USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > The past and present of St. Andrew's : two discourses preached in St. Andrew's church, Philadelphia, on the 12th and 19th of September, 1858 > Part 3
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September 24, 1837 : " Brother Bedell (Rev. G. Thurston Bedell) left us this after- noon. He leaves for the Seminary, at Alex- andria, to-morrow. This brother has been a devoted teacher, and we cannot express the deep interest we feel in his welfare. He pos- sesses much of the lovely spirit which shone so brightly in his lamented father. May. God prosper and bless him abundantly."
From this time, owing to the rapid increase of churches, and the absorption of some of the schools and many of the pupils into new parishes, the size of the Sunday-school gra-
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dually declined, so that Dr. Bedell reported to the Convention of 1834, but fifty-seven teachers and seven hundred and eighty-seven scholars. Ten years after, when the Rev. T. M. Clark made his first Report, the teachers were forty-seven; pupils, four hundred and eighty-eight. It was not to be expected that the large numbers gathered, when there were but six Episcopal churches in the city, could be kept up when nineteen parishes occupy the ground. In my last returns to Conven- tion, I reported sixty-two teachers and six hundred and sixty-seven pupils, being the largest number under Sunday-school instruc- tion connected with any parish in the diocese.
The present Sunday-school organization of St. Andrews is as follows : one male Bible class ; one female Bible class ; one white male school; one white female school; one white infant school; one colored male and female school; one colored infant school, and one mission school, of both sexes. The co- lored schools occupy rooms in Eleventh Street, and are conducted by their efficient superin- tendent, with exemplary energy and useful- ness. The mission school is about to build
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a chapel, and promises to be one of the most thriving offshoots of St. Andrew's.
How much the cause of Sunday-schools in general has been indebted to St. Andrew's, may be learned from the interesting fact, that the now widespread and valuable system of having anniversaries of the schools, in the churches, with addresses, singing by the pupils, and devotional services, originated here; that the idea of a children's church, which, under judicious management, may be made produc- tive of good, was first begun here; that the first infant school in the United States was established here, viz. : on the 20th September, 1827, consisting of forty boys, under the care of Mr. Asheton Claxton ; that the plan of in- teresting Sunday-school scholars in foreign missions, and gathering collections from them at stated times, as also, the delivering to them missionary addresses, began here ; and that the first instance of a Sunday-school employing missionaries on its own behalf, is found in the records of our Sunday-school, or Berean So- ciety, the Rev. Mr. John Cole, the Rev. Mr. Osgood, the Rev. George Mintzer, and the Rev.
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Charles H. Alden, being severally engaged in this duty.
The amount of good accomplished by the Sunday-schools of this church, can never be told on earth. On the register of the white female school, are found two thousand one hundred and eighty names ; on the white male school, over two thousand; an equal number have been registered in the several colored schools; nearly three thousand have been con- nected with the various Bible classes, infant and mission schools ; so that over ten thousand children and youth have been brought, through the agency of this church, under Sunday-school training. From the scholars of St. Andrew's schools, have gone out seventeen clergymen, while the corps of male and female teachers has furnished twenty-nine ordained ministers, two female missionaries, and seventeen minis- ters' wives.
As early as 1833, Dr. Bedell counted up seventy-five teachers who traced their first religious impressions, either directly or indi- rectly, to the Sunday-school ; and before Mr. John W. Claxton's death, who was the faith- ful and enlightened teacher of the male Bible
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class, he could enumerate over one hundred young men from his class, who had united themselves to the Church of Christ.
The moral statistics of these schools, could they be gotten at, would be peculiarly inte- resting. The number of conversions, the number who have become teachers and super- intendents in other schools, the number of families thereby brought under the influence of the Gospel, the number of schools which have originated here, would all show the vast good which this instrumentality has accom- plished in the name of Christ; but the whole amount of good accomplished will be known only when " the books shall be opened," and the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed.
Look at the influence which this church has exerted through its members. Fifteen hundred and fifty-one persons have been enrolled as com- municants of this church; of which number, four hundred and thirty have been added during my ministry. How much good has been accomplished by these fifteen hundred communicants, over forty of whom have been ministers of Christ, hundreds of whom have been Sunday-school teachers, and hundreds
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more parents and heads of families, no human arithmetic can compute. Many of these com- municants have been scattered by removals from Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the borders of the Atlantic, across the valley of the Mississippi, and even to Cali- fornia. I know that, in a multitude of in- stances, they have proved blessings to the various communities in which their lot has been cast; they have gathered Sunday- schools, or infused new life into half-expiring organizations ; they have founded churches, or resuscitated decaying ones; they have let their light shine in the workings of a prac- tical Christianity, and blended themselves with many of the great religious movements of the age. In looking over the list of depu- ties to the last Diocesan Convention, I find no less than fourteen churches represented, in whole or in part, by laymen who once belonged to St. Andrew's Church.
St. Luke's, Grace, Emanuel Kensington, the Church of the Mediator, the Church of the Crucifixion, Christ Church Germantown, St. Paul's Chestnut Hill, Church of our . Saviour West Philadelphia, Zion Church
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Tuscarora, and the new Parish of the Holy Trinity, have been greatly indebted to St. Andrew's for their most energetic projectors, vestrymen, and supporters. Thus, St. An- drew's, like the banyan tree, which
" In Malabar or Deccan, spreads her arms, Branching so broad and long, that in the ground The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow About the mother tree, a pillared shade, High overarched, and echoing walks between." MILTON.
has stretched out its boughs, and striking them into the earth, has become a Mother Church, repeating herself in new phases, and with new vigor, in the various rooted twigs which now grow in such umbrageous beauty about "the mother tree."
Again, look at the influence of St. Andrew's through its societies and benefactions.
At an early period of this church, several societies were established, and plans adopted, for the purpose of concerting measures, and concentrating the efforts of the people in the work of the Lord. The various objects of Christian benevolence were kept prominently
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before the congregation, and their contribu- tions flowed freely in the indicated channels, so that in 1834, when Dr. Bedell made his last report to Convention, there was given by this church, for religious purposes, nearly $1000 more than was contributed by any other parish in the diocese. This pre-eminence St. An- drew's has generally maintained. During the last ten years, I have reported to Convention $78,877, as given by this parish, for chari- table and missionary purposes. This sum does not include $30,000 raised for church debt or repairs, nor any expenses for sustain- ing the ministry, or worship of the parish, but simply that which has been given for re- ligious and benevolent purposes.
In addition to this, during the last ten years, one member of this parish has pre- sented to the diocese a spacious building and valuable lot of land, worth, at the least, $35,000, for a church hospital; an institution which is now in vigorous and useful operation. Another member made a dying gift, through her children, of $25,000, for the establishing of a new missionary station in Africa; and of over $5000 for the distribution of the Scrip-
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tures in South America. Another has given $4000 towards building the new library at the Theological Seminary. Another has given $50,000 to the Sunday-school Union, $5000 towards Mission schools in Bassa Cove, and $5000 to the Theological Seminary in Vir- ginia. Another, $4000 to Zion Church, Tus- carora, making over $133,000; which, added to the $78,877 reported to Convention, shows a sum of over $211,000 raised in this church in ten years, for the support of benevolent and missionary institutions ; or $240,000, including church debt and repairs. Gratifying as this is, when compared with what is done by other parishes of equal or greater pecuniary ability, it is still lamentably below both our duty and our privilege, for the amount reported to Con- vention gives an average of less than fifteen dollars per year to each communicant, or twenty-nine cents a week, or four cents a day for Christ. So that when we look at what we give, not in the world's selfish twilight, but in Christ's self-sacrificing spirit, it really seems a small sum, to give but four cents a day for the extension of Christ's kingdom, by those who profess to love that kingdom, and daily pray " Thy kingdom come."
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The experience of this church has proved that " the liberal soul shall be made fat," and that "he that watereth shall be watered also himself." Our benefactions have been more than returned into our own bosom, in the healthful and vigorous piety of our communi- cants, and the peace and prosperity of the congregation.
I have thus briefly told you the outward and visible results of my ten years' ministry among you. Years, to me, of care, anxiety, and toil ; and yet I can truly say, the ten hap- piest years of my life. It has been pleasant to labor here; and though no one can feel as keenly as I do how much I have left undone, both in my pulpit and parochial duties, yet I am confident that did you know the manifold duties, calls, and interruptions which fritter away the time of your rector, and tend to waste his energies, you would view more leniently his deficiencies, and give him your sympathy where, perhaps, you are now dis- posed to give him censure. The rector of a large city parish cannot shut himself up within his congregation, and restrict his labors to the people who support him. He is a
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public man. He is a minister of Christ for all men. Hence his influence is required in carrying on the various benevolent institu- tions of the day, and his time is demanded for these societies. Your rector is connected, as president, vice-president, or manager, with ten distinct religious associations, each of which have demands on his time and labor, because they are part of the Redeemer's in- strumentality for the conversion of the world. In addition to this, you well know how our city parishes are visited by clergymen and others from a distance, for the purpose of raising funds to build churches, parsonages, schools. These clergymen must be received, conferred with, and, as far as possible, helped on in their work of toil and self-denial; yet when these calls average over two a week, as .they do with me, you can see another source of interruption. And yet is not this working for Christ ? If a kind word, a friendly note, a helping hand, will cheer a brother's heart who is toiling in the waste places and wilder- nesses of our Lord, and enable him to get the means of freeing his parish from debt, putting up a church or school-house, building a·par-
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sonage, and planting the Gospel of our blessed Saviour where it was before unknown, am I not legitimately engaged in my Master's work, though the fruits of it do not appear in your pulpit or on your parish records ?
The rector of a large city parish, as occupy- ing a position which enables him to take a wide survey of the Church, is continually visited or written to, by clergyman without parishes, or parishes without ministers, to secure either parishes or rectors, as the case may be. Your rector has before him, at this time, no less than six requests by clergymen for parishes, and four requests from parishes to secure for them rectors. These requests, often urgent, always important, cannot be warded off, but demand and must receive due attention, and thus absorb another fraction of your minister's time. The visiting required to be done, the visits to be received, the letters to write, and the attention which is solicited by the various members of the congregation and community, not merely to their spiritual wants, but to their temporal, from the getting up of a school to the securing for some poor widow a warrant
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for bounty-lands; from the sending a boy to college to the putting out of a boy to a trade; from the getting of a patient into the hospital to the making out of papers necessary for a bequest ; from being the referee of parental or conjugal sorrows, to sifting the credentials of some friendless adventurer; these, multiplied many fold, are among the items which, in one form or other, daily press upon your pastor's mind and time. I had the curiosity, a year or two since, to keep a memorandum of the calls made, the calls received, and the letters writ- ten, during three months, and it was as follows : in January, I made one hundred and twenty- six calls ; in February, one hundred and ten ; in March, one hundred and fifty-one; total, in three months, three hundred and eighty-seven. In January, I received one hundred and thirty- seven calls; in February, one hundred and eighteen; in March, one hundred and twenty; total, in three months, three hundred and eighty. The number of letters which I wrote in these three months, mostly about Church and missionary matters, was one hundred and twenty-six. These facts will give you some idea of the demands made upon your pastor's
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time and labors; demands which are based on the very position which he holds, as rector of this church; and in meeting these demands, he is directly or indirectly advancing, as he trusts, the great work of his ministry. There is an idea, in the minds of some, that because they pay a salary to their rector, he is their property, he is their hired servant, and has no more right to labor outside his parish, than your domestic servant has to labor in your neighbor's dwelling. Such a view would, indeed, make the ministry a hireling ministry; but it is a false view. You have not bought me up, soul and body, time and talent, for your especial use. I am set over you in the Lord by the Holy Ghost. I am Christ's ambas- sador, commissioned by him to minister to you in holy things. You pay me a salary as Christ's minister, specially, but not exclu-
sively, to labor for you. You support me, because I am an ambassador for Jesus, more particularly set over this portion of the Lord's vineyard; but you cannot so selfishly appro- priate me as that I cannot labor for Christ whenever I can do so without detriment to this parish, nor dare I so restrict my efforts
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to you, under the plea that you pay my salary, as to excuse me from taking part, and an active one, too, in those outward instrumen- talities for good which God has confided, not to one church, but to all; not to one minister, but to all the priests of the Most High God. To accomplish all this taxes the mind and muscles of a minister to a degree which you can little imagine. He feels that he must study, in order that he may rightly handle the word of God, and give to each of his hearers a portion in due season. Yet he can study only in broken intervals, and his ser- mons are composed in fragments of time, the current of thought being, perhaps, constantly interrupted, and the glow of feeling often cooled by the calls which knock at his study-door, and demand attention.
He feels that he must visit his people, and he strives to do so; but here, also, he meets with continual disap- pointments and hindrances, which subject him, perhaps, to undeserved blame. Could the people of any large city parish spend but one week in the house of their rector, and see how occupied he is; how interrupted he is; how diversified are the claims upon his time ;
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how multifarious are the things which demand his attention; how letters and visitors press upon him; how, from early morning till late at night, one duty after another tracks his steps and employs his mind,-they would be less disposed to blame any apparent remiss- ness, and be more tender of their minister's reputation.
I could do much more of visiting than I now do, but only at the expense of my pre- paration for the pulpit. If you are content to have the mere skimmings of my mind, the mere surface-thoughts, that float there because they are light ; if you are content with mere extemporaneous exhortations, scarcely rising above mediocrity, and no matter on what text based, running, at last, into the same well-worn ruts of common-place thought, with- out originality, depth, wisdom, or weight; if you will substitute the veneer and varnish of the sciolist, for the solid instruction of your minds ; if you desire a puling sentimentalism, rather than doctrinal discourses, and are satis- fied with the puffed-up sentences of the de- claimer, rather than the sincere milk of the word, then would a few hours, yea, minutes,
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suffice to prepare for the pulpit exercises, and all the rest of the week could be devoted to visiting and receiving visits, and the hun- dred other interruptions and engagements which so tend to secularize and debase the ministry. But I dare not thus use the pulpit. The oil that was to be burnt in the holy place of God's earthly temple, was to be " pure and well beaten," free from crudities, and prepared with daily care by the officiating priest ; and no minister can either be himself " a scribe instructed unto the kingdom of heaven," or be able to rightly instruct the people of his charge, who does not diligently study, not only God's word, but master, as far as possible, such secular knowledge as shall enable him to break to his people the bread of life, giving to each his portion in due season. The man of God who would be "thoroughly furnished unto every good work," must be a man of study as well as of prayer. He must, as St. Paul directs Timothy, " give attendance to reading" as well as " exhortation," that he may "show himself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."
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Having considered how signally God has blessed this church in time past, the question now arises, what does it behoove us to do, to secure his blessing for the time to come ? The answer is,
1st. To FEEL OUR ENTIRE DEPENDENCE FOR SUCCESS ON THE HOLY GHOST .- The first sermon which I preached from this pulpit, as your rector, was from the text, "Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you ;" in which I endeavored to show that there could be no spiritual power in a church, unless there was in that church the felt pre- sence and agency of the Holy Ghost. Ten years of labor among you have only rooted this idea more deeply in my mind. At the present day, especially when so many instrumentalities are at work for the spread of the Gospel, and when human efforts are so subsidized and mag- nified, there is great danger of overlooking, or, at least, of underrating the office and work of the Holy Ghost. Fatal mistake ! Each bless- ing of grace, each power to labor, each promise of truth, and each acting of faith, depends for its efficacy on the operation of the Holy Ghost.
The word of God may be preached with the
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wisdom of a Paul and the eloquence of an Apollos and the thunder of a Boanerges, but it becomes "mighty through God" only as it is " the sword of the Spirit." The ministry may be laborious, studious, earnest, but it is profitless to save, except as it has the unction of the Holy Ghost. The sacraments are but unmeaning symbols, unless made life-giving by the Holy Ghost. It is his office to regenerate the soul, to "convince of sin, of righteous- ness, and of judgment to come," to "take of the things of Christ and show them unto men," and to build up the living stones of the living temple of the Church. As well expect a man to live without the breath of life, as for a soul to have life without the inbreathings of the Holy Ghost. A man may have a heart perfect in its mechanism, muscles properly adjusted, nerves ramifying into every part of the system, but until God breathes into him the breath of life he is but a statue, a corpse; but when that chest heaves with breath, when those lungs fill with vital air, then will the heart pulsate, and the muscles contract, and the nerves thrill through all their delicate network, and life will everywhere abound.
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Just so with a church. It may possess every needed organ and instrument of action, it may have an apostolic ministry, an orthodox creed, true sacraments, a preached Gospel, a devotional liturgy, the outward form and semblance of a living church, but it is only a piece of eccle- siastical sculpture; beautiful it may be, but cold, inanimate, until the Holy Ghost breathes into it the breath of spiritual life, and when that inbreathing is felt, then is life, vigor, growth, beauty, imparted to every organ and instrumentality of the Church, and it becomes indeed " a King's daughter all glorious within, whose clothing is of wrought gold."
And here permit me to remark, that the spirituality of any church is only the aggre- gate spirituality of its individual members. There is no church holiness distinct from indi- vidual holiness. It is the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the heart of each member, the personal piety of its several communicants, which, combined, give spirituality to a church, and enable it to shine as a light in the world. To shine ! aye, that is it. God's command is, " Arise, shine, for thy light is come !" Mark how those workmen, availing themselves of
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the low tides and calm days, are drilling and toiling upon that rock, which at high tide is covered with the sea! They sink deep their foundations; they rivet and clamp together each course of stones as they add layer to layer; and when the graceful tower is built, they dome it with a lantern, and in that glass framework they place a light; and all this toil and expense was borne, not that men might wonder at the skill of the workmen in laying deep those foundations; not that the passers-by might view with complacency the graceful shaft, white and tall and tapering; not that a few select ones might marvel at the machinery by which the light is kept bright and revolving, and the arrangement of the lens, by which the rays are converged and radiated : but its sole purpose was to give light in darkness, to guide the sailor over the danger of the sea, and to tell him, with its tongue of flame, where to steer and where to find a sheltered harbor. So with this church : it was not built to adorn this city with the fac simile of one of the most classic temples of Greece, it was not reared to be a forum for the display of a soul-subduing oratory, it was not designed
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to minister to the pride and partisanship of purse-proud wealth and Pharisee-like righteous- ness; it was built that, out of its pulpit, as from out of the lantern of the tower on the Eddystone rocks, light might shine ; light fed with oil through the pipes of the sanctuary ; light that should shine into the darkest heart, that should cheer the most tempest-tossed breast, that should guide the homeward-bound soul, long a prodigal, but now returning to its Father's house, to the haven of eternal rest.
2dly. IT BEHOOVES US TO HOLD FAST THE GREAT PRINCIPLES OF THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST .- Thus far the trumpet of the Gospel, as blown by the Lord's priests who have ministered here, has given no uncertain sound. The foundation-truths of man's total depravity, his utter inability to save himself, the complete worthlessness of all his so-called goodness, the alone sufficiency of Christ's atoning blood, the imputed righteousness of Christ made ours by faith, the sovereignty of God in man's salva- tion, election by grace, the eternity of future rewards and punishment, and the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth : these are some of the massive founda-
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tion-stones which underlie the Gospel struc- ture. No church can be sound, healthful, or vigorous, where these truths are slurred over or set aside. God has given them special prominence in his word, and they reflect, when rightly understood, peculiar glory on the Di- vine character; and we must hold them up clearly, distinctly, and unfalteringly. There is a great lack of doctrinal knowledge in the Church, and hence opinions are shifting and unsettled; error finds no firm resistance, and easily insinuating itself into the flaws and crevices of a defective theology, and fastening its creeping tendrils there, grows and spreads until the original truth is hidden by the over- growing error which climbs into notice by the very buttresses of the doctrines which it con- ceals ; just as we have seen the Gothic towers and mullioned windows of some ancient abbey, so covered with ivy that the beauty of the structure could not be seen, because of the foliage which threw its green mantle over the ruin. I do not ask that you should array yourselves as the friends and advocates of any human system of theology, that you should call yourselves Calvinists or Armenians, Au-
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