USA > Pennsylvania > Allegheny County > Pittsburgh > The history of the First English Evangelical Lutheran Church in Pittsburgh, 1837-1909 > Part 5
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Many of the members of the congregation lost their homes and their stores, and some were forced into bankruptcy. All this was a sore trial to the congre- gation burdened with debt. Mr. Passavant labored indefatigably to relieve the distress of his people and of the community, and even postponed for several weeks his marriage to Miss Eliza Walter of Balti- more, which had been appointed for the first of May.
April 26, the treasurer was instructed to have the church building insured in an Eastern company. Mr. Weyman stated that the interest on the Church debt for two years ending on the first day of January last, amounting to $1,640.00, was still due him. He proposed to give the interest to the Church if the Council would give him a note for $1,000 to be paid when the debt was reduced to $5,000. The proposal was promptly accepted and a note ordered to be drawn in his favor.
The Sunday School celebrated the Fourth of July by an excursion. Mr. Graff "offered the use of his canal-boats for the occasion." Schools No. 2 and 3 (the latter located on Fourth Street), and the Alle- gheny School were invited to accompany the parent School. School No. 3 did not accept the invitation
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because the parents were "apprehensive of acci- dents."
During the summer the pastor's salary was ad- vanced to eight hundred dollars per annum.
November 10 a committee reported the net pro- ceeds resulting from a lecture and concert, the lecture by the pastor, to have been $103.54. One hundred dol- lars were applied to the interest on the Church debt. The music had been in charge of Mr. Fownes and the Committee reported that in recognition of his ser- vices they had "presented to his son a bass viol."
December 9, the Council considered the necessity of securing $300.00 before January 1 and resolved to hold a concert to assist in raising the amount. At this meeting the Council unanimously resolved to "assemble earlier and spend a short time in prayer," a custom which seems to have continued for many years. One of the lay members always opened the meeting with prayer and the pastor offered the closing prayer.
Even this early in the congregation's history we find a record of January 13, 1846, that a committee was appointed to ascertain how many copies of a history of the Church could be disposed of, if pre- pared and printed in pamphlet form, and later it was resolved to print one thousand copies.
Breaking down under the strain of labors, most of them self-imposed, Mr. Passavant sailed for Europe in the summer of this year. He was ap- pointed by the Pittsburgh Synod its delegate to the World Convention of the Evangelical Alliance, which met in London in August. This trip, with its oppor- tunities for meeting representative Christian men in
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Pastorate of the Reb. William A. Passabant
Europe, and for the close inspection of great religious and philanthropic enterprises in England and Ger- many, brought most important influences to bear upon his future. Much of this is reflected in a lengthy letter which he addressed to the congregation in Pittsburgh, writing from London, October 18, 1846. Upon his return, he was joyfully received by the . congregation, and the Sunday School greeted him from the gallery of the church by singing a hymn composed for that occasion by William T. Gillespie.
During his absence, the Rev. Eliot E. Swift, who had just completed his studies in the Western Theo- logical Seminary, and who was a son of the Rev. Dr. Swift, who then and for many years served the leading Presbyterian Church in Allegheny with con- spicuous ability, preached regularly and very accept- ably at the morning service.
Mr. Passavant threw himself into the work in the congregation, the missions, and the Synod with re- newed vigor. He had quite lost his enthusiasm for "new measures," however, and sought to introduce more conservative methods. But he could not escape the harvest of his own sowing, and he found distrust of his new positions among many of his former col- leagues in the ministry and strenuous opposition to the simplest liturgy and other conservative innova- tions in his own congregation.
While abroad Mr. Passavant had collected some moneys for a Church cemetery, and in April, 1847, he reported to the Council that he had received a letter from a lady in Switzerland enclosing a draft for two hundred francs for this purpose. It was resolved that the Church subscribe for thirteen lots, a plot
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30 x 65 feet, in Allegheny Cemetery. May 10, Mr. Passavant reported having collected $175.10 alto- gether for this purpose.
September 6, we find the resolution that "the young men who have offered to procure a leader of choir to lead the singing of the congregation be author- ized to do so, with permission to choose their own leader, and that the Council appropriate the sum of fifty dollars per annum to be paid quarterly as a compensation for their services."
The pastor's salary was increased one hundred dol- lars at the end of this year.
But little is recorded in the congregational records of 1848 and the following year, though a valuable his- torical sketch of the Sunday School, prepared by Mr. W. C. Lane, the secretary, is recorded in the minute book of the Association under date of March 7, 1848. Mr. Passavant, however, was busily engaged in work which soon developed into enterprises of the most important and far-reaching character.
Dissatisfaction with the theology and the spirit of the Lutheran Observer was general at this time among the more conservative of the Lutheran clergy. This fact, coupled with an unflagging missionary zeal, led Mr. Passavant to begin his first journalistic ven- ture in The Missionary, which first appeared in Janu- ary, 1848, as a small four-leaved monthly. For some time the papers were delivered at the pastor's resi- dence, then on Hand Street (now Ninth Street), close to the bank of the river. In the early years of this enterprise, a few young men of the congregation assisted in preparing the packages for mailing and
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Pastorate of the Red. William A. Passabant
usually about midnight carried the bundles to the post office.
Devoted to the interests of Inner, Home, and Foreign Missions, the paper, which soon grew into a large family weekly, opened a new era in the Church's thought and activity. Mr. Passavant early manifested those qualities which in their maturity stamped him one of the great religious editors. Through the columns of The Missionary, and later of The Workman, he not only stimulated local mis- sionary and philanthropic activity within the bounds of the Pittsburgh Synod, but he awakened the entire Church to the opportunities and responsibilities of the great Lutheran Diaspora in the West. The cause of the Germans and the Scandinavians was unceas- ingly advocated and the foundations were laid by his efforts for uncounted enterprises which have since developed into vigorous congregations and Synods, Colleges and Seminaries, Hospitals, Homes, and religious and philanthropic institutions of every description.
At this time there was no Protestant Hospital in the United States. The Mercy Hospital had just been established in Pittsburgh by the Roman Catholics (1847). Mr. Passavant's desire to found such a work and to introduce into this country the Protestant Deaconess movement, which he had studied so en- thusiastically at Kaiserswerth and elsewhere in Ger- many, found its first expression in the renting of a building in Allegheny in the spring of 1848, but it was found impossible to begin the work until January of the following year. The first patients were two dis- charged soldiers from the Mexican War, whom, in
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the absence of nurses or doctors as yet, Mr. Passa- vant cared for with his own hands, assisted by his friend, the Rev. Asa H. Waters, then a student.
Pastor Theodore Fliedner of Kaiserswerth arrived in July with four deaconesses to inaugurate the work, and the first Protestant Hospital and the first Protestant Deaconess work in America were launched in faith and hope by the service of consecration Sun- day afternoon, July 17, 1849. Later the Deaconess work was fully organized and the Institution of Prot- estant Deaconesses of the County of Allegheny, Pa., legally incorporated.
Passing now to the immediate history of the First Church itself, we find the only record of interest in this year to be a brief but clear indication of the growing unrest in the congregation, and in the Church at large, on all subjects touching, however remotely, questions of liturgical reform. Septem- ber 17, the Council voted on the question of placing a railing in front of the pulpit, and consent was refused.
At the beginning of 1850 the Church Council con- sisted of the following: Elders, George Weyman, Henry Graff, and Edward Rahm; Deacons, John Brown, George Hubley, C. Geissenhainer, J. Dull, James Shane, and John R. Hersh; Trustees: G. P. Hawk, Andrew Getty, and Thomas H. Lane.
Mr. Lane, who entered the Council in this year, was soon after elected secretary and his name very early appears as the delegate to Conference and Synod.
The Council requested Mr. Passavant to publish an historical sketch contained in his sermon preached
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Pastorate of the Reb. William A. Passavant
on the tenth anniversary of the consecration of the Church, and it afterward appeared in The Missionary.
Early in the year 1851 the Council adopted the sug- gestion of Mr. Passavant in the following resolution :
" That in view of the door of usefulness which Providence seems to have opened for the erection of a Church in the Ninth Ward, the Council of this congregation invite the co-operation of their brethren and of the Christian public to aid in erecting a mission chapel in that part of the city."
A committee consisting of Messrs. Graff, Rahm, Yeager, and Brown was appointed to seek a suitable lot and to solicit subscriptions.
The propriety of engaging in a protracted meet- ing following the services of the next administration of the Lord's Supper was discussed and the propo- sition was approved !
In April of this year, the Reformed Presbyterian congregation was given permission to hold services in the First Church on Sunday afternoons while its building was being repaired.
The propriety of building a house for the sexton on the lot in the rear of the church was suggested by Mr. Weyman, and Messrs. Weyman, Graff, and Hubley were appointed to consider the matter. They later reported that the cost would be $675.00 The house was built and the rent was fixed at seventy-five dollars a year.
Mr. Passavant early realized the need for a Home for Orphans. His immediate inspiration for this may have been found in the Jewish Orphan Asylum in London, within whose doors he found shelter from a driving storm. The growing work of his Infirmary
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soon demanded this sister charity. There is a record of the proposal of such an enterprise as early as September, 1851, and in April, 1852, the institution was organized in the city and in May, 1854, was re- moved to Zelienople, as an Orphans' Home and Farm School. Infinite labor was expended in securing grounds and buildings and in supporting this work. The Orphans' Home at Germantown, Philadelphia, was, in a sense, an outgrowth of this work at Zelien- ople, and Sister Louisa Marthens, the first deaconess consecrated in America, went from Pittsburgh with four orphan children to Germantown in March, 1859, to organize the new enterprise in the East.
The year 1854 was marked by the second great calamity which befell the city during Mr. Passavant's pastorate, the outbreak of cholera, Thursday, Sep- tember 14. Forty-six deaths were reported in the papers Friday morning, and in two weeks nearly a thousand sufferers died. The Infirmary was taxed to its utmost capacity, caring for sixty cholera patients in addition to thirty or more other patients in the house at the time. The sisters were well-nigh over- come by their exertions, and one of the physicians, Dr. J. H. Nelson, was stricken and died during the first week. The number of deaths and the rapidity with which its victims perished paralyzed business and engrossed the attention of the whole population. A member of the Church Council, Mr. John Brown, was prostrated with the disease and so desperate was his condition that on two succeeding mornings his name appeared in the papers in the long list of the dead. Members of the congregation assisted Mr.
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CHANCEL OF THE SEVENTH AVENUE CHURCH
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sorinled tlos autor charity. There is a record proposal of sueis an enterprise as early as dir. LAGT, and in April; 1852, the institution mis erenmivel » the city and in May, 1854, was re moved to Coply, as an Orphans' Home and Farn School Tefous laber was expended in securing grounds al buildings and in supporting this work. The Orpland Home at Germantown, Philadelphia, was (0 - www wwwih of this work at Zelien opile, and Burst Tosuite Mirtheng, the first deaconess 000800212 |x Amer a from Pittsburgh with
Tour orpode childs @wwwstown in March, 1859, to organise cap as the East.
The year 1554 wally the second great calamity which befol om r dar Mr. Passavant's pastorato, this outby 119, Thursday, Sep- toported in the tember 14. Forty-st papers Fraiar morsen Joo wonka nearly a thousand eniferera died Debourg was taxed to its utmost vapority, cum cb xonline patients in addition to thirty or n Her pubents in the
house at the time. The 44 soll-nigh over- come by their exertionat the physicians, De. J. H. Nelson, was abbed died during the first week The number 2 Ans and the rapidity with which it victime paralyzed business ond engrosAnd thé áttonti · whole population. A member of the Chanh . Mr. John Brown, was prostrated with fox and so desperate was his condition that on the reding mornings his name appeared in the py in the long list of the dead. Members of the ngregation assisted Mr.
СНУИСЕГ ОБ ЈНЕ ГЕЛЕЙІН УЛКИПЕ СНАКСИ
Pastorate of the Reb. William A. Passabant
Brown's family night after night, taking their places until his recovery was assured.
Mention should also be made of the fact that Mr. Passavant was largely instrumental in founding academies in Zelienople, Leechburg, and Greensburg. He interested young men in the work of the ministry, and in many instances secured assistance for them in their preparation for it. A vast correspondence was added to his other cares, and his home was constantly visited by English, German, Swedish, and Norwegian clergymen and by many others active in religious and philanthropic work.
In all his various missionary and philanthropic enterprises Mr. Passavant from the beginning had the support of his congregation. His young people were trained to be active workers in the missions and their elders interested themselves in the Infirmary and the Home. The church building itself, on Seventh Street, during his pastorate of eleven years, was the scene of many memorable events. In addi- tion to the organization of the Pittsburgh Synod in 1845, already referred to, the first collection was taken in it for the first Protestant hospital in the United States. In 1850 the first American deaconess was solemnly set apart for the ministry of mercy within its walls, Catherine Louisa Marthens, who had been catechized and confirmed by Mr. Passavant. Here the Pittsburgh orphans and the deaconesses worshipped. The first missionary to Texas, through whom the Texas Synod was afterwards organized, was commissioned in this church. The same is true of the first missionary to Canada, out of whose initial labors the Canada Synod grew. The German congre-
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gation, of which Rev. Wm. Berkemeier became pas- tor, was organized in the lecture room of this church. Here also the first subscriptions were gathered for the erection of the first Swedish churches of the West.2
It was inevitable, however, that burdened by all these enterprises, missionary, educational, editorial, philanthropic-any one of which could well have employed an active man's entire time, and many of which, involving the support of hundreds of people, were sustained only by the most laborious and untir- ing efforts-it was inevitable that the work of the congregation should suffer and that the pastor should receive widespread criticism from his members. Though defending his conduct in an eloquent sermon preached in June, 1854, on the occasion of his tenth anniversary, Mr. Passavant had long been keenly appreciative of the truth of much of the criticism, and had realized that his outside interests rendered serious congregational work, pastoral visitation, and proper preparation for the pulpit, impossible.
Consequently, January 8, 1855, he offered his resig- nation. It was received, and Messrs. Hubley and Lane were appointed to prepare an address to the retiring pastor, which being afterwards presented in the form of quite lengthy and appreciative resolu- tions, was unanimously adopted. Owing to the delay in securing a pastor, Mr. Passavant continued to serve the congregation for six months or more, and then became free to devote his entire time to his other work, continuing to live in Pittsburgh.
2 The Workman, July 24, 1890.
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Pastorate of the Reb. William A. Passavant
Born at Zelienople, Pa., Oct. 9, 1821, Dr. Passavant graduated from Jefferson College in 1840 and from the Theological Seminary at Gettysburg in 1842. He served a congregation in Baltimore for two years, and in 1844 removed to Pittsburgh.
The Missionary was merged into The Lutheran and Missionary in 1861, and published in Philadel- phia. Mr. Passavant was for years co-editor. In 1880 he founded The Workman, a bi-weekly published at Pittsburgh, and edited it until his death. Penn- sylvania College conferred the Doctor's title upon him in 1860. He also founded hospitals in Milwaukee, Chicago, and Jacksonville, Ill., and projected the Theological Seminary at Chicago and made its final establishment possible. Thiel College was also founded largely through his instrumentality. Until the day of his death, June 3, 1894, his was one of the most forceful and influential personalities in the Lutheran Church. The Church in this country has probably never had another constructive leader who achieved equal success in as many lines of interest- missionary, editorial, educational, and philanthropic.
CHAPTER VII Pastorate of the Reb. Charles porterfield krauth, D.D., LL.D. 1855-1859
ESSRS. Weyman and Lane were appointed a committee on cor- respondence and were instruct- ed to invite the Rev. C. P. Krauth, of Winchester, Va., to visit the congregation. Mr. Krauth declined the invitation. Mr. Lane, however, was most earnest in his desire to secure, if possible, a strong, conservative man, and he was not satisfied to cease all negotiations with Mr. Krauth. He was finally authorized by the Coun- cil to visit Winchester, personally to urge upon Mr. Krauth the acceptance of the invitation, and he was able to report later that Mr. Krauth had consented to visit Pittsburgh.
Mr. Krauth arrived February 24, 1855, and was the guest of Mr. Graff. He preached the preparatory sermon on Friday evening, the principal sermon on Sunday morning, and assisted the retiring pastor in the administration of Communion in the afternoon.
The congregation was most favorably impressed, and March 5 the Council unanimously extended a formal call in the form of resolutions proposed by Mr. Hubley. The salary was fixed at fifteen hundred dollars a year.
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Pastorate of the Reb. Charles p. Krauth
Mr. Passavant, in a letter of March 8, pressed the especial claims of the Pittsburgh situation upon Mr. Krauth as follows:
" Through the instrumentality of the Church in Pitts- burg, the Pittsburg Synod was organized just ten years ago, and during this time seventy-two Lutheran churches within our bounds have been consecrated, and the Gospel has been carried to Canada on the North, and to Texas on the South. So, too, the Church in Pittsburg occupies a central position between the East and the West, and whatsoever is done for religion here tells promptly on the Church in either direc- tion. The position a pastor occupies here gives him access to many minds from different portions of the land, and the seed thus scattered and diffused often springs up again in different parts of the most Western States. After a resi- dence of nearly eleven years in this place, I can safely say that I know of no place in the whole Church where the prospects of an able minister are so encouraging, as the English Lutheran Church in this city."
A characteristic letter from Mr. Krauth to Mr. Lane, written from Winchester, March 8, is given by Dr. Spaeth in his biography of Dr. Krauth,1 which must also be consulted for other interesting corres- pondence of this period. Parts of the letter are as follows :
" The sheet of paper on which I write is a pleasant remembrance of Pittsburg ; it was given me by Mr. Davidson. The very bad cold which has almost laid me up and pre- vented my writing sooner, if not a remembrance of Pittsburg exactly, is a very unpleasant one of my departure from it. I took it on Tuesday night; the cars were first suffocating
" Charles Porterfield Krauth, D.D., LL.D.," by Adolph Spaeth, D.D., LL.D.
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and then cold. I carefully impress it upon my good people, who would like to think my bad cold a sort of mild judgment, that it was not in going to Pittsburg but in coming from it that I took the cold. The cold I could stand, however, with some philosophy, gently doctoring it with horehound and other time-honored medicaments, but "the question ? " where am I to get horehound for that? The call and your kind note accompanying it have just reached me, and made things look graver than ever. I am pondering and praying and am in huge perplexity.
" Reached home Thursday; all well, myself excepted ; barely able to preach on Sunday. People all up in arms at the bare idea of my leaving them-everybody trying to get me to say I won't go; effort unsuccessful. On Monday night a meeting (the regular monthly one) of the Council took place. Strong speeches, ardent affection; Pittsburg dirty place ; coal-smoke, cholera, abolitionists, ruin everything here; might as well take church key along if I ever left here. No place more important than Winchester. Wish some people would let other people alone; wonder why they want our minister ? We are satisfied, why can't they be? Council almost ready to write to your Council and 'give them a bit of their mind.' "'
March 26, a lengthy letter was submitted to the Council from Mr. Krauth, finally declining the call. A long personal letter to Mr. Lane, dated March 20, indicates how difficult the decision had been. A few sentences are given here:
" I carried my reply to the call in my pocket for almost a week before I could summon resolution to put it in the office. The truth is that there are respects in which this would be a peculiarly unfortunate time for me to leave Winchester. I would feel as if I were deserting my own children in their helplessness, leaving a clear, well-defined
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Pastorate of the Reb. Charles p. krauth
duty for a field, promising, indeed, but not so obviously, not so surely designated for my culture as the other. I know that my fealty is due to the whole Church; nevertheless, a congregation has its claims. We are subjects of the General Government, yet we believe in " States " rights; we acknowl- edge our ties to the human brotherhood, yet we have our family attachments and duties. The simple nonformation of desired relations never can have attached to it the pain that is consequent on breaking up relations existing, strength- ened by time, dear by the memory of common joys, hallowed by sorrows, and attended by divine blessings. I have thoroughly pondered the twentieth and twenty-first chapters of Acts [to which Mr. Lane had especially invited his attention], and last Sunday morning preached on a part of the latter (vv. 8-14) ; but these chapters could only teach what is to be done when duty speaks, and could not help me to decide what duty was. I came to the conclusion that I am already in my Jerusalem, the place of my duties. A man may be " bound in the Spirit " to stay as well as to go. You wish me to be like Luther. Would that I were! but Luther was just as famous for maintaining a position, and taking a stand, as for going. His most famous saying indica- tive of firmness was: " Hier stehe ich," which may be freely Anglicized : " Here I stay," which furnishes a motto to my very hand.
" Please write to me very soon and let me know that I am not to add to the features of this matter, which have already given me so much pain, the additional one of think- ing that you will cease to feel an interest in one who will ever remain gratefully and affectionately your friend and brother, C. P. K."
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