USA > Pennsylvania > Allegheny County > Pittsburgh > Centennial volume of the First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, PA., 1784-1884 > Part 8
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Nor must it be forgotten there have been held in the First Church a series of four distinctively revival conventions, em- bracing the membership of several Western Synods, all of them productive of much edification, and two of them, to wit: 1842 and 1857, followed by great outpourings of the Spirit. In the former, all church work was to be considered, and " educational interests to be set forward." There was vivid remembrance of former seasons of revival, and frank acknowledgment of sins was made. The population of the "Great West " was seriously laid to heart, and "Ministerial Emigration " was proposed to supply the wants of the "Mississippi Valley." Ministers were solemnly called upon to "consider whether their usefulness would not be greatly increased" by giving up comfortable homes eastward and venturing into the comparative wild. Such are the known connections of the 1857 meeting, that some have traced directly to its influence the presumedly perpetual conven- tion of prayer "for the outpouring of the Spirit upon all flesh," called the "Week of Prayer," the Sabbath day of the interces- sory year.
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The whole experience of the First Church's first century is clearly in favor of revivals. Not of revivals relied upon as any substitute for regular growth and daily faithfulness and system- atic instruction in the things of God ; for all these things have always been present in this history. Nor yet of revivals ac- companying the special labor ab extra, of some evangelist. Evangelists have been welcomed, but the best seasons of growth, by revival, have been under the ministrations of the pastors, with occasional assistants. May this characteristic continue and the church be ever a conservatively revival church.
10. The last characteristic to be noted is the constancy of the old church. It is not known here by any programme, but by its record. It has been true to the line for a century. This is first illustrated in its leadership. It was first in the primitive form of the Sabbath School, as illustrated by the Sabbath catechumen classes of pastors Barr, Steele and Herron. It was first in the regular Sabbath School in 1815 ; first in advocacy of Union Sab- bath School effort in 1817 ; first to provide instruction for colored children by Dr. Herron's encouragement of James Wilson ; first in the city to engage in City Missions ; first (and last) to erect a building specially for Sabbath Schools and purposes of Christian work. And this has been by the force of circumstances and a certain amount of inward vigor.
This constancy has been illustrated also in the attachment of the church to its pastors. There has been no important disagree- ment, save with the first, and that was due to the peculiar circumstances of the times. Such resolutions and declarations of confidence have been passed, and such adequate and prompt support has been given, and so many unlooked for and unprom- ised kindnesses extended to them all, that those who live, and the representatives of the dead, have only one voice-a unison of gratitude. The reciprocal attachment of the pastors to the church has been just as manifest, each one of the three since 1811, having refused calls elsewhere, variously advantageous when offered. The experience of the church would seem to be favorable to long pastorates, and these are favorable to continu- ance of the customs of church life and hostile to disturbing innovations. [And there is no little interest in the fact that the church of the long pastorates has been also the church of what modern impatience terms long sermons. The three pastors since
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1811, have been alike in only one thing-a disposition to leave as little sand in the traditional hour-glass as possible.]
The constancy of the church has been evidenced in the tran- quility with which all ecclesiastical changes have been passed through. Philadelphia Presbytery was formed in 1704. The division of the Philadelphia Synod from New York Synod, took place in 1741. The re-union came on in 1758-the very year in which the English flag was planted on the conquered fort here by General Forbes. This Synod organized the Redstone Presbytery in 1781, and that was the first ecclesiastical body of which our infant church became conscious. Then we knew the Synod of Virginia, formed in 1785. Next came the General Assembly, whose first meeting was held in 1789. The first general mis- sionary collections were taken under its order in the latter part of 1789, and in the same year contributions were made to the Synod of Virginia, to aid in supporting "missionaries for vacant congregations." The first recorded approval of Presbytery Minutes is in 1790. The impulse of the missionary work, ordered both by Assembly and Synod, reached us in 1800. Next ยท came the change to the Synod of Pittsburgh, in 1802. In 1822 it was propssed to form a Presbytery of Pittsburgh, but the peti- tion was not granted. Instead, in October of that year our church (with others) was attached to the Presbytery of Ohio, which had been formed in 1793. The Assembly met here in 1836, and disruption came on in 1837. Itisunnecessary to say that this church was not among the exscinded. When the division came on the issue of loyalty to the government, there was no doubt as to its position. Its faith was then fairly demonstrated by its work. Then came the glorious re-union day of 1869, our passage into the new relations (Synod of Pittsburgh and Presby- tery of Pittsburgh) in 1870 ; and in 1882 into the consolidated Synod of Pennsylvania. In all these changes the church has swung easily and quickly into the denominational grooves, adding its own strength and gaining the strength of others. Its century is a good argument for the steadying power of Presby- terian unity and order as against the disintegration of Independ- ency. The church has simply stood in its lot and accepted the changes ordered by its own representatives. Then it has quickly perceived and rapidly undertaken its duty at every change. [The sole complaint it has ever had to utter, under all these ecele-
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siastieal changes, was that petition of last century, to be released from the Presbytery of Redstone and transferred to the Presby- tery of Carlisle.]
This constancy has been seen in the general consent of the church to the doctrines which are considered representative of our denomination. In May, 1825, the Session purchased "one dozen Confessions of Faith for distribution among the poor." The sentence of Judge Snowden, written in 1839, has been kept good until this day : "The Session have at all times adhered to the principles contained in the Confession of Faith, Directory for Worship, etc., and in enforcing the doctrines or exercising the discipline of the church, they have received them as their acknowledged. publie standard." Our church has had its full measure of interest in that acknowledgment of our region's soundness in the faith which is conveyed in the phrase-" the backbone of Presbyterianism." Dr. Alexander wrote to Dr. Weed, (of Wheeling) in 1833: "Pittsburgh Synod is the purest and soundest limb of the Presbyterian body. When we fall to pieces in this quarter and in the far West, that Synod will be like a marble column which remains undisturbed in the ruins of a mighty temple." We can see now, how much smaller the calamity actually was than this admirable man judged it would be; but also how sagacious he was in discerning the character and forecasting the conduct of the Pittsburgh Synod. It was found true and solid. And we can now see what he could not foresce, the rebuilding of the whole edifice in re-union of 1869, for which our church furnished so appropriate a place for our division's part in the work. I think there are no signs of failure now in this mission of constancy. There is the same convinced adherence to what we believe to be the word of God that was found of old. I know no church less disturbed by doctrinal doubts.
But more than the constancy to denominational truth is to be considered our loyalty to the grand central truths which are the heritage of all denominations and which compose the spinal column of the whole body. The First Church is now, has been always, and must ever be positive in its convictions concerning the leading truths of religion. "We know what we worship," may be reverently said. Inspiration and atonement, justification, sanetification and adoption are terms that cover realities to ns. 7
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Such positiveness belongs to our Bible, our creed and our ances- try. It was evident from the beginning that the church for such a field was to be evangelical. There were grave difficulties at the outset, it is true. The cases of Mr. Barr, (first pastor,) of Mr. Mahon (stated supply,) of Mr. Steele (second pastor,) with that of Judge Addison and probably of Mr. Semple, who both turned to the law, as they were adjudicated in Presbytery, are to be in- terpreted by the lesser importance attached at one time, in Ire- land, to the doctrine of a converted membership and personal experience, and by the state of affairs which gave such decision to the "Log-College" men of this country as men of revival in- fluences and methods and of clear personal testimony to an in- terest in Christ. We have here probably the trans-Allegheny echoes of controversies over the sea, and of those which resulted in the schism of 1745, in the midst of ourselves. Spirituality won the day eventually, and has established supreme dominion, as witness the history of the Second Church from 1802, and of the First from 1811, the period of Dr. Herron's accession. This will prove a sheet-anchor for the future. More than half a century after his entering the church as a boy, the Rev. Dr. Richard Lea, who has always lived beside the church of his youth, read these words at our communion-season in July, 1880. They are so touching a tribute to this characteristic that they deserve to be incorporated here : "This church does not shine comparatively as conspicuously as it did of yore, for the blessed reason that so many bright lights burn all around it. Positively, it has constantly increased in power. It is no ancient ruin, like Castle Dudley or Kenilworth, but a mighty fortress, such as Stirling or Warwick. Peace has been within these walls, pros- perity within the palaces. It has sent forth streams to make glad the city of our God; but has maintained its own fullness. Silently but steadily its communicants have marched heaven- ward, some of them grandly, some of them very humbly, but all surely. They never halted except to gather new power. Never seriously mutinied, never fired upon each other, kept right on, even in the great schism. And now, with undiminished numbers, inscribe upon their banner, " Good will to all. Love to each other. Loyalty to the king."
Such, then, are the characteristics which most plainly disclose the life of the church for the century now closed.
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1. It has been naturally, and by reason of zeal, a place of be- ginnings.
2. It began and continues as a church of the people.
3. It has ever sought alliance with all organized Christian work.
4. It has made itself widely felt by timely and unceasing benevolence.
5. Within, it has been harmonious and has encouraged inter- denominational fellowship.
6. Its discipline has been regular and firm in principle with a possible leaning to leniency in application.
7. Its simplicity in church-life and forms of worship is estab- lished and accented.
8. It has always made an earnest and honest use of the means of grace.
9. It has been richly blessed with revivals along with its con- tinuous and steady growth.
10. It has been constant in personal and ecclesiastical and con- fessional and in evangelical relations and doctrines.
The sober analysis of the facts of its history does not distinguish any the less clearly a multitude of shortcomings, even in the de- grees in which these characteristics have been characteristic. Alas! how much more the church might have been in all these directions and how much less in some others.
But such as it is, the record is matter for profound and adoring gratitude to God. The history has been made up of the richest fragrance of redeemed souls in prayer and service. With all the imperfections which may mar its surface, the whole stands as in that struggle-ending promise of the glorified Christ : " Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God." So pillar-like, firm and unshaken (whether ornamental or not,) may the dear old church stand. "And he shall go no more out."
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CLOSING WORDS.
Standing at the close of this first century of our church-life, we have an impressive exhibition of the change which rules in the affairs of men, and of the permanency of spiritual things. As this life has silently unfolded, what a panorama has been afforded by the nations of the world. Our own land passed the crisis of the Constitution and lived through three wars. France has entered upon and completed the cycle of amazing changes, exhi- bitions of forces sadly contrasting with our own comparatively quiet progress, but ending in permanent liberty, let us hope. Germany has been pulverized, and wringing victory from defeat by careful study and patient waiting, is now imperialized. Italy's long submission to Papal temporal power is over, and final inde- pendence and unity are gained. Russia's growth and power have astonished the world, and its terrible internal struggles have painfully interested the world. England's drum-beat has been following the sun, and the vast changes in the Indias under her rule, are but typical of the many changes which have awakened and aroused to action and progress the torpid millions of the East. Who could have dreamed a century ago of a pierced wall for China, and a western civilization regnant in Japan? What prog- ress of the flying angel "having the everlasting gospel" during these flying years! Its echoes are now thrilling in ahnost every language of the globe. What marvelous developments of popular liberty and education! Who could have predicted the half- miracles of science and discovery and invention and inter-com- munication ? And even those who thought most of Pittsburgh's future then, would acknowledge now that their wildest expecta- tions had been exceeded. During these world-changes, how
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silently the life within these walls and along the lines of spiritual force has developed. Aside from all, breathed into men's hearts from another world, yet for all and in all and helped by all, this life has persisted. Empires come and go, but the church is "praying yet."
Here has been presented a record which may well challenge the attention of men of the world, and even of unbelievers and scoffers. Let them " go round about " this Zion, leveling their eye-glasses at its every course made visible as the process of con- struction has been unfolded and at every finished turret. They will find many faults, but not half so many as have all the time been found and pointed out and lamented and repented of by the patient generations of builders. And what else may they find ? Can the decency, the social influence, the business energy and in- tegrity, and the benevolence and the law abiding loyalty which have been charactertistie of this church for a hundred years, be denied by them? Now let them, seeing these things are matters of fact, account for them. Do sacred themes unfit men for business in the light of this church's record? Do not the grand motives of religion hold men to nobler character, and does not the supreme love to God produce love to fellow men ? Does "other worldliness" make men unable to be dutiful citizens and loyal patriots and strong artisans and successful manufacturers and notable professional men? The "paths of peace and pleas- antness" have been trodden by the vast majority of the thousands who have communed at these tables; and the sacred life of happy homes in all these generations has testified to the benefi- cent power of the gospel in and for this life. How many, even of those the city has admired and honored, would you find (could you call them back, ) willing to testify that they owed all they valued in this world to the principles of the religion they learned and professorl liere ! Let men deal honestly with the church of Christ, and they cannot deny the moral and conservative and sustaining power of a body of Christians like those who have worshiped and do worship here. How few of these thousands have been found enemies of their fellow men by crimes of pecu- lation or violence, or intemperance or impurity! Which has fed the jails and penitentiaries, this church and those which have sprung from it, or Barney Coyle's saloon (which Father Maguire mentioned,) and its progeny of thousands like it? What of
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the gospel here and the theatres on the avenues hard by as teachers of morals, purity of life and thought? To which ought a frightened city, becoming nervous for its own safety, turn as the great popular educator in the noble art of right living ? The review of our century, rightly taken up, would be fraught with lessons for our whole population, and especially for our civil officers and our press.
But this witness for the truth of God has been borne by men and women (and children too,) who were themselves being borne away-caught up when their testimony was finished, as is God's promise : leaving the banner to other hands. In all these years what a steady exodus to heaven! Some have gone every year, and in some years many. Parents after the children, whose early death, it may be, led them to the Saviour. Clusters of lilies has the Master gathered from these borders as the hap- tized children were called to His arms. Rest has He given the weary and the aged. Work here has He exchanged for work there in many an earnest middle life. In the comforting view of our beautiful faith, the portals of heaven have been always open above this spot : and the souls of believers " made perfeet in holi- ness," have been "immediately passing into glory " through the very shadows that seemed, at times, to gather so heavily about those that were left. With what gratitude we ought to remem- ber that not one of all the hundreds of Christians called from this communion to that of the "church of the first-born," has ever been called to die in the midst of darkness or spiritual de- sertion. [Certainly I have never heard of a case of the kind.] And on the other hand, how many displays of unfathomable grace in the dying experiences of these dear people of God. Ah ! how I remember some of them. How richly .God's promises have comforted you as they were comforting them who were passing into the unseen to meet Him who lights it all up as a palace by the very fact of His presence there. How many times there has been nothing left us but to "rest and be thankful " when God had taken His own to Himself. So shall it be with us in our turn. All shall be well. Heaven is not far away. The door seems fairly ajar, and the song of redemption almost audible, as we look upward toward that now "great cloud of witnesses" that has been gathering there from this church alone during a century of time.
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But now to the last words of this whole occasion. The great impulse of our centennial is forward ! The past is to be re- membered only as the foundation of a house is-it is something to build upon. It may give shape, as it will give solidity to the superstructure, but it is no end to itself. In the Annual Sermon of 1869, I said, "Thinking over what we have done rather than of what remains to do, is productive only of a weak sort of self-dandling. Luxuriating in past attainments, is a vice of some Christians and of some churches. We are tempted to think that much which is done, when, for our opportunities, it - may be pitifully small. And sometimes (remembering the past achievements, without the conditions of toil and patience which accompanied them,) we can grow morose because things now seem more difficult to do. So far as the past is in danger of be- coming a snare by ministering to a weak vanity or to bitterness, let it be forgotten-"forgetting the things that are behind."
But on the other hand, to remember the past as a sacred deposit in our hands, and all its achievements, with all their cost, as entrusted to us to be maintained and developed, is to experience a tingling sense of mingled pride and responsibility, out of which may grow a glowing Christian heroism, and an invincible forward impulse. Oh, may God so help the First Church to use this whole memorial celebration. Ours is a holy trust. What has been gained by faith and patience, must be conserved, perpetuated and enlarged by zeal and devotion. Amid the thronging memories of former days, we ought to find the germs of future consecrations. We have been tracing upward the stream, and noting the oneness of our life with that which they lived, only to come back to the starting point to start anew in the other direction, with added wisdom and determination. Only thus, beloved, can the experience of the century past enter with large and beneficent power into the history of the century to follow.
The lessons of these past struggles are before us, and with one voice they testify to the power that "overcometh the world-even our faith." Where has God failed to help when our fathers leaned upon Him? At the first infant-ery, help came. When the hewn logs were being piled into the modest cabin for worship, was He not there to aid at every step, planting the small vine, literally, in a broad place ? When a second
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great effort was made, and faith seemed to fail and false means were resorted to and strange fire burned on the altar, how quickly God left even His own to discover that "except the Lord build the. house, they labor in vain to build it." The evil effects of the lottery were visible until the first revivals came. And in these first gracious outpourings of the Spirit, and the efforts which followed them, how present God was to help. And thus it has been to the very last of our larger enterprises. The church has an-ever precious, clear and vivid record of the divine acceptance of her every earnest effort. Never, either in more temporal concerns, or in purely spiritual matter, has the church roused herself to any great duty, or undertaken any great work, but God has crowned it with success.
And now that the struggles for maintenance seem to be over (probably forever)-now is the time to remember that we are nearer than ever to the objects for which those struggles were entered upon, and by divine grace made successful. The work for which the century past has been preparing the First Church, is just before it ! "Rest on every side"-from exigen- cies of frontier life, from savages, from disputed territorial limits, from pecuniary embarrassments, from denominational divisions, from defective instrumentalities and accommodations, from almost everything that can hinder : is for what object ? Why does a fruit tree pass from slender shoot to stalwart trunk and waving branches and whispering leaves? To stand there and be handsome ? Ah, no! The curse of the Master rings ou the wind and touches every quivering leaf-if such a thought enters our hearts ! A church grows that it may grow : it bears fruit, that that fruit-having its seed in itself by the divine law of the new creation-shall bear more fruit ! Think !! Has the church grown alone ? Where there were tens and then hundreds and then thousands, there are now tens of thousands. The struggles for maintenance must only be changed to struggles for productive- ness. Some account must be given to God, (ave, even to men -aye, even to our own consciousness,) for the resources piled up here in men and means, and education and opportunity. THERE is THE GREAT lesson of the centennial. The Red Sea and the desert, and even the Jordan, are behind us that we may go up-in common with all other parts of God's host-to "possess the land." That means earnest, thoughtful, intense, self-
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surrendering work. It means work in the detail of church life, in the outreaching forces of organized Christian love : by the de- nominational arms that take hold of life over our whole land (in religion and education, ) and which pierce the world with avenues by which "gifts" may follow graces, and faith be proved by "works."
The church may not be' compared to a century plant, for it blossoms at all times. Still less is it an evergreen, for its leaves are deciduous and successive generations of believers disappear. It cannot be called an oak-for even oaks must die. It has no simile but His life in whom it lives. Perennial productiveness must be its motto. " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." No church can be Christ's church and not underwrite that decla- ration-"I, too, work."
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