USA > Tennessee > Davidson County > Nashville > The First Presbyterian Church, Nashville, Tennessee : the addresses delivered in connection with the observance of the one hundredth anniversary, November 8-15, l9l4 > Part 3
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We have much in our church life yet that shows the influence of this ancestry. In our organization of the
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local congregation, in our procedure at the Lord's table, in our order of worship, in our thought of the quiet movement of the Holy Spirit in conversion, in our em- phasis of the truth of the gospel in its relation to sal- vation, we get much from the apostles by way of our Presbyterian ancestry. No doubt you think you had still other things from the apostles that we did not ap- propriate, but if so I beg you to believe that it was an oversight and not intentional on our part.
I know something of the influence of Presbyterian- ism on the life of the world, and the world would have been a very different world without that influence. What a terror to evildoers among kings Presbyterianism has been! John Calvin's trumpet call to the world, "God is Sovereign," left no room for petty human tyrants and stripped off more crowns, broke into pieces more scep- ters, shattered down more thrones, repealed more des- potic laws and gave a larger impulse to human freedom than any other word ever spoken, unless it was that word spoken by our Lord when he said, "One is your Master even Christ, and all ye are brethren." Pres- byterianism, therefore, has helped, not only to set up the church of Christ in all the world, but it has helped to write the history of freedom.
I congratulate you on the hundred years of this great church's life, and I trust that the next hundred years will be crowded even fuller of blessings for you and, through you, for the city and State in which you do your work.
From the Episcopalians. By REV. H. J. MIKELL, D.D.
It is a great happiness to bear the greetings of the Episcopal Church in Nashville to this First Presbyterian
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Church on the occasion of its one hundredth anniversary.
This church, in this celebration, is like the wise house- holder of whom our Lord speaks who "brought out of his treasure house things old and new."
It is a dull and stupid mind which does not find a fascination in things old. An old, faded, shot-torn ban- ner of the Southern Stars and Bars-what an interest it has, how precious it is, because it tells us of the hopes and fears, the passions and struggles, the sacrifices and bravery of the generations of our fathers which have passed !
An ancient building-how it has stood as the feet of many passing generations have gone by! And when it is a Christian church-how it has spoken in the midst of the changing generations of man of something ancient and sublime and everlasting! How it has borne witness to the truth of eternal things, in the midst of temporal things, how it has lifted men's minds and thoughts to the things which are spiritual but real, unseen but powerful and pervading !
But what a fascination, too, in things new,-the new age, the approach of a new day bringing to man fresh hopes and aspirations, the coming of the unex- pected, the promise of a future when old errors shall die and old sins be overcome, and men shall have a new strength and opportunity in life, a new freedom, a real democracy !
But if things old are splendid with traditions and thoughts of the past, and things new are fine with hopes of the future, how precious are the moments which hold them both !
Such a moment is this anniversary, which looks back into the past and forward into the future.
This church tonight thinks of its past, the lives which it has hallowed, the fine uplifting service which it has
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done for the community, the witness it has borne to God and truth; how it has stood on this busy corner, with its towers pointed to Heaven, bearing witness in the midst of the pursuit of the material to the truth of the eternal.
But you will not be tied and bound to the past. You heed the message of Maeterlinck when he says, "Let us listen only to the experience which urges us on. It is always higher than that which keeps us back. Let us reject all the counsels of the past that do not turn us to the future."
You consecrate yourselves tonight and you pledge your church to newer and wider usefulness and service for the coming years of the future, for you stand for that which alone can solve the problems and ease the burden of the future years of humanity-the power of Christianity.
We do not believe those who say that Christianity has lost its power, that its day is over, that we need some other and newer gospel to answer the needs of the coming years.
So far is that from being true that we believe that the full power of our religion is yet to come. We believe that from nowhere else will come the wisdom which can solve the modern problems in the social and economic life, that nowhere else can be found the power to cleanse and purify the family and the individual life; that in nothing else, save the Christian religion, can be found a sure foundation on which we can build the character of our children. We believe that just as they brought all their puzzling questions to Christ when He was on the earth, men will still come to Him for strength and guidance and peace from the strife of the passions.
With loyalty to the old truths of Christ's religion
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you will translate them into the work of the present and the fulfillment of the promise of the future.
You will not, like the magician in the tale of Aladdin, give up new lamps for old, but you will take the old lamps and use them to guide men's feet into new paths of usefulness to their fellowmen.
So I bear my greetings: "The Lord prosper you. We wish you good luck in the name of the Lord."
From the Northern Presbyterians.
By REV. T. A. WIGGINTON, D.D.
It is seldom that an individual lives to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of his birth. And even in those very rare cases where such a celebration is pos- sible the friends who gather in honor of the occasion are more impressed with the long life and past achieve- ments of the centenarian than with his future possi- bilities. The same thing is to be observed as to the life of the ordinary organizations through which the indus- trial and social life of a people finds expression. You will find very few business or social organizations in this city the activities of which cover a century. And yet we are celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of an institu- tion which has ministered to the best things in the life of the city for one hundred years, and which is now stronger for that ministry than ever before in its his- tory.
Observations like these compel us to consider the things which give to the church this unique perma- nence and power. Ideally, the church is coextensive with the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God and the
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kadAtalutry
equivalent phrase, the kingdom of heaven, often have the same meaning as the church in New Testament usage. All these terms refer to the same spiritual order in which the chief aim is the doing of God's will and the realization of his ideals in human society. The kingdom was the original conception, but in the development of Christianity the church emerged as the social organiza- tion through which it was sought to give practical effect- iveness to the ideals of the kingdom.
Practically, the church is the social organization of the kingdom. Or, perhaps it would be more exact to say, that it is the social organization which seeks to em- body and advance the principles of the kingdom. The kingdom is the end to which the church is the means. Perhaps the greatest value of this social organization in the interest of the kingdom is to be seen in the per- manence which it guarantees for the ideals of the king- dom. Individuals come and go, but the organization abides. Great leaders arise, fulfill their missions and pass away, but through the influence which they have been able to exert upon the church a new generation has been trained to take up the work and carry it forward. During this week of celebration you will consider some truly great leaders who have long since passed to their reward, but the influence of whose lives, conserved in this organization to which and through which they ministered, abides in continued blessing upon this city, and reaches even to the uttermost parts of the world. It was some such conception as this which moved the apostle Paul to say to the Corinthians, "All things are yours ; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours ; and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." It is the permanence which is thus given to the ideals of the kingdom which enables us to think of the
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REV. JOHN TOOD EDGAR, D.D., Pastor 1833-1860.
church as "the pillar and ground of the truth," and in- spires us to sing :
"O where are the kings and empires now Of old that went and came?
But, Lord, thy church is praying yet, A thousand years the same.
We mark her goodly battlements, And her foundations strong;
We hear within the solemn voice Of her unending song."
As one of the pastors of the city I congratulate you upon the accomplishment of a century of worthy service, and wish for you increasing strength and vigor until the kingdom shall have come. As the representative of a nation-wide Presbyterian Church, many members of which in distant States acknowledge their debt of obli- gation for the ministry of this congregation, I bring you heartiest congratulations for your past history and service, together with the wish that these may be the earnest of an increasing power and influence until we are all one, even as God and Christ are one.
From the Baptists. BY REV. RUFUS W. WEAVER, D.D.
Brethren and Sisters of the First Presbyterian Church : We rejoice that our First Church is now celebrating its one hundredth anniversary. Speaking for the body of Chris- tians who bear the name of Baptists, I use the possessive pronoun "our" advisedly. This is our First Church as well as yours, for we are all Calvinists. It is true that you bear the honored name of Presbyterian, while we are called Bap- tists, but these are our ecclesiastical names; theologically
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we are Calvinists. Therefore, we share your joy that the oldest church in this city is a Calvinist church and that you lead not only in length of years, but also in power, influence and all that goes to make efficiency in Christian service.
The great epochs in the history of Christian faith have been those periods when the teachings of Paul have re- ceived new emphasis and interpretation. Through the ap- pearance of some mighty spirit, who again has interpreted the thought and experience of the Apostle to the Gentiles, each successive age has felt the thrill and the meaning of the distinctive Christian experience which comes only through a personal. faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. The realization of the sovereignty of God, the ineffa- ble joy arising out of the forgiveness of sins, the sense of gratitude as sinners saved by divine grace come to ap- preciate the exceeding sinfulness of sin, gazing with ador- ing love upon the suffering of our Saviour on Calvary-these are the basal ideas in the system of thought called Calvin- ism.
The most consistent and in many ways the most im- portant theological document produced by the English- speaking people is the Westminster Confession of Faith. For this the First Presbyterian Church of Nashville has stood for the past one hundred years. However, all Cal- vinists do not find this document to be a full and accurate expression of their doctrinal views. The fact is, there are Calvinists and Calvinists. There are those who have stood with unfaltering loyalty by the standards of the seventeenth century. Then there are those who have been less con- servative and less afraid of revision. My sympathies are with the latter. I stand for a Calvinism revised, enriched, improved, amended and brought down to date. Often Cal- vinism is dry ; indeed, sometimes, like the bones of the val- ley in the vision of Ezekiel. it is very, very dry. I believe in a Calvinism properly irrigated. Now do not under-
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stand me to be introducing a vexed question upon which we differ. I am not speaking of the amount of water re- quired or the mode of its application in the ordinance of baptism. I have in mind the emotional element in re- ligion. We Calvinists are inclined to emphasize unduly the intellectual aspects of both religion and philosophy. Cal- vinism always needs the fertilizing and fructifying power of a deep emotional experience, for Calvinism is never true to itself without the presence of this experience. The peril which thoughtful Calvinists constantly face is the possession of an orthodoxy of creed and an orthopraxy of conduct without the "orthopathy" of the Christian life.
The splendid achievements of this historic church, the long roll of consecrated and distinguished divines who have ministered to this congregation, the constant increase to its membership upon a profession of personal faith in Christ, the generous gifts of your members which have gained for this church the first place among Southern Presbyterians in missionary offerings, are sufficient evidence that what- ever may be true elsewhere, here clearness of thinking re- garding revealed truth is linked to the faithful translation of that truth into devout Christian living.
My enjoyment tonight is increased by the fact that being under many obligations to members of the Presby- terian Church in the United States, this occasion offers me the opportunity to express my appreciation and my gratitude for what I have received. I was rocked in a Presbyterian cradle. though later I did crawl out, my Baptist father as- sisting in this laudable or disgraceful proceeding, the proper adjective depending upon your point of view. My first playmate was my Presbyterian grandfather, who stood between me and many a merited punishment. When in later years I sought to secure a collegiate and theological train- ing, a corporation was formed bearing the name of "The Rufus W. Weaver Mind Improvement Company," a Pres-
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byterian lawyer drew up the document, and two-thirds of the stockholders were Presbyterians When death robbed me of those most dear, a Presbyterian minister, who has been to me both friend and pastor, Dr. Egbert W. Smith, participated in the funeral services. What I am I owe to my sainted Presbyterian mother, whose prayers first awoke in my heart a sense of the need of a Saviour, and whose beautiful Christian endurance under trial will always be to me the noblest exhibition of Christian faith I have ever known.
These are some of the reasons for my rejoicing in the success of Presbyterianism, and they enable me to share your satisfaction as you review the splendid spiritual achieve- ments of this historic church, which for a century, keeping step with the progress of events, has been able to set forth and to illustrate the best in Presbyterianism. My rejoicing is increased by the high regard I have for your honored and distinguished pastor.
I congratulate you as you begin the second century upon your past, so glorious and inspiring; I congratulate you upon all that the future promises of opportunity for greater sacrifice and ever-widening influence. The God of our fathers has been with you; may He ever be with you and with your children and your children's children "all the days even unto the end of the age."
From the Hebrews.
By RABBI I. LEWINTHAL.
It is with sincere pleasure that I extend to you, Dr. Vance, and your church greetings, not alone from the Vine Street Temple congregation, but from the Jews at large in this city. You and your church have been a great power for good in this community and have
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taken the leading part in all great movements, civic as well as religious.
It is to be regretted that the various sects and creeds always emphasize their differences, but never their agreements. Truly the ethics underlying religion of both Protestants and Jews are identical. We read the same Psalms; the utterances of the prophets stir all of us; all must heed and obey the Decalogue. Now, we all agree that religion asserts the Fatherhood of God, but forget emphatically that it teaches also the brother- hood of man, a lesson we have yet to learn. But pray let us not learn it in the same manner we have learned the Fatherhood of God; let us not learn to love one another through hatred and persecution. Let us not use theology as a text-book for this great lesson. Let us use the heart of man, and we shall find that the ties which bind us to each other are more numerous than the dogmas and tenets which separate us. Let us read the heart of man, and we shall find that greater than all the dogmas and creeds are friendship, love and liberty. Let us read the heart of man, and we shall find therein an aspiration common to us all ; to become more human, to grow more divine.
We do not and perhaps cannot all agree upon the same methods, nor is it necessary that we should, even for the sake of fellowship. In the description of the ideal peace the prophet Isaiah uses the following figure of speech, "And the wolf shall be with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion together." The prophet does not mean that these animals will yield up their respective identities, but that they will leave their beastly nature, so that perfect peace will reign among them. Even so is it pos- sible, with all our differences in thought and ideas, to create an era of peace and fellowship: "When nation
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will not lift up sword against nation," when they will not hurt or destroy one another, when all hatred and per- secution will be consumed by the fires of love, when man will recognize in his fellowman a brother, when all nations will walk together in peace on that highway which leads to the mountain of God. Not that the Jew will become Christianized, nor the Christian Judaized, but that we shall all become humanized and learn to un- derstand, to respect and to love one another.
From the Roman Catholics. By BISHOP BYRNE.
October 20, 1914.
Rev. James I. Vance, D.D., Pastor First Presbyterian Church, Nashville, Tennessee.
MY DEAR DR. VANCE: I beg to acknowledge your esteemed favor of October 19, informing me that from November 8 to 15 will be celebrated the hundredth anni- versary of the organization of the church of which you are pastor.
I avail myself of the opportunity to congratulate both you and your congregation on the auspicious event and on the great good your church has done during this cen- tury of its existence, and to express the hope that during the second century of its activity, upon which it is just about to enter, it may be still more fruitful in good works.
I regret that circumstances will not permit me to be present on the evening of November 9 to express to your people the high esteem I entertain for them, and to offer to yourself, in the responsible duties that rest upon you. my hearty good wishes and fervent Godspeed.
I am, my dear Dr. Vance,
Very cordially yours in Christ,
THOMAS SEBASTIAN BYRNE, Bishop of Nashville.
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CHAPTER IV.
HISTORY OF THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
By WILLIAM E. BEARD.
The seeds of Presbyterianism were sown here first by Rev. Thomas Craighead, a North Carolinian, and a grad- uate of Nassau Hall, Princeton, in the class of 1775. One Saturday afternoon early in 1785, Mr. Craighead arrived at the settlement on the Cumberland. His labors as preacher began at once. The following day he mounted a stump and preached the first sermon. During the year he located himself at old Haysboro, in this county, an early town whose site is now marked only by a cemetery. The citizens there built him a neat stone church, and on September 25, 1786, the trustees of Davidson Academy ordered school taught there. He was the first teacher. This stone meeting house was "the cradle of the University of Nashville." Mr. Craighead preached there regularly for nearly thirty years, though after 1810 he was at war with his presbytery about his views, the conflict not being settled until near his death on September 11, 1824. The pioneer sleeps peacefully in the old churchyard by the side of his faithful helpmeet.
REV. WILLIAM HUME. +
The next minister having a place in the history of this church to reach the Cumberland settlement was Dr. Wil- liam Hume, who was born in Edinburgh, August 15, 1770. The young Scotchman was studiously pursuing his course at the University of Edinburgh and had almost completed it, when one day he was summoned by the faculty to hear the news that he had been appointed a missionary to Ten-
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nessee. After prayerful consideration of the call, he ac- cepted. Included in the modest amount of baggage with which he undertook the long voyage over seas was a Scotch cheese, a reminder of home from a friendly Scotchman to a settler in Kentucky. The young traveler's means were very limited, so limited that when the New York Custom- house officers demanded duty on the Scotch cheese the preacher could not meet it. The captain suggested that he might escape the duty by declaring the cheese was a part of his provisions, but Mr. Hume would not consent to this. Regretfully, he left the cheese with the officers.
On December 2, 1801, Mr. Hume became pastor of a small circle of Scotch Seceders here. This church building was one of Nashville's first houses of worship. The Pres- byterians among the settlers, who were pastorless, often enjoyed the privilege of his preaching in that house. In 1818 he united with the Presbyterian Church and the re- maining members of his flock of seceders followed him. In his new connection he labored devotedly some fifteen years, often filling the pulpit of the First Church when it was vacant. His name is frequently encountered in the annals of early Nashville. He died May 22, 1833, and Nashville citizens erected a monument to commemorate "his virtues and his active goodness."
CHURCH ORGANIZED.
What is known as the First Presbyterian Church was organized at the courthouse November 14, 1814. There is some question about the exact date, for the records were all destroyed when the original church was burned in 1832. The date given is that suggested nearly fifty years ago by one of the first members, Mrs. M. L. Bybee, of Memphis, formerly Mrs. Patton Anderson, of Nashville. At that time Mrs. Bybee's recollection was substantiated by other wit- nesses to the event.
The church was organized by Rev. Gideon Blackburn,
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A. W. PUTNAM, Elder 1839-1869. Commissioner to the First General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States.
assisted by Rev. Robert Henderson, of Murfreesboro, with a membership of seven-six women and one man. The church could do no more appropriate act than to engrave upon its walls their goodly names, and particularly that of the solitary male member. It is easily discerned that the men of early Nashville were not churchmen, most of them probably were more concerned with the question of whether General Jackson could produce a race horse to beat Haynie's Maria than with church matters, and it must have required some moral hardihood on the part of Robert Smiley to be- come a charter member of an organization in which women, and not men, were so everwhelmingly emphasized. He became the church's first ruling elder and continued as such until his death, in 1823.
The ladies associated with Mr. Smiley in the organiza- tion of the church were Mrs. Andrew Ewing, Mrs. Mary McNairy, wife of Frank McNairy, Sr .; Mrs. Josiah Nichol,1 Mrs. Ruth Greer Talbot2 and her daughter, Sophia Western Hall, wife of Elihu S. Hall, and Mrs. Margaret L. Anderson, wife of Col. Patton Anderson, of the United States Army.
STIRRING TIMES.
Nashville just then was already making strides forward as a city; the first steamboat and a steam flour mill were only three or four years in the future. It was the capital city of Tennessee. But all of those great achievements which have given Tennessee a high place in the national firmament were yet to be enacted. One of them was just then being staged. The day before the little church was
1A half of pew No. 82 is held by Maj. E. C. Lewis and occupied by his children. who are descendants in the fifth generation of Mrs. Josiah Nichol, the original holder of the pew of that number.
"Mrs. Talbot was the wife of Thomas Talbot, a pioneer hotel proprietor in Nashville. On September 29. 1806, a dinner was given at the Talbot tavern, of which Aaron Burr was the guest of honor ; "at which." according to the Impartial Review of October 4, "were convened many of the most respectable citizens of Nashville and its vicinity."
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organized General William Carroll's division3 of Tennes- seans mustered here preparatory to voyaging down the waters to New Orleans to bear the brunt of the fighting in Jackson's "almost incredible victory" on January 8. That the homespun heroes who tramped Nashville's streets on November 14, 1814, received a benediction at that modest church founding is very likely, for Parson Blackburn had been chaplain of Colonel Cannon's regiment in the Creek war and had exerted his influence and his fervid eloquence to prevent the disintegration of Jackson's army in the In- dian country.
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