courageous grappling with the work to be done, with not a thought but that the next twenty-five years that round out a century of service for this old church may be the best of the hundred. We shall not all of us go to the end of this period, but God willing we can help to make it such ; and, moreover, make it, in our time, possible for them who live to see that day, to come up to it with songs of rejoicing and the trophies of war.
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THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE AND INFLUENCE.
PREACHED BY THE PASTOR, SUNDAY MORNING, OCT. 13, 1895, IN VIEW OF THE ANNIVERSARY ABOUT TO BEGIN, AND SUGGESTED BY IT.
John 4:36-8:
And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal : that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.
And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth.
I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour : other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours.
This is the message that comes to you and to me, to this generation as to the first. One soweth and another reapeth. Others have labored and ye have entered into their labors.
We may, at first, blush, be a little dissatisfied that our partnership with others should be so close and interlocked, and since reaping is the cap-sheaf of life, to be appointed to reap the sowing of others and not our own.
There may also seem, at first thought, to be a contradiction of the saying of an Apostle, whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. But the reference here is not to the same thing. The Apostle is speaking of personal character, of the habits of men and the use they make of their opportunities, as affecting themselves. He tells them that they cannot get away from themselves, and that an abused self-hood
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will avenge itself on itself ; and an honored self-hood will bring to itself the supreme satisfactions of life.
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