USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > History of the Parish of the Holy Apostles, Philadelphia : 1868-1918 > Part 6
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Although a stranger to you but a warm admirer of your dear husband, I wish to inform you that, as a mark of respect to the dear departed soul, the flag on my mill was at half mast during all of last Saturday. I thought my action would be an additional comfort to you in this hour of great trial, but no tribute to him no matter how extensive or far-reaching could ever suffice for a whole life devoted in helping those who were unable to render themselves any assistance. His place can never be filled. Such men are divine, and the knowledge of all this should atone for the great grief that is now enveloping you and your entire family. I am thankful I have been permitted to live in the same State and city with him, with the additional satisfaction that I saw him laid to rest on last Saturday afternoon; I assure you of my sincere and deep sympathy.
EXTRACT FROM THE ADDRESS OF THE RT. REV. THOMAS J. GARLAND, D. D., AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER STONE OF THE CHAPEL OF THE MEDIATOR-(THE GEORGE .C. THOMAS MEMORIAL)
George Clifford Thomas! What an inspiration there is in that name! What a wonderful and sterling example of Christian manhood and generosity!
It is, perhaps, fitting that I should represent the Diocese of Pennsylvania today, for as one of your Bishops I have known him intimately, long before the day of my consecration, known him when I was Secre- tary of this Diocese, and then in intimate association with him as one of the Department Secretaries of the
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great Board of Missions where he was the center of inspiration and administrative genius.
Yesterday was the aniversary of his birth. Yes- terday was the anniversary of my consecration, as five years ago yesterday Bishop Rhinelander and I were con- secrated to the office and work of Bishop of the Church of God, and many a time have I felt how much we have missed because God had taken him to the rest of Paradise.
When we think of those churches in which he was interested-why, even the names of the churches preach to us a sermon. That zeal which he imbibed in St. Paul's Church, which made him like St. Paul him- self, filled with the zeal of service! And then we think of the Mediator, and his love and consecration to our Lord Jesus Christ, the one Mediator between God and man. We think of his love for the Holy Communion Chapel, and how it typifies the devotional life of a man who always put first things first, ready to lay down all the ambitions and great successes of a wonderful life of business that he might give all the closing years of his life to the service of his God and parish of the Holy Apostles. Helped by his zeal and service, with the con- secration of life, the Bishops of the Church here lab- ored as the apostles of old labored-they all knew him, all loved him.
But Bishop Brent is to speak to you of the larger aspect of his life; I want to say just a few words about the example to every one in his own parish, and the wonderful results that came from it.
I heard some one say the other day that the word "efficiency" is overworked today. But in spite of that I want to hold him up as a model of efficiency, because
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efficiency has seldom been worked to the limit, when it is connected with consecration of life. We think of the Sunday-school work of his. Do we realize that as the outgrowth of that we have a Sunday-school Association of this Diocese ? De we realize that the General Board of Religious Education is itself the natural outcome of the Sunday-school Association of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, and the wonderful impulse he gave throughout the country to Sunday-school work? We think of his efficiency in the institutional work; how it developed the community in which his church was placed; how he often bought out saloons so that he might remove from the district an influence that was derogatory to the lives of the people, so that they might be surrounded with everything that was uplifting and good; how it was one of the first in our communion- in fact, one of the first of any churches in the country -to establish a great institutional work; and to-day the whole Church is awake, and we have a Board of Social Service that is one of the great departments of the Church's life.
His life comes to you as an inspiration to-day. He saw what might be done for God by the consecration of his love to his Master's service. On this day, so near to the anniversary of his birth, standing on this spot, sacred forever to his memory, will not we pledge our- selves to ask God to give us a clearer vision of what our duty in life must be, and then following his example with a life of consecration, use the blessings that God has given to each one of us for the good of those around us, for the upbuilding of His Church, consecrated to God and to humanity ?
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MR. GEORGE C. THOMAS AND ONE OF HIS GRANDSONS
EXTRACT FROM THE SERMON OF THE RT. REV. CHARLES H. BRENT, D. D., AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER STONE OF THE CHAPEL OF THE MEDIATOR
George Clifford Thomas was a man of wealth, but he believed that that wealth was his only so far as he was the steward, and that he must use it in behalf of God and the cause of God. He had two great interests in the Church, interests so noble that it is hardly pos- sible to conceive of any more so.
He loved the children, and he saw in child-life the possibilities of the future. There is one picture of him, which I always associate with the living man. It rep- resents him as holding a little child in his arms. His hands were always stretched out to children. You know how constant his work was in his own Sunday- school, and it is quite possible that many young men of this great congregation to-day owe to him the stimu- lus that led them to fight against and overcome temp- tations and to achieve that manhood which is their highest possession.
And then he had that world vision-that world vision that compelled him to throw his interests far afield, and to touch with his sympathy the uttermost parts of the earth.
Fifteen years ago at this time I was called by the Church to go as its representative to the Philippine Islands, and my first supporter and my most earnest sympathizer was a man whom I had never met; who, if he knew me at all, knew me only by name. But immedi- ately he heard that it was my responsibility to go far yonder, he told me that he was my staunch friend, and he, and his wife (who always was associated with him
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in his gifts), laid the foundations of the Church in the Philippine Islands. To-day the first building that was erected as representing the Church in Manila stands as a memorial to George Clifford Thomas, and has been a haven of refuge to many a young man who has gone yonder to serve his country, and who has found himself beset by the peculiar temptations of the Far East, and who has at least received some word of encouragement in his fight for his country and for his own self-respect and manhood.
I speak to you to-day not merely as a personal friend of the man in whose memory this church is being erected, but as a representative of the whole mission field.
And again, you must know that when the moment came when his health and strength were insufficient for him to attend to his business, and also to the busi- ness of God in the Church, he abandoned his business and devoted himself entirely to the Church of God.
We need such men in these days, and by virtue of the life that is exhibited to us, in brief, to-day as a memorial, we are inspired to imitate the example that he has given us. It is a great thing to have this church erected in his name, and it is the right kind of a memorial, too, because it is the perpetuation of a work which he himself had already begun. In our day so many poor, so many false memorials are erected to the memory of men. But here wisdom has been shown. And in his death George Clifford Thomas continues the work which occupied his heart and his mind and his hands during his life.
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Sunday-school of the Church of the Holy Apostles
SUNDAY-SCHOOL OF THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY APOSTLES
"Blessed Lord, Who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of Thy Holy Word we may embrace, and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlast- ing life, which Thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ."
Collect for the Second Sunday in Advent, which is said in concert just before the lesson- study period every Sunday in Holy Apostles Sunday-school.
On Sunday morning, January 25, 1868, the Sunday-school of the Church of the Holy Apos- tles was organized, with thirty-seven scholars, in the Lecture-room of Tabor Presbyterian Church.
In a tribute to the memory of Bishop Phil- lips Brooks, delivered in Philadelphia January 26, 1893, Mr. George C. Thomas said :- "I think that it was just twenty-five years ago this very day that he, then the rector of the Church of the
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Holy Trinity, placed me in charge of this Sun- day-school. At the suggestion of Bishop Brooks I took the position of Superintendent of the Sun- day-school until he could get someone else, but he never tried. He put me in this place just twenty-five years ago to-day."
When Phillips Brooks first asked Mr. Thomas to take charge of the Sunday-school of the Church of the Holy Apostles, and Mr. Thomas protested leaving his class of young men at Holy Trinity, he said, "Well, take it now, and I will find some one to take your place after awhile." Twenty years later he said with a smile, putting his hand on Mr. Thomas's shoul- der, "You see, I have never been able to find the man to take your place."
By October of the same year the frame building at Twenty-first and Christian Streets was occupied by the church, and it is fair to assume that the Sunday-school moved in at the same time. The church abandoned this entirely to the Sunday-school in 1870. The school grew rapidly, for by March, 1870, there were 375 scholars and 29 teachers and officers.
Very early in its history it must have been imbued with a missionary spirit, because on October 25, 1870, 1500 missionary boxes for members of the Sunday-school and church were secured; while on March 28, 1871, the school,
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having grown to 450 scholars, raised $200 for missions.
In the minutes of the vestry of January 21, 1871, it is stated that Mr. Thomas said the build- ing was not large enough to accommodate the children who wanted to attend, and at the Ves- try meeting of February 27, 1872, he offered to subscribe $5000 towards a new Sunday-school building that was to cost $12,000, and a commit- tee of the vestry, of which Mr. Lemuel Coffin was chairman, subsequently raised $11,000. Messrs. Williams & McNichol erected the build- ing in 1872, and, like most similar experiences, the cost exceeded expectations, running up to $14,000. The Sunday-school occupied the struc- ture on February 16, 1873, abandoning the old frame building.
The first Strawberry Festival, which ever since has been an annual event, was held in 1872 and therefore in the frame building, but the second one (evidently a very successful one, since $420 was then raised) was held in the new building, which joins the church and fronts on Montrose Street.
Up to the summer of 1873 Mr. Thomas played the organ and taught the singing, but at that time Mr. C. H. Roberts was appointed to lead the singing.
At first the upper floor of the new building
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sufficed for the Sunday-school, but by April 28, 1874, the lecture room on the first floor had to be used for the Primary Department. The In- termediate Department was created on October 10, 1897.
A gallery seating one hundred was added to the Sunday-school room in 1876, and the min- utes of the vestry simply says, "without expense to the parish."
The Sunday-school continued to grow rap- idly, and, beginning with the enlargement of the building which began in 1888 (when Mr. Thomas subscribed $5000, and Mrs. Powers and Messrs. Drexel, Childs, Coffin and Brown each sub- scribed $500 to the expense), was completed and occupied December 16, 1888.
In November of the same year Mr. Thomas asked permission to put a pipe organ in the Sun- day-school at his expense.
In 1889 the Infant-school room was added as a memorial to Bessie Moorhead Thomas, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George C. Thomas. In April, 1890, the Phillips Brooks Memorial Building still further added to the facilities of the school.
In the meantime a paper was published monthly, primarily for the Sunday-school les- sons and adding matters of interest to the par- ish. The first issue was in May, 1889. It con-
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tained no advertisements and was paid for by Mr. Thomas. Eventually its sphere enlarged and took in much of interest in the church throughout the world, and at times it contained as much as forty pages. It is a valuable record of many of the important General and Diocesan conventions of the years from about 1890 to 1909. It changed its name in November, 1910, to "The Parish Intelligence." It was much reduced in size, ceasing entirely May 27, 1917. The new paper, "The Monthly Message," which is partly paid for by advertisements, takes its place; April, 1917, being the initial issue.
The school always recovered its attendance promptly after the heated term, and as early as September 15, 1889, there were 772 scholars pres- ent in the afternoon.
When it began is not recorded, but by Christmas, 1889, it had become a custom of the Superintendent to give to each officer and teacher a gift of a book, the gift for that year being Dr. Smith's New Testament History.
Almost all Sunday-schools in those days had excursions to nearby places of amusement and interest for a day's outing. In 1889 the Chapel of the Holy Communion combined with the mother-church and both Sunday-schools went to Lakeside, N. J. A day's outing was also pro- vided for each member of the Sunday-schools to
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a farm at Berwyn, Pa., through the generosity of Mr. George C. Thomas and Mr. Wm. M. Runk, and this was repeated in 1890. In 1891, however, railroad tickets were furnished to all the scholars of both schools for an outing to Atlantic City, N. J., and this was continued for several years through the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. George C. Thomas.
Every effort was made to provide for effi- cient teaching, and to assist in this important work teachers' meetings were a feature of the school from the very beginning. These meetings were well attended, and as early as 1889 the at- tendance on Friday evening, May 31, is recorded as 58.
The school was always recognized as a means of bringing the young people to Christ through the Church, and a large proportion of the scholars have always been communicant members. As early as 1892 an actual count of these showed that 454 members of the school were also members of the church. (In Septem- ber, 1893, the school numbered 86 officers and teachers and 1362 scholars, a total of 1438.) On
the other hand, the members of the church al- ways showed a lively interest in the school, and for several years every member of the vestry was a member of one of the Sunday-schools. The sessions of the school were always held in the
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afternoon all the months of the year until 1896, when during July and August they were held in the morning, and have so continued to the present.
Patriotism has always held an important place in the teaching of the school, appropriate services being held on the Sundays nearest Memorial Day, Flag Day and Independence Day. During the Spanish-American War thirteen members of the church school, as well as six members of the school of the Chapel of the Holy Communion, enlisted and served their country ; two of these lost their lives through typhoid fever while in the service.
Mr. George C. Thomas on February 11, 1902, asked permission of the vestry to enlarge the Sunday-school building at his expense. This developed into what is now known as the "Rich- ard Newton Memorial Building," the Sunday- school and Chantry occupying the second floor, with twenty-six rooms for classes, while the lower floor was given over to the rector's and administration offices, an Intermediate Depart- ment room, Library and a large Guild room; finishing what is undoubtedly one of the most complete equipments for institutional Sunday- school work in this country. The architects were Messrs. Duhring, Okie and Ziegler.
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The main room in the old building was con- verted into a Girls' Gymnasium.
Attaining as it did in its early history its pre-eminence in missions, and being notable also for the large number of persons attending its sessions, it became an attractive place for the most eloquent men in the Church who were in- terested in missionary work. Probably nowhere in our land was there more interesting addresses made to young people. How delightful were the talks of Dr. Newton, whose children's books have been translated into eighteen languages! With what interest did we listen to Phillips Brooks, the most eloquent preacher the Ameri- can Church has ever had. What a delightfully sympathetic voice Dr. McVickar had, and where again shall we hear such a message in all its quaintness, intensity and love as that loyal mis- sionary, Dr. Kirkby, gave; or the polish and elo- quence of Dr. James S. Stone. So we might go on for a long time, mentioning not only those whose words charmed us, as did those of Dr. John Watson (Ian Maclaren), but those men and women who had given the best of their lives in spreading the Gospel in the dark and dangerous places of the world, demonstrating by the stories of their own labors the glory and the beauty of the life "hid in Christ." Men like Bishop Rowe
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and Bishop Brent speak even more eloquently in their deeds than in their words.
The spirit of giving for missions became more thoroughly systematized when the present method of Lenten and Easter Offerings was started in 1878 in this school, but which was begun in 1877 by Mr. John Marston, at St. John's Church, Cynwyd, Pa., a personal friend of the superintendent.
It was Mr. Thomas who first saw the possi- bilities of the "Lenten and Easter Missionary Offerings," after it had been started by Mr. Marston, who, like Mr. Thomas, had grown up under the influence of Dr. Newton, at St. Paul's Church.
The first offering of St. John's Sunday- school, Lower Merion, amounted to $200.00. Mr. Marston interested Mr. Thomas in the matter in 1878, and the latter's genius has made it a na- tional institution. In writing of these begin- nings in 1900, Mr. Marston said that up to that time one million dollars had been raised by the movement. Well might each have said of the other:
"Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught"
*
*
*
By Easter, 1890, the Easter and Lenten Of- fering amounted to $1,633.77. $650 of this went to missions, $100 went to Bishop Thomas, of
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Kansas (whose son in later years became rector) ; another portion went to Minnesota, where it was used in the Mission at West Duluth, named after the Church of the Holy Apostles, and for several years $400 each year was con- tributed to help pay the salary of the preacher there.
Again in 1907 did the school perpetuate its name. Out of its "Memorial Fund," which is a fund given in memory of deceased teachers and scholars, it gave $3,000 to build a church at Hilo, Hawaii, to be named after the Church of the Holy Apostles, and afterward sent $750 for the furnishings.
The Church of the Holy Apostles, Chicago, is the latest to be named after our own. It is doing an active and splendid work. One of its recent leaflets contained the following :- "This school is patterned after Holy Apostles' Sunday- school in Philadelphia, which has for many years been recognized as the foremost Sunday- school in the Episcopal Church."
The best evidence of spiritual growth is shown in a willingness to give, the giving of lives and of means. This testimony has not been wanting. Eight members of the school are now ordained ministers of God.
The names of those who have gone out to labor in the Master's Vineyard are as follows :-
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SIX BOYS OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL WHO STUDIED FOR THE MINISTRY
REV. WM. F. AYER, Chaplain of the Episcopal Hospital, Philadelphia ; REV. WM. S. NEILL, Assistant Minister, Church of the Holy Apostles, Philadelphia ; REV. JAMES E. McGARVEY, Davenport, Iowa ; REV. THOMAS LESLIE GOSSLING,
Rector of St. Matthew's Church, Philadelphia; REV. ALFRED R. MCWILLIAMS,
Rector of Christ Church, Hillside, New Jersey ; REV. LEWIS D. SMITH,
Rector of Trinity Church, Lander, Wyoming; REV. WM. H. BOSWELL, Rector of Trinity Memorial Church, Ambler, Pennsylvania; AND REV. SAMUEL SUTCLIFFE, Minister-in-Charge of St. Mark's Church, New Britain, Connecticut.
Those who have known somewhat intimate- ly of the sacrifices made from year to year that the offerings at Easter for missions might be what they have been, know that spirituality has been a very marked feature of this work.
Mite chests as a material aid for the col- lection of this missionary money were first used
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by the school in 1893. The amount received in them that year was $638.37, the total offering being $2367.21. Some years later Mr. Thomas added to these mite chest offerings an amount equal to the total sum in the boxes, and with the co-operation of Mrs. George C. Thomas, this has been done to this time; and beginning with the year 1899, these generous souls have made it possible to devote the entire amount of the Lenten and Easter Offering, with the exception of the Memorial Offering, to the cause of missions.
The following is a partial list of the Lenten and Easter offerings :
1892
$2,170.98
1905.
$8,894.08
1893
2,367.21
1906
9,774.39
1894.
2,187.73
1907.
9,517.30
1895
2,405.90
1908.
11,678.30
1896
3,240.76
1909.
12,699.38
1897
3,815.97
1910
6,370.12
1898
3,685.97
1911
7,382.76
1899
4,049.44
1912
7,548.81
1900
4,978.75
1913.
6,856.44
1901
5,507.99
1914.
6,334.52
1902
6,193.21
1915
5,734.45
1903.
7,754.75
1916
6,160.56
1904
8,231.39
1917.
6,086.35
About this Missionary offering, and under the caption, "Leadership and the Easter Offer- ing," the rector said in the Lenten number of
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"The Parish Intelligence" for 1916 as follows, and it is quoted here because it stresses the note of personal sacrifice which alone has made such an offering possible :-
"One of God's finest and rarest gifts is that of leadership. There are many people, streets and lanes full of them, trains and boats, cities and lands full of them, but only few of them attain to leadership. Leadership is the product of many things, chief among them being: (1) hereditary gifts; and, (2) willing- ness to pay the sacrificial price, and the latter is by far the greater and more determining factor. Given the premise of two individuals having equal start in natural endowments, and with equal opportunities, it is the one who makes the sacrifices of time and comfort and desire in consecration to his aim of life who wins.
"Our Sunday-school Easter Offering has attained to its place of leadership among all Sunday-school offer- ings of the Church because of two things: (1) the leadership and teaching of a great disciple of Christ's, now gone to his rest, who loved 'to tell the story' him- self and taught his school to tell it, too, and to tell it without regard to place or locality. For he had learned, and they from him, that 'all are one in God'; and, (2) because the scholars of Holy Apostles Sunday-school were willing to pay the sacrificial price, and it WAS a sacrificial price. New clothing has been gone without, and luxuries of the table, and in some cases comforts and things almost necessities been put by, and labors by classes and individuals undertaken throughout the year, that this great offering might be presented unto God on Easter Day. Your love for God and work for the upbuilding of the Kingdom of His dear Christ have
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not been far from heroic. No mere lip service has contented you; praise for you has known the acid test of sacrifice; your faith has joined itself with works, and your place (not your reward, that is hid with God), your place is in the van, clear in the front, established in undisputed leadership among thousands of other Sunday-school scholars, who work this work of God's.
"Let me say this, not in least touch of Pharisaism, but in all proud acknowledgement and gratitude, and do you accept it in humility, calling yourselves still un- profitable servants."
And again in the Lenten number of "The Parish Intelligence" for 1917, when the storm clouds of the world-war threatened America, he wrote under the heading, "The Sunday-school Easter Offering and the Flag and the Cross- Twin Watch-Words of a Common Faith," as fol- lows :-
"The flag and the cross are our two great present watch-words, and more than is wont the twain are one to-day-twin watch-words of a common faith.
"What the flag is to the nation the cross is to the Church-and more. Upon church and cathedral spire, in crowded cities and lonely outposts of civilization it is to be found telling the tale of the Crucified.
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