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QUARTER-CENTURY DISCOURSE: 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE TENTH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA, 
 ON SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1S5S. 
 
 BY 
 
 / 
 
 HENRY A. BOARDMAN, D. D. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 PARRY AND MCMILLAN 
 
 1858. 
 
CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 Philadelphia, November 10, 1S58. 
 Rev. and Dear Sir : — 
 
 We thank you for the very instructive and impressive 
 Discourses which, as our Pastor, you delivered to us last Sab- 
 bath — on the occasion of the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of your 
 installation over "The Tenth Church." 
 
 It is the earnest desire of the congregation, as it is also of a 
 number of your ministerial brethren and other friends who were 
 present, that these Discourses should be published. We trust, 
 therefore, that you will kindly yield to our solicitations, and 
 commit them to us for that purpose. 
 
 Praying that in entering upon the labors of another Quarter 
 of a Century, you may richly enjoy the blessing of God in your 
 person, and in your great work, 
 
 We are truly and affectionately yours, 
 
 R. Patterson, James Warren*, 
 
 Hugh Campbell, Wm. E. Dubois, 
 
 C. B. Jaudox, W. D. Bell, 
 
 J. B. Ross, John McArtuir, 
 
 Charles Gilpin, A. W. Mitchell, 
 
 Wm. A. Ingham, W. Sargent. 
 
 Rev. H. A. BOARDMAN, D. D. 
 
Philadelphia, November 16, 1858. 
 My Dear Friends : — 
 
 I wrote my Quarter-Century Sermon with the determina- 
 tion not to publish it. It is so much about myself and my 
 church, that I felt that there would be an indelicacy in spread- 
 ing it before the public. But I have been overruled. My people 
 seem resolved upon having it ; and my clerical brethren who 
 heard it, have been kind enough to say that " it ought to be 
 printed for the general good." Under these circumstances, with 
 a grateful appreciation of the friendly terms in which you have 
 conveyed your request, I place the manuscript in your hands, 
 and remain, sincerely and affectionately, 
 
 Your friend and Pastor, 
 
 HENRY A. BOARDMAN. 
 
 To 
 
 Major General Patterson, 
 Hugh Campbell, Esq., 
 Charles B. Jaudon, M. D., 
 and Others. 
 
DISCOURSE. 
 
 "SO WILL I COMPASS THINE ALTAR, LORD : THAT I MAY 
 PUBLISH WITH THE VOICE OF THANKSGIVING, AND TELL OF ALL 
 
 Thy wondrous works." — Psalm xxvi. 6, 7. 
 
 As I appear before you this morning, my 
 mind goes back irresistibly to the scene pre- 
 sented in this house on a Friday evening, just 
 twenty-five years ago.* The Presbytery to 
 which the church belonged was convened 
 here, and with them a crowded auditory, who 
 had come together, as might be, to indulge a 
 rational curiosity, or to testify their Christian 
 sympathy in the solemnities of that hour. In 
 such a presence, after an impressive sermon 
 by my venerable predecessor in this pulpit, I 
 knelt in yonder aisle and was ordained to the 
 ministry 'by the laying on of the hands of 
 the Presbytery ;' after which, I was installed 
 
 * November 8, 1833. 
 
10 Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 as the Pastor of this congregation. The aged 
 preacher, yielding to accumulated bodily in- 
 firmities, has long since ceased from all active 
 ministrations ; and the voice which charged 
 you to be faithful to your trust, is silent under 
 the pressure of a living death. Of the hands 
 which were first lifted in response to the pre- 
 scribed demand, ' Do you profess your readi- 
 ness to take this man to be your minister?' 
 and then, as the benediction closed, were 
 stretched forth to give me a generous and 
 hearty welcome, many are paralyzed in the 
 grave, and still more are dispersed over the 
 broad earth. Only here and there, as I look 
 around my congregation, do I recognize one 
 who participated in the services of that even- 
 ing, and went home to offer at the household 
 altar a prayer for the youthful Pastor who 
 had dared, possibly unsent of God, to assume 
 a charge so disproportionate to his years and 
 his powers. 
 
 What my own emotions were on that even- 
 ing, I could not well express. It is, under 
 any circumstances, a transaction of deep so- 
 
Quarter -Century Discourse. 11 
 
 lemnity, for a man to be ordained to the 
 sacred ministry. But for a young man to 
 exchange the training and tutelage of the 
 Theological Seminary, for the official care and 
 oversight of a metropolitan church — to enter, 
 wholly inexperienced, and with scant resources 
 of every kind, upon a Pastorate involving 
 labors and responsibilities like this — you may 
 well suppose that such a transaction would 
 stir his nature to its lowest depths and make 
 him feel, with the apostle, ' Who is sufficient 
 for these things?' 
 
 You have a right to know how I came to 
 take upon myself a burden to which I was so 
 unequal. I cannot relate it in a sentence or 
 two. Nor can I do justice to the present 
 anniversary, without saying much more about 
 myself than is agreeable to my feelings. There 
 are occasions, however, when a Pastor may be 
 allowed to refer to his own experience as illus- 
 trating the mystery of God's providence. Your 
 kindness will excuse me if, after spending a 
 quarter of a century with you, I devote an 
 hour to the recital of some personal reminis- 
 
12 Quarter - Century Discourse. 
 
 cences not altogether alien from your own 
 history as a congregation. 
 
 Let me premise, for the information of fami- 
 lies who have but recently united with us, a 
 very concise statement respecting the origin 
 of the church. The merit of proposing the 
 erection of a church on this spot, is due to the 
 late Furman Leaming. Mr. Learning asso- 
 ciated with himself five other gentlemen, viz., 
 Messrs. John Stille, of the Second Church, 
 George Ralston and James Kerr, of the First 
 Church, and William Brown and Solomon 
 Allen, of the Sixth Church. Through the 
 liberality and energy of these six Christian 
 men, the work was accomplished. The cor- 
 ner-stone was laid with appropriate cere- 
 monies by the late venerable Ashbel Green, 
 D.D., on the 8th day of August, 1828. On 
 the 24th of May following, the first sermon 
 was preached in the Lecture-room by the Rev. 
 Derrick C. Lansing, D. D. The building was 
 completed on the 7th of December, 1829, and 
 opened for worship on the ensuing Sabbath. 
 
 On the 12th of March, 1829, Messrs. Fur- 
 
Quarter -Century Discourse. 13 
 
 man Learning, John Stille, and James Kerr, 
 were elected Ruling Elders. On the 11th of 
 May, of the same year, the church was re- 
 ceived under the care of the Presbytery of 
 Philadelphia. On the 9th of November fol- 
 lowing, the Rev. Thomas McAuley, D. D., of 
 New York, was elected Pastor of the church, 
 and duly installed on the 17th of December. 
 After remaining here three years, during 
 which period his labors were greatly blessed, 
 Dr. McAuley resigned the Pastorate (in Jan. 
 1833) and returned to the city of New York. 
 In the Spring of the preceding year (1832) 
 Dr. McAuley had seen fit to unite with the 
 Second Presbytery of Philadelphia, and the 
 ecclesiastical relations of the church were 
 transferred to that body. This Presbytery 
 had been formed by the General Assembly on 
 the principle, not of geographical lines, but of 
 ' elective affinity,' with a view of allaying the 
 controversy, already commenced here, which 
 afterwards culminated in the disruption of 
 the Presbyterian Church. The congregation 
 remained without a Pastor until the autumn 
 
 2* 
 
14: Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 of that year — having, at the time, a commu- 
 nion roll of two hundred and ninety-two 
 members. 
 
 Indulge me now with some personal recol- 
 lections, which I should not think of uttering 
 except in the presence, if I may so speak, of 
 my own household; and some of which will 
 be new even to you. 
 
 Having become a student of theology at 
 Princeton in the Fall of 1830, I was licensed 
 to preach the Gospel by the Presbytery of 
 New York, in April, 1833. Keturning imme- 
 diately to the Seminary, it so happened, that, 
 under the system of rotation then observed 
 at Princeton, it fell to the lot of the venerable 
 Dr. Alexander to preach in the village church 
 on the ensuing Sabbath evening. Knowing 
 that I had come back with my License in my 
 pocket, nothing would answer but that I must 
 take his place. You may well imagine how 
 such a proposal would strike me, and how 
 earnestly I tried to escape from the service. 
 But he was inexorable. I must go with him 
 to the pulpit, and preach my first sermon to a 
 
Quarter - Century Discourse. 15 
 
 congregation assembled to hear Dr. Alexander. 
 It was not a pleasant ordeal. But as I look 
 over the sermon (1 Cor. iii. 18, 'Let no man 
 deceive himself), preached then for the first 
 and last time, I have the satisfaction of know- 
 ing that, greatly defective as it is in many 
 respects, it is replete with Gospel truth, and 
 addressed to men's consciences with as much 
 point and solemnity as any discourse I have 
 written since. 
 
 During the remaining four or five months 
 of my stay at Princeton (the course then 
 closed in September), I had the usual expe- 
 rience of Seminary students in their Senior 
 year, as regards proposals for a settlement. 
 But of the various invitations sent to me from 
 different parts of the church, there were only 
 one or two which occasioned me any serious 
 perplexity. I was urgently pressed by the 
 Pastor of one of the oldest and most important 
 Reformed Dutch Churches in the city of New 
 York, to become his colleague. This I de- 
 clined. And then, in the face of my personal 
 remonstrances, a call was sent me from one of 
 
16 Quarter ■ Century Discourse. 
 
 our own churches in that city. The circum- 
 stances attending this call were so marked, 
 that the congregation felt themselves at liberty 
 to urge the acceptance of it with great per- 
 sistency; and it cost me several weeks of 
 anxiety, before I could finally decline it. 
 
 One thing only I had regarded as settled in 
 my own mind, respecting my future location: 
 At an early period in my theological studies, 
 I had resolved, even should the opportunity 
 present itself, not to go from the Seminary to 
 a large city. I preferred a rural congregation 
 as a matter of taste and feeling; and my de- 
 liberate judgment had ratified the preference. 
 But we are all led in paths which we knew 
 not. I had my plans, and God had his pur- 
 poses. In the end, I did the only thing which 
 I had made up my mind, in respect to a set- 
 tlement, I would not do. 
 
 The Session of , this church invited me to 
 supply their vacant pulpit. The first Sabbath 
 I preached here was July 28, 1833. The ser- 
 mons were from Luke vi. 43-45, and Isaiah 
 i. 2, 3. Three weeks after, August 18, 1 again 
 
Quarter -Century Discourse. 17 
 
 preached for them, from Rom. i. 16, and Eccl. 
 viii. 11. On the 2d of September, the congre- 
 gation came together, and with entire una- 
 nimity and cordiality, resolved to invite me 
 to become their Pastor. Here was a new and 
 most important question to be met. I referred 
 it, after seeking wisdom from above, to our 
 Professors. With one voice they said I ought 
 to accept the call. In the end, I did accept 
 it — not without many misgivings, but satisfied 
 that the pillar of cloud had moved in this 
 direction, and that there was neither peace 
 nor safety except in following it. 
 
 It was one of the incidents of my visit to 
 the city in August, that the Rev. Dr. Green 
 waited upon me, and inquired whether I would 
 consent to entertain a call from another of 
 our principal churches here, which was also 
 vacant. I respectfully declined the overture. 
 My ordination and installation had been 
 fixed for the 8th of November, and so adver- 
 tised in the public papers. On reaching the 
 city, perhaps the very day before this, I found 
 myself brought at once and unavoidably into 
 
18 Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 that burning polemical atmosphere which con- 
 tinued to enwrap our churches for several 
 years after. It has already been mentioned, 
 that this church was now connected with the 
 Second Presbvterv of Philadelphia. This 
 Presbytery, as comprising the New School 
 elements of our denomination here, was ob- 
 noxious to the Synod of Philadelphia; and 
 the Synod had just dissolved it on the eve of 
 my arrival. The Presbytery appealed to the 
 General Assembly ; and, by the constitutional 
 force of the appeal, its life was prolonged 
 until the case could be finally issued. But 
 the question was, c Ought I to join a Presby- 
 tery, and be ordained by it, which was in this 
 delicate position?' The leading men of the 
 congregation, its founders even, were divided 
 on this point; and some of them displayed a 
 degree of feeling in discussing it with me, 
 amounting almost to acerbity. This was 
 sufficiently embarrassing within twenty-four 
 hours of the time publicly announced for the 
 ordination ; and the trouble was not mitigated 
 by a most unexpected visit from the Mode- 
 
Quarter -Century Discourse. 19 
 
 rator of the Synod, the Pastor of a country 
 church, and an entire stranger to me, who 
 sought me out at my lodgings, and with many 
 words endeavored to convince me, that it 
 would be extremely unwise and irregular fur 
 me to allow the service to go on. You can 
 readily imagine the state of painful perplexity 
 into which I was thrown by these occurrences. 
 Had there been time to hasten to Princeton 
 for an hour, the burden would have lost more 
 than half its weight. But that w T as impossi- 
 ble, and it was not a day of telegraphs. 
 There was not a single Presbyterian Pastor in 
 the city, to whom I could look for counsel 
 with any hope of obtaining impartial advice. 
 But a gracious Providence relieved me. On 
 my way to the city, I found on board the boat 
 that man of God, whose praise was in all the 
 churches, the late Rev. Dr. Nevins, of Balti- 
 more. He was to spend a day here with his 
 friends. It occurred to me that he would be 
 an unprejudiced judge; and I w r as sure he 
 would appreciate the difficulties of my situa- 
 tion. I went to him as I would go to an 
 
20 Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 elder brother, and opened to him my bur- 
 dened heart. He entered into the matter 
 with a genial sympathy, and counselled me 
 to go forward. This was enough. I conferred 
 no more with flesh and blood; and the tie 
 was formed which, by God's mercy, has now 
 bound me to you for a quarter of a century. 
 
 I say, ' has bound me to you' In one 
 sense, this language is sufficiently accurate ; 
 for churches retain their identity, whatever 
 changes may occur among the individuals 
 who compose them. But it is one of the 
 affecting experiences of this day, that I should 
 find myself surrounded by a congregation 
 radically different from the one which re- 
 ceived me on that memorable evening. No 
 one can be aware, except by giving special 
 attention to the subject, how constant and 
 potential is this law of change which controls 
 the destiny of congregations in large cities. 
 It escapes observation, partly because the pro- 
 cess is silent and gradual, and partly because 
 there are ordinarily no social bonds like those 
 which clasp the members of a rural church 
 
a far. 
 an incident to be known and tfl 
 immunity. In 
 
 . iy. these matal 
 
 and rapidity which m ! unknown in l 
 
 other lands. N I are li . in t. 
 
 childhood, fond of char s 
 
 A ifal nation . 
 
 ours cannot 
 
 •re rovir. . 
 how it may bettor il 
 our vast territory, and the count. 
 
 i to | .1 arn ; lanical in- 
 
 commercial enterprise, and I . 
 If-indnl . the indn 
 
 facilities for indulging this propen 
 inviting to t L Add the in- 
 
 fluence of taste and preferei fortune 
 
 and affliction, and of the numerous rdi- 
 
 nate agencies which inhere in the social c 
 pact and shape its growth ; and we shall have 
 an adequate explanation of the c 
 petually in progress in our congregation 
 
 I came in 1833. as just stated, to a church 
 
22 Q uarter - Century Discourse. 
 
 of two hundred and ninety-two members. Of 
 these there are but thirty-seven remaining. 
 All the Elders who constituted the Session, 
 and their three associates in founding the 
 church, are dead. Of the families I found 
 here, there are but two which death has not 
 entered, and only six in which one or both of 
 the heads have not been removed. In so far 
 as can be ascertained, one hundred and fifty- 
 eight persons in the communion of the church, 
 have died within the period specified. The 
 number of deaths in the congregation since 
 Jan. 1, 1841 (there is no record beyond that), 
 has been, of children, sixty-eight, adults, one 
 hundred and ninety-five; total, two hundred 
 and sixty-three — an average annual mortality 
 of fifteen. 
 
 The number of additions to the church dur- 
 ing this quarter century, has been one thou- 
 sand and sixty-eight; to wit: four hundred 
 and ninety-three by certificate, and five hun- 
 dred and seventy-five by examination — an 
 average accession of eleven (nearly) at each 
 of our one hundred communions. The pre- 
 
Quarter - Century Discourse. 2 3 
 
 sent number of communicants in actual at- 
 tendance is about four hundred and fifty.* 
 
 The largest additions by examination, have 
 been, in their chronological order, as follows : 
 In March 1835, twenty-three; March 1838, 
 thirty-four; March 1840, twenty-eight; March 
 1841, seventeen; March 1843, thirty-one; 
 June 1852, sixteen; March 1855, fourteen; 
 June 1858, forty-one. At several of these 
 periods, the Spirit of God has been manifestly 
 present in the congregation, with unusual 
 power. His sacred influences have come 
 down, not as in the fire and the earthquake, 
 but Mike rain upon the mown grass, as 
 showers that water the earth.' The souls of 
 his people have been refreshed, and sinners 
 have been converted from the error of their 
 ways. These visitations of the Divine mercy, 
 
 * On a careful examination of the church-books, I find that 
 by some oversight, the number of communicants reported has 
 been too high for several years — some being counted in the 
 returns who have left the city, although their names remain 
 upon our Register. I think it just to make full allowance for 
 these, and therefore put down the present number of members 
 in actual attendance at four hundred and fifty. 
 
2-L Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 as will appear by the statistics just recited, 
 have, almost without exception, occurred in 
 the winter or spring of the year. The pro- 
 vidence and the grace of God work in har- 
 mony. And the result just indicated can 
 surprise no one who is familiar with the social 
 and commercial life of a great city, and accus- 
 tomed to trace out the religious tendencies of 
 the annual dispersion of the inhabitants in 
 the warm season. 
 
 But while we are grateful for these times of 
 refreshing with which it has pleased God to 
 brighten our path, let us not overlook the im- 
 portant fact, that the church has grown rather 
 by steady, gradual accretion than by revivals 
 of religion. This unquestionably is the esta- 
 blished plan of the Divine government. He 
 has his set times to favor Zion ; and glorious 
 times thev are. We should never snve over 
 praying for them, until he has established and 
 made Jerusalem a joy in the earth. But we 
 have no Scripture warrant for placing our chief 
 dependence upon revivals. The church has 
 been mainly perpetuated by means of faithful 
 
Quarter -Century Discourse. 25 
 
 parental instruction, and through the stated 
 ministrations of the sanctuary. Where these 
 two agencies are duly employed, and sustained 
 by the fervent and habitual prayers of God's 
 people, the work of conversion will be always 
 going on. And it is this constant, healthy 
 growth which every church should desire, and 
 to which every Christian is bound to lend his 
 influence. 
 
 The ordinance of Baptism has been admin- 
 istered by the Pastor, to five hundred and 
 ninety-eight children and one hundred and 
 five adults — in all, seven hundred and three 
 persons. He has solemnized the rite of mar- 
 riage two hundred and twenty-two times. 
 His visits have been from three hundred to 
 five hundred annually — an aggregate, say, of 
 ten thousand during his ministry. 
 
 I have no data within my reach, which 
 would enable me to present even an outline 
 history of our Sunday Schools. But I think I 
 am quite within bounds when I express the 
 belief, that some eight thousand children must, 
 
 3* 
 
26 Quarter- Century Discourse. 
 
 within the last twenty-five years, have been 
 brought under religious instruction, in the 
 various schools connected with this congrega- 
 tion. Besides the parent-school, the Sabbath 
 School of a declining church in Southwark, 
 was, many years since, resuscitated by the la- 
 bors of some of our members. A corps of faith- 
 ful teachers from here sustained, for a term of 
 years, a flourishing school in the North West- 
 ern part of the city, which was relinquished 
 only because it was found impossible to pro- 
 cure a hall in which it could be continued. 
 The first Niglit-scJiool in our city for the gra- 
 tuitous instruction of young men, was estab- 
 lished, it is believed, by a few gentlemen of 
 our congregation. This laudable example 
 was, after a while, followed by our municipal 
 authorities. Night-schools were, with great 
 advantage to the city, engrafted upon our 
 public school system, and have since been in- 
 troduced into Boston and other cities. And, 
 to close this series, you have for sixteen years 
 sustained that admirable Sunday School in 
 Moyamcnsing, which has, within the last 
 
Quarter -Century Discourse. 27 
 
 month, expanded into a church, and received 
 here, within these walls, its first Pastor.* 
 
 No one may presume to trace the vast and 
 intricate results which must flow from these 
 various efforts. It is matter of record, that 
 they have already, by God's blessing, brought 
 many souls to Christ; and that they have 
 exerted a wholesome influence upon some 
 thousands of others. But there is a different 
 aspect in which the present occasion brings 
 them before us. They indicate the character 
 of the church. They show that, on some 
 limited scale at least, Christian activity has 
 been the law of our household. I dare not 
 say that this has been the paramount law with 
 us : — would that it had been. But I may and 
 do assert, that while as a church we have been 
 very slothful and lukewarm, there has always 
 been a leaven here of the right kind — a body 
 of faithful disciples, of both sexes, who have 
 never forgotten our Saviour's words, ' Ye are 
 
 * The Rev. Willard M. Rice was ordained to the ministry and 
 installed as Pastor of the "Moyamensing Presbyterian Church," 
 on Monday, Oct. 18, 18.53. 
 
28 Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 the light of the world ;' ' Ye are the salt of 
 the earth ;' c It is better to give than it is to 
 receive.' They have not been content, like 
 the arid desert, to drink in the rain and the 
 sunshine of heaven, and make no return. Ke- 
 freshed with the bread of heaven and animated 
 by the love of Christ, they have gone forth in 
 quest of the needy and perishing, and gathered 
 them into schools, and taught them the words 
 of eternal life. In this work of benevolence, 
 they have not only communicated, but re- 
 ceived, benefit. The measure which, in their 
 noble philanthropy, they meted out to others, 
 has been returned sevenfold into their own 
 bosoms. It has kept alive the fervor of their 
 piety, and made them an example to the rest 
 of us ; and, so, they have brought back from 
 their rude mission-fields, sheaves of blessing 
 which have relieved* our penury and helped 
 us in our warfare. Had they nothing to show 
 for their exertions outside these walls, this 
 church has profited by their labors beyond the 
 power of common language to express. And 
 the lesson which a Pastor must long, in such 
 
Quarter- Century Discourse. 29 
 
 circumstances, to impress upon every one of 
 his people, is that familiar but too often neg- 
 lected one, c Go, thou, and do likewise.' 
 
 It is not essential that I should speak in 
 detail of what the church has done for the 
 cause of Christian benevolence. The pecu- 
 niary resources of the congregation have va- 
 ried at different times, as the disposition cer- 
 tainly has, to devise liberal things for the 
 spread of the Gospel. I may be allowed to 
 specify two instances (the erection of a new 
 church will be noticed by and by), in which 
 your liberality displayed itself in a somewhat 
 pre-eminent way. The first of these was at 
 the semi-centenary commemoration of 1839. 
 Our church then celebrated the Fiftieth Anni- 
 versary of the organization of the General 
 Assembly ; and the funds collected on that 
 occasion as a thank-offering to God, were ap- 
 plied to the endowment of the Board of Publi- 
 cation. Your share in that thank-offering, 
 amounted to nearly eight thousand dollars; 
 the largest sum contributed by any church in 
 our connection. Again, when it became neces- 
 
80 Quarter - Century Discourse. 
 
 sary in 1845 to complete the endowment of 
 the Princeton Theological Seminary — a work 
 achieved by the able and disinterested exer- 
 tions of my tried friend of more than thirty 
 years, who is providentially with me to-day* — 
 you attested your attachment to that revered 
 school of the prophets, and your love for the 
 doctrines inculcated there, by a prompt and 
 generous offering of between six and seven 
 thousand dollars, exceeding that of any church 
 except one in our body. It is grateful to re- 
 cord facts like these. But candor may demand 
 a further statement. We do not always re- 
 spond in this way even to the most meritori- 
 ous appeals. Many who were once ensamples 
 to the congregation in this respect, have been 
 taken from us by death or otherwise. It is 
 incumbent upon those who have come in to 
 occupy their places, to see that the standard 
 of liberality amongst us be not lowered. It 
 is a Divine aphorism, \ He that hath pity upon 
 the poor lencleth unto the Lord ; and that 
 which he hath given will He pay him again.' 
 
 * The Rev. Cortlanpt Van Rensselaer, D. D. 
 
Quarter -Century Discourse. 31 
 
 It is a remarkable expression, he c lendetli unto 
 the Lord! It will be well for us to inquire 
 into its meaning now; and to ponder also 
 those wonderful words, c Inasmuch as ye have 
 done it unto one of the least of these my 
 brethren, ye have done it unto me/ Let 
 these truths be once enshrined in our hearts, 
 and there need be no further solicitude about 
 the tone of Christian liberality here. 
 
 There is one other department of labor, 
 which it would be inexcusable to pass over, 
 even in this hasty retrospect, I mean the 
 'Dorcas Society' of the congregation. The 
 idea associated with this ancient and honored 
 name, is simply that of providing clothing for 
 a certain number of poor women and children. 
 Your benevolence has taken a wider sweep. 
 After clothing all the needy at our doors, you 
 devote the winter's cheerful industry to the 
 families of our faithful and often suffering 
 missionaries at the West : and with what sig- 
 nal, and I may add, unrivalled energy, you 
 prosecute this good work, may be seen by the 
 following statistics. Since the origin of the 
 
82 Quarter - Century Discourse. 
 
 Society in 1836, you have provided for desti- 
 tute children and families at home, ten thou- 
 sand three hundred garments. The Society 
 commenced working for the missionaries, in 
 1844. Within these fifteen years, you have 
 sent to these men of God and their families, 
 eighty-nine large boxes, containing about six- 
 teen thousand articles of clothing.* The 
 estimated value of these boxes for the last 
 four years, was six thousand dollars. The 
 total number of garments prepared for both 
 classes of objects, from the beginning, is 
 upwards of twenty-six thousand. I know 
 you will say, ' Give God the glory.' I do 
 give Him the glory. But I also i glorify God 
 in you! I cannot repress the pride and 
 pleasure which I feel, in recalling the munifi- 
 cent fruits of this enlightened and efficient 
 labor on the part of the ladies of my congre- 
 gation. I am ready to say, 'Many daughters 
 have done virtuously, but thou excellest them 
 all !' Certainly if the same admirable system 
 
 * Of this quantity, one-half, i. e., eight thousand pieces, have 
 been sent within the last five years. 
 
Quarter - Century Discourse. 33 
 
 which you pursue, were adopted in any con- 
 siderable number of the congregations of our 
 towns and cities, not only would every mis- 
 sion-family in our domestic field have its 
 wants amply supplied, but new bonds of sym- 
 pathy and prayer would link them to the 
 church at large, and greatly augment their 
 capacities for doing good. 
 
 Allusion has been made to our colonies. 
 The obligation resting upon congregations 
 which God has been pleased to prosper, to ex- 
 tend the means of grace to the destitute 
 around them, and, whenever practicable, to 
 establish new churches, would seem to be too 
 obvious to require argument. It is, no doubt, 
 very pleasant for a people who have a Pastor 
 to their liking, to sit down and enjoy his min- 
 istrations without concerning themselves, ex- 
 cept by an occasional contribution, about the 
 wants of their destitute neighbors. But this 
 is not 'the mind which was in Christ.' Real 
 Christianity is, like leaven, essentially active, 
 diffusive, and assimilating. And, if needful, 
 it will make sacrifices sooner than forego the 
 
34: Quarter - Century Discourse. 
 
 duty and pleasure of sharing its good things 
 with others. It was observed a moment or 
 two ago, that there had always been some- 
 thing of this spirit here. For myself, I may 
 say, it had been for many years my anxious 
 wish that the church should colonize. In the 
 winter of 1846-7, I devoted a good deal of 
 time and attention to a plan for establishing a 
 church on Logan Square. In connection with 
 two or three gentlemen of my church, who 
 entered heartily into the scheme, I explored 
 that part of the city. We selected a lot of 
 ground most advantageously situated. Seve- 
 ral conferences were held at my house and 
 elsewhere; and, in the end, the plan failed 
 only because it was not met in a spirit of cor- 
 responding liberality by parties residing in 
 that vicinity, and who would have been per- 
 sonally benefited by the enterprise. Thus 
 Logan Square was lost to us. But the idea 
 was not abandoned. 
 
 On the evening of the 20th of January, 
 1852, a considerable number of gentlemen be- 
 longing to the congregation, met by invitation 
 
Quarter •- Century Discourse. 35 
 
 at my house, to consider the subject of c erect- 
 ing a new church west of Broad Street.' At 
 this conference, it was urged, that our church 
 had been overflowing for several years ; that 
 a new church of our order was imperatively 
 needed in the city; that without such a 
 church we could not maintain our proper re- 
 lative position among the evangelical denomi- 
 nations of the city, nor should we be doing our 
 part towards supplying the spiritual wants of 
 the community ; that the signal harmony and 
 prosperity we had enjoyed, demanded this re- 
 turn at our hands, as a token of our gratitude 
 to the Giver of all good ; and that there was 
 every reason to believe that a strong colony 
 from our own congregation, uniting with other 
 families in the neighborhood which might be 
 selected, could, by the favor of Providence, 
 accomplish the desired end, without detriment 
 to existing churches, and with large advan- 
 tage to the general interests of religion. I 
 need not rehearse the sequel. The West 
 Spruce Street Church was erected ; and the 
 church itself was organized on the 3d of April, 
 
06 Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 1856. Great praise is clue to the colony of 
 thirty-four communicants and their associates, 
 which went out from us on that occasion, and 
 especially to those noble-minded Christian men 
 by whose liberality and zeal this work was ac- 
 complished. The hundred thousand dollars 
 they have 6 lent to the Lord/ will come back 
 to them and their children with large interest. 
 It is written in the bond, 'that which he hath 
 given, will He pay him again.' And heaven 
 and earth shall pass away, before this pledge 
 can fail. 
 
 Our second colony, that of October 11th, 
 has but just left us. They have gone to a dif- 
 ferent field, but on an errand consecrated by 
 the Saviour's own example — to preach the 
 Gospel to the poor. Difficulties they expect 
 to encounter, but they are not intimidated. 
 They go, as they believe, at the Master's call; 
 and this is all the warrant they demand. 
 They have His promise, 'fear not, for I am 
 with thee ; be not dismayed, for I am thy God.' 
 Putting their trust here, they expect to sue- 
 
Quarter - Century Discourse. 87 
 
 ceed. And I believe, by God's blessing, they 
 will succeed. 
 
 You have been instrumental, then, in found- 
 ing two new churches. Of the manifold means 
 and methods for doing good, none can exceed 
 this. For an evangelical church is God's own 
 institution. It is permanent. It comprehends 
 all other elements and appliances for promot- 
 ing Christianity. It is a sun which radiates 
 light and life in every direction ; a fountain 
 whose living waters will flow on forever. 
 You have done a good work in sending these 
 two half-tribes over Jordan. Never forget 
 that they are still part of the household, and 
 as such, claim an interest in your sympathies 
 and prayers. 
 
 As a general rule, no church can be consi- 
 dered as fulfilling its design, which is not en- 
 deavoring to furnish some candidates for the 
 sacred ministry. The neglect of this duty on 
 the part of Christian parents, has been one of 
 the prominent sins of the church for the last 
 score or two of years. A better day seems 
 now to be dawning. A throng of young men 
 
 4* 
 
38 Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 have suddenly come forward, with the humble, 
 grateful cry upon their lips, 'Lord, here am I : 
 send me.' May it prove the harbinger of a 
 new and blessed era for the church. 
 
 It is pleasant to know, that our own church 
 has not been entirely remiss in this matter. 
 Within the period embraced in this review, 
 there have been fourteen young men con- 
 nected with the congregation, who have de- 
 voted themselves to the ministry. Of these, 
 three came to us, having this object already 
 in view. Three who made their profession 
 of religion here, relinquished, perhaps I might 
 say, brilliant prospects at the Bar, as several 
 gave up other pursuits, in order to become 
 ambassadors for Christ. Two, who spent 
 a considerable time with us — one of them 
 brought hither as a student of medicine, by 
 a good Providence, that he might find a Sa- 
 viour and serve him in the ministry of re- 
 conciliation — are held in high esteem by the 
 Church as learned and laborious foreign mis- 
 sionaries ; to whose names, it were ungrateful 
 not to add that °f an intelligent and lovely 
 
Quarter -Century Discourse. 89 
 
 Christian woman, of our communion, the wife 
 of one of our leading missionaries in China. 
 This band of ministers are preaching the Gos- 
 pel with ability and fidelity, some of them in 
 situations of great influence and responsibility. 
 To a Pastor's heart, few things could be more 
 comforting than the reflection, that God may 
 have employed his feeble and unworthy 
 agency in raising up one and another to hold 
 forth the word of life to the perishing, after 
 his own lips shall have been sealed in death. 
 God grant that our church may abound, as it 
 ought to do, more and more in this so needful 
 work. And may his choicest blessing rest 
 upon those beloved brethren who have gone 
 forth from us to preach the unsearchable 
 riches of Christ. 
 
 ' May they that Jesus whom they preach, 
 Their own Redeemer see ; 
 And watch Thou daily o'er their souls, 
 That they may watch for Thee ! ' 
 
 I have stated, that immediately on arriving 
 in this city, I found myself in the presence of 
 that great controversy, which resulted live 
 
40 Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 years afterwards (1838) in a division of our 
 Church. The theological questions involved 
 in this controversy, had agitated the country 
 for several years. All New England was con- 
 vulsed with disputations about the ' New 
 Haven divinity.' And as that theology had 
 crossed the border and intruded into our 
 household, alarm and apprehension followed 
 in its train. It was not, as many alleged, a 
 mere war of words. It took hold upon the 
 central truths of the Gospel, such e. g. as 
 original sin, the atonement, regeneration, and 
 justification, together with the whole subject 
 of moral agency and human accountability. 
 Sentiments were propounded on these funda- 
 mental topics, which contravened the plain 
 teachings of the Scriptures, and which no dia- 
 lectic skill could reconcile with the Confession 
 and Catechisms of the Presbyterian Church. 
 
 It must not be supposed, however, that all 
 who arrayed themselves on the side of the 
 c New School,' espoused these errors. When 
 the lines came to be drawn, many were car- 
 ried to that side by local and personal con- 
 
Quarter -Century Discourse. 41 
 
 siderations, who had no sympathy with the 
 ' New Divinity ;' as others were, who adopted 
 it only in some very qualified form. But un- 
 questionably it was a contest which involved 
 both the purity of our faith, and the integrity 
 of our ecclesiastical polity. Two incompatible 
 systems of doctrine, and two no less irrecon- 
 cilable theories of ecclesiastical authority and 
 policy, were struggling for the mastery. For 
 five years the issue remained doubtful. The 
 opposing parties marshalled their forces annu- 
 ally at the General Assembly ; and with vary- 
 ing fortunes. Majorities vibrated. In place 
 of the harmonious and delightful proceedings 
 which now mark the yearly convocation of our 
 Supreme Judicatory, it was then an arena for 
 fierce debate and parliamentary management. 
 The giants of the church were there ; and 
 they were not men to play with foils. 
 
 Interpreting the facts by the light of subse- 
 quent history, the composition of the two 
 parties, viewed in the aggregate, is equally 
 palpable and significant. Allowing for nume- 
 rous individual exceptions, it was virtually a 
 
42 Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 contest between Presbyterianism and Congre- 
 gationalism ; or certainly between those whose 
 training had made them decided and earnest 
 Presbyterians, and others who had adopted 
 our standards in a loose and general way — ' for 
 substance of doctrine.' Adhering in her ma- 
 turity, to a policy adopted in her youth 
 simply for missionary purposes, our church 
 had kept open the door into her ministry so 
 wide and for so long a time, that some hun- 
 dreds of her pulpits were filled by men who, 
 however exemplary in other respects, had no 
 paramount attachment either to her faith or 
 her government. It was in keeping with this 
 character, that they should steadfastly resist 
 all efforts of the Church to foster her own 
 benevolent institutions, as distinguished from 
 voluntary societies. The Presbyterian theory 
 was, that the Church should have her own 
 Boards of Missions and Education ; Boards of 
 her own creation, and responsible to herself; 
 that she might superintend the training of 
 her ministers and direct her missionary ope- 
 rations at home and abroad. The counter 
 
Quarter -Century Discourse. 43 
 
 view was, that all these interests ought to be 
 conducted by existing Societies of a mixed 
 nature, partly Presbyterian and partly Con- 
 gregational, which, having no ecclesiastical 
 character, were in a great degree independent 
 of ecclesiastical control. This question and 
 that of doctrine, constituted the two cardinal 
 issues on which the contest was waged. It is 
 gratifying to know that after twenty years 
 further experience, our brethren of the other 
 branch of the Church have admitted their 
 error. Their General Assembly has found it 
 indispensable to self-preservation, to establish 
 Committees for conducting the work of Edu- 
 cation and of Missions, on the identical prin- 
 ciple of our Boards. 
 
 These facts involve no disparagement of 
 Congregationalism as such. Nor is it de- 
 signed to intimate, by this historical review, 
 that Congregationalists ought not to be wel- 
 comed to our churches. Some of our ablest 
 and best Pastors have come to us from that 
 body. We have in our communion, thousands 
 of faithful Christians reared in Congregational 
 
44 Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 churches. I wish we might have tens of 
 thousands more. And I would fain hope that 
 the friendly relations subsisting between most 
 of the Congregational bodies in New England, 
 and ourselves, might be perpetuated. But 
 when it comes to introducing men into the 
 ministry of our church who have no special 
 affection either for our doctrines or our order, 
 the case is widely altered. Such an amalga- 
 mation is inexpedient for all concerned ; and 
 at the period of which we are speaking, it 
 brought our beloved church to the brink of a 
 precipice. A merciful Providence interposed 
 and rescued it. The division which ensued, 
 was followed by a law-suit. For three weeks 
 the church stood at Csesar's bar, while the 
 momentous issue was pending, whether she 
 was responsible to the civil power for ecclesi- 
 astical acts done by her own proper tribunals 
 and within the scope of her own charters. A 
 ' momentous issue,' I style it; because "it was 
 a blow struck at the root of the great prin- 
 ciple of our institutions, viz., that spiritual 
 concerns are not to be interfered with by the 
 
Quarter- Century Discourse. 45 
 
 civil power."* It was not our church only 
 which was on trial, but every church in this 
 Commonwealth. And had the verdict of the 
 jury-j- been finally sustained, there would have 
 been an end to religious liberty in Pennsylva- 
 nia. But the Judiciary nobly vindicated the 
 rights of conscience. After a brief six weeks, 
 the verdict was set aside ;t and the whole 
 case adjudicated on the broad principles of 
 the Constitution under which it is our happi- 
 ness to live. 
 
 How signally that decision has been ratified 
 by a beneficent Providence, in the unparal- 
 leled prosperity of our church from the day 
 the case was settled until now, it needs but a 
 glance at our present condition to perceive. 
 But I must not venture upon that field now. 
 Let me return to our own history. 
 
 I had been no indifferent observer of the 
 rising contest, during my Seminary-life. The 
 6 New Divinity' was my special study. For 
 
 * The late Hon. John Sergeant. 
 f March 26, 1S39. 
 t May 8, 1839. 
 
46 Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 some years I had listened to the preaching of 
 its two great expounders. One of them had 
 invited me to become his theological pupil. 
 I esteemed and honored them both. There 
 were strong personal considerations to bias 
 me in favor of the system. But when I came 
 to examine it by the law and the testimony, 
 I saw plainly that it was less a theology than 
 a philosophy — an elaborate web spun of earth- 
 born metaphysics, not a glorious system of 
 faith deduced from the incorruptible word, 
 and suited to the necessities of a race of 
 sinners. This conviction, the fruit of long 
 and patient investigation, was impressed upon 
 my mind when I came here. But neither 
 my age nor my circumstances would have 
 justified me in taking an early and conspicuous 
 part, as I was urged to do, in the existing 
 controversy. My church, as already men- 
 tioned, had been transferred to the new Pres- 
 bytery. Its influential members were divided 
 among themselves on the pending ecclesiastical 
 questions. I was the friend of all ; they were 
 all my friends. They were content to hear 
 
Quarter -Century Discourse. 47 
 
 the Gospel from my lips ; and it was one of 
 the earliest of my pulpit-offices among them, 
 to preach an extended series of carefully writ- 
 ten sermons on the doctrines of the atonement 
 and regeneration, one design of which was to 
 discuss the erroneous sentiments then prevail- 
 ing on those subjects. Had I gone further, 
 and made myself a partisan, or prematurely 
 proposed a change in the ecclesiastical rela- 
 tions of the church, the congregation must 
 have been rent in twain. As it was, we re- 
 mained where we were until the Second Pres- 
 bytery was dissolved by the General Assembly 
 (1837) and then, church and pastor applied to, 
 and were received by, the Presbytery of Phila- 
 delphia. At the meeting of the church held 
 to decide upon this matter, there were some 
 votes against the change ; and a few excellent 
 and useful men withdrew their certificates and 
 united with other churches. But neither then, 
 nor at any other time, were the harmony and 
 tranquillity of the congregation seriously dis- 
 turbed. When it is remembered, that our city 
 was the theatre where the two great parties 
 
48 Quarter - Century Discourse. 
 
 had their annual conflict, and that we were 
 living in an atmosphere surcharged with the 
 elements of strife, this result can be referred 
 only to the special goodness of Gocl towards us. 
 It deserves this day our tribute of gratitude. 
 
 If it be asked, why I have introduced this 
 sketch into my discourse, I answer, because it 
 is the most important ecclesiastical transaction 
 which has occurred here during my ministry; 
 and it could not have been passed over with 
 any propriety. I have no desire to re-open 
 the questions then settled ; still less, to revive 
 any personal antipathies or prejudices. I do 
 not know of a single minister in our Presby- 
 tery, who cherishes the slightest feeling of 
 unkindness towards his brethren in the other 
 branch of the church. I never hear them 
 mentioned except in terms of respect and 
 courtesy, and with satisfaction at the success 
 with which God may be crowning their labors. 
 The controversy is hardly ever alluded to in 
 our clerical intercourse. It belongs now to 
 history ; and there we are content to leave it. 
 The land is broad enough for the two Churches 
 
Quarter -Century Discourse. 49 
 
 to pursue their respective plans without col- 
 lision or jealousy. And the only rivalry be- 
 tween them should be, which shall do most 
 for the salvation of men, and the glory of 
 their common Redeemer. 
 
 One controversy suggests another. This 
 also belongs to the record of the past quarter 
 century; and as Providence was pleased to 
 assign me some very humble part in it, I may 
 be allowed briefly to speak of it. 
 
 I fear no challenge, when I claim it as one 
 of the honorable characteristics of the Presby- 
 terian Church, that however aggressive it may 
 be in its demonstrations against worldliness 
 and sin, and against false religions of what- 
 ever name or creed, its spirit is eminently 
 peaceful and fraternal towards all evangelical 
 denominations. It is no part of the ordinary 
 routine of our Pastors to preach against or 
 about other churches. Their peculiarities are 
 rarely mentioned, unless it be in a didactic 
 form, by way of explaining some doctrine or 
 rite of our own. Our readiness in co-operat- 
 ing with them for objects of common interest, 
 
 5* 
 
5 Qua rter - Cen tury D iscourse. 
 
 may be seen of all men. And we cordially 
 bid them God-speed, in all legitimate and 
 scriptural efforts to promote the cause of 
 Christ. 
 
 But if we are slow to attack, we know 
 how to defend. Dwelling among our own 
 people, and begirt with munitions of rocks 
 reared by no mortal hand, we cannot allow 
 our peaceful heritage to be invaded, with- 
 out resenting and resisting it. It was so in- 
 vaded at the period to which I refer — some 
 fifteen or sixteen years ago. The Oxford- 
 Tract movement vivified the dormant elements 
 of ecclesiastical pride and intolerance in the 
 Church of England; and the controversy thus 
 originated, soon embroiled the Protestant de- 
 nominations generally in Great Britain and 
 America. The pretensions put forth by the 
 sponsors of this movement, were monstrous. 
 They reached to the extreme of parcelling off 
 the entire Christian Church, among the Epis- 
 copal, the Papal, and the corrupt Oriental 
 Hierarchies. Outside of these limits, there 
 was no church, no ministry, no valid ordi- 
 
Quarter - Century Discourse. 51 
 
 nances. The ministers of other denomina- 
 tions were unauthorized intruders into the 
 sacred office, and their churches were schis- 
 matical organizations. 
 
 These sentiments were not breathed in a 
 corner. They were proclaimed from the 
 pulpit. They were sent forth from the press 
 in every imaginable form, from the stately 
 and learned octavo to the sentimental novel. 
 They were scattered broadcast over the land. 
 With proselyting officiousness, they were 
 thrust, in private life, upon the members of 
 other churches, who, not unfrequently, came 
 to their pastors in perplexity of mind, as 
 members of my church did to me, to seek 
 counsel and instruction. 
 
 No alternative was left us. However 
 averse to controversy, it was the most ob- 
 vious of all duties, to repel these attacks, and 
 protect our people in the enjoyment of their 
 hereditary rights and franchises. The ground 
 which we stood upon, we occupied in common 
 with nearly all the churches of the Reforma- 
 tion. Indeed, at the Reformation, every Pro- 
 
52 Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 test ant church rejected the jure divino doctrine 
 of Prelacy ; the English Church adopted that 
 polity on grounds very different from those 
 assumed by so many of its clergy in later 
 times. To this clay, Diocesan Episcopacy 
 probably does not embrace among its sup- 
 porters one-fifteenth jpart of the population of 
 Protestant Christendom. That any portion 
 of the Church should prefer and adopt it, as 
 the most expedient and suitable system for 
 themselves, is all well. No one will complain 
 of this. We, certainly, who are of the great 
 family of the Eeformed Churches, can have 
 no quarrel with them for building their walls 
 on a pattern different from ours. Nor do we 
 readily see why they should have any quarrel 
 with us. We believe that their covenant God 
 and ours is the same; that the same Re- 
 deemer died for us; that the same Divine 
 Spirit dwells in both Churches; and that we 
 are all travelling to the same heaven. We 
 see in their communion many of God's clear 
 children whose piety and zeal would be an 
 ornament to any church. We honor their 
 
Quarter -Century Discourse. 53 
 
 church for all that God has clone through its 
 instrumentality in behalf of the common sal- 
 vation. We know no reason why there should 
 not be perpetual amity and fellowship between 
 us. And this, we are persuaded, is the senti- 
 ment of growing numbers in their own ranks, 
 who revolt at the idea of their tribe, one of 
 the least of the thousands of Judah, severing 
 itself from the communion of the great body 
 of God's Israel. 
 
 But, unhappily, at the period just indicated, 
 an arrogant and denunciatory spirit ran riot 
 for a time through their body; and as it pro- 
 scribed all other Churches, a general conflict 
 was unavoidable. In common with other 
 Pastors in our Church, I felt it my duty to 
 deliver and publish a course of Lectures, ex- 
 posing the unscriptural nature of these pre- 
 tensions, and warning you against the devices 
 employed to seduce you from your ancient 
 faith. With the final results of the contest 
 we are content. 
 
 This controversy, also, has now passed into 
 the province of the historian. Let us hope 
 
54 Quarter - Century Discourse. 
 
 that a fresh baptism of the Spirit may avert 
 similar calamities, and draw closer than ever 
 the bonds which should unite all, of whatever 
 name, who love the Lord Jesus Christ. It 
 will be time enough for the Churches to war 
 with each other, when they can find no more 
 enemies of their common Master to turn their 
 arms against. 
 
 I came to you, as I have related, direct 
 from the Seminary. That twenty-five years 
 should have passed, since that eventful even- 
 ing, sounds to me like a fable or a dream. It 
 is only when I cast my eyes around me, that 
 I can realize it. An unusual thing it is — too 
 unusual — for a Pastor to spend a quarter 
 of a century with the same congregation. In 
 my own case, it is the more remarkable be- 
 cause of the precarious health which has so 
 often interrupted my labors. The foundation 
 of this was laid in a severe attack of sickness 
 contracted on a necessary visit to the North, 
 only two weeks after my installation. It has 
 repeatedly led to a suspension of my minis- 
 trations for several weeks or months together; 
 
Quarter - Century Discourse. 55 
 
 and in 1847, under imperative medical advice, 
 I was obliged to spend a year in Europe. I 
 felt that it was clue to my congregation, be- 
 fore going abroad, to place my resignation in 
 their hands. I can never forget the kindness 
 with which you returned it to me, and the 
 generous sympathy you expressed in my trial. 
 If I should say, that various opportunities 
 of a different kind, have been thrown in my 
 way for terminating this relation, I should 
 only relate a common experience among Pas- 
 tors. Few men, I suppose, spend twenty- 
 five years in the ministry, without being more 
 or less approached with invitations to change 
 their place of residence. Among the sugges- 
 tions of this sort which have reached me, 
 there have been some of a very attractive 
 character; and one* which came to me so 
 clothed with the authority of the Church, and 
 so enforced by private solicitation, that the 
 
 * The appointment of the author by the General Assemhly 
 of 1853, to the chair of Pastoral Theology in the Theological 
 Seminary at Princeton, vacated by the death of the Rev. Dr. 
 Alexander. 
 
5 6 Quarter - Centu ry Discourse. 
 
 disposition of it became the most jDerplexing 
 and painful question I have ever had to deal 
 with. The occasion is too recent to require 
 that I should do more than advert to it in 
 this passing way. Let it suffice to state, that 
 vour own earnest and affectionate remon- 
 strances, seconded by a formal appeal on the 
 part of the leading members of the Bar, the 
 Schools of Medicine, the men of science, and 
 the chief merchants of our city (the most re- 
 markable incident, so I regard it, of my whole 
 public life), forbade me to leave you. I have 
 seen no cause to regret my decision. I may not 
 speak with confidence about my charge here; 
 but, in all frankness, I believe that the result 
 has been highly advantageous to the Princeton 
 Seminary, and to our Church at large. 
 
 There are some considerations pertaining to 
 the responsibilities and duties of a pastorate 
 in a great city, and particularly in our own 
 city, as distinguished from a congregation in 
 the country, or in a small town, which natur- 
 ally occur to the mind at a season like this, 
 and it may be allowable to devote a few words 
 
Quarter -Century Discourse. 57 
 
 to them. I refer, in general, to the wide 
 sphere of labor which a minister in this posi- 
 tion is expected to fill; and the variety of 
 objects which invite or demand his attention. 
 Even as regards the composition of his own 
 congregation, there may be peculiarities which 
 have an important bearing upon his ministra- 
 tions. His people are a constituent part of 
 that concourse of human beings, who go to 
 make every large city a centre of mighty in- 
 fluence; and there may be among them some 
 who have much to do in determining whether 
 that influence shall be for good or for evil. 
 Again, he preaches to numerous strangers. 
 There must be some thousands of visitors and 
 travellers in such a city every Sabbath, a 
 large proportion of whom find their way to 
 the sanctuary. In this way, a Pastor is con- 
 stantly casting bread upon the waters. They 
 stop long enough to hear a single sermon from 
 his lips, and are gone on the morrow; but 
 who shall sa} T what untold treasures they 
 may not have taken with them? Not only 
 so, but he may have within the sound of his 
 
58 Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 voice a different class of strangers; not tran- 
 sient wayfarers, but temporary residents. I 
 refer, as you may suppose, to those admirable 
 schools, academical and professional, which 
 every season attract such large numbers of 
 youth to our city — (for it is of our own city, 
 I prefer to speak). I have always regarded 
 the Female Boarding-Schools connected with 
 my congregation, as one of its most interest- 
 ing and encouraging features. I have looked 
 to them with some confidence, to see the fruit 
 of our Sabbath services; and, by God's bless- 
 ing, I have not looked in vain. They have 
 shared, I think, in every revival we have en- 
 joyed. And sometimes the dew has come 
 gently down upon those fleeces, when the 
 ground all around has remained dry. It is, 
 let me add, one of the real pleasures of my 
 occasional summer tours through the country, 
 to meet with those — now, perhaps, happy 
 wives and mothers — who hail me with true 
 affection as a Pastor, and take me back to 
 their school-days in Philadelphia. 
 
 And then, these Schools of Medicine. Here 
 
Quarter - Century Discourse. 59 
 
 are one or two thousand of young men pur- 
 suing their studies in our city for six months 
 of the year. They are from every part of the 
 Union. Their future influence, social and 
 professional, must depend largely, under Pro- 
 vidence, upon the training they receive here. 
 It is no trivial responsibility to be concerned, 
 even so far as their occasional attendance upon 
 one's ministrations may go, in giving direction 
 to a swelling tide of influence like this. That 
 the agency of the pulpit is not always lost 
 upon them, may be illustrated by the fact, 
 that in two instances known to me, young 
 men who came here to study medicine, were 
 led in this house to exchange that profession 
 for the ministry, and are now, one of them, as 
 already noted, an accomplished and eminent 
 foreign missionary, the other, an active and 
 useful Pastor in one of our principal cities. — 
 Why should we not expect beneficent changes 
 like these to occur frequently ? There must 
 be many pious young men in these medical 
 classes, who have never even examined the 
 question, whether it mny not be their duty to 
 
60 Quarter- Century Discourse. 
 
 enter the ministry. And how many are there 
 who, if converted, might become burning and 
 shining lights in the church ! 
 
 But it is not only in the pulpit that we have 
 to do with strangers. Besides the ordinary 
 claims of hospitality which visitors expect at 
 the hands of the resident Pastors, and which 
 it is our pleasure to recognize, the medical 
 reputation of our city makes it the Mecca of 
 invalids. A very large number of these have 
 been under my pastoral care, frequently for 
 months together. My visits of this kind could 
 be reckoned only by hundreds, perhaps by 
 thousands. And I would not have had it 
 otherwise. For what could I do, should I 
 hear at last those piercing words, 'I was a 
 stranger, and ye took me not in: I was sick, 
 and ye visited me not.' Far from their 
 homes, oppressed with disease, possibly draw- 
 ing near to death, who would not deem it a 
 privilege to go to these sufferers and, if so it 
 might be, alleviate their sorrows and soothe 
 their anxieties, by pointing them to the Lamb 
 of God ? There are no chapters in my expe- 
 
Quarter -Century Discourse. 61 
 
 rience as a minister, more affecting than some 
 which relate to this subject. I could describe 
 to you scenes of anguish which would move 
 you all to tears ; and scenes of rapture which 
 would thrill you with holy and grateful joy. 
 But I must not detain you with such incidents. 
 I refer to these things, to illustrate the cares 
 and responsibilities of a Pastor in a great city. 
 But what you have heard is only the begin- 
 ning. If you would know the whole, you 
 must not only be familiar with his entire con- 
 gregation, but you must understand his rela- 
 tions with the benevolent institutions of his 
 own church ; the time he is expected to devote 
 to the interests of education, and to the mani- 
 fold metropolitan charities which need and 
 deserve the countenance of the clergy; the 
 endless interviews with the authors or agents 
 of all sorts of good objects in each one of our 
 thirty or forty States and Territories ; and the 
 mosaic-like correspondence he carries on with 
 all manner of people from January to Decem- 
 ber. The sum of the whole, is, that if a Pas- 
 tor fulfil, eyen in any tolerable degree, the 
 
 6* 
 
62 Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 ends of his ministry, he cannot lead a very 
 idle life. And, again, it should excite no sur- 
 prise that so many Pastors break down under 
 these accumulated labors, — labors which in 
 the principal churches of the European capi- 
 tals are always divided among two or three 
 ministers. The Protestant Episcopal Church 
 in our country, is gradually adopting the same 
 system : there are probably some present who 
 will live to see it extensively introduced into 
 our own communion. 
 
 There is another view of a pastorate in one 
 of these great cities, to which my long resi- 
 dence here may justify me in adverting. In 
 their social structure, they differ essentially 
 from all other communities. They are the 
 centres, not simply of trade, and of politics, 
 but of talent, of learning, of art, of eloquence. 
 The liberal professions are there in their strong- 
 est array. They attract to themselves genius 
 and enterprise of every type, and from every 
 quarter. They are the seat of that great 
 power in a free State, the press; the theatre 
 of hooks and reviews, and of daily journalism, 
 
Quarter -Century Discourse. 63 
 
 the pabulum of the masses. Everything is 
 canvassed — politics, commerce, philosophy, re- 
 ligion — the huge alembic is forever seething 
 and surging. Intense intellectual activity is 
 the law of that miniature world. And within 
 the last quarter of a century, several new 
 agencies have come into play, which have im- 
 pressed upon the whole mass a greatly in- 
 creased momentum. 
 
 Among these may be specified certain radi- 
 cal events in our political progress (it cannot 
 be necessary to name them), which have con- 
 spired to develop more fully the inherent vigor 
 and restlessness of our national character. 
 Again, science has been popularized, to an ex- 
 tent unthought of at any former era. Nor can 
 we overlook, in this connection, the founding 
 of that new social institution, which promises 
 to incorporate itself with our metropolitan life, 
 I mean, Popular Lectures. This has grown, in 
 part, out of a general craving for some species 
 of entertainment more rational, and of better 
 moral tendency, than dramatic performances. 
 The indications are, that we are to have a 
 
6-i Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 body of Lecturers as a distinct and permanent 
 Profession. What the ultimate effect of such 
 an institution will be, we have not as yet the 
 requisite data for determining. With our 
 limited experience, however, it is quite appa- 
 rent that it will combine the good and the bad, 
 like most other human contrivances. It is at 
 least certain, that the business will be largely 
 taken up by men of showy parts and facile 
 elocution, the sponsors, often, of grave errors 
 in religion or in morals. Orators of this de- 
 scription will find ready employment at the 
 hands of men who get up courses of Lectures 
 for private gain, and who are indifferent to 
 every question but that of the profits. To 
 them, it is all one whether their rhetoricians 
 declaim truth or error, deism or pantheism, 
 Paul or Spinoza. They would as soon seed 
 the ground with thistles, as with wheat; or 
 have the fountain they open at the very heart 
 of a great city, send forth hemlock, as living 
 water. Like the British opium-dealers in 
 China, their aims are purely mercenary; and 
 
Quarter Century Discourse. 63 
 
 so they make money, it is no concern of theirs 
 who are poisoned, and who not. 
 
 That professional Lecturers generally have 
 been, or are likely to be, of this description, is 
 not asserted. The class already comprises men 
 of eminent worth, who never gain the public 
 ear, without pouring into it something adapted 
 to make people wiser and better; and we may 
 hope that such teachers will be multiplied. 
 But we have seen enough to know that the 
 system is susceptible of ready abuse, and may 
 be perverted to the very worst ends. In either 
 case, whether well or badly managed in a 
 moral view, it is exerting a powerful influence 
 upon the social life of these cities, and must 
 not be omitted in forming an estimate of the 
 present position of the pulpit. 
 
 The idea I wish to present, on this head, as 
 deduced from our very cursory survey of the 
 field, is, that the demands upon the metropoli- 
 tan pulpit have been gradually rising during 
 the last twenty-five years, and that it needs to 
 gird itself with fresh strength, if it would con- 
 tinue to command the homage of the culti- 
 
66 Quarter •Century Discourse. 
 
 vated mind of the country. In saying this, 
 I am far from recommending that the sacred 
 desk should be degraded to an arena for intel- 
 lectual gladiatorship. I do not forget that the 
 Christian ministry is a divine institution, with 
 its appointed sphere which it may not tran- 
 scend, and its prescribed themes which it may 
 not neglect, but at its peril. Nor can I ques- 
 tion that this institution, so ordained and 
 equipped of God, as his chosen instrumentality 
 for reforming and saving the w T orld, is equal 
 even to the herculean task demanded of it 
 here; that, by God's blessing, it can so re- 
 strain, ameliorate, and control, all these tu- 
 multuous forces of which we have been speak- 
 ing, as to work out not merely the well-being 
 of society, but the spiritual elevation and 
 eternal well-being of the individuals who com- 
 pose one of these mighty Babels. But the 
 point of the argument is this. The preaching 
 of the cross follows the law of all other in- 
 struments; to effect its end, it must be used 
 according to the design of its Author. It is 
 not in the nature of things, that the pulpit 
 
Quarter - Century Discourse. 67 
 
 should maintain its hold upon this complex, 
 impatient, excited mass of human beings, at 
 least upon the educated portion of them, un- 
 less it bring to its vocation competent intellec- 
 tual vigor and various knowledge, as well as 
 genuine moral excellence. It must keep 
 abreast of the other learned Professions in 
 ability, and general culture. It must be able 
 to present the high themes of revelation in a 
 manner adapted to win the respect of a com- 
 munity so constituted, and that, too, without 
 compromising the Gospel in a single point of 
 doctrine, or abating one jot or tittle of its lofty 
 requisitions. 
 
 Here, then, is work for the ministry, which 
 will demand the utmost exertion of their pow- 
 ers. It is not to be compassed, without patient 
 study, and persevering toil. They must "give 
 attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doc- 
 trine;" and "study to show themselves ap- 
 proved unto God, workmen that need not be 
 ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." 
 However important it may be to keep up a 
 familiar personal intercourse with their con- 
 
68 Quarter - Century Discourse. 
 
 gregations, it will not do to allow this, except 
 in cases of sickness and affliction, to take pre- 
 cedence of their public ministrations. No 
 intelligent congregation can be permanently 
 satisfied with pastoral visiting as a substitute 
 for instructive preaching. They may tolerate 
 it for a while; but by and by they will begin 
 to bemoan the penury of the pulpit, and to 
 inquire whether it was a purely Levitical ordi- 
 nance, that "the priest's lips should keep 
 knowledge." Exhausting work it is, which 
 they ask of their Pastor — far more so than 
 incessant visiting — but they will feel, and they 
 ought to feel that, instead of consuming his 
 time and strength in visiting a few families, 
 week by week, his 'prime duty is, to prepare 
 "beaten oil" for the sanctuary, which may 
 irradiate and cheer his entire flock ; and, this 
 being accomplished, to see all he can of them 
 at their houses. 
 
 But this is an incidental suggestion. The 
 main idea to be enforced, is, that the sphere 
 of pastoral labor in these cities is constantly 
 expanding; that it demands, and will reward, 
 
Quarter • Century Discourse. 69 
 
 the noblest energies, and the most self-denying 
 efforts of any man whom Providence may 
 appoint to the work; and that, when every- 
 thing is done which such a man can do, no- 
 thing is accomplished, except as God may 
 bless his poor instrumentality. 
 
 Not to pursue this topic farther than may 
 barely suffice to lift the curtain for a moment 
 upon the relations and responsibilities of a 
 Pastor established in one of these marts of 
 empire, let us cast an eye beyond our own 
 enclosure. The changes described as having 
 occurred among ourselves, have their counter- 
 part in the records of our own sister-churches 
 in this city, and, indeed, in the history of the 
 various denominations here, for the past twen- 
 ty-five years. I find myself at the close of 
 this period, among the senior Pastors of the 
 city. 
 
 When I came here to reside, the Rev Mr. 
 Barnes had already been settled as the Pastor 
 of the First Church, for three years, and the 
 Rev. George Chandler as Pastor of the First 
 
70 Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 Church in Kensington, for a still longer period. 
 The Second Church was vacant, but, a few 
 months after, called the Rev. Dr. Cuyler to its 
 pulpit. Dr. Ely was Pastor of the Third 
 Church; Mr. Potts, of the Fourth; Dr. Win- 
 chester, of the Sixth; Dr. Engles, of the Se- 
 venth; Mr. McCalla, of the Eighth; Mr. Gib- 
 son, of the Ninth; Mr. Grant, of the Eleventh; 
 Mr. Eustace, of the Twelfth; Mr. Patterson, 
 of the First Church, Northern Liberties; Mr. 
 Judson, of the First Church, Southwark, and 
 Mr. Symmes, of the Fairmount Church. Dr. 
 McDowell had been settled the year before, as 
 the first Pastor of the Central Church. The 
 First Church, Penn-Township ; the Second 
 Church, Southwark; and the Second Church, 
 Kensington, were vacant. Dr. Skinner, hav- 
 ing resigned the charge of the Fifth Church 
 (now Dr. Wadsworth's), to go to Andover, that 
 church was vacant, and so remained for seve- 
 ral years. A secession from it subsequently 
 organized the Clinton Street Congregational 
 Church, and invited Dr. Todd to become their 
 Pastor. After spending some years with them, 
 
Quarter - Century Discourse. 71 
 
 Dr. Todd returned to New England, and they 
 were reorganized as a Presbyterian Church. 
 
 It will be seen, that of the fourteen Presby- 
 terian Pastors I found here, only three remain 
 in the city. With these may be associated 
 the laborious and efficient Pastor of the Inde- 
 pendent Church on Broad Street. Several of 
 the churches have changed their Pastors three 
 and four times. The mortality among our 
 ministers has been of a character to excite 
 very solemn and tender reflections. Of those 
 who have resided here, whether as Pastors or 
 otherwise, for a term of years since '33, I 
 can recall no less than twenty-four who have 
 died — some few of them after removing from 
 the city. You will be interested in hearing 
 this list from the necrology of the church. It 
 is as follows: — 
 
 The venerable Mr. Potts, Mr. Judson, Mr. 
 Scott, Mr. Dinwiddie, Mr. Blythe, Mr. Eus- 
 tace, Mr. Patterson, Mr. Lough ridge, Mr. Wil- 
 liamson, Dr. Winchester, Mr. Stewart, Mr. 
 Harned, Mr. Hoge, Mr. Douglas, Dr. John 
 Breckinridge, Dr. Green, Dr. Cuyler, Dr. Wm. 
 
72 Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 A. McDowell, Mr. Manwaring, Dr. Carroll, 
 Mr. Connell, Mr. Dickinson, Mr. Rood, and 
 Mr. Ramsey. Of these twenty-four, seventeen 
 were or had been Pastors in this city. 
 
 I know of no Baptist minister who has been 
 here for twenty-five years. Most of their 
 pulpits have been vacant and re-filled several 
 times. The same is true of the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church. Several of their older con- 
 gregations have had two, three, and even four 
 Rectors since 1833. Among the ministers of 
 that church who have passed away, may be 
 mentioned the venerable Bishop White, Mr. 
 James, Dr. Bedell, Dr. Abercrombie, Dr. Mont- 
 gomery, Dr. Clark, Dr. Boyd, Mr. Fowles, and 
 Mr. Tyng. To these may be added Dr. Living- 
 ston, and his late excellent son, and Dr. Lud- 
 low, all of the Reformed Dutch Church ; that 
 eminent divine and scholar, Dr. Wylie, of the 
 Reformed Presbyterian Church; Mr. Bowers, 
 of the Associated Reformed; and the vener- 
 able Dr. Mayer, of the Lutheran Church. 
 
 It were well to pause and ponder this re- 
 cord. To a Pastor, it is full of solemn mean- 
 
Quarter- Century Discourse. 73 
 
 ing. I would fain have my own heart opened 
 to its monitory teachings ; as I would gladly 
 linger, also, to pay a tribute of respect and 
 sympathy to the memories of these excellent 
 men. But the time forbids this : and I pass 
 on to notice changes of a different character. 
 
 In 1833, there were twenty churches here 
 in connection with the General Assembly. 
 Now there are twenty-seven belonging to our 
 branch of the Church, and fifteen to the other, 
 making a total of forty-two. In the year 
 1838, after the separation took place, there 
 were in our churches (0. S.) about two thou- 
 sand seven hundred communicants. Now, we 
 number about eight thousand; the number 
 having trebled in twenty years. 
 
 Regarded in itself, this is a very gratifying 
 increase both as to churches and communi- 
 cants. But the population of the city has 
 advanced from one hundred and sixty-one 
 thousand in 1830, to, say, four hundred and 
 fifty thousand (city and liberties, not including 
 the county) in 1858. In other words, there 
 
 7* 
 
74 Quarter - Century Discourse. 
 
 are nearly three hundred thousand more peo- 
 ple here to be supplied with the means of 
 grace, than there were twenty-eight years ago. 
 In any other country, this would sound more 
 like romance than history. Here it is sober 
 verity. And while, in one view, we may 
 congratulate ourselves at what we have ac- 
 complished ; in another, we have cause to feel 
 humbled, that we have done so little towards 
 bringing the ordinances of the Gospel within 
 the reach of this vast population. Let us 
 work while the day lasts : the night cometh 
 in which no man can work. 
 
 If the time allowed, it would be interesting 
 to glance at the extraordinary progress of our 
 Church at large since 1833, and to spread 
 before you the statistics of our various Boards. 
 But I must content myself with the following 
 summary. The figures in the first column 
 present the state of the whole Church, five 
 years before the separation. Those in the 
 second, are the statistics of our own branch of 
 the Church for the current year. 
 
Quarter - Century Discourse. 75 
 
 1833. 1858. 
 
 Ministers 1,855 2,320 
 
 Churches 2,500 3,146 
 
 Communicants . ". . 233,580 233,755 
 
 Synods 22 33 
 
 Presbyteries .... Ill 159 
 
 Adding to these the statistics of the other 
 branch of the Church, the total will be, Minis- 
 ters, three thousand nine hundred and thirty- 
 two; Churches, four thousand eight hundred 
 and thirty-three ; Communicants, three hun- 
 dred and seventy-seven thousand two hundred 
 and sixty-five. 
 
 It were futile to attempt to embrace in a 
 single sermon the reflections awakened even 
 by this very superficial retrospect of the pe- 
 riod which defines my pastoral life among 
 you. One sentiment, not so immediately per- 
 sonal as some I may presently express, is too 
 deeply impressed upon my mind to be with- 
 held. 
 
 The last twenty-five years has been a time 
 of trial no less for churches than for political 
 institutions. Every important denomination 
 
76 Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 in our country has been agitated with great 
 controversies. Several of them have been 
 rent asunder. And others, though retaining 
 an external cohesion, are riven with seams 
 and fissures which make their alleged unity a 
 merely nominal thing. The position in which 
 Providence placed me, has not been unfavor- 
 able to a calm and comprehensive survey of 
 the working of the various systems of eccle- 
 siastical faith and polity. And I feel it to be 
 both my duty and my pleasure, to say here 
 to-day, that every year's experience has gone 
 to confirm my confidence in the principles 
 which you and I entertain, and to enhance 
 my gratitude to God that I have had my birth 
 and training and ministry in the Presbyterian 
 Church. I cast no reproach upon other 
 Churches. I challenge no exclusive immuni- 
 ties for our own. But I bless God that / am 
 a Presbyterian. 
 
 One ground of this is, that in reviewing the 
 period of my pastorate, I find the Presbyterian 
 Church honorably distinguished by the esti- 
 mate it puts upon Divine truth. There is a 
 
Quarter - Century Discourse. 77 
 
 system of theology which, however it may be 
 designated by a mere human name, and styled 
 Calvinism as a matter of convenience, has 
 been held by the great body of eminent divines 
 and evangelical Christians from the clays of 
 the apostles until now. It was embodied in 
 the creeds and confessions of the Reformed 
 Churches, with scarcely an exception. It 
 teaches the sovereignty of God, the fore- 
 ordination of all events, the depravity of 
 man, the vicarious nature and the efficacy of 
 the atonement, the necessity of regeneration, 
 justification by faith alone, the absolute de- 
 pendence of man upon the Holy Spirit, the 
 obligation of repentance and holy obedience, 
 and eternal rewards and punishments. Of 
 this system, which so many illustrious theolo- 
 gians and so many renowned churches have 
 deduced from the teachings of Christ and his 
 apostles, I have found the Church to which 
 it is your privilege and mine to belong, to be 
 the special guardian. She has not held it as 
 a mere form — content that it should be en- 
 shrined in her symbols and put away out of 
 
7 8 Quarter - Cent ury Discourse. 
 
 sight. She has not overshadowed it with rites 
 and ceremonies, and degraded it to a subordi- 
 nate place in her ministrations. She has not 
 allowed other incompatible and hostile creeds 
 to come and encamp within her walls along- 
 side of it. She has not permitted her minis- 
 ters to suppress it, lest, peradventure, certain 
 of its high and holy utterances might offend 
 the pride of the human heart. On the con- 
 trary, she has insisted that her pastors should 
 hold it in its plenary integrity; that they 
 should faithfully preach it ; that they should 
 repel every effort which might be made 
 to corrupt or dilute it; that they should 
 instil it into the minds of the rising genera- 
 tion; and that they should constantly impress 
 it upon all their people, that a Church is 
 nothing without the truth; that there can 
 be no real religion separate from the truth; 
 that God has confided to man no treasure so 
 sacred and so invaluable as the truth ; and 
 that to betray or even disparage the truth, is 
 to commit a heinous sin against God and to 
 make war upon the only hope of a lost world. 
 
Quarter -Century Discourse. 79 
 
 These imperative and pregnant requisitions 
 I have seen maintained and enforced by the 
 Presbyterian Church, with an energy dis- 
 played by no other communion. Nowhere 
 else have I observed the same appreciation 
 put upon sound doctrine, or the same stern 
 and righteous reprehension dealt out to the 
 popular sentiment expressed in that infidel 
 sneer, 
 
 "For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight." 
 
 Taught in a different school, and imbued 
 with a spirit as alien from this as light is 
 from darkness, she has, as occasion called for 
 it, 6 contended earnestly for the faith once 
 delivered to the saints/ and shown herself a 
 living branch of that Church which is ' the 
 
 PILLAR AND GROUND OF THE TRUTH.' 
 
 Had she paused here, however, my rever- 
 ence for her had been abated. Bat while 
 insisting upon the truth,' I have seen her with 
 equal zeal reprobating a barren orthodoxy; 
 and everywhere teaching that truth was in 
 order to godliness. No Church has been more 
 inflexible in enforcing the necessity of a radi- 
 
£ Quarter ■ Century Discourse. 
 
 cal change of heart by the power of the Holy 
 Ghost, and of a reliance upon the righteous- 
 ness of Christ as the only ground of hope for 
 a sinner. No Church has been more faithful 
 in protesting against the three great delusions, 
 of fanaticism, formalism, and a mere worldly 
 Christianity. She has scorned all fellowship 
 with those types of so-called piety, which 
 make religion to consist in dreams and reve- 
 lations, and vulgar antics in the sanctuary. 
 With the same firmness, she has lifted up her 
 remonstrances against any undue reliance 
 upon rites and sacraments, and iterated it in 
 the ears of her children, that they might 
 emulate the very Pharisees in their outward 
 observances, without knowing the first rudi- 
 ments of the Gospel. And, again, she has 
 branded as hypocritical and ruinous, any pro- 
 fession of faith which leaves the individual 
 still a votary of the world ; which practically 
 aims at amalgamating the service of God and 
 the service of mammon, and repudiates every 
 badge of discipleship but going to the Lord's 
 table. Resisting these several errors, she has 
 
Quarter -Century Discourse. 81 
 
 never ceased to inculcate an enlightened and 
 vigorous faith, which shall authenticate itself 
 by a holy temper and life, as indispensable to 
 salvation. And herein she has appeared to 
 me to exhibit another of the marks of a truly 
 Scriptural Church. 
 
 Again, I have watched the working of this 
 Church, -and found its influence to be good, 
 and only good, and that continually. It has 
 seemed to me to combine in a pre-eminent 
 degree, the opposite elements of strength and 
 flexibility. It is neither a petrified image of 
 orthodoxy, nor a flaming meteor consuming 
 itself and everything it touches with unhal- 
 lowed fire. At once conservative and pro- 
 gressive, it has readily affiliated with every 
 agency adapted to elevate and improve the 
 race, and as instinctively arrayed itself against 
 every demonstration hostile to the happiness 
 of mankind. The friend of civil and religious 
 liberty, it has gone forward to their rescue 
 on emergencies which awed the resolute and 
 made the prudent falter. Animated by a 
 robust and generous patriotism, it has with 
 
82 Quarter - Century Discourse. 
 
 one hand scattered spiritual blessings over our 
 land, and with the other poured oil upon the 
 surging billows of faction, and emploj^ed its 
 majestic powers in holding the incensed and 
 alienated sections of the Union together. This 
 I have seen; and loving my country, I cannot 
 but love my Church, which has, under God, 
 done so much, first, to achieve the independ- 
 ence of my country; secondly, to foster all its 
 vital interests; and, last of all, to preserve its 
 integrity and perpetuate its blessings. 
 
 For these reasons — not to specify others — I 
 am grateful to God, after twenty-five years' 
 experience, that He was pleased to cast my 
 lot in the Presbyterian Church. I feel that 
 i the lines have fallen to me in pleasant 
 places,' and that I have ''a goodly heritage.' 
 It is of all others the place where I should 
 choose to deposit my best earthly treasures. 
 No human foresight can guard against every 
 contingency. And our beloved Church may 
 hereafter become venal and apostate. But 
 in looking over the country and reviewing the 
 last quarter of a century, there is no guardian- 
 
Quarter -Century Discourse. 83 
 
 ship to which I would so soon commit my 
 children and the friends who are dearest to me, 
 as hers. I believe they will be safer, there, 
 than anywhere else. I believe they will be 
 exposed to fewer noxious influences, and sur- 
 rounded by more of the associations which are 
 favorable to virtue and piety. I believe it 
 will be most conducive to their present hap- 
 piness, and to their eternal salvation — that, 
 so to speak, there will be a greater probability 
 of their getting to heaven, and of children's 
 children following each other there from gene- 
 ration to generation. And, believing this, I 
 must be false to every parental instinct, false 
 to the sacred claims of those who may come 
 after me in long succession, false to the saint- 
 ed dead whose principles I have inherited, 
 and false to that Saviour whose mercy I have 
 experienced and whose most unworthy minis- 
 ter I am, if I should neglect any practicable 
 means for inspiring my own household and 
 the families committed to my care, with the 
 love I cherish for our Church, and the inflexi- 
 ble purpose never to abandon it. And in this 
 
84 Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 particular (certainly not in others), I may say 
 without indelicacy, and in all sincerity I do 
 say, ' I would to God, that every parent in 
 my congregation, and all who hear me this 
 day, were both almost and altogether such as 
 I am.' 
 
 I have glanced at a topic here, too import- 
 ant to be dismissed without a sentence or two 
 more — I mean the duty of training up our 
 children in the principles which we ourselves 
 profess. It is too much the case in this age 
 of precocious childhood, when the relations of 
 the parties seem often to be inverted, that 
 children are left to wander away from the 
 fold to which their parents belong, wherever 
 caprice may carry them. Numerous agencies 
 are conspiring, at least in our country, to 
 foster a premature independence on the part 
 of the young, and make them impatient of all 
 wholesome control. The compact family or- 
 ganization, with its paternal priesthood, its 
 orderly habits, its secluded, confidential inter- 
 course, and its stated convocations for instruc- 
 tion in the Sacred Scriptures, is rudely invaded 
 
Quarter -Century Discourse. 85 
 
 from without, and its defences are in imminent 
 danger of being broken down. The whole 
 spirit of this bustling, officious, money-making, 
 impertinent age, is hostile to the very idea 
 of Home, and to all its sacred duties and 
 pleasures. 
 
 Then, again, this is a period of great latidu- 
 dinarianism in religion. Every body wishes 
 to be deemed religious, and of course, as the 
 carnal mind is just as much c enmity against 
 God' as ever, the only way in which this can 
 be brought about is, to bring religion down to 
 a level that shall make it palatable to the 
 unrenewed heart. Truth, therefore, is little 
 thought of. The piety which insists upon the 
 e washing of regeneration and renewing of the 
 Holy Ghost/ upon the sprinkling of the blood 
 of atonement upon the heart and conscience, 
 upon faith in the Redeemer as the only me- 
 dium of pardon, and upon a holy life — this 
 sort of piety is ' too fanatical/ A decent de- 
 portment will be conceded, and a sound creed, 
 and a punctilious ceremonial : but here you 
 
 8* 
 
86 Quarter - Ctnlury Discourse. 
 
 must pause. If you venture further, you be- 
 come ' precise' and 6 puritanical.' 
 
 Now what are we to do, with dangers like 
 these threatening our children on every hand? 
 Are we to let the world come in, and con- 
 found our domestic ties, and sweep away our 
 sons and daughters into the great vortex of 
 frivolity and impiety ? Are we to abandon 
 them to their own capricious impulses, and let 
 them throw themselves into the stream of 
 fashionable formalism? We cannot do it. 
 That is, we cannot do it without betraying 
 the most sacred trust God has confided to us. 
 We are bound by every consideration of duty 
 and interest, to cherish their household vir- 
 tues ; to bind them close to our hearts and 
 keep them there; and, above all, to pour the 
 truth into their minds ; to keep them within 
 the reach of the Gospel; to show them the 
 excellence of that system of faith and order 
 which we hold; and to train them to love and 
 cherish it for their own sake and for ours. If 
 a quarter of a century has shown us anything 
 more of the power and preciousness of this 
 
Quarter ■ Century Discourse. 87 
 
 divine system, let us manifest it by teaching 
 our families to prize it also. If it has been a 
 blessing to us, it will be no less a blessing to 
 them. To lodge it in their hearts in its trans- 
 forming and saving efficacy, is God's prero- 
 gative, not ours. But we can, ordinarily, 
 keep them from casting it off. We can do 
 much to link them in inviolable bonds to our 
 beloved Church, to surround them with influ- 
 ences favorable to their conversion, and, by 
 God's blessing, to prepare them for a useful 
 life, a peaceful death, and a glorious immor- 
 tality. 
 
 You will readily suppose that on the recur- 
 rence of an anniversary like this, my own 
 mind reverts with interest and anxiety to the 
 general tone of the ministrations with which we 
 have been occupied here. To express all that 
 I feel in recalling the deficiencies and weak- 
 nesses, the mistakes and sins, which have 
 marred these services and impaired their use- 
 fulness, would neither be decorous nor profit- 
 able. I will only say, that there can be no 
 individual here whose impressions on this 
 
88 Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 point are stronger than my own ; and cer- 
 tainly none whose retrospect of the Sabbaths 
 we have spent together, can awaken so many 
 sad and reproachful emotions. But the scene 
 is not all dark. It is an unspeakable satisfac- 
 tion to me to reflect, that, with all its imper- 
 fections, the preaching you have listened to 
 has been, not deism, not philosophy, not mere 
 morality, but the Gospel of Christ. Accord- 
 ing to my ability, I have set forth before you 
 that system of truth of which I have just 
 been speaking, as the burden of prophets 
 and apostles, the glory of the Reformed 
 Churches, and the peculiar jewel of our own. 
 When I came to you 'in weakness, and in 
 fear, and in much trembling,' it was with the 
 determination to 'know nothing among you 
 save Jesus Christ and him crucified.' I have 
 never interpreted this to mean that a Pastor 
 was to confine himself to the iteration of the 
 Saviour's name, or to the exposition of a few 
 leading doctrines of the New Testament. I 
 regard it, rather, as importing, that the 
 preacher is to take his stand at the cross, and 
 
Quarter - Century Discourse. 89 
 
 to bring forward the whole circle of revealed 
 truth as surveyed from that position. Such 
 I find to have been the apostle's own expla- 
 nation of the rule, as interpreted by his prac- 
 tice. For there is scarcely a topic in divinity 
 or in morals which he has not handled; and 
 they who would circumscribe the pulpit to a 
 few common-places in the evangelical system, 
 will appeal in vain to Paul for an authority. 
 How difficult a task it is 'rightly to divide the 
 word of truth/ is known only to those who 
 have attempted it. Examine the Bible. See 
 what an inexhaustible treasure-house it is, in 
 the extent and variety, in the grandeur and 
 importance, of its themes. Consider its his- 
 tories and biographies, its prophecies and doc- 
 trines, its precepts and promises: then look 
 at the endless diversities of human character 
 and condition; the multifarious variety of 
 wants and woes, of dangers and duties, of 
 relations and responsibilities, which meet, 
 often, in a single congregation ; and decide 
 whether it can be a trivial matter so to select 
 and adjust the topics of the Bible, as to insure 
 
90 Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 to every individual of this mass 'his portion 
 in due season/ and to bring about, in a pro- 
 tracted ministry, the best possible results. 
 All that can be fairly exacted of a Pastor, is, 
 that he should aim at this, and do his best to 
 accomplish it. That your Pastor has griev- 
 ously failed in very many particulars, he has 
 not the least question. But I have endea- 
 vored to preach to you the Gospel of Christ; 
 and c 1 have showed you and have taught you 
 publicly and from house to house, testifying 
 to you all, repentance toward God and faith 
 toward our Lord Jesus Christ.' 
 
 For the candor and kindness with which 
 you have listened to these instructions, I owe 
 you many thanks. For the efficacy which it 
 has pleased the great Head of the Church to 
 impart to them, neither you nor I can be suf- 
 ficiently grateful. We have reason, I cer- 
 tainly have, to be deeply humbled, that these 
 twenty-five years have passed away, and left 
 no more fruit. But some fruit there is ; and 
 for this we may lay our thank-offering upon 
 His altar. You can recall 'times of refresh- 
 
Quarter - Century Discourse. 91 
 
 ing from the presence of the Lord/ when you 
 felt this to be the house of God and the very 
 gate of heaven. To many among you this is 
 consecrated ground. It will be said of our 
 humble church hereafter, 'This and that man 
 was born in her. The Lord shall count when 
 he writeth up the people, that this man was 
 born there.' Here God has met you. Here, 
 when you came up to his courts careless and 
 giddy, His spirit opened your hearts to the 
 truth, set your sins in order before your eyes, 
 pierced your bosoms with anguish, and sent 
 you home with the cry, 'God, be merciful to 
 me a sinner!' And here he has again met 
 you, taken off your burdens, and dismissed 
 you with that peace which passeth under- 
 standing. This has been the place of your 
 espousals to Christ, and here you have for the 
 first time sat down at his table, and com- 
 memorated his dying love. 
 
 But no pen may attempt to delineate the 
 scenes which must occur in any church where 
 the Gospel is preached, and which have doubt- 
 less occurred here, during a period of twenty- 
 
92 Quarter - Century Discourse. 
 
 five years. The influences proper to a place 
 like this, are too powerful not to tell upon the 
 characters of those who are brought within 
 their reach. What fierce inward conflicts 
 have there been here between the flesh and 
 the spirit! What upbraidings of conscience! 
 What stifled convictions ! What struggles 
 against the truth ! What wrestlings with sin ! 
 What noble resolves ! What cries for deliver- 
 ance ! What yearnings after pardon ! What 
 anxious looks towards Calvary ! What tri- 
 umphs of Satan over awakened souls ! What 
 victories of contrite and believing penitents 
 over Satan ! How many led captive by sin ! 
 How many conquerors ! 
 
 Here, in the sanctuary, is the great battle- 
 ground on which heaven and hell are contest- 
 ing the possession of the soul:— 
 
 " The soul of man — Jehovah's breath — 
 That keeps two worlds at strife ; 
 Hell moves beneath to work its death, 
 Heaven stoops to give it life !" 
 
 Nor does the conflict cease with the sur- 
 render of the soul to Christ. The whole in- 
 
Quarter -Century Discourse. 93 
 
 ward life of the Christian is compounded of 
 hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, sinning and 
 repenting, doubting and trusting, striving and 
 halting, cleaving to earth and soaring heaven- 
 ward. And the sanctuary is, of all others, 
 the spot where the adverse elements which 
 enter into his character, are stimulated into 
 intense activity, and produce their most de- 
 cisive effects upon his conduct. 
 
 For twenty-five years these latent processes, 
 seen only by that eye which sees all things, 
 have been going on here, in hundreds of 
 bosoms. Let God be praised that there have 
 been results which we can all think of with 
 complacency. He has met the hungry here 
 and fed them with the bread of life. He has 
 given to mourners in Zion, beauty for ashes, 
 the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment 
 of praise for the spirit of heaviness. He has 
 given strength to the weak, and to them that 
 had no might he has increased strength. He 
 has sought that which was lost, and brought 
 again that which was driven away, and bo*und 
 up that which was broken, and strengthened 
 
91 Quarter - Century Discourse. 
 
 that which was sick, and made them and the 
 places round about his hill a blessing. He 
 has extracted the sting from wounded con- 
 sciences, bound up the bruised reed, and re- 
 vived the smoking flax. He has enabled 
 mourners to say, where they thought they 
 never could say it, ' Thy will be done !' He 
 has given his people strength to endure trials 
 which they had believed must crush them. 
 He has disclosed the pillar of cloud and of 
 fire to the perplexed and the timorous. He 
 has laid his hand upon the presumptuous, and 
 held them back from sins which must have 
 destroyed them. He has brought scoffers and 
 sensualists and washed them from their pollu- 
 tion in the fountain opened for sin and for un- 
 cleanness. He has shown the amiable and 
 the moral the insufficiency of their own right- 
 eousness to bear the scrutiny of a holy God. 
 He has stirred up parents to greater fidelity 
 and children to greater reverence, and opened 
 in numerous families sources of pure and 
 rational enjoyment such as they had never 
 dreamed of. He has touched the hearts of 
 
Quarter -Century Discourse. 95 
 
 young men, turned them aside from their 
 chosen occupations, and sent them forth one 
 after another as ambassadors for Christ. 
 
 These, and such as these, are the benign 
 offices he is carrying forward here, as in other 
 churches. And when we reflect upon the 
 results involved in these merciful dispensa- 
 tions continued among a people without inter- 
 ruption through a quarter of a century, or for 
 thirteen hundred Sabbaths, the children of 
 Zion may well c be joyful in their King.' 
 Like the Hebrews at the dedication of their 
 temple, you may ' go to your tents joyful and 
 glad of heart, for all the goodness that the 
 Lord has done for Israel his people.' 
 
 Standing where we do to-day, it is impos- 
 sible not to call to mind our trials as well as 
 our mercies. The ministry I have fulfilled 
 among you, as already remarked, has not been 
 without its interruptions, some of which have 
 threatened to bring it to a close. But in your 
 view, my attacks of sickness have been simply 
 Providential afflictions which called for sym- 
 pathy and succor; and you have not only 
 
96 Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 submitted to them without complaining, but 
 made every recurrence of the trial an occasion 
 for heaping upon me fresh kindnesses. I re- 
 peat that I am not insensible either to your 
 affection, or to the mercy of our Heavenly 
 Father in restoring me to health so often and 
 permitting me to resume my work. There is 
 no employment in this world which I love so 
 much as preaching the Gospel ; no office which 
 I feel to be so honorable or so useful as that of 
 a Christian pastor. And I am never laid aside 
 from its duties temporarily, without being 
 filled with sorrow in reviewing the manner in 
 which I have met my responsibilities, and 
 penetrated with gratitude to God for the favor 
 he has shown to my unworthy labors. Nor 
 do I regard it as the least memorable token of 
 his paternal care, that the congregation has 
 been kept in the same united and flourishing 
 condition in my absence, as when I have been 
 with you. 
 
 But your trials — and especially your bereave- 
 ments — how they come thronging around us on 
 an occasion like this. What a chasm has this 
 
Quarter -Century Discourse. 97 
 
 quarter of a century made in the congregation 
 assembled here on the evening of the 8th of 
 November, 1833! Here and there, as I look 
 along these aisles, I meet a friendly face which 
 greeted me, a stranger, then ; but with a very 
 few exceptions, the gentlemen who sat at the 
 heads of these pews have disappeared. Nume- 
 rous families have been entirely broken up by 
 death. And some of you have had breach 
 upon breach in your fireside circles, until every 
 step of the way to the cemeteries has been wet 
 with your tears. The mortality already men- 
 tioned has included all classes and ages : death 
 is no respecter of persons. We have seen 
 many hoary-headed saints gathered into the 
 garner, like as a shock of corn cometh in in 
 his season. Infants that have lingered here 
 just long enough to entwine themselves around 
 loving hearts ; daughters in the pride and love- 
 liness of opening womanhood ; wives whose 
 nuptial ceremonies proved the harbinger of 
 their funeral pageants ; mothers whose clus- 
 tering virtues shed the radiance of heaven 
 over happy households; young men panting 
 
 9* 
 
98 Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 for the contests of life, like the war-horse for 
 the battle ; and men of business immersed in 
 the cares of an extended traffic, — all have 
 vanished from our eyes, and the places which 
 knew them, know them no more. By far the 
 larger number of those who are gone, I have 
 visited in their sickness — not to speak again 
 of the frequent instances in which I have been 
 called to minister consolation or instruction to 
 strangers whom Providence has brought here 
 to die at our hotels. Death has become a 
 familiar spectacle to me ; and I have seen it 
 under many forms. I have seen it when it 
 came like a demon attended by the furies of 
 hell. And I have seen it when it came like 
 an angel of mercy with its retinue of seraphs, 
 to convoy the departing spirit to the skies. I 
 have watched the lamp of life go out, when 
 the harrowing thought has struck a chill 
 through me, that, in all probability, life and 
 hope must expire together. And I have 
 watched its flickering flame with the joyful 
 assurance, that after a momentary eclipse it 
 would be re-enkindled before the sapphire 
 
Quarter -Century Discourse. 99 
 
 throne. I have stood by the dying when it 
 was too painful to be endured, except under an 
 inexorable sense of duty. And again I have 
 stood by the dying, when the chamber of death 
 seemed like the very vestibule of heaven. It 
 has been my allotment, by turns, to teach in the 
 presence of death, and to be taught ; to point 
 to the Lamb of God, and to have the Lamb of 
 God held forth to me ; to preach Jesus Christ 
 and him crucified, and to hear Christ crucified 
 preached with an eloquence and a power un- 
 known to my poor ministrations ; to encourage 
 desponding souls, and to see some c Great 
 Heart' going forward to the last encounter, 
 with a majestic faith which gave certain pre- 
 sage of victory. For the most part, those who 
 had borne an exemplary Christian character, 
 have died in peace. Even where they have 
 long had a peculiar horror of death, and felt 
 that they must be overwhelmed in the waves, 
 they have been mercifully relieved of this fear 
 as the hour approached, and at length, on 
 going down into the river, the water has been 
 so low and still that they have passed over all 
 
100 Quarter - Gen tury Discou rse. 
 
 but dry-shod. To my own mind, this is one 
 of the most expressive and touching of all the 
 tokens we have, of the faithfulness and tender- 
 ness of our Heavenly Father — his condescend- 
 ing kindness towards humble and doubting 
 Christians, in the prospect of death. It is a 
 spectacle of true moral sublimity, to see such 
 a Christian — a delicate and refined female, 
 perhaps — losing her timidity as she loses her 
 strength, gaining confidence amidst the decays 
 of nature, her faith waxing stronger as she 
 draws nearer to eternity, and finally exclaim- 
 ing, as she grapples with the last enemy, 
 'Thanks be to God which giveth me the vic- 
 tory, through Jesus Christ our Lord !' I know 
 of nothing adapted in an equal degree with 
 scenes like this, to confirm our faith in the 
 divine authority of our holy religion, or to 
 arm the believer against the fear of death. I 
 would counsel you, therefore, not to shun such 
 scenes. There are lessons there for you, which 
 you will get nowhere else. 
 
 " The chamber where the good man meets his fate, 
 Is privileg'd beyond the common walk 
 Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heav'n." 
 
Quarter -Century Discourse. 101 
 
 And when your turn comes to meet the de- 
 stroyer, it may greatly nerve your faith and 
 hope to have frequented this 'chamber/ and 
 seen how God has supported even the feeblest 
 of his children and brought them off more 
 than conquerors. 
 
 But there is one aspect of this subject pecu- 
 liarly solemn to the mind of a Pastor. He 
 looks over his congregation and finds, it may 
 be, that several hundred of the individuals 
 who once sat under his ministry, are now in 
 eternity. What report have they borne with 
 them as to his fidelity ? Did he set life and 
 death before them? Did he admonish them 
 of their sins ? Did he tell them what they 
 must do to be saved ? Did he, on all fit occa- 
 sions, urge them to make their peace with 
 God? Did he caution them against false 
 grounds of confidence'? Did he endeavor to 
 establish them in the truth and build them 
 up in holiness? Did he labor to bring out 
 their resources, to show them how they might 
 be useful, and how they might make the most 
 
102 Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 of their influence in promoting the success of 
 the Gospel ? 
 
 These are very serious, as they are very 
 natural, questions. The dead are now beyond 
 his reach, and the ineradicable impress of 
 eternity is upon them. Happy is that Pastor 
 whose conscience acquits him of blame in this 
 matter; who feels in respect to all who are 
 gone, that he did everything he could for 
 their salvation. Alas, my brethren, who of 
 us, Pastor or people, can say this concerning 
 the dead ! How many are gone with whom 
 we ought to have labored more to bring them 
 to Christ ! How easy would it have been to 
 speak to them oftener on the subject, to place 
 some suitable book in their hands, to invite 
 them to the sanctuary, to remove their preju- 
 dices against religion, to do a score of things, 
 any one of which might, by the blessing of 
 God, have been useful to them ! 
 
 I feel all this as a Pastor. There are 
 doubtless parents here who feel it keenly as 
 to their deceased children. Everv one must 
 feel it in respect to companions and friends 
 
Quarter ■ Century Discourse. 103 
 
 who have been summoned away in an unex- 
 pected hour. Let us see to it, that the lesson 
 is not lost upon us. We may go to the graves 
 of the departed and bemoan our unfaithful- 
 ness to their souls ; but the best tribute we 
 can pay them, is to perform our duty to the 
 living. There are others still around us who 
 may die as suddenly and with as little prepa- 
 ration. These we can reach. And if the 
 slumberers could burst their cerements and 
 come back, they would bid us cease from 
 wasting our posthumous regrets upon them, 
 and address ourselves to the saving of those 
 for whom salvation is yet possible. 
 
 But I trespass too long upon your patience. 
 A single thought more, and I have done. 
 
 The past and the future blend imperceptibly 
 together. While we review the years that are 
 gone, the imagination busies itself about the 
 years that are to come. On the evening of 
 that ordination service, the scroll on which 
 the events of this quarter-century were to be 
 recorded was, to our eyes, of virgin whiteness : 
 
101 Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 no mortal hand would have presumed to draw 
 the faintest hair-stroke of the annals to be 
 inscribed upon it. To God's eye, it was all 
 written over then, as it is now to us. But 
 who could have conceived what characters it 
 was to reveal ? Who among that vast assem- 
 blage could have believed, had the idea been 
 suggested, that twenty -five years would work 
 such changes in this congregation, as those we 
 have been contemplating? Another scroll 
 lies before us to-day, unsullied as the Alpine 
 snow. It is to receive the history of these 
 coming years, and bear it to the judgment seat, 
 and then onward through eternity. When at 
 the close of another quarter-century, that too 
 faithful chronicle shall be spread before the 
 congregation then worshipping in this house, 
 it will doubtless be like the one we have been 
 reading. It will tell of changes possibly as 
 great as those which are past. It will relate 
 the joys and the sorrows of many a house- 
 hold; the dispersion of families; the achieve- 
 ments of sin and the victories of grace. It 
 may state that of the four hundred and fifty 
 
Quarter • Century Discourse. 105 
 
 communicants now here, only fifty remain in 
 the Church; and that of the families to which 
 those Mty belong, there are not four which 
 have escaped the inroads of death. It may 
 speak of times of refreshing when many were 
 born again; of other colonies gone forth to 
 plant new churches ; and of young men here 
 dedicated to God in baptism, who have be- 
 come able and godly ministers of the New 
 Testament. It may contain some humble 
 memorial of successive Pastors, who have stood 
 here and published the Gospel of the kingdom. 
 There is an absolute certainty that many 
 who are now here, will be written in that 
 record as among the dead. There is little 
 probability that I shall be here to witness its 
 unrolling. Even with fewer years, my pre- 
 carious health would forbid that expectation. 
 But I am willing to leave that event with 
 Him who has crowned my life with unnum- 
 bered mercies. My times are in His hand. 
 Goodness and mercy have followed me all the 
 days of my life; and I cannot distrust Him 
 for the future. But I must and do distrust 
 
 10 
 
106 Quarter -Century Discourse. 
 
 myself. I fear for my own soul. And, my 
 beloved people, when I think of the subtlety 
 of sin, and the mighty hindrances which ob- 
 struct our salvation, I fear for yours also. I 
 tremble, at times, under the weight of this 
 burden which God has laid upon me. I 
 shrink with anguish from the thought of 
 meeting you at the bar of Christ. I entreat 
 you, for my sake, if you can be heedless about 
 3*ourselves, to be reconciled to God. What- 
 ever may be my lot in that day, wherever I 
 may stand, I cannot bear to see any of you at 
 the left hand of Christ. Oh, give yourselves 
 to the Saviour, while you may. And cease 
 not to pray for me, that I may be faithful unto 
 death, and so, through the unsearchable riches 
 of Christ, 6 may have right to the tree of life,' 
 and may with you i enter in through the gates 
 into the city.' 
 
PUBLICATIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 PAEEY & M°MILLAN, 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 The Gospels : with Moral Reflections on each Verse. 
 
 By Pasqtjier Quesnel. With an Introductory Essay, by the Rev. 
 Daniel Wilson, A.M., Vicar of Islington, [now Bishop of 
 Calcutta.] Carefully revised by the Bev. Henry A. Board- 
 man, D. D. Printed with bold type, on beautifully tinted and 
 sized paper. 2 vols. 8vo. $4. 
 
 The following letters of commendation from eminent clergymen, and brief 
 extracts selected from numerous notices of the religious and secular press, 
 are submitted by the publishers as evidence of the very high character of 
 the work : — 
 
 "We have no work of the same kind ; we hare nothing in practical di- 
 vinity so sweet, so spiritual, so interior as to the real life of grace — so rich, 
 so copious, so original. We have nothing that extols the grace of God, and 
 abases and lowers man so entirely. We lessen not the value of our various 
 admirable comments on the New Testameut ; they have each their particu- 
 lar excellencies. But none of them supersedes Quesnel; none can supply 
 that thorough insight into the world, the evil of sin, the life of faith and 
 prayer, which he possesses." — Bishop Wilson. 
 
 "A repository of original, striking, spiritual meditations, the absence of 
 which could be supplied by no other work in our language." — Dr. Board- 
 man. 
 
 Messrs. Parry & McMillan. 
 
 Geutlemen : You ai - e very welcome to the use of my name as recommend- 
 ing the valuable and eminently spiritual work of "Quesnel on the Gos- 
 pels," which you have just published. 
 
 Chas. P. McIlvatne, 
 
 Cincinnati, Nov. 27, 1S.35. Bishop of the Prot. Ep. Oh. in Ohio. 
 
 (From the Right Rev. Alonzo Potter, D. D., Bishop of the Protestant Epis- 
 copal Church for the Diocese of Pennsylvania.) 
 
 Philadelphia, Oct. 31, 18.35. 
 Messrs. Parry & McMillan. 
 
 Gentlemen: QuesnePs Reflections was an invaluable contribution to the 
 sacred literature of the world in its original form. In this edition, prepared 
 under the auspices of such names as Bishop Wilson and the Rev. Dr. Board- 
 man, it will be still more useful for English and Protestant readers. It 
 occupied a large part of the life of one of the most illustrious Jausenists of 
 the seventeenth century; and to Ministers of the Gospel, and to private 
 Christians of every name, it must always be an inexhaustible mine of inte- 
 rest and instruction. Your press could have rendered no better service to 
 the public than by such an edition of such a work. 
 
 I am, gentlemen, very truly yours, Alonzo Potter. 
 
(From the Rev. Br. Alexander, Pastor of the Fifth Avenue and Nineteenth 
 Street Presbyterian Church, New York.) 
 
 New York, Oct. 24, ISoo. 
 The work of Quesnel on the Gospels is a series of devotional reflections 
 which has commanded the suffrages of Protestants. As corrected, it is, in 
 my opinion, more full of holy suggestion, especially for Ministers of the 
 Word, than any similar writing; indeed, it breathes the best spirit of Ger- 
 son, Pascal, and Fenelon. But its chief glory is its condemnation by the 
 famous Constitution Unigenitcs of Pope Clement the Eleventh. I rejoice 
 in the republication of a book so precious. James W. Alexander. 
 
 (From the Rev. 3fr. Wylie, Pastor of First Reformed Presbyterian Church, 
 
 Philadelphia. 
 Messrs. Parry & McMillan. 
 
 Gentlemen : I rejoice to find that you have given to the American public 
 so handsome an edition of Quesnel's Moral Keflections on the Gospels. 
 There is a fulness, a freshness, a sweetness in this work which make it de- 
 lightful reading, and now that it has passed under the revision of two such 
 editors as Bishop Wilson and Dr. Boardman, it may be considered perfectly 
 free from any tincture of Romanism. I regard it as a most valuable addi- 
 tion to a library, and would commend it to the preacher, the Sabbath school 
 teacher, and the private Christian, as a most profitable and agreeable com- 
 panion, in the study of the Gospels. I hope it may have such a circulation 
 as will lead to the publication of his writings on the other parts of the New 
 Testament. With great regard, truly yours, 
 
 Philadelphia, Nov. 1S55. T. W. J. Wylie. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 "This world-renowned work, the richest product of Jansenist Theology, 
 impressed with the imprimatur of the Pope's anathema, is now for the first 
 time published in this country. * * * * It will be read in this country, as 
 it has long been in Europe, by thousands, to their spiritual edification."— 
 Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review. 
 
 "We think that all good people, and clergymen especially, will greatly 
 enjoy and be largely profited by these 'Reflections.' They are not a com- 
 ment on the Gospels, but each verse is followed by a few lines suggesting 
 its spiritual richness and beauty, and often opening its religious sense with 
 charming and surprising force. The volumes are admirably printed in large 
 and fair type, and in excellent taste." — Congregationalist. 
 
 "We doubt not that ministers and private Christians will find these vo- 
 lumes to be a storehouse of spiritual treasures." — N. Y. Observer. 
 
 "Quesnel has left nothing unwinnowed but the finest of the wheat." — 
 National Intelligencer. 
 
 "The readers of Henry and Scott's Commentaries will recollect how fre- 
 quently those eminent expositors rely on Quesnel; and those who have 
 been able to consult the latter author himself, will join in wondering that a 
 writer so remarkable for evangelical spirit, for simplicity of style, and for 
 weight of character, should not have heretofore been accessible to the Ame- 
 rican church." — Episcopal Recorder. 
 
 " We can commend the work as spiritual, rich, copious, original, and 
 abounding in earnest and frequent applications of Scripture truth to the 
 inward experience and practical life of the believer. "• — Presbyterian. 
 
 "Messrs. Parry & McMillan have conferred a lasting benefit upon tha 
 American churches by the publication of this famous work. * * * * These 
 Moral Reflections are devout utterances of deeply spiritual thought upon 
 each verse of the Gospels, frequently sublime in conception and brilliant 
 in expression. Though not a commentary, it is affluent in the most apposite 
 and profitable counsels; fresh, vigorous, unfailing in its variety and power 
 of suggestion. To our mind, it is without a rival in this particular species 
 of Scriptural illustration, and is admirably adapted for daily reading." — 
 Methodist Quarterly Review. 
 
The Two Sacraments. 
 
 A Brief Examination of the views entertained by the Society of 
 Friends, respecting the Christian Ministry, Baptism, and the 
 Lord's Supper. By Henry A. Boardman, D. D. Paper, 12£ 
 cents — cloth, 25 cents. 
 
 Sermons, Doctrinal and Practical. 
 
 By the Rev. William Archer Butler, A. M., late Professor of 
 Moral Philosophy in the University of Dublin. Edited by the 
 very Rev. Thomas Woodward, A.M., Dean of Down. First 
 Series. From the third Cambridge edition. 1 vol. crown 8vo. 
 Cloth, $1 25. 
 
 " Eloquent without pretence, rhetorical without being florid, and glowing 
 with the zeal, the piety, the spirituality of the gospel." — N. Y. Observer. 
 
 Sermons, Doctrinal and Practical. 
 
 By the Bev. W. Archer Butler, A. M. Edited by James Ami- 
 raux Jeremie, D. D., Regius Professor of Divinity in the 
 University of Cambridge. Second Series. From the third 
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 "Poet, orator, metaphysician, theologian." — Dahlia University Maga- 
 zine^. 
 
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 Lectures on the History of Ancient Philosophy. 
 
 By William Archer Butler, M. A., late Professor of Moral 
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 Fellow of Trinity College, and Regius Professor of Greek in the 
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 conceptions of a glowing yet subdued eloquence, and an affectionate and 
 almost personal regard for the Divine Philosopher." — New En glander. 
 
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 discouragements, and their experiences when they found peace in believing. 
 Such a work cannot hut prove edifying to the Christian, whilst it is well 
 adapted to instruct anxious inquirers, and may he of great benefit to min- 
 isters in their dealings with troubled souls/' — Presbyterian. 
 
 "We can cordially recommend it." — Pres. Quarterly. 
 
 "It is well adapted to do good." — OongregaJtionalist. 
 
 "Its narratives are deeply interesting; its instruction is highly import- 
 ant." — 2V. Y. Observer. 
 
 The Six Days of Creation. 
 
 By W. G. Rmxi). A series of affectionate Letters from a Father to 
 his Children, developing the progressive advances of Creation 
 during the Six Days : in which the Natural History of Animals, 
 Plants, Minerals, Celestial Objects, etc., and their uses and re- 
 lations to man, are treated with particular reference to the 
 illustration of Scriptural truth. A highly interesting work. 
 From the last London edition. With numerous illustrations. 
 1 vol. crown 8vo. Cloth, $1. 
 
 "An elegant manual for the young; far superior to the large majority 
 that we have seen. We have read it with unalloyed satisfaction. * * * We 
 earnestly recommend this book to parents as one of the most charming and 
 beneficial presents they can make to their children." — Methodist Quarterly 
 1! view. 
 
 " We can recommend it as an excellent family book, and the more there 
 are like it the better. * * * The work abounds with graphic pictorial illus- 
 trations, and can scarcely fail to interest, and instruct, and sharpen the 
 appetite for scriptural truth." — Christian Intelligencer. 
 
The Book and its Story. 
 
 A charming History of the Bible, for the Young. Handsomely 
 illustrated with numerous cuts and a steel engraving. 1 vol. 
 12mo. Cloth, $1. 
 
 "This is precisely such a book as should he found in every family. The 
 wood-cuts and illustrations are exceedingly valuahle. The publishers dis- 
 play great taste in the getting up of the -work." — Pres. Banner. 
 
 "A deeply interesting volume. We shall rejoice to know that a copy of 
 this choice volume is liuding its way to every family in the land." — Chris- 
 tian Visitor. 
 
 Bacon's Complete Works. 
 
 The Complete Works of Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of Eng- 
 land. A new edition, with a Life of the Author. By Basil 
 Montagu, Esq. In 3 vols., royal 8vo. Cloth, $7 50. 
 Sheep, $8 50. 
 Half morocco, $12. 
 Calf backs, $12. 
 
 The American edition of the Works of Lord Bacon now offered to the 
 public is reprinted from the most approved English edition, that of Basil 
 Montagu, Esq., which has recently issued from the celebrated press of Pick- 
 ering (the modern Aldus), in seventeen octavo volumes. It contains the 
 complete works of the illustrious philosopher, those of Latin being trans- 
 lated into English. Iu order to render the publication cheap, and therefore 
 attainable by all our public and social libraries, as well as by those general 
 readers who study economy, the seventeen octavo volumes have been com- 
 prised in three volumes, imperial octavo. Being printed from the most 
 accurate as well as complete English edition, and carefully revised, the 
 American edition will possess great advantages for the critical scholar as 
 well as the general reader. In typography, paper, and binding, it will be 
 recognized as a brilliant specimen of the products of the American book 
 trade. 
 
 The Five Gateways of Knowledge. 
 
 By George Wilson, M.D., F. R. S.E., Regius Professor of Tech- 
 nology in the University of Edinburgh ; President of the Royal 
 Scottish Society of Arts, &c. &c. 1 vol. 16ino. Cloth, 50 cts. 
 
 "This is a beautifully written and altogether delightful little book on the 
 five senses. ' ' — Nonconformist. 
 
 "This book is perfect after its kind. * * * For delicate beauty of com- 
 position it is almost unrivalled; yet nothing could be more simple iu de- 
 sign." — London Quarterly Review. 
 
 Russell's (Lady Rachel) Letters. 
 
 The Letters of Rachel, Lady Russell. New edition. Containing 
 many Letters never before published. Complete in one hand- 
 some volume, 12mo., $1 25. 
 
 "Lady Rachel Russell was the wife of the noble and unfortunate Lord 
 William Russell, the compatriot of Algernon Sidney and other illustrious 
 asserters of English liberty in the seventeenth century. Her letters have 
 passed through numerous editions in England, and have been long con- 
 sidered models of epistolary style. They are full of tender sentiment, and 
 relate to matters of the most touching interest." — Commercial Advertiser. 
 
Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
 1 1012 01148 4880 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 
 
 
 
 — — 
 
 
 
 
 
 1996 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 j HIGHSMITH* 
 
 45230 
 
 
 Printed 
 In USA