USA > Pennsylvania > Dauphin County > Harrisburg > Centennial memorial, English Presbyterian congregation, Harrisburg, Pa. > Part 17
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roughest men of the city would be there, and moved by the strange scene, or by the singing of some sweet hymn, or the sermon, would wait for some one to come and talk to them about Christ and salvation. The lecture-room of the church
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was at times crowded with penitents seeking the peace of reconciliation with God. Marvellous scenes were witnessed that cannot here be rehearsed. There was no disorder and confusion for any one who was in harmony with the won- derful things that were transpiring. Religion was the supreme topic. The results were very marked. All the Churches of the city felt the power of the revival. The country round about the city, the village and towns from fifty to one hundred miles away were moved by reports of the meetings, and delegations came and saw and heard and carried away the sacred fire. Similar works of divine grace and power were wrought in the whole region. Many hundreds were received into the Churches. During that year this Church welcomed into its communion one hundred and forty-four persons. One hundred and twenty- five of them on confession of their faith. Upon one Sab- bath ninety-two were received, thirty-three of whom received baptism, the remainder having been baptized in infancy.
That revival brought to this Church a marked change in its spirit and in its relations to society and the world. It had been somewhat shut up in itself. Its own families had been the objects of its greatest and tenderest care. Its outside work had been largely that of a missionary character. It was generous and liberal, and had welcomed into its Sunday- school and into the communion from the families of the working people and the poor, but it had gained, with some injustice, the reputation of being exclusive. The revival changed all this. Multitudes of the working people from our mills and shops and manufactories had found peace
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with God within these walls. They had been helped to Christ by the loving guidance of the officers and members of this Church. They loved the place and they came in large numbers and knocked for admission at our doors. They felt at home here. They wanted the help and sym- pathy of Christians here in their new life. The doors of the Church were widely opened. From a membership of two hundred and forty before the revival, it reached one of three hundred and seventy-two after it, and the Sunday-school membership rose from four hundred and eight to seven hundred and thirty-seven. The Church became what all Churches should be, a Church of the people, and so it remains to this day, and, we trust, will ever remain. As in all past years it has been guided by the wisdom and intelligence and piety of its best members, so it will continue to be in all coming years, showing how the religion of the great Master can unite all classes of society in a loving and holy brother- hood. The revival, by bringing many into close connection with the Church and the Sunday-school, speedily drew forth the working power of Christian love in the new agencies which for the past few years have been such a glory to the Church : " The Cottage Prayermeeting," "The Sewing-School" of the Church, "The Societies of Christian Endeavor," and many other organizations for special forms of Christian work. The revival of 1875-1876 helped this Church to recognize the fact that as all men are equal before God, so in His Church there ought to be no respect of persons. In the Church the qualities of goodness and saintliness alone are to be recog- nized as honorable and distinguished. There is nothing to be more dreaded than the separation of classes in the house
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of God, or the separation of different houses of God to differ- ent classes.
The rich, the intelligent, the professional classes, who go to worship where only those of their order go, are doing their best to lower real and true religion in the eyes of the poor, the ignorant, and the manual laboring people, and so provoke social revolutions and hatreds. The salt that will preserve society is sympathy and communion between all classes in the highest and most serious of all interests, the religious and everlasting. The Church must honor, not wealth or rank or social standing, but the soul and its spirit- ual fitness to serve God. Let master and workmen, the rich and the poor, come together in Christ before God, and they will learn that mutual respect and regard will do more for order and peace in the State than all legislation. This Church and the other Presbyterian Churches of the city, by drawing in all classes to Church fellowship, are doing a good work for the city of which it is likely they have taken no note.
We had sad losses in our noble band of leaders from the Session of the Church, the brothers, Fleming, the elder of whom, R. Jackson Fleming, had for years led the service of song, and been a most faithful and consecrated worker in a mission among the colored people of the city that was transformed into the Elder Street Presbyterian Church, and the younger Dr. James Fleming, also for years a member of the choir, a teacher in the Sunday-school and at all times a Christian whose gentleness and consistency of character won for him universal esteem. The brothers, John A. and James W. Weir, whose names have already been mentioned
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and will always hold a loved and honorable place in the records of the Church; the guileless, sterling and true- hearted Mordecai Mckinney, poor in this world's goods, but rich in faith, modest as a little child, but brave in doing right as any martyr in all the Christian ages.
Memory recalls a multitude of names that are intimately associated with the history of the congregation. The venerable Joseph Wallace, for many years a trustee and a treasurer of the congregation, a man of sterling worth and purest life ; John H. Briggs, among the foremost lawyers at the Bar, prominent in municipal affairs, for twenty-seven years a trustee of the congregation and for twenty-nine years a member of the Church, an able counsellor, a patriotic citizen and a generous friend ; Hon. David Fleming, lawyer and Senator, a trustee for many years, a member of the Church for over two score years, and a faithful and intelligent teacher in the Sunday-school for nearly, if not quite, a half century ; Dr. Edward L. Orth, the gentle, sympathetic and skillful physician in so many of our homes, who filled our hearts with grief by his sudden death at the opening of the war; the hale and strong yet tender Dr. W. W. Rutherford, who for forty years practiced his profession and won and held the foremost place in it; and, leaving unnamed many others towards whom so many of our hearts turn, yet two more who have passed from our midst since the close of the fourth pastorate must be mentioned, his Honor, Judge John J. Pearson, closing a long and honorable career at the age of eighty-eight years, with a reputation for signal fidelity to his high trusts, and a character beyond reproach, and Henry Gilbert whose life from boyhood was closely associated with
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this Church, who delighted to be its servant, and who pos- sessed in a remarkable degree the qualities of mind and heart that inspire esteem and trust and love.
The additions made to the Ruling Eldership during the years of Dr Robinson's sole pastorate were, in 1868: Dr. James Fleming, William S. Shaffer and Walter F. Fahne- stock, Jr .; on April 15, 1877: James F. Purvis, Dr. Jacob A. Miller, Samuel J. M. McCarrell and Gilbert M. McCauley. Messrs. Purvis and Shaffer are serving other Churches in the same office, the former in Kansas, and the latter in the Olivet Church, of this city. Messrs. McCarrell, MeCanley and Miller are still members of the Church Session, and to them were added, on March 20, 1887, Messrs. John C. Harvey and J. Henry Spicer. The complete roll of the Session during the hundred years of history now ended embraces thirty-five names, five Pastors and thirty Ruling Elders. Among those elders may be found many who can- not be surpassed in the ability and the faithfulness with which they served the Church.
During the closing years of the fourth pastorate, Market Square and Pine Street Churches grew in power and num- bers in Christian zeal, in organized and intelligent work, and new Churches were added to the forces of Presbyterian- ism in the city. The two older Churches have made splendid enlargements to their church buildings for Sun- day-school operations, and have organized mission enter- prises in needy parts of the city. These two Churches stand among the most prominent Churches in the denomination for their successful work among the young. Benevolent schemes in the city for the sick, for the poor, for the aged
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and for orphans have not appealed in vain to this Church for money, for labor and for counsel in their management. Noblest of all during these years, aside from that spiritual grace which nourished Christian lives and added the saved to the communion of believers, was the marvelous develop- ment of Christian activity and power among the women of the Church. Their names are conspicuous in the earliest records of the congregation. The history of their labors and sacrifices from the last century to this hour, and espec- ially for the last twenty-five years, needs volumes for its record and many hours for a fitting eulogy. It is with grief, mingled with most delightful memories, that only this passing allusion can be made to the quiet, but heroic, lives of the Christian women of this Church.
In 1884 another change took place in the pastorate of the church. Its pastor received a call from the Western Theological Seminary at Allegheny, from which he had graduated thirty years before, to the Re-Union Professorship of Sacred Rhetoric, Church Government and Pastoral Theology. After a prayerful consideration of the matter for several months, he came to the conclusion that it was his duty to accept the call, and so announced to the Church. At a meeting of the Presbytery of Carlisle, held on April 9, 1884, the pastoral relationship between him and this Church was dissolved, and Dr. Robinson was appointed to declare the pulpit vacant on the first Sabbath in June. This Church was represented at that meeting of the Presbytery by Messrs. S. J. M. McCarrell, Charles L. Bailey, M. W. MeAlarney and William . S. Shaffer, who presented a strong protest from the congregation against
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the severance of the bonds between it and the pastor. He continued `to supply the pulpit until the last Sabbath in June, the thirtieth anniversary of his first sermon to the congregation in 1854.
At a meeting of the congregation held October 6, 1884, the Rev. George Black Stewart of Auburn, N. Y., was unan- imously elected to fill the vacant pastorate. Mr. Stewart is a graduate of Princeton College and pursued his theological studies at both McCormick and Auburn Theological Seminaries and for five years was pastor of the Calvary Presbyterian Church of Auburn, N. Y. The call was accepted by him and on January 2, 1885, he was installed by the Presbytery of Carlisle as the fifth in the line of pastors, during a hundred years in the history of this Church. Nine years have now passed since this relationship was established. They have been years of unexampled activity and growth, surpassing all former years. All departments of church work have been invigorated, and new agencies have been created. The spirit of consecrated love and work has fallen upon the Church. Though this Church has reached the maturity of an hundred years its "eye is not dim nor is its natural force abated." There are no wrinkles of age upon it nor any signals of weariness. Its courts are thronged upon the Sabbath with worshipers, and its schools are filled with the students of divine things. Its places of weekly prayer are the resort of Christ's dis- ciples. There is no going backward, but onward rather to meet the greater light and the larger responsibilities of the twentieth century. There is no defection in its teachings. Its pulpit is true to the word of God and to the immemorial
GEORGE BLACK STEWART. 1885.
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faith of Christ's Church. It utters no uncertain and doubtful sound. Its tireless, broad-minded and consecrated occupant may be trusted to lead into no path that is not illumined by the light that falls from the Holy Scriptures and marked by the footprints of good men, and of the great Captain of our salvation. The Ruling Elders who are associated with him in the spiritual guidance of the Church, have been wisely selected and have approved themselves as worthy successors of the noble men who preceded them. During the present pastorate the Church has most wisely renewed the office of the Deacon vacant in the Church since the death of a good old man of the earlier days, Ebenezer Ward in 1864. He died at an advanced age and for many years had laid aside the duties of the office. May the Deacons of this Church serve well and so "gain to them- selves a good standing and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus."
By reason of the enlarged labors of the pastorate of the Church and thegrowth of its mission enterprise in the lower part of the city the employment of an assistant to the pastor became a necessity. During the summer months of 1889 Mr. David M. Skilling, a member of the Senior class of Western Theological Seminary, entered upon these duties and so securely won the regard of the Church that upon his graduation in May, 1890, he was recalled to the work and has remained until this day. He has been fully ordained to the ministry. The mission has grown under his fostering care in numbers and spiritual power. The congregation and the Sunday-school are already the strong foundation for an active and successful Church. Through the large
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generosity of members of this Church the mission has been provided with a stone chapel of elegant architecture and all the needed furniture of a house of worship. Mr. Skil- ling has brought to his field the scholarship and training of many years of college and seminary study and the con- secration of a heart and life wholly devoted to the service of Christ.
I have left unsaid many of the things I most greatly de- sired to say. There are names unspoken in the heart that I wished to utter with words of veneration and praise. What a record of noble and saintly lives might be gathered from this century of years. What toils and strong purposes and love have gone into the uplifting of this Church of God here. What a history of prayers, of teaching and preaching, of glad sacrifices for God and for man, of souls born into the life that is everlasting, of Christian graces growing into splendid maturity, of a Christian faith that amid the decays of nature and in the chamber of death was radiant with the certainties of that world that is im- mortal. We have seen them as they reached the brink of the " deep river," and from their faces have caught what seemed like a "reflection of the sunbeams upon the city that is pure gold."
One hundred years! They take us back to a time that Bushnell has called " the Age of Homespun." The fathers and mothers who laid the foundations here were simply worthy men and women. They were sensible, wise-headed, upright men and women of plain and godly virtues. They . never thought of being famous or historic. But from the rare simplicity and the homely virtues of that age we draw
DAVID MILLER SKILLING. PASTOR'S ASSISTANT, 1891.
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our royal lineage. Our inheritance has come from their sturdiness in well-doing and their reverent love of the things that are true and good. The greatest thoughts that brewed in their minds were thoughts of religion and of God. Little deemed they that the hundred years through which their successors and heirs have lived would form the most remarkable century in human history.
The " Grand Old Man," of England, who is about to lay down the work of his wonderful life, has said, that if he had been given his choice in what period of the world to live, he would have chosen the Nineteenth Century. It has been the age of invention and of discovery, the age of political change, of advancing science and art, of human liberty and of religious progress. What we possess to-day of privilege and power, of blessing and of hope, is but an heirloom. We have entered into the labors of our fathers. This Century Plant did not spring up in a night. The past was at its planting and many years have waited on its growth. The best spirits of three generations have been our benefactors. By the patience and courage, by the self- denials and the prayers of the hundreds of men and women who here loved their fellow-men, and served their God, this Church now stands on its height of attainment. Let us honor those who made us what we are. Let us bow our heads in gratefulness to the fathers and mothers who left us, not hoarded saving of perishing gold, but the memory and the power of their Christian lives. Some of them like the divinely-gifted James W. Weir stand forth with a bril- liance all their own and unrivalled, but love weaves its gar- land's for hundreds of others who lived for us and left us
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their precious inheritance. Into the sympathy and goodly fellowship of these men and women who walked with the Son of God let us hasten to enter and there abide. By the goodness of our lives and by the fulness of our devotion to truth and to Christ, let us see to it, that by the close of the twentieth century, freedom and religion are high advanced towards the millenium.
At the conclusion of Dr. Robinson's address, Dr. Stewart announced Luther's Battle Hymn of the Reformation.
Our God stands firm, a rock and tow'r, A shield when danger presses ; A ready help in every hour When doubt or pain distresses ; For our malignant foe Unswerving aims his blow ; His fearful arms the while, Dark pow'r and darker guile ; His hidden craft is matchless.
Our strength is weakness in the fight, Our courage soon defection; But comes a Warrior clad in might, A Prince of God's election ; Who is this wondrous Chief That brings this glad relief ? The field of battle boasts, Christ Jesus, Lord of hosts. Still conq'ring and to conquer.
Then, Lord ! arise ; lift up thine arm, With mighty succor stay us ; Oh, turn aside the deadly harm When Satan would betray us,
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That rescued by thy hand, In triumph we may stand, And round thy footstool crowd In joy to sing aloud High praise to our Redeemer.
As the audience joined heartily with the choir in singing the stately measures of Ein, feste Burg, it seemed a most fitting culmination of the praise to the great Ilead of the Church for his kind providence and infinite grace toward this people. Rev. David M. Skilling led the congregation in repeating the Lord's Prayer. The Benediction was pro- nounced by the Rev. Dr. Robinson, and the service con- eluded with the Chorus in E Flat composed by Guilmant.
FRIDAY EVENING. February the 16th, 1894, at 7.30 o'clock.
SOCIAL RECEPTION.
Amiel in his Journal Intime makes some philosophical observations concerning social amenities. He looks upon social gatherings as occasions when "intellect and taste hold festival, and the associations of reality are exchanged for the associations of the imagination," and he adds : "Paradox or no, I believe that these fugitive attempts to reconstruct a dream whose only end is beauty, represent confused rem- iniscences of an age of gold haunting the human heart, or rather aspirations towards a harmony of things which everyday reality denies to us, and of which art alone gives us a glimpse." It must have been unconscious obedience to some such law as this which led the committee to plan the closing feature of Centennial Week. It was certainly a most happy thought which devised the social reception of Friday night. And it was a happy thought most admirably executed. The Reception Committee had a difficult task to perform. The problems confronting it were complex and full of unknown factors. Necessarily many of their arrange- ments were dependent upon the probable number of guests they would have to provide for, yet these arrangements had to be completed before this could possibly be known. It is no small praise when we say that their arrangements were perfect and admirably adapted to the circumstances, that they secured to those present a most enjoyable evening,
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and concluded the Centennial observances with a brilliant success. This committee with Mrs. Gilbert M. McGauley as chairman arranged the Sunday-school rooms in a tasteful and attractive manner, and provided ample refreshments for the twelve hundred to fifteen hundred guests. The Committee of Ushers with Mr. Peter K. Sprenkel as chairman ably as- sisted the Reception Committee in contributing to the com- fort of the large company. This committee provided a cloak- room for the checking of hats and outer garments, which proved to be a great convenience. In addition to these two committees valuable help was rendered by the young people in distributing refreshments and in other ways. Among those who thus assisted were Misses Martha Worden McAlar- ney, Louisa A. Hickok, Anna Orth, Caroline Moffitt, Roberta Orth, Mary Hamilton, Nannie Orr, Caroline Bigler, Mary Fleming, Helen Boyd, Eva Vandling, Margaret Hamilton, Marion Weiss; Messrs. Ira Bishop, George Ridgway, Horace Segelbaum, John P. Keller, George Martin, Charles Hickok; Masters Harris Stewart, John Hart MeAlarney, George Stewart.
The night was clear and cold with bright stars above and the creaking snow beneath. The people early began to gather and evidently came prepared for a happy time, and they had it. The receiving party stood in the Intermediate Sunday-school room, and consisted of Dr. and Mrs. Stewart, Dr. and Mrs. Robinson, Mr. Skilling, and the Invitation Committee, consisting of Charles L. Bailey, David Fleming, Jr., Mrs. Julia A. Briggs, Mrs. David Fleming, Alexander Roberts, John HI. Weiss, Dr. Jacob A. Miller, Mrs. Sarah Doll, Mrs. Jacob S. Haldeman, Miss Sibyl M. Weir, Samuel
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D. Ingram, George W. Boyd, Lyman D. Gilbert. The hun- dreds of guests as they arrived were cordially received and made to feel at home. There was no lack of good fellow- ship. Because of the large number present the committees early began to serve the refreshments, and were kept busy throughout the whole evening.
About eight o'clock the impromptu musical programme began in the lecture-room. Messrs. Henry A. Kelker, Jr., J. F. Hutchinson, H. L. Vance, Charles F. Etter and Frank S. Morrow, members of the Harrisburg Banjo Club, played with spirit and precision two numbers. Mrs. Frank R. Schell and Mrs. David Fleming, Jr., gave as a piano duet, the overture to " Rienzi," by Wagner, in which their fine musical taste and skill were made evident. The voices of Messrs. George R. Fleming, Edward Z. Gross, William G. Underwood, and Lucius S. Bigelow, the Mendelssohn Quar- tette, blended perfectly in the ballads, so dear to the people's heart, " The Miller of Dee," " Ben Bolt," " Annie Laurie," " Blue Bells of Scotland." The surging throng which filled the social rooms made it difficult for hearing this excellent music.
At the same time, in the auditorium, a large company gathered to listen to the addresses given by some of the guests of the evening.
After Miss Reba Bunton and Mr. George R. Fleming had delighted the audience with the duet, "They Shall Hunger No More," in Gaul's cantata, "The Holy City," and Mr. Fleming had increased the delight by a solo, Coenen's "Come Unto Me," Mr. Stewart, the Minister of the Church, said: This is a flexible audience, and so is everything else
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to-night. There is nothing stiff or formal about this occa- sion. This is an evening of freedom and spontaneous good fellowship. It gives me very great pleasure to introduce the presiding officer of the evening, the Honorable John B. McPherson of Harrisburg, late of Lebanon. .
The PRESIDENT. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: Two or three of us were talking this afternoon as we were coming down the Bank and were wondering why it was that when Americans get together-and I suppose it is equally true of all English speaking-people-they always want two things; one is speech-making, and singularly enough the other is brevity in the speeches. The two do not always go together; but the effort this evening is to have them both; you will have several speeches, and I think you will have them short.
I will not refer to the reasons which make it mnost gratify- ing for me to be here on this occasion, but there is one suggestion which perhaps may touch others in the audience as well as myself. It is certainly most inspiriting to one who has anything to do with a small church, with a church that is struggling to live and is in the beginning of things, to come and see what is the result here of all these years of effort, and to reflect that after all somebody must go through the early stages of despondency, and that it may as well fall to your lot or to mine as to the lot of others. I am sure for such a person it will be easy this evening to get some inspiration and encouragement.
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