USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > History of the Parish of the Holy Apostles, Philadelphia : 1868-1918 > Part 9
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At the meeting of October 12, 1885, on the motion of Dr. Nicholson, the first appropriation was made "to the mission on Gray's Ferry Road."
At the meeting held on June 21, 1886, Mr. George C. Thomas reported that a committee from the Church of the Holy Apostles had two lots under consideration, located between Ells- worth and Wharton Streets and 24th and 28th
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Streets, and the church hoped to buy one of these lots without expense to the Convocation.
On August 16, 1886, Mr. Wm. F. Ayer, who had been a member of the Sunday-school of the Church of the Holy Apostles, was engaged to take charge of the services as lay-reader and superintendent of the Sunday-school. He was at that time a student of divinity.
The Rev. Mr. Getz reported October 18, 1886, that services had been held on Sunday, September 26, 1886, in McFadden's Hall, which had been rented at $20.00 per month. This hall was located at Gray's Ferry Road and Carpenter Street, where at 2.30 P. M. the Sunday-school was organized with five officers and teachers and twenty-six scholars. Evening Prayer was said at four o'clock by the clergy of the Church of the Holy Apostles, Mr. George C. Thomas playing the organ.
On February 9, 1887, Mr. George C. Thomas advised the vestry that he had purchased the lot at 27th and Wharton Streets, and that he pro- posed to erect a building thereon in acknowledg- ment and as a general thanksgiving for mercies vouchsafed him in the complete restoration of his son, George C. Thomas, Jr., from a dangerous illness at sea. Messrs. Lemuel Coffin and Alex- ander Brown subscribed $1350 each, covering payment to the owners of the lot.
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Messrs. George W. and W. D. Hewitt, the architects of the Church of the Holy Apostles, were commissioned to draw up the plans for the new building.
For sixteen months the mission held serv- ices in its temporary quarters in the hall, while the combined stone Chapel and Sunday-school building at 27th and Wharton streets was being erected, but on Thursday evening, January 26, 1888, on the twentieth anniversary of the mother-church, the new structure was dedicated by the Rt. Rev. O. W. Whitaker, D.D., Bishop of Pennsylvania. The following account of the dedicatory service is quoted from the "Parish Intelligence" :-
Stirring providences attended the opening of the new and beautiful building of this mission of the Church of Holy Apostles, at Twenty-seventh and Whar- ton Streets, on Thursday evening, January 26, 1888. Mr. George C. Thomas, superintendent of the great Sunday-school of the mother parish, has extended his oversight to the mission, which for some time has been accommodated in an upper room on Gray's Ferry Road. His interest in the present occasion and edifice may be inferred from this inscription, engraved upon a brass tablet in the new chapel: "To the Glory of God, and in humble acknowledgment of His Sparing Mercy with a Sick Child on the Great Deep, this Chapel is erected by the Grateful Father, A. D. 1888. 'When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee.'"
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While the congregation of the mission and invited guests were assembling, a carriage bringing the Rev. Dr. Cooper, Rev. Dr. Phillips Brooks and Rev. Dr. and Miss McVickar, was struck by a locomotive at a crossing of the Pennsylvania tracks; the carriage was demol- ished, the driver badly hurt; but the occupants of the carriage escaped without serious injury. The place of the accident was but a few squares from the chapel, and news of it gave the congregation a part with those whose lives were so wonderfully spared in the pro- found thankfulness felt through the service. The serv- ice was strikingly appropriate to this fresh deliverance from peril. Deep emotion poured forth in the opening hymn:
"O bless the Lord, my soul, His grace to thee proclaim; And all that is within me, join To bless His holy Name.
"He pardons all thy sins, Prolongs thy feeble breath; He healeth thine infirmities, And ransoms thee from death."
Equally impressive were the Psalms: "O how ami- able are Thy dwellings;" "I was glad when they said unto me: we will go into the house of the Lord;" and, "Lord, remember David and all his trouble." So with the Collect: "In all our dangers and necessities, stretch forth Thy right hand to help and defend us;" and the old form of that for Aid against Perils: "By whose Almighty power we have been preserved this day."
Parts of the service were taken by Rev. Dr. Cooper, rector and Rev. Henry S. Getz, assistant rector of the
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mother church ; Rev. Dr. McVickar, president, and Rev. Stewart Stone, secretary of the Southwest Convocation; Rev. J. Gray Bolton, a Presbyterian minister, for twelve years in charge of the nearest neighboring mission ; Mr. William F. Ayer, student in divinity, in charge of this chapel; Rev. Richard Newton Thomas, rector of St. Philip's Church, West Philadelphia, and by the Rt. Rev. Bishop Whitaker. Addresses were made by Rev. Drs. Cooper and Brooks, and by Bishop Whitaker.
Rev. Dr. Cooper rejoiced, he said, through the goodness of God, to be present; and that God had put it into the heart of His servant to build this beautiful chapel for this mission. It stands upon the southern outskirts of the city; but so did the Church of the Holy Apostles at the time of its first service just twenty years ago. Like Jacob, the parish could look back over that period and say, "With my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands." The mission depends upon the people for whom it is built, though it is still to be encouraged by the clergy, superintendent and other helpers of the Church of the Holy Apostles. More than all, it depends upon the Divine Saviour; and to Him the speaker commended its prayers and efforts.
Rev. Dr. Brooks began also with saying that he was thankful to be present at this opening service. The first of many services that are to be held in a place has always something peculiarly touching in it; there was something profoundly touching to one who knew the beauty of the spiritual life and religious interests cul- minating in such outward beauty here. It is a dull imagination indeed that is not moved by the thought of what is to come when standing at the beginning of a new work. Upon a journey through the great West, he said, he had at first missed the grand historical associa-
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tions everywhere felt in the old world; but when he began to think of the wider history, the still greater events to be enacted there, the interest in our prairies and mountains became intense. So is it even when a single new house is occupied; one is thrilled with the thought of the births, the deaths, the culminations of character that will take place there. So it is still more in the opening of a church. Through yonder doors what souls will pour in, hungering for what only God can give! They will come with their doubts, their weak- ness, their wants, their thanksgivings. One could wish to be here alone to meditate upon all the spiritual life and experience that will go on here long after this present generation is gone. It is a house of God and a house of man; the house of the Father because it is the house of His children. It will be a witness for God even to those who never enter it, telling them that there is something more in life than what they have in their shops, or even in their homes. It will shine upon all who see it. The grace of Christ is like the sunlight, trying to fill every place, even those which are shut against it. Those who are willing to receive the full benefits of this church must come constantly, and not to its festival services only. The eloquent speaker re- joiced with all whose life should enter into the beauty of this place.
After a hymn, Bishop Whitaker told how he came with a thankful heart to engage in this service, and how his thankfulness had been deepened by God's mercy in sparing His servants in great danger. He told of the accident of that hour, and how the persons present had been spared. The thought which pervaded the Bishop's address, after again thanking God for this beautiful chapel and for the spirit which built it, was
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that Christ is to be the foremost in everything. The chapel is built in Christ's name, and for His glory. God is worshiped here through Christ, and revealed in Christ. The preaching here will be of Christ; the sacra- ments are of His appointing ; the boys and girls taught here are to grow up in Him; He is to be not only in their worship and teaching, but the strength of their daily life; and at last they are to share His everlasting glory. The Bishop closed the service with thanksgiving for deliverance from accident, and prayers of consecration, and with the benediction.
At the following Sunday Evening Service one hundred and sixty persons were present.
On the Sunday after the Ascension, June 2, 1889, at 8.00 P. M., the Bishop of the Diocese made his first visitation at the chapel and con- firmed a class of eight persons, three males and five females, all of whom were members of the Sunday-school. The seating capacity of the building was tested to its full extent.
On June 16, 1889, Mr. Ayer was advanced to the priesthood, being the first of a goodly number of young men who entered the ministry from the membership of the parish.
By the summer of 1889 the Infant school quarters had become so cramped that an addi- tion for its use was commenced, which was ul- timately to be used as a chancel for the chapel. This was a gift from Mr. George C. Thomas.
The work continued to grow, and to provide
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means for its expansion, Mr. and Mrs. George C. Thomas in August, 1891, began the erection of the building at the corner of 27th and Wharton Streets, to be used as a Sunday-school and par- ish building, "as a memorial and in affectionate remembrance of Mr. Joel Barlow Moorhead and Mr. John W. Thomas, the loved and respected fathers of the donors." The building was dedi- cated on the evening of March 15, 1892, by the Rt. Rev. O. W. Whitaker, D.D., and endowed by the donors with $6,000, the architects being the Messrs. Hewitt.
By April, 1892, the number of communicants had risen to seventy-two, while the Sunday- school numbered four hundred and sixteen.
On All Saints' Day, November 1, 1892, the chapel was consecrated by Bishop Whitaker. On this occasion a mixed chorus choir, in con- junction with the choir of the Church of the Holy Apostles, rendered the music; and on Sun- day, November 6, 1892, the chapel choir took up its work.
The vestry recommended in February, 1895, that the choir of the chapel be vested as soon as it could be arranged, and for the first time the choir entered the church in vestments on the Sunday after Ascension Day, May 26, 1895. Several boys had been added to the choir a few Sundays before, on Easter, April 14, 1895,
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upon the occasion of the opening of a cloister connecting the chapel and parish building, and these with the men were vested in the usual manner with cotta and cassock; the female mem- bers wore dark blue dresses, with cuffs and col- lars of white linen.
In 1896 the chapel became self-supporting, declining further aid from the Diocesan Board of Missions through the Southwest Convocation.
By October of this year the number of com- municants had risen to one hundred and fifty- four, the membership of the Sunday-school being about five hundred.
In this year, also, the Southwest Sick Diet Kitchen No. 2 was established, and prepared daily, excepting Sundays, nourishing food which was given out on the order of a physician.
On June 10, 1906, the Rev. Wm. F. Ayer asked the vestry to accept his resignation, to take effect August 1st of that year, as he had been appointed to the chaplaincy of the Hospital of the Protestant Episcopal Church of this Dio- cese. Mr. Ayer had been in charge of the Chapel of the Holy Communion from its beginning, and as the rector said at the time, "few men are en- dowed by nature and grace with the large sym- pathy and patient devotion to the sick and suf- fering within their care as Mr. Ayer," and it was this lovable trait which endeared him to his
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people, and which fitted him in a peculiar way for the new work to which he was promoted.
Recognizing the advantages of having the residence of the vicar close to his chapel, Mr. George C. Thomas offered to build a vicarage on October 8th, 1906, and this was finished in 1908 at a cost of $12,000.
The Rev. Wm. P. Remington was elected vicar on December 19th, 1906. After graduat- ing from the University of Pennsylvania in 1900 (where he had distinguished himself in athletics, but had also kept up his church activi- ties), he taught for two years in the DeLancey School, and in 1902 entered the Virginia Theo- logical Seminary. Upon the completion of his studies he entered upon his duties as assistant to the rector of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Philadelphia.
One of the first things he did upon coming to the chapel was to organize the Men's Club, which has been a splendid success.
In the fall of 1906 there were negotiations between the vestries of the Church of the Holy Apostles and All Saints' Church, 12th and Fitz- water, looking to the possibilities of consolida- tion of this latter with the chapel, but these were finally abandoned.
The neighborhood continued to grow and the chapel with it, and the first year of Mr. Rem-
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REV. WILLIAM F. AYER
REV. WILLIAM P. REMINGTON
ington's ministry, the confirmation class num- bered forty-two persons.
In April, 1908, Miss Fanny B. Pratt, former- ly of St. Andrew's, Richmond, Va., began work at the chapel, the first of a number of trained women who have done excellent work there. .
On Easter Monday, April 17, 1911, the Rev. Wm. P. Remington severed his relations with the chapel, after five years of faithful, efficient and successful ministry, to become rec- tor of St. Paul's Church, Minneapolis, Minn. This moving on to a bigger field in the Master's vineyard, with its greater responsibility, was well deserved, and while the members of the chapel felt keenly their loss, they knew it was a proper and worthy thing, and wished God's blessing on his new labors.
After a successful rectorate in Minneapolis of over four years, Mr. Remington was elected Suffragan Bishop of the Missionary District of South Dakota, and was consecrated January 10, 1918.
Bishop Remington is Chaplain of the Mayo Brothers' Base Hospital, and expects to accom- pany it to France, the district having agreed to a leave of absence until the war ends, if neces- sary.
The members of the chapel rejoice greatly in the new honor which has come to Mr. Rem-
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ington and through him to them also. They can never forget his hard, earnest and self-sacri- ficing work. He stimulated the man life of the chapel and exercised a wide influence over all his people.
The Rev. Alfred R. Berkeley succeeded Mr. Remington as vicar on September 1, 1911. He had been a classmate of his predecessor at the Theological Seminary near Alexandria, Va. Mr. Berkeley was a graduate also of the University of North Carolina, and for seven years had been rector of the Church of the Messiah at Mayo- dan, N. C.
Mr. Berkeley soon made his way into the hearts of the people and gained the regard and confidence of the men, young and old alike, and did a splendid work.
Mr. Berkeley was essentially a pastor, and his strength went out continually to the people around him. His genial temperament won the hearts of his people, and the young especially rallied to the Sunday-school.
He found a large, growing neighborhood and kept pace with it, and the chapel family be- came a united and happy one. Many a person in need found in him a friend who helped and comforted. If Mr. Ayer was the pioneer mis- sionary, and Mr. Remington was the builder, Mr. Berkeley was the socializer. He made men mix,
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REV. ALFRED B. BERKELEY
REV. HERBERT L. HANNAII
and the chapel has gained the just reputation of being a friendly church. People with great re- luctance ask for their letters of transfer because this chapel family seems most like home.
It has been the custom for several years for young men, while students of divinity, to assist the vicar. Many of these have been brought up in the Sunday-schools of the parish and some have come from outside. Among the latter was the Rev. W. H. Ramsaur, who in the fall of 1915 returned to the chapel after an absence and re- entered upon his work as Assistant Minister, looking particularly after the boys and young men, in which work he was particularly success- ful.
The Rev. Alfred R. Berkeley resigned his work to accept the rectorship of St. Paul's Church, New Orleans, La., one of the oldest and strongest parishes in that state. The five years of his work had welded a strong bond between the vicar and his people, and on his last Sunday with them, October 29, 1916, they filled the chapel and over 300 communed.
On January 7, 1917, the Rev. Herbert L. Hannah, a native of Salem, N. J., became vicar. He was a graduate of Columbia University and of the General Theological Seminary, New York. After his graduation, he was an assistant to the late Rev. William R. Huntington, D. D., rector
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of Grace Church, New York, where he made a specialty of institutional work.
Leaving New York, he became rector of the Church of the Redeemer, Sayre, Pa., where he resurrected practically a dead church and made it so active that it attracted much attention from far outside of the parochial bounds. Here again the parish-house side of the church life was emphasized and became a very model of practical and social efficiency in the community life.
For four years Mr. Hannah was rector of Trinity Church, Elmira, New York, the largest in that city. His work in that important parish has been characterized by the same persistent, practical devotion shown elsewhere. Coming to us, bubbling over with zeal and energy, with his past rich experiences, he seems to be the ideal man to direct the big work to be done at the Chapel of Holy Communion.
No one could read Mr. Hannah's article in the "Monthly Message" on the "Institutional, or the Seven-Days-a-Week Church" without feeling that here is a religious, holy man, with a clear, practical conception of the work before him. When he shall "speak unto the children that they go forward," it seems certain that the chapel will go on to the larger usefulness yet awaiting it. The chapel is set amidst the life of a work-
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a-day people, whose joys and sorrows come close to the life of the vicar. Few men come so close as he to the innermost life of a people. Prayer among them is as natural as the visitation itself ; seldom does any clergyman hold more infants in his arms month by month than he. Few are privileged to stand in the midst of such a large circle of young people, whose bright eyes and smiles are quickly responsive to their leader as he guides them to the things that are pure and lovely and worth while on the earth. He who is vicar of this chapel is indeed the community pastor. Church lines are not closely drawn; every one in need comes to the cloister door, and none is turned away.
No work elsewhere is quite like it. The pews do not tell all the story. There is the shut- in mother with her new-born babe, to whom the Deaconess goes for confirmation instruction ; and the aged shut-in and the crippled house- bound; these the chapel must nurture. And the sick, their hands ever beckon. When men and women work hard and make great sacrifices, the body bends and breaks. These, too, need the touch of him whom they call pastor. The serv- ices in God's house are but the beginning of the incessant and constant call to duty.
And not the least of the vicar's responsi- bility and joys is the care of the child life which
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surges around him. They crowd from all sides. It is said that a child is born every minute in this crowded population. Yes, but the pity of it is that almost every other one dies before its lips can talk.
And this is the real privilege of the chapel ministry. The work with child life is real creat- ive work and brings an abundant harvest. Bishop Remington on his recent visitation to the chapel said, "No man can stand the work here more than five years, so many are the demands and so incessant the work." And that is true unless expert leaders uphold the vicar's hands.
And we believe that, in the many mansioned home where God's people are gathered together no more abundant harvest will be evidenced than that which is being quietly gathered here; and the chapel family will call no one more blessed than those who so generously gave of their means to build the Chapel of the Holy Com- munion.
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Chapel of St. Simon the Cyrenian
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FRAME CHURCH AND PARISH HOUSE, CHAPEL OF ST. SIMON THE CYRENIAN
CHAPEL OF ST. SIMON THE CYRENIAN 22ND AND REED STREETS
This work was started at 1830 Ellsworth Street on Sunday, June 24, 1894, by the Rev. Henry L. Phillips, then rector of the Church of the Crucifixion, with a few members of that church and a Sunday-school of one scholar, under the name of St. Augustine's Mission.
In September, 1897, the mission was moved to Twenty-second and Reed Streets, where a piece of ground had been purchased and a frame chapel built. The name was then changed to "St. Simon the Cyrenian."
Difficulty was experienced in raising the money required to conduct the work, and the Bishop of the Diocese seemed to have difficulty in securing a person who could act with Mr. Phil- lips in building up a work which needed consid- erable help to carry on.
Mr. Phillips, as rector of the Church of the Crucifixion, was a member of the Southeast Con- vocation, but attended the meetings of the Southwest Convocation very regularly, giving accounts of the work at Twenty-second and Reed Streets, and hoped for much aid from the
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moneys appropriated. The question was so fre- quently raised, as to the advisability of giving money to one from the Southeast Convocation to carry on missionary work in the Southwest Con- vocation that the Church of the Crucifixion fin- ally turned over St. Augustine's Mission to the Southwest Convocation.
By a unanimous vote of the Southwest Con- vocation, at its meeting of October, 1902, the mission was given into the care of the Church of the Holy Apostles, and the Rev. Richard N. Thomas, as Minister in Charge, with the Rev. Thomas G. Brown as his assistant, having been requested to continue their duties, the services of the chapel passed under the new manage- ment on the first Sunday in December, 1902.
Improvements were at once made to the chapel which added greatly to the conveniences, especially to the kindergarten work, which had been started as a work of love by Mrs. Mary F. Wilson, who labored long and successfully without salary in the starting and building up of this useful feature of the chapel's work.
Through the liberality of a member of the Church of the Holy Apostles, the mortgage of $5000 against the property was paid off.
The work for the first year under the Church of the Holy Apostles showed :-
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Communicants
50
Sunday-school
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Baptisms
33
Confirmed
22
Marriages
1
Burials
5
Receipts
. $369.24
On May 13, 1903, the vestry voted to in- crease the accommodations of the chapel, in memory of the late Rector Emeritus, Rev. Charles D. Cooper, who had always taken a deep interest in the colored people. The communicant list had grown by this time to 105, the Sunday- school to 275 and the Kindergarten to 125. By December 14, 1904, there was $9525.40 in the hands of the vestry, and with that as a start Messrs. Thomas and Churchman, Architects, were commissioned to design a parish and Sun- day-school Building, and in May, 1905, the con- tract was placed for $13,065.
Before the work was actually started, on June 2, 1905, the Rev. Richard Newton Thomas entered into rest after a short illness, bringing to its close a life rich in its blessings to others. As one said at the time, "His heart was full of loving friendship for rich and poor alike." His ministry had been a service amongst multi- tudes of the well-to-do and amongst those who often were in need and necessity-beginning in
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1868 as Minister-in-Charge of Holy Trinity Me- morial Chapel, then as rector of St. Matthias, which he erected, and later on organizing St. Philip's Church in West Philadelphia.
In November, 1905, the weekly envelope sys- tem of contributing by the congregation was introduced.
On Sunday, February 18, 1906, the Charles D. Cooper Memorial Building was opened for the Sunday-school and parochial activities, while the frame building continued to be used for church services.
On June 4, 1907, the vestry of the Church of the Crucifixion asked that the Chapel of St. Simon the Cyrenian be restored to them, in order that the Church of the Crucifixion might be established where St. Simon's now stands. After many conferences between the two vestries, it was decided that the Church of the Crucifixion should go on with the work at Eighth and Bain- bridge Streets as it had done before.
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