USA > Pennsylvania > Dauphin County > Harrisburg > Centennial memorial, English Presbyterian congregation, Harrisburg, Pa. > Part 20
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said. After it was finished I took a great admirer of my father to see it, by the name of Gen. Grover. He said, " Winters, I have a much better likeness of Mr. Buchanan over in my house than yours." "Whose is it?" "Gen. William Henry Harrison, whom we elected President with the help of coon-skins and hard cider. I have heard that a great many times. I always thought Mr. Buchanan was a finer looking man than Harrison." Mr. Grover said to me, " Your mother won't take that picture. When you take it out for her to see, I want you to take the Harrison picture along and show her the Winter's picture first. I know she will condemn it." As soon as she saw it she said, " My son, that don't look like your father. It is more like an Italian brigand. Tell Mr. Winters I don't want it." I then said, " Hold on, mother; look at this one." Upon secing it she very quickly exclaimed : " I will take this one." Then I explained matters to her. "Well, that is too bad. I am not to have a likeness of your father after all," said she. Gen. Grover was flattered a good deal when he heard mother's report. I told him, " I can give you further proof about your judgment. In the year 1836, when Gen. Harrison made his political tour on horseback from the
Potomac through the Cumberland Valley to Harrisburg (over the same route which Gen. Lee took in 1863, and met his defeat at Gettysburg), some of my father's old Whig friends requested him to ride at the head of the procession with Harrison. Father, reflecting over the matter, told his friends he did not think it would look very well for a min- ister of the gospel to be marching at the head of a political procession, so declined going. The young ladies went along
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the line of march to wave their flags and handkerchiefs to salute the old hero of Tippecanoe. Three young ladies went upstairs in Thomas G. MeCullough's house as the proces- sion came in sight. One cried out, 'Wait till Harrison comes up, that first one is the Rev. James Buchanan, of Greencastle.' So the old hero went by without their salute. I got that from authority." That I thought was good. Father graduated at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa. don't know the year. After he got what the Hoosiers called
I his "sheep-skin " to preach, the Harrisburg church gave him a call. When there he became acquainted with a great belle and beauty, and the greatest dancer in all that part of the country. People would say, "Can it be possible that he would marry that flirt and coquette, Miss Hattie Berryhill." Dr. Als. Berryhill, her brother, would say, " Well Hatt, are you going to marry the preacher ?" "Don't you think I had better wait until he asks me ?" Miss Hattie was becoming seriously inclined now. " Hatt, do you think you like him ?" " Why not? He is certainly the best looking and most intelligent gentleman in Harris- burg." " Oh, cracky, cracky, my young lady, you are froze at last, goodbye, farewell." Many times have I heard her say, "It was the most glorious day for me when I became acquainted with your father, for he snatched me from the brink of ruin and despair. Oh, what a wild, thoughtless, giddy girl I was." If there ever was a true genuine Chris- tian she was one. If my father would happen to be absent over night she would lead in family worship, and she would do it well, for her whole soul was in it.
I will tell you of one case of the good she did. Miss
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Mary Shoemaker was at my mother's funeral. She came to me, the tears rolling down her cheeks, and said, "Oh, Mr. Buchanan, to that sainted mother of yours I owe all the glorious hopes I have. You know how I was raised almost an infidel. Thrice blessed may her memory be. Farewell, farewell, may her sweet prayers be answered on your behalf, for I may never see you again." This turned out to be the case. She is gone to her long home. It seems to me like a dream.
I have gotten too old to write much. I am seventy-two. About ten years older than my father at his death, and about ten years younger than my mother at her death.
Now if there is anything in this scrawl that you can use for the Centennial, it will pay for all my trouble. One thing is certain, it is all true as far as I know and believe.
My father's death was very sudden and unexpected. He went to church in his usual health. When about half through his sermon he told his congregation he was too unwell to finish it. He was taken with a congestive chill, gave out a hymn, went down the aisle, home, was taken to the church the next Sabbath a corpse,-one of the most sorrowful days I have ever seen, for I loved him with my whole soul and body. I was his favorite child out of nine. No one ever knew it until after his death, when mother told us. But I was about the last picked on. I was wild and full of vinegar. I am about worn out writing.
Yours respectfully,
D. C. BUCHANAN ..
P. S .- I am the oldest son now living. Alexander, Wil- son and I are the only boys living, and two girls, Martha
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in Logansport, and Maria, Mrs. Dr. Early, at Palmyra, Mis- souri. If I were as well off as I was ten or twelve years ago, I would come to your Centennial, but I am too poor to think of it.
LETTER FROM REV. JOSEPH R. VANCE, D. D., FORMERLY PASTOR FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, CARLISLE, PA. CHESTER, PA., Feb. 6th, 1894. MY DEAR DR. STEWART :
Your kind invitation to the exercises of the 100th anni- versary of the Market Square Church has just been received.
Thou hast been brought to the kingdom at a blessed time in the history of the grand old church.
In the days when Paxtang, Derry and Silvers' Spring were the chosen shrines, it was difficult for Harrisburg to gain recognition. For thirty years and up to the dawn of re-union, good Dr. De Witt carried the flag of a small New School minority in Central Pennsylvania. One half of the faithful ministry of Dr. Robinson was spent in the little Presbytery of Harrisburg, but there is no " pent up Utica " for you and Market Square now. The good old Presbytery of Carlisle, the Synod of Pennsylvania, and the Woman's Boards are ready to second every motion you make.
When in A. D. 1894, we see the junior Dr. De Witt and Dr. Robinson the exponents of the theological thought of Princeton and Allegheny, we conclude that it could not have been a very dangerous type of new schoolism after all, and seeing you in the van of Christian Endeavor columns, we say "He well represents the aggressive spirit charac- teristic of that Church. Like James Weir, he will never
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grow old." May the true consecration and determined aggressiveness of the past always charaterize the history of the church.
Very fraternally yours, Jos. R. VANCE.
LETTER FROM MRS. MARY M. MCARTHUR, DAUGHTER OF THE LATE WILLIAM MCCLEAN A FORMER ELDER. No. 636 N. MAIN STREET, MEADVILLE, PA., February 8th, 1894.
MY DEAR MRS. DOEL: Please accept my thanks for your kind favor received. How much I wish I could be present and join in the very interesting services of the coming week. It was in that branch of the church (of sacred memory) with two elder brothers, I first made a public profession of my faith in Christ. Many pleasant and tender memories come crowding upon me as I recall the days of my youth in Harrisburg, of Christ's people, other friends and ac- quaintances, of the Sabbath-school, of my sainted parents, of respect shown my father, the confidence in him, and honor conferred in making him an, Elder in the Church of God. I remember well several of the ladies and gentlemen whose names are on the committee.
I shall be with you in spirit as the programme is being carried out, praying that God's blessing may accompany each meeting, that his people there and elsewhere in Har- risburg may especially feel the influences of the Holy Spirit. and be greatly refreshed and strengthened, and many who are still out of Christ be brought to love and serve him. With love, Your friend,
MARY M. MCARTHUR.
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LETTER FROM REV. SAMUEL G. NICCOLLS, D. D., FORMERLY PASTOR OF FALLING SPRING CHURCH, CHAMBERSBURG. .
ST. LOUIS, February 7th, 1894.
MY DEAR BROTHER: I have received your invitation to attend the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Market Square Church. I greatly regret that it will not be possible for me to be present. The invitation revives so many pleasant memories of Harrisburg, and of my associations with the old Presbytery of Carlisle, that I would like very much to be with you on this memorable occasion. Your old church has a grand history and has been a mighty power for good in the Cumberland Valley. I know that it has a life within it which prevents it from becoming old. A living church always renews itself and laughs at Time. With best wishes, I am
Fraternally yours, SAMUEL G. NICCOLLS.
LETTER FROM REV. ROBERT F. MCCLEAN, GRANDSON OF A FORMER ELDER AND HIMSELF FOR MANY YEARS A MEM- BER OF THE PRESBYTERY OF CARLISLE.
MUNCY, February 7th, 1894. Rev. GEORGE B. STEWART, D. D., Harrisburg, Pa.
DEAR BROTHER : We are grateful for the invitation to the Centennial of your church, though we will be unable to be present. I well remember when a boy on a visit to Harris- burg, of seeing Dr. DeWitt, and the then black-haired Dr. Robinson, together in the pulpit of the old church, and of being in Mr. James McCormick's Sunday-school class of boys. The grand work and the goodly fellowship of the
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Market Square Church deserve commemoration. The fact of my grandfather being an elder, and Dr. Robinson and yourself such esteemed friends of my own give me deep personal interest in it.
Cordially yours, ROBERT F. MCCLEAN.
Many other letters of congratulation were received, but space is lacking for their publication. Among them were letters from
Colonel John J. McCook, New York City.
Rev. William H. Roberts, D. D., LL. D., Stated Clerk of General Assembly.
Rev. William S. Van Cleve, Gettysburg.
William M. Capp, M. D., son of a former Elder, Phila- delphia.
Rev. S. S. Wylie, Middle Spring.
Mr. Abram B. Knapp, Elizabeth, N. J,
Mr. William J. Nevius, Jr., South Orange, N. J. J. Bayard Henry, Esq., Philadelphia.
Mrs. Sibyl Fahnestock Hubbard, New York.
Mrs. Mary Fahnestock Reid, Allegheny.
Rev. Ezra A. Huntington, D. D., LL. D., Professor in Theological Seminary, Auburn.
Rev. W. T. L. Kieffer, Washington, Pa.
Miss Martha Buchanan, daughter of Rev. Jas, Buchanan, second pastor of the church, Logansport, Ind.
John Curwen, M. D., Superintendent of State Insane Hospital, Warren, Pa.
Ovid F. Johnson, Esq., and sisters, Philadelphia.
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Rev. Martin L. Ganoe, pastor Ridge Avenue M. E. Church Harrisburg.
Geo. W. Mehaffie, General Secretary West Philadelphia Branch Y. M. C. A., Philadelphia.
Rev. Everard Kempshall, D. D., pastor First Presbyterian Church, Elizabeth, N. J.
Rev. J. Smith Gordon, Fannettsburg.
Geo. B. Ayres, Esq., Philadelphia.
Rev. Henry C. McCook, D. D., Pastor Tabernacle Presby- terian Church, Philadelphia.
Rev. William P. White, Financial Secretary for Lincoln University, Germantown, Pa.
Judge Henry H. Swan, of U. S. District Court, Detroit, Michigan.
Rev. Arthur S. Hoyt, D. D., Professor in Theological Sem- inary, Auburn, N. Y.
Rev. Timothy G. Darling, D. D., Professor in Theological Seminary, Auburn, N. Y.
Rev. John C. Barr, Dillsburg, Pa.
Mr. IL. C. Doll, Denver, Col.
Gen. James A. Beaver, Bellefonte, Pa.
Rev. Edward D. Morris, D. D. LL. D., Professor in Lane Theological Seminary, Cincinnati.
Rev. J. R. Miller, D. D., Secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Publication, Philadelphia.
Hon. Samuel Gustine Thompson, Philadelphia.
President Patton, Princeton College, Princeton, N. J.
Rev. Willis J. Beecher, D. D., Professor in Theological Seminary, Auburn, N. Y.
OUR SECOND CENTURY.
It seemed fitting to the Committee on Publication that this volume should contain the first sermons of the new cen- tury, delivered in the church on Sunday, April 18th, 1894. It therefore requested them from Dr. Robinson and Dr. Stewart for such publication. By request of the minister, Rev. Dr. Robinson assisted him in the morning service and preached. He chose for his theme, "Characteristics of a True Pastor and a True Church." In the evening the minister preach- ed upon the theme, "The Duty of Our Second Century." The usual order of service was observed on both occasions, and large audiences were present. Thus happily was the new century begun, with a deep sense of gratitude for the blessings received and an abiding consciousness of the ever- present duties of discipleship.
CHARACTERISTICS OF A TRUE PASTOR AND A TRUE CHURCH.
BY REV. THOMAS H. ROBINSON, D. D.
Before I enter upon the subject of the morning I wish to say a word about the week that has just closed. It is a word of congratulation. The week has been a happy and most successful one. I rejoice in your unity and christian love. I rejoice in your brotherhood with all the Churches about you. I rejoice in the outlook for the coming years. I have been looking with gladness on the young faces that are to stand in your lot in the years to come. Perhaps some may feel that a great deal has been said about the Scotch-Irish and Presbyterianism ; too much it may be. Let us now submerge them. They are worth nothing save as they are Christian. Apart from Christ they are but worthless dust. The best and deepest thing in us is not ancestral blood, nor Presbyterian orthodoxy, but christian faith and life. In the vocabulary of Heaven, the words Scotch-Irish and Presbyterianism will not be found. There are no Scotch-Irish nor Presbyterians-as such in the glorious City of the Skies. Nationalities and denominations find no home there. Let us count it to be our chiefest glory now, as it will be then, to be simply the followers of Christ and the Children of God.
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Philippians iv. 1-7.
Wherefore, my brethren, beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my beloved.
I exhort Euodia, and I exhort Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yea, I beseech thee also, true yokefellow, help these women, for they labor with me in the Gospel, with Clement also and the rest of my fellow-workers, whose names are in the book of life. Rejoice in the Lord alway : again I will say, Rejoiee. Let your for- bearance be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. In nothing be anxious ; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be mado known unto God. And the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.
It was a very human and natural thing that as Paul drew near to the close of his letter to the Church at Philippi, he should indulge in some direct personal refer- ences. We do the same thing in our letters of to-day. We send messages to one and another of the absent friends. We recall by name the members of the household.
The main burden of the Apostle's thought in the Epistle is uttered and he is drawing to the end. The Good Bye is about to be written. The faces of the absent ones come before him, and it is very natural that before he lays down the pen he should add some closing admonitions, exhorta- tions and messages. They are brief and pithy. The weight of thought and feeling that was upon him in the main body of the letter is cast off, and he comes out more the man than the great Apostle. We get at his heart and find how human he is.
These closing sentences may seem to be fragmentary and unconnected, and the Apostle may seem to be writing now just what occurs to him. He is not deeply thinking. Yet
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I think we shall find his words are not quite fragmentary. They are not written at random. A definite line of thought underlies what he now says. The earlier part of the letter shapes the close of it.
It is so with ourselves. Letters of business, letters of friendship, letters of consolation and letters of family love, all have their own and their appropriate ending.
Paul was writing to one of the churches that he had founded and to which he clung with tenacious affection. He had been pouring out his soul on the subject of the true Christian life. He had revealed the deep sources from which it springs, the great channels in which it runs, and the conditions which surround it in this world, with its glorious attainments in the world to come.
But still he remembers we are here, not there. We are amid the petty details of human life on earth. Earthly things still have their strong hold upon us. These Christians at Philippi were human and weak. They were amid temp- tations. They were at the mercy of a great multitude of trivial and daily things that must be attended to. How could they keep the grand music of the Gospel, the sublime, uplifting anthems of the life eternal sounding in their souls amid the patter and stir and noise of a busy life amid earthly things !
Paul comes down to the case. In doing so he reveals to us some characteristics of a true pastor, and also some char- acteristics of a true church. Allow me to draw your minds along these two lines of thought.
I. The True Pastor.
The apostle brings out, unconsciously, one element in the
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character of every true pastor. Unconsciously, I say, for he was not displaying and eulogizing himself.
He simply tells, in his own experience, how the members of a church should be esteemed by a true pastor. They should have the deepest, tenderest love, and the strongest and heartiest good wishes of the pastor. Listen to the words of Paul, this man whom many only think of as a great theologian and the massive thinker of the church, and so absorbed in the grandeur of his thoughts as to be above the ordinary affections of men. Paul's heart was as great as his intellect. Note how he addresses these Christians of Philippi :
"Therefore, my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and my crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved." What an accumulation of strong epithets of af- fection are here. "Longed for." It was the yearning of a great, strong man. "My joy." The source of his joy was not in his apostleship, in his miraculous powers, in his grand acquirements, in his enlarging fame through all the churches. It was in those who had been converted to God under his ministry; in the beauty of their life and their loyalty to Jesus Christ. Our joy is in our homes and in our friends. The chief happiness of a true pastor is in the pure and Christlike lives of the people to whom he ministers.
" My Crown " adds the Apostle. He means that he prided himself in them. He gloried in them. It is not in these passages alone that St. Paul reveals his feelings for the people among whom he labored. It may be traced in all his letters. Elsewhere he writes. " My little children, for
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whom I travail in birth till Christ be formed in your hearts." And again-I ceased not to warn every one of you day and night with tears-" we were gentle among you even as a nurse cherisheth her children." "We were willing to have imparted unto you not the Gospel of God only, but also our own soul because you were very dear unto us." We think of Paul usually, as the stern reprover, the dauntless hero, the uncompromising champion of truth, the incomparable theologian, but there were in his soul great fountains of love and tenderness. Men who knew him loved him. They fell on his neck and kissed him. In his gentleness lay much of his power.
There are preachers who pride themselves on being "faith- ful", in preaching the whole truth, in telling the people their sins. They are decided, they are heroic, they are scathing in denunciations of evil, they bear their testimony whether men will hear or forbear against popular evils. But there is a hardness in their tones, and a harshness in their manner, a self sufficiency and lack of sympathy that make their ministry offensive.
The mainspring of the Gospel is the spirit of love. . The mission of the preacher is a delicate one. While he is to preach the truth, and all the truth, he is ever to speak it in love, never in haste, never in scorn, never in indifference. He is to be filled with enthusiasm of humanity, a deep, true, broad love of man as man. Like his great Master he is to be a philanthropist-a lover of his kind. Narrowness, bigotry, prejudice, sectarianism should never find a home in his soul. Love should look through his candid, earnest, solemn eye. It should gleam in every line of his counten-
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ance. It should be heard in the intonations of his voice. His speech is always to be evangelical. He is the bringer of glad tidings. He proclaims the love of God to men. He speaks of boundless mercy. . He tells of the love of the In- carnate God, of a love that was stronger than humiliation and pain. Stronger than shame and death-a love divine that bled for rebellious man. A love that knows no depth of sin that it cannot reach, no path of woe that it cannot travel, no foulness of the creature that it would not heal with tender touch. He tells of a love that opens a world of endless glory and happiness to the undeserving and guilty.
The man who preaches such a gospel, must have the spirit of love in every fibre of his being. Harshness, im- patience, hoarse thunderings, are foreign to the true preacher. See what he has to do. He has to unveil to hard hearted men the tender fatherhood of God. He has to make them see the longing brotherhood of a Divine Saviour. He has to come to men in all their moods, their sins, their wants, as the representative of Him who tasted death for every man. He has to hear the heart's secrets of men in distress over their sins. He has to be present in human homes in the sacred hour of sorrow and speak in Christ's name. He has to be God's messenger of comfort to the desolate and broken-hearted, to stand by the bedside of dying saints and dying sinners, and tell each one of the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world. He has to go where other men would be counted as intruders, into the deep and secret places of human woe, where mothers are clinging to their dead children-where grief is too deep
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for tears, and there bring the consolations of our divine faith.
How vain for any one to fill such an office whose heart is not delicate and sensitive under the refining power of real love. It is not sentimental weakness for which I plead. Paul was no sentimental weakling. He was a great, strong, brave, intellectual man-a very giant of a man. He knew what it was to argue with the wits and wise men of the world; what it was to stand before kings; what it was to be scourged and beaten with rods and to die daily. He was a man, a great, strong man everywhere. But the heart within him was a great, strong, broad heart, and it throbbed and beat as did the heart of the Master for men, for men everywhere. His words of endearment are not words of weakness but of strength. He looked upon men every- where as given to him that he might win them for Christ, or keep them for Christ. His joys and his sorrows were connected with them. He was glad over them, or he grieved over them. He was never cold, never austere, never harsh. He was a true preacher.
II. The apostle also gives us some of the characteristics of a True Church.
If the pastor, like the Chief Pastor, the great and good Shepherd of the Flock, must have a loving nature, surely the disciples, the members of the church, must possess a lovable character. If he is among a people who are morally unlovable and unattractive, how can he be expected to pour out his affections upon them? The true church will be re- sponsive. It will return love for love. It will display the winning graces and qualities of Christly character.
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These qualities of character in the members of a true Church are brought out by the Apostle in three aspects :
1. What the members of a true Church are to each other.
2. What they are in themselves.
3. What they are towards God.
I. What the members of a genuine Church are to each other.
They are bound in spiritual unity. "I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord." Two of the christian women of the Church at Philippi, women who, Paul says, had labored with him and with each other in the Lord, were unhappily at variance. We know nothing about the cause of the trouble. Paul gives no hints. He takes neither side in the alienation. One thing fills his mind. They must be reconciled. It may seem too little a thing to claim the attention and grieve the heart of the great Apostle. It may have been a thing of the commonest kind. It serves Paul as an illustration of how liable believing and loving lives are to be swayed and marred, and so to mar the beauty and weaken the power of a Church. The Church lives and speaks in all its members. It is one body. It must be sound and whole and harmonious in all its parts. There must be no schism in the body. Little grievances grow into great magnitude. In feeling, in friendship, in action, the genuine Church must be one. All hearts must beat in unison. There must be no discords in the music of the Church. All outward life, all intercourse with each other, our common labors, must all keep touch with the spring and source of our spiritual life. We must keep together in our Common Lord. In his glowing presence
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