USA > Pennsylvania > Montgomery County > The old Trappe Church, 1743-1893 : a memorial of the sesqui-centennial services of Augustus Evangelical Lutheran Church, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania > Part 10
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The House Our Fathers Built.
stantial walls, and rested not until the building was complete. They were not ashamed either of their faith or their works, for over its portal they placed an inscription to be seen and read by all, that this was " the temple of the congregation of the Augsburg Confession."
In this application of the text to the Church of Christ, we turn to consider
II .- HER TRIALS.
"When the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house." Matthew's version is very graphic, " and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house." It pictures a storm of terrific fury, with rain on the roof, wind at the sides, and floods at the base, straining and testing the house in every way.
Persecutions, oppositions, attacks from every quarter and trials of every sort, have marked the history of the Church from the day when " the stone which the builders rejected became the head of the corner." The first pages of that history are written in the blood of the martyrs who fell in the fury of the tempest.
So too in the days of the Reformation, "the flood arose and the stream beat vehemently upon that house." The conflicts which then raged, the animosities and hostilities aroused, and the combined efforts of the papal power and the empire to overthrow and crush the rising Reformation, culminating in the terrors of the Thirty years' war, fulfilled again the words of the text.
But I am to speak rather of the storms which have tried this vener- able building during the hundred and fifty years of its existence, together with the congregation and Confession to which it belonged. Many a storm of wind and rain and sleet and snow has whistled and howled around these walls throughout these years, but our fathers built deep and strong, and in their fury they could not shake it.
The men who erected this church were largely the sons of those who had fled from the fatherland because of the persecutions which followed the revocation of the edict of Nantes. Under the pressure of those whistling winds their sails were wafted to these Western shores. In the memory of the losses, trials and sufferings their fathers had endured, they laid these foundations and covered these walls. But they and their chil- dren were also to be exposed to and tried by storms and floods, which, while of a different sort, would test their faith and their Church to the utmost.
I. The trials of the Revolutionary war. I refer not so much to the fact that this church, located not very distant from the encampment at Valley Forge, and on a prominent highway, was repeatedly turned from
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its sacred purposes and occupied by detachments of soldiers, and used for military purposes. I allude rather to the bitterness and political strife which at that time separated families and broke up many congregations. To preserve the life of a Church when fathers were embittered against sons and mothers arrayed against daughters, was no easy thing.
Fortunately, when this storm was rising in its strength, Muhlenberg, who had resided for some years in Philadelphia, returned and fixed his residence here. His wisdom and prudence, joined with his true patriot- ism and piety, served to guide the congregation through these tempestu- ous times.
The rude shock of war had scarcely subsided when another trouble beset the Church and congregation, caused by the depreciation of the cur- rency. Financial troubles beat vehemently against churches, and the general distress and impoverishment tried this congregation severely. But above all these divisions, differences and disasters, these sacred walls stood unmoved. Rooted and built up in the true doctrine of the Gospel, this church could not be shaken, but remained an asylum and refuge from the storms and distresses which tried men's souls.
2. The second flood which arose to beat vehemently against this house was that of rationalism and unbelief. It came in about the begin- ning of this century. France, which had been America's political ally, became her religious enemy. Infidelity, which rose to its greatest height during the French revolution, found sympathizing minds because of France's aid during the struggle for national independence. The ration- alistic theology which came from certain schools of Germany about the same time, was still more widely felt; and the evangelical doctrines of our holy religion were no longer taught from many pulpits which bore the Lutheran name. Muhlenberg was dead, and no one of equal influence had arisen to take his place as the teacher and defender of our Church's Confessions. But whilst many proved false, this church remained a true confessor of " the truth as it is in Jesus." Even if her pulpit may have at times given an uncertain sound, on her frontlets, carved in unchanging stone, she bore her testimony that she was " ÆDES SOCIETATI AUGUSTANÆ CONFESS." During those long years when the chief doctrines of redemp- tion were silenced, she kept before her children the name of that great Confession of the evangelical preachers, princes and peoples of the six- teenth century. The stream did beat vehemently against this house, but could not shake it.
3. The third trial was that produced by fanaticism. About the year 1840 this community felt the force of another flood which was surg- ing over the whole country. Rationalism had produced and left a dead- ness and spiritual blight wherever it prevailed, and when a reaction set
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The House Our Fathers Built.
in, it went to the other extreme. Ministers and congregations on every. side were advocating and practicing doctrines and measures of the wildest and most fanatical sort. Again the winds whistled, the rains descended, and the floods came. For years this Church was pointed at as hope- lessly dead and forsaken of God, because she would not allow strange fire. on her altar, nor approve measures contrary to her usage and spirit. Calmly she bore the storm of ridicule and abuse, bearing aloft her un- altered banner above the howling and fury of men. Some of her people. grew weak, and some fell away, but as a Church she remained true to her history. Other congregations yielded and were carried into the popular current, but her resistance was as firm as the rock on which she was founded. The storm lasted for twenty years or more, but could not, shake this house.
Well do I recall the controversies and excitements of those days of my boyhood ; and devoutly do I thank God that I was the child of a Church which, while tested and tried and strained at every point, re- mained true to the principles and practices of the men who, when they built this house, digged deep and laid the foundation on a rock. These were the times that tried men's souls, even more than in the clash of arms, and the men who withstood the storm and remained steadfast in the faith, deserve to be held in everlasting and grateful remembrance.
What has been said of the Church's trials necessarily included much of what deserves, however, to be made a separate head of discourse, viz :
III .- HER STABILITY.
" They could not shake it, for it was founded on a rock." It may sometimes have trembled under these successive blasts and commotions, but they could not shake it from the principles and purposes for which it was established, nor move it from the foundations on which it was built.
I. It still stands. What changes have taken place in the country and in the Church generally since these walls were laid ! Could these stones cry out, what a large part of American history and our Church's development would they declare ! To go back one hundred and fifty years is to cover the lives of five generations. And they have been years of wonderful changes. On every side old things have passed away and all things are become new. Beneath the hillocks in her church-yard sleep the men who built her walls, with their children's children beside them, but in their front she still stands bearing witness to the faith in which they lived and the hope in which they died. Antiquated may be her architecture, and strange her appearance and arrangements to modern eyes, but strength and stability are in her walls. Others, with more pretension and show, have come and gone, whilst she remains to-day
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celebrating her sesqui-centennial, a symbol in stone of the stability of the faith and the Church to which she belongs. From lightning and tempest she has been providentially protected ; while the silent tooth of time, and the noisy blasts to which she has been subjected, have failed alike to crumble or overthrow.
2. It still prospers. For the past forty years the congregation has occupied this enlarged sanctuary in which we are met, only because the old church could no longer accommodate the increased attendance and membership. It was well no attempt was made to enlarge or modernize her walls, and that this daughter was erected by the side, and not in the place of the mother. The growth of this congregation has been steady and solid. It has been gained by no false or questionable means, but by that better and surer system our Lutheran Church recognizes and em- ploys.
How wonderful has been the growth and prosperity of our Church in this country since our fathers erected this house ! Then the number of regular Lutheran pastors could be counted on the fingers of my hands ; now they number over five thousand. Then there were less than an hundred other churches ; now there are ten thousand, with over a million and a quarter communicants. Like Israel in Egypt, in spite of all oppression, we have multiplied amazingly. Like this venerable church, the house our fathers built still stands. They digged deep and built well. They labored in great poverty and under great discouragement. We have entered into their labors and enjoy the fruits. The little one has become mighty, and an handful an exceeding great army. Let us realize our ad- vantages and our responsibilities. Let us prove ourselves worthy des- cendants of noble sires. Gathering around these sacred walls to-day, let us pledge anew our fidelity to the principles, the spirit, and the faith of the men who built them an hundred and fifty years ago.
Let me close with a reference to a significant fact in the erection of the old church. It was occupied by the congregation long before it was completed. The corner-stone was laid on May 2, 1743, and the follow- ing September their place of worship was changed from the barn in which services had been held, to this unfinished building. The dedication did not take place until it was completed several years later. So it is with us. The Church to which we belong is not yet completed. For eighteen cen- turies the work has been going on. The day of completion and dedica- tion may be fixed, but is unknown to us. But we have already taken possession, and are content to worship in an unfinished building. The Church of Christ on earth is not perfect. It has its weaknesses and its waste places. We must not rest content with things as they are, but do our part by all the means and talents we possess in advancing its success and glory.
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The House Our Fathers Built.
Some day the building will be completed. Not a jot or tittle of the promises will fail in being fulfilled. Even the bodies of those who sleep in Jesus, will God bring with Him, and they shall be made like unto His own glorious body. Then the cap-stone will be laid, and the dedication will take place. Christ, who loved the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, will present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. May all who are gathered here, be gathered there, to give honor, praise and glory to His blessed name forever and forever.
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The Prayer
By Rev. J. L. Sibole.
Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, in the Name of Thine only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, we, Thy unworthy but highly favored ser- vants, lift up our hearts and voices unto Thee in adoration, praise and thanksgiving. We adore Thee as the Father of all mercies; as the God of all grace; as the Source of all comfort. We praise Thee for Thy works in creation ; for the orderings of Thy providence; for the revelation of Thy will ; for the manifestations of Thy grace ; for the shed- ding forth of Thy spirit.
We give thanks to Thee, gracious Father, for that divinest of gifts to man, Thy Son Jesus Christ, in whom the human race finds its lost life ; its forfeited place in Thy bosom. We thank Thee for Thy holy Word ; that Word which Thou hast written that men might believe, and believ- ing, have everlasting life. We thank Thee for the Kingdom this Word has announced ; for the Saviour it has set forth ; for the Church it has established ; for the ministry it has created ; for the faith it has begotten ; for the souls it has saved. We bless Thy most holy Name for the divine seed which Thou didst commit to faithful hands, and which was sown in this memorable field, where, by Thy good providence we are gathered to-day. We thank Thee for those men of faith and zeal whom Thou didst call and ordain to that work which it is our joy to contemplate at this time. We thank Thee that Thou hast been pleased to approve their labors in Thy vineyard with a fruitage rich beyond our power to estimate and extensive beyond our fathers fondest hopes ; a fruitage that remains to this day to the praise of Thy grace and the everlasting honor of Thy ministry and her ministers. We thank Thee for the rich streams of Gospel blessing which have gone out from this sanctuary, car- rying refreshment and life itself far and wide.
We thank Thee, O Thou unchanging and ever gracious God, that, throughout the memorable history of this part of Thy one Church, Thou hast kept Thy candle burning, and that to-day it shines out with the brilliancy and power of the early days, creating, preserving, sanctifying.
And now, O Lord, we turn trustfully to Thee, supplicating the con- tinuance of that gracious favor which has so signally blessed this people. Continue to them, and to us all, Thy Word in its purity ; Thy ministry
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The Prayer.
in its power ; Thy Holy Sacraments in their saving effect. Work in us a spirit of gratitude for past mercies and favors. Encourage our hearts by what Thou hast wrought, and help us to see in that the promise of what Thou wilt work in us, and by us, through Thy saving Word.
And unto Thee, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, be all the praise for what has been, for what is, and for what is yet to be, of Thy most gra- cious work of salvation in our midst and throughout the world. AMEN.
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Outline of Address BY Rev. Prof. Adolph Spaeth, D. D.
Light at Eventide.
ZECH. 14 : 7 .- " At evening tide it shall be light."
As we meet here to-day in this venerable building we are surrounded by many sacred memories. New Providence, or the Trappe, as it is now called, has a special claim on our Patriarch, Henry Melchior Muhlenberg. It was his home, his congregation, his territory in a peculiar sense, dis- tinct even from New Hanover and Philadelphia, though these latter had joined the people of New Providence in the original call which eventu- ally brought him to these Western shores. But nowhere else did the vener- able father of our Church in America feel so thoroughly at home as here, in New Providence. Here his remarkable gifts and his lovely, Christian character seem to have been more fully appreciated than in any other field of his labors. Here the people cheered his heart by their willing- ness, zeal and harmonious cooperation in the organization of the congre- gation and the building of the Church. To this place he brought his youthful bride, Anna Maria Weiser, and here he founded his own home, where his children were born, and where his family resided even during his pastoral and missionary work in New. York. It was most fitting that here also, close by the walls of this venerable church, his body should have found its last resting place under that stone, which, in its eloquent and prophetical inscription, honors the man, the pastor and father of the American Lutheran Church.
On this very day, the 26th of September, and probably in this very hour, 109 years ago (A. D. 1784), Muhlenberg appeared for the last time in this pulpit, and delivered the last sermon in his beloved Augustus Church. The 12th of September, for which day this Jubilee Celebration had been originally appointed, would have been the date of the first ser- vice held in this building, A. D. 1743. On the 2d of May, 1743, the corner-stone had been laid in the presence of a great concourse of peo- ple. That favorite hymn of Muhlenberg's, " Befiehl du deine Wege," (by
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Light at Eventide.
Paul Gerhardt), was sung (as it was also used at the corner-stone laying of old Zion's in Philadelphia, May 16, 1766,) and Muhlenberg preached from the words, which we have to-day before us as our text, " At evening tide it shall be light."
We can, I think, understand in some measure, the feelings, resolu- tions, hopes and expectations, that moved him in the selection of this Scripture passage on that memorable occasion. The Lord had led him to this Western Continent with the great commission to bring to his German brethren after the flesh, the everlasting gospel in their mother tongue, and to lay a good, solid foundation for a strong and lasting churchly organi- zation. But what did he find, when he came to this country? The Ger- mans formed at that time half of the population of Pennsylvania. But the majority had reached this land in a condition of utter destitution and poverty. Having been unable to pay for their passage, they were, on their arrival, bound over to a state of servitude for a period of three to seven years, until the money due for their passage had been earned by long and arduous labor. There were many harsh and cruel features connected with this system. Families were torn asunder, their members separated for years, and sometimes never re-united. The disadvantages under which those first German settlers labored were obviously many and great. They were under a cloud as to their social position, their moral and intellectual development, their progress and prosperity in every direction. Nor was their religious life in a satisfactory condition. Under the State Church of the fatherland, these emigrants had never learned to take care of the administration and management of congregational matters. When this burden was thrown upon them in their new home, they hardly knew how to help themselves, and in the absence of good pastors and faithful, ex- perienced counselors, it is no wonder that their religious and churchly condition was not far from chaos. Moreover, many of the people, even before leaving their old home, had been estranged from the faith of their fathers.' They were, at the very start, animated by a spirit of sectarian- ism, which, in many cases, was the principal motive for leaving their former home and seeking these Western shores.
Pennsylvania, under the leadership of Penn, was a very paradise of sects and Quakers, Mennonites, Dunkers, etc., found among the German settlers abundant material to swell their numbers. There was a wide- spread aversion to a regularly constituted ministry of the Gospel, and to ecclesiastical rules, constitutions and order in general. The frequent ap- pearance of ecclesiastical tramps, who brought shame and dishonor upon the ministerial office by their scandalous conduct, would naturally fill the people with doubt and suspicion against all who claimed to be pastors and ministers of the Word. Into this chaotic darkness Muhlenberg was
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called to bring light, order, and a healthy growth on a sound scriptural basis.
By the providence of God he was remarkably successful in this, and his work in the organization of regularly constituted Lutheran congrega- tions and of the first Lutheran Synod on this continent, proved to be a centre of light which shed its rays in every direction from the Hudson as far as Georgia, reaching down in its blessed results even to our present day.
Some of the principal features of this work of our Patriarch may be pointed out as briefly as possible. It is Muhlenberg who, by his conscientious and faithful obedience to his call and commission, re- stored and exalted the dignity and authority of a regularly called and ordained ministry, among a people who were overrun by men of whom the Lord would say : " I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran : I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied." But Muhlenberg, in leaving the home of his fathers, and coming to this distant land, was sure of one thing : He had been regularly called. He had been sent. He had not assumed an office, but had accepted, after long and prayerful consideration, the formal and solemn commission which made him pastor of the Lutheran congregations at New Hanover, New Providence and Philadelphia. With this divine call he met and subdued, not only those crude ecclesiastical vagrants like Valentine Kraft, but also the refined and highly gifted Count von Zinzendorf, who, under the name von Thurnstein, had usurped the pastorate among the Luth- erans in Philadelphia.
Again, it was Muhlenberg, who first united the pastors and congre- gations around him into a synodical organization. On August 15, 1748, the day of the consecration of old St. Michael's Church in Philadelphia, he opened the first convention of the Ministerium of Pennsylvania : "We need unity," he said ; "a twisted cord of many threads will not easily break. We need order; we must take care of our youths ; our Church officers have great responsibilities. We are assembled to provide for the things entrusted to us. Providence willing, we shall in this way assemble from year to year. We pastors here present did not come of our own will, but we are called here, and we are accountable to God and our con- sciences." The Ministerium of Pennsylvania, as organized by Muhlen- berg, was the first and only General Synod in the full and true sense of the word, which our Lutheran Church, ever had in this country. And if things had moved on steadily and without interruption in the line laid out by Muhlenberg and his associates, we ought to have to-day one general body of the Lutheran Church, firmly grounded on the pure faith of our fathers, a union unaffected by the diversity of languages and
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Light at Eventide.
nationalities, even as it was on that first memorable meeting in St. Mich- ael's Church, when Swedes and Germans were united in brotherly council.
In close connection with Muhlenberg's efforts to keep the pastors and congregations together in one organization, we must also refer to another point as it represents one of the most brilliant rays of light that proceeded from that torch-bearer of our Church in America. To him the unity of the Church was not only in the one faith and doctrine, but also in the practical sphere of using the same service, and singing the same hymns, and working together in one common interest. The hymn book and liturgy of 1786, which he was chiefly instrumental in preparing, were to be a strong bond of union for all the pastors and congregations of our Church. Whenever pastors or catechists were introduced into their dif- ferent spheres of labor, they were solemnly charged " not to deviate from the order of service prescribed by Synod and not to introduce new forms of their own." "It would be a most desirable and advantageous thing," he said, "if all the Evangelical Lutheran congregations in the North American States were united with one another ; if they all used the same order of service, the same hymn book, and in good and evil days would show an active sympathy and fraternally correspond with one another." (Letter to Dr. Gotfr. Enox of Loonenburg, November 5, 1783.)
Was there not a spirit of prophecy in the choice of this text which that man of God used at the laying of the corner-stone of this Augustus Church ? Was there not in his mind a divination of the great and wonderful future of this western land and of the peculiar and great commission of the Luth- eran faith to be a light-bearer in the eve of the world's history in this land of the evening ? And are not all our present efforts to bring about a better understanding, and a closer union between the different sections of our Church, to unite in one common service, etc., foreshadowed in the measures adopted by Muhlenberg and the work performed by him ?
Let us take that word from him ! Let us make it our motto for our work in our days. Let every one of us do his very best, according to the talent which the Lord may have given him, that " At evening tide it shall be light."
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The Old Trappe Church.
Address
BY
Rev. Prof. M. H. Richards, D. D.
The Need of a Well-Equipped Ministry.
Man is an embodied spirit whose condition is such that it must lo- calize to perpetuate and make real. When, therefore, we seek to set before us the spirit and the achievements of departed worthies, that we may catch that spirit and emulate those achievements, it is both natural and necessary that we associate them with some locality, some tangible memorial, and thus set them before us as still living, moving, and having their being. We have met this day to thank God for that eminent ser- vant of His, Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, and we have met at this place, and in this venerable building, because this " local habitation and name " answer best these conditions which we have indicated.
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