USA > Pennsylvania > Wayne County > Honesdale > History of the First Presbyterian society of Honesdale > Part 21
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At a meeting held in Harford, September 18, 1821, this Presbytery of Congregational churches sought admission into the Synod of New York and New Jersey. The following is taken from the minutes of their meeting:
"The Susquehanna Presbytery, consisting of six ministers able to labor, and two unable, and having under their care twenty-four feeble churches, and covering nearly one hundred miles square, and embracing about 40,000 inhabitants, lament-
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HONESDALE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
ing the needy state of those precious souls, and conscious of their own inability to afford the requisite relief, one year since took under serious consideration the subject of seeking a con- nection with the churches under the care of the General Assem- bly. And after much inquiry and prayerful reflection, not being able to devise any plan of equal promise to increase the means of sound Christian instruction in their needy and exten- sive region and to advance the interest of the Redeemer's king- dom:
1. Resolved, That we seek a connection under the care of the Gen- eral Assembly.
2. Resolved, That this body will adopt the Confession of Faith and Book of Discipline of the General Assembly.
3. Resolved, That we will seek a connection with the Synod of New York and New Jersey, and endeavor to have the minutes of Presbytery so formed that they may be accepted by the Synod, provided the individual churches be allowed to manage their own concerns in their usual, or Con- gregational, manner.
4. Resolved, That the Rev. Cyrus Gildersleeve, Rev. Simeon R. Jones, Rev. Lyman Richardson and brother Henry V. Champion, be a com- mittee to carry forward an attested copy of the minutes of this Presbytery to the Synod at its ensuing session in Newark, on the third Tuesday in October, and use their endeavor to obtain the connection desired."
The Synod received the Presbytery in October, 1821, on the "Plan of Union" as it was called. This anomalous Pres- bytery containing twenty-four churches, only *two of which were organized according to the Presbyterian form, were received into the Presbyterian family.
The ministers were Ebenezer Kingsbury, Cyrus Gilder- sleeve, Simeon R. Jones, Oliver Hill, Lyman Richardson, Sal- mon King, Joel Chapin and Joseph Wood. The names of the twenty-four churches cannot be determined with certainty. Some were in New York. Bethany and Mount Pleasant and later, Honesdale church, were connected with Hudson Presby- tery. The following appear to have been the churches: Wilkes- Barre, Kingston, Wyalusing, Orwell and Warren, Wysox, Braintrim and Windham, Athens, Smithfield, Wells, Harford, (Bridgewater 1st, now Montrose, Bridgewater 2d, now Brook-
*Bethany, in 1818; Wells, in 1821.
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HONESDALE CHURCH IN PRESBYTERY.
lyn,) Springville, Middletown, Salem and Palmyra now Salem, Lawsville, Gibson, North Windsor, South Windsor, Great Bend, Ararat, Pike, Silver Lake and New Milford. The Presbytery had Wilkes-Barre as its southern limit and Binghamton on the north, one hundred and twenty-five miles apart, Salem and Palmyra on the east and the church at Wells on the west, being one hundred miles apart, comprising a territory larger than the state of Connecticut. These churches asked to manage "their own concerns in their usual or Congregational manner," and they continued as Congregational churches for many years. The church at Mount Pleasant was reorganized as a Presby- terian church in 1832. The Salem and Palmyra church was reorganized by Rev. Joel Campbell and Stephen Torrey, as the First Presbyterian church of Salem in 1832. The Bethany Presbyterian church was organized by Rev. Phineas Camp and Deacon John Tyler, of the Congregational church, of Ararat, in 1818, and it appears to have been the first distinctively Presby- terian church organized in Northeastern Pennsylvania. And here is Deacon Tyler helping a Presbyterian minister organize a Presbyterian church. The fact is the early settlers did not recognize much difference between these two denominations, and it was only a matter of convenience which form of church gov- ernment should be adopted.
The Susquehanna Presbytery was divided in 1832 and the churches in Wayne became a part of Montrose Presbytery. It consisted originally of seven ministers, E. Kingsbury, J. Wood, J. Chapin, L. Richardson, Daniel Deruelle, Adam Miller and Sylvester Cooke. There were eighteen churches, Harford, Montrose, Great Bend, Ararat, Gibson, Lawsville, Middletown, Silver Lake, Salem, Springville, Brooklyn, Dundaff, Conklin, New Milford, Mount Pleasant, Bethany, Honesdale and Car- bondale, the latter being in Luzerne county and Conklin in New York. The first meeting was held at Harford, November 13, 1832. In speaking of the Salem church Rev. Adam Miller in his history of Montrose Presbytery says: "That church of Salem and Palmyra - we utter the title with a kind of rever-
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HONESDALE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
ence. The composite name has about it an air both of antiquity and sacredness. A very Tadmor in the wilderness it was with the Tabernacle of God in it."
The Presbytery of Luzerne was organized in 1843 to sup- ply the need of the anthracite coal regions. This Presbytery had no particular connection with the churches in Wayne county until the reunion of the Old and New School Presbyterians in 1870, at Pittsburg, when the historic Presbyteries of Susque- hanna, Montrose and Luzerne were consolidated into the Lack- awanna Presbytery, comprising Northeastern Pennsylvania, with the wealthy churches of the coal region, making it one of the strongest Presbyteries in the land. Old Father T. P. Hunt, the great temperance lecturer, Dr. N. G. Parke, Dr. S. C. Logan, Rev. C. C. Corse, Rev. Mr. Thomas, Rev. Dr. Stewart, Rev. C. S. Dunning, Rev. S. F. Colt, Rev. Adam Miller and many others will be remembered in connection with these Presbyteries.
June 21, 1870, twenty ministers and six elders met at Spring Garden Presbyterian church, in Philadelphia, and or- ganized Lackawanna Presbytery. They were ministers, S. C. Logan, D. D., H. H. Welles, E. H. Snowden, William F. Arms, J. B. Fisher, H. J. Crane, James W. Raynor, B. S. Foster, J. G. Miller, Samuel F. Colt, Yates Hickey, E. H. Camp, Darwin Cook, William J. Day, S. P. Gates, H. Armstrong, Albert B. King, David Craft, Clark Salmon, John S. Stewart, and elders, Stephen Torrey, of Honesdale, A. T. McClintock, of Wilkes- Barre, William H. Jessup, of Montrose, S. N. Bronson, of Or- well, James B. Adams, of Troy and A. Wickham, of Towanda. says:
In a history of Lackawanna Presbytery, prepared in 1887 by Rev. P. H. Brooks, in speaking of the feeble churches he "When at times, during these seventeen years, the ec- clesiastical cords have weakened and let a few of these vines trail and lie on the ground, and the too hasty judgment has arisen from the dust, that in this vast Presbytery no one cares for our little churches; then one well known man has been our representative. * * * Thus as year by year has rolled around, the Rev. Stephen Torrey has been the only man
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HONESDALE CHURCH IN PRESBYTERY.
who has filled the same offices from the origin of the Presby- tery until the present time, viz .: that of treasurer of Presbytery, and he has also labored much of that time as Presbyterial mis- sionary, and when on his 77th birthday anniversary Presbytery laid hands of ordination upon him, in the Honesdale church, setting him apart as an Evangelist, all felt that he had used the office of a ruling elder well, and had purchased to himself a good degree and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus."
Lackawanna Presbytery held its first regular session in the Honesdale Presbyterian church April 19, 1871. Rev. N. G. Parke moderator, and Stephen Torrey represented the Hones- dale church. Their statistical report to Presbytery was as follows: Communicants, 429; added during the year, 42 by profession, and 7 by letter; baptized adults, 19; infants, 5; number of children in Sabbath school and Bible classes, 500; funds collected for foreign missions, $770; domestic missions, $726.50; education, $300; disabled ministers, $200; freedmen, $100; contingent fund, $40; congregational, $4,000.
Rev. Peter H. Brooks, D. D., very kindly furnishes the fol- lowing facts: While in Montrose Presbytery Richard L. Seely represented the Presbytery in General Assembly four times, viz .: in 1846, 1855, 1859 and 1861. Rev. C. S. Dunning represented Presbytery twice in the Assembly, in 1864 and 1869, and Elder Stephen Torrey twice, in 1867 and 1870. After the organiza- tion of Lackawanna Presbytery Rev. C. S. Dunning and Elder Torrey represented Presbytery in 1871. Elders Torrey and H. M. Seely at Baltimore in 1873. Elder Seely again in 1875. Elder S. Torrey in 1878. Elder W. B. Holmes at Springfield, Ill., in 1882. Rev. C. S. Dunning Saratoga Springs 1883. Elder S. Torrey in 1885, Cincinnati, O. Rev. W. H. Swift 1886, Minneapolis. Elder W. B. Holmes 1891, Detroit, Mich. Rev. W. H. Swift 1893, Washington, D. C. Elder A. Thompson 1894, Saratoga Springs. Elder R. M. Stocker 1898, Winona, Ind. Rev. W. H. Swift, D. D. 1903, Los Angeles, Cal., but did not attend owing to sickness in family. Elder Horace C. Hand
24S
HONESDALE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
New York, Fifth Avenue, 1902.
Prior to 1884 Synod was composed of pastors and elders from different churches, but now a certain number are elected by Presbytery. Lackawanna Presbytery has been represented from Honesdale church by Rev. W. H. Swift and Elder S. Tor- rey in 1884, by Elder Torrey in 1885. Elder Thompson in 1886. Rev. Stephen Torrey in 1887. Rev. W. H. Swift and Elder A. Thompson in 1889. A. Thompson 1891. Elder J. T. Ball 1895. Elder A. Thompson 1898. Elder R. M. Stocker 1901. Elder John T. Ball 1903. In the earlier years R. L. Seely represented the church in Synod in 1844, 1846, 1848 and 1857. I. P. Foster in 1837.
Our church has generally been represented in Presbytery by our pastor and one elder. Only a few times in its history, particularly in recent years, has it been without a representative at hoth spring and fall meetings of this important governing body. All of the elders in the church are called upon in regular alphabetical order to represent the church at these meetings. This is done in order that none of the elders shall be omitted from the honors and responsibilities of this service.
Lackawanna Presbytery in 1904 had 84 ministers, 368 eld- ers, 73 deacons, 16,029 members and an enrollment of 16,966 in its Sunday schools. It contributed for congregational ex- penses in 1904, $237,553. Home missions $21,586. Foreign missions $14,621. Education $3,768. Sunday school work $1,677. Church erection $2,225. Relief fund $2,349. Syn- odical aid $2,363. Aid to colleges $913. General assembly $1,991.56. Miscellaneous $9,817. There were added to the churches on examination 827, by letter 403, and dismissed to other churches 475. These large sums of money, aggregating nearly $300,000, are contributed annually by the churches of Lackawanna Presbytery. The value of the church property of this Presbytery would have to be expressed with seven figures. With all this wealth and adaptation for work the question may well be asked whether the church is doing all that it should for the elevation of the human race. Lackawanna Presbytery has
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HONESDALE CHURCH IN PRESBYTERY.
an immense population of immigrants from southern Europe speaking a dozen different dialects, that need to be educated in our customs and language and most of all they need religious instruction. Rev. Dr. Logan is chairman and A. W. Dickson is treasurer of a committee of Presbytery that is doing a great work in educating and evangelizing these people.
The following note appears appended to the minutes Sep- tember 18, 1904. R. M. Stocker, delegate, reported that im- portant business was transacted at Presbytery, that proposed amendments to Chapter XIII of the Book of Discipline relating to judicial commissions was approved, that the Presbytery dis- cussed the matter of allowing one Presbytery to be established within the territory embraced in one or more Presbyteries now established. This matter and another matter relating to union with the Cumberland Presbyterians were postponed until spring session. The evangelistic committee reported in favor of in- augurating evangelistic work throughout the coal regions ex- tending from Forest City to Nanticoke. The evangelistic com- mittce was enlarged and instructed to secure the cooperation of all the evangelistic churches throughout the entire Presbytery, embracing a population of 300,000 people. This is the first time that Lackawanna Presbytery ever moved as a body in evangelistis work. In furtherance of that work a meeting of as many ministers and elders as could find it convenient to at- tend was held at the Second Presbyterian church at Scranton. At this meeting certain plans were formulated and sent to the pastors of the churches throughout the Presbytery. Rev. W. H. Swift, D. D. and Elder R. M. Stocker attended the spring Presbytery at Carbondale. At this meeting the overtures per- mitting separate Presbyteries and favoring union with Cumber- land Presbyterians were adopted. The first by a vote of 27 to 20 and the last by a vote of 33 to 16. Dr. Logan and some others entered their protests against this action. Dr. Logan's work began among the colored people and he brought the first six colored delegates into the General Assembly that ever sat in that judicatory, but this action is only permissive and colored
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HONESDALE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
people are not excluded from the General Assembly by this ac- tion. There are some eighty churches in the Presbytery and only forty-four had reported to the evangelistic committee. Those reporting showed that 950 persons had been received into the church on profession during the year, while last year the total number received throughout the entire Presbytery was 827. The Honesdale church held special services in accord- ance with the recommendation of Presbytery for four weeks in the chapel. These services were conducted by Rev. Dr. Swift, assisted by Rev. Dr. Joseph Odell, of Birmingham, England, and Richard Roberts, a member of this church, preaching at Bethany.
The session of Honesdale church recommended Mr. Roberts to the Presbytery for license as a local evangelist. This recom- mendation was presented to Presbytery by delegate Stocker and the license was granted and Mr. Roberts was taken under care of Lackawanna Presbytery and put in charge of Rev. Dr. Swift who will direct his studies. Dr. Logan mentioned the fact, that at one of their kindergarten schools established for the educa- tion of foreign speaking people there were nineteen different languages spoken among eighty pupils. There are 100,000 or more of these people in the coal regions. Many of them are Calvinists and the church has a great work to do for these peo- ple. They look upon this country as the land of opportunity and they have come to stay. They are not only invading the coal regions but they are locating on farms, some of them in Wayne county, and the future of our country is largely in their hands. Here is home and foreign missionary work at our very doors which we neglect at the peril of our institutions. The assertion was made in Presbytery that there are 30,000,000 of people of foreign birth in the United States of America. At the rate these people are coming to our shores there is danger that our manners and customs, our religion and institutions will be entirely changed, but if we do our duty the grand heritage which was bequeathed to us by our ancestors will not be lost. Lackawanna Presbytery has expended many thousands of dol-
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HONESDALE CHURCH IN PRESBYTERY.
lars in this work, with good results. At the last Presbytery a Magyar was ordained to the Christian ministry and an Italian was taken under care of the Presbytery. Mr. Hambroski, who speaks a number of languages, and several others are constantly going np and down the valleys of the coal region organizing these people into churches and teaching them.
When the Congregationalists first organized in the wilder- ness the population of Northeastern Pennsylvania consisted largely of New England settlers with a few Germans and Irish, later Welsh and Cornish English were added and for the last thirty years thousands of immigrants from Southern Europe have located within the bounds of Lackawanna Presbytery. The composite character of the work forced upon us is indicated by the ordination of four young men at the Presbytery at Carbon- dale in 1905, representing as many nationalities, viz .: One American, one Magyar, one Welshman and one Syrian. In ad- dition to this one Italian and one Welshman speaking English, were licensed as evangelists. The church is moving in line with her duties and another generation will see the results.
The following is the report of the Presbyterian church of Honesdale, for the year ending March 31, 1905;
Dismissed to other churches.
4
Added to the church
55
Deaths
4
Reserve roll Elders
8
Deacons
3
Baptisms
Sunday school membership 504
Membership of church. 624
The membership when Dr. Swift assumed the pastorate, in 1884, was FINANCIAL REPORT.
344.
$ 896 00
Home Missions
Foreign Missions 475 00
Education
30 00
Sunday School Work.
55 00
Church Erection
30 00
Relief Fund
30 00
Temperance
10 00
Freedmeu
70 00
American Bible Society.
27 91
Aid for Colleges
30 00
General Assembly
58 00
Miscellaneous
198 00
Congregational
8,364 00
Total
$10,273 91
6
32
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HONESDALE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
Total amount raised by the church, during the past twenty-one years, is $220,049.57, an average of $10,478.55 per year, about one-half of which was expended outside of Honesdale.
The first floor of the chapel has been newly carpeted, at an expense of some $150, and this the Sunday school has paid.
At a meeting of the session of the Presbyterian church, held April 15th, the following was unanimously adopted :
To THE PRESBYTERY OF LACKAWANNA :
The session of the church earnestly ask that Richard Roberts, of Beth- any, a member of our church, be taken under the care of the Presbytery, as a local evangelist. He ie a young man of earnest piety, consecrated to the work of Christ, and possessing gifts especially fitting him for the sacred office.
The following statistics of church membership in compari- son with population will be of interest. Taken for every decade: Date. Population of Church Sunday School. members. Honesdale. Total to date. Total contribution.
1830
433
23
23
30*
$ 500 00*
1840
1086
175*
229
100*
1500 00*
1850
2263
250*
417
150
3000 00*
1860
2544
275*
578
200*
5000 00*
1870
2654
432
781
500
7482 85
1880
2620
350
946
500
6845 34
1890
2816
450
1170
643
12311 45
1900
2864
580
1497
467
7421 00
1905
2950*
600
1687
500
10273 91
The Honesdale church and all of the churches in the Pres- bytery are ever advancing onward and upward. The Presby- terianism of Princeton, Auburn and Union Seminaries, grafted on to the Congregationalism of Puritan New England, makes an aggressive, stalwart Christianity, whose influence is for the uplifting of the masses both at home and abroad. It is a type of Christianity that believes in missions, both home and foreign. "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every crea- ture," is to them no unmeaning command.
*Those marked with a star are estimates.
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LIBERTY, CALVINISM AND OLD-TIME MINISTERS.
CHAPTER VIII.
LIBERTY, CALVINISM AND OLD-TIME MINISTERS.
No history of the struggle for existence which characterized the pioneer churches would be complete without giving a pen portrait of the old-time minister. The EN PHILAD BYORDERDATE Colonies were settled principally by dis- senters from the established churches in the old country. True there was a cer- tain number of Catholics and Episcopa- lians, principally in Maryland and Virginia, but the great body of the American Colo- nists had fled from oppression at home and came here to make a home in the wilderness where they could worship God ac- cording to the dictates of their own consciences. The Scotch and Irish Presbyterians, French Huguenots, Dutch Reformed, Congregationalists and Baptists, all Calvinistic and impregnated more or less with austere Puritanism, were the dominating forces in America at the time of the Revolution. Philip Em- bury preached to a handful of Methodists in an attic in 1766 and in 1773 they claimed one hundred and sixty members, con- sequently the Methodists were not in the Revolution in any force. Its great founder, John Wesley, was true to his own country and wrote against the Americans, little realizing that in free
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HONESDALE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
America the greatest extension of his church would be made. The Adamses, shrewdly planned to have George Washington Commander-in-Chief of the rebel forces in order to placate Vir- ginia and the South, and there were a number of staunch sup- porters of the American cause among the Episcopalians, but the great body of them were among the loyalists almost from necessity. There was no American Episcopal church then, it was the Church of England, and the King was recognized as nominal head of the church, consequently a rebellion against the King was a rebellion against the head of the church. The American revolution was essentially a Calvinistic Dissenters' rebellion. The Catholics assisted because they were ready to oppose England on general principles any time, and they ren- dered good service in the fight for independence.
Bancroft says: "Calvinism saw in goodness infinite joy, in evil infinite woe, and. recognizing no other abiding distinc- tions, opposed secretly, but surely, hereditary monarchy, aris- tocracy and bondage." The famous Mecklenburg Declaration was drawn up by Ephraim Brevard, a ruling elder of the Pres- byterian church and a graduate of Princeton, nearly a year before the famous Declaration by Jefferson. The only minister that signed the American Declaration of Independence was Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon, a lineal descendant of John Knox, and president of Princeton College. When the moment of signing had come and some were hesitating, he delivered an appeal in which he said: "That noble instrument upon your table, which insures immortality to its author, should be subscribed this very morning by every pen in the house. He that will not re- spond to its accents, and strain every nerve to carry into effect its provisions is unworthy the name of a freeman. For my own part, of property I have some, of reputation more. That repu- tation is staked, that property is pledged on the issue of this contest. And although these gray hairs must soon descend into the sepulchre I would infinitely rather they should descend thither by the hands of the public executioner than desert at this crisis the sacred cause of my country." It was in the
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LIBERTY, CALVINISM AND OLD-TIME MINISTERS.
spirit of this Presbyterian minister that the Dissenters revolted, and there was reason for it. In 1815 John Adams wrote: "The apprehension of Episcopacy contributed, fifty years ago, as much as any other cause to arouse the attention, not only of the inquiring mind, but of the common people, and urge them to close thinking on the constitutional power of Parliament over the Colonies. Passive obedience and non-resistance in the most unqualified and unlimited sense were the principles in government; and the power of the Church to decree rites and ceremonies, and the authority of the Church in controversies of faith, were explicitly avowed. In Virginia the Church of Eng- land was established by law in exclusion, and without tolera- tion of any other denomination. In New York it displayed its essential character of intolerence. Large grants of land were made to it, while other denominations could obtain none; and even Dr. Rodgers' congregation in New York, numerous and respected as it was, could never obtain a legal title to a spot to bury its dead." In this same letter he says the dread of Epis- copacy was one of the chief causes of the revolt of the Colo- nists against Great Britain. This thing was well understood in England where, in Parliament, Horace Walpole said, "the Americans had run off with a Presbyterian parson," and Good- rich in his history of the United States says, "The bishops sitting in a row in the House of Lords voted against the Ameri- cans to a man and were in favor of putting them down with fire and the sword."
The Calvinists in revolting against Episcopacy in America were only continuing a contest of centuries. The same contest had been waged in Switzerland, Holland, Scotland and England, viz .: The right of private judgment on the part of each indi- vidual in matters of faith and practice. An eminent English author says: "The first circumstances by which we must be struck is that Calvinism is a doctrine for the poor and Armin- ianism for the rich," and Bancroft says "a richly endowed church always leads to Arminianism and justification by works." The prelatical or Episcopal form of church government, which
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