PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 W4ej^?i/e/A £irk^Cllpi/,c>^n.dM. , ^. ^, 
 
 Division. JAJL...LLL.C . 
 
 Section 
 
 Shelf. Number 
 
 7,^63 
 
1798. 1898. 
 
 Centennial Celebration 
 
 ... ot tbe ... 
 
 jfirst . (bresb^terian ♦ Cburcb 
 
 St. ClairsvUIe, ©bio* 
 
 3une I5tb, 1898. 
 
 ... Containing tbc ... 
 
 Centennial Souvenir'' of Cburcbee anb jpaetore, 
 
 ... and ... 
 
 Bll tbe at)^re00e0 of tbe ©ccaeion. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/centennialceleOOfirs 
 
1798. 1898. 
 
(tiZ^zmm'ux 
 
 ^^IRjT^PRESLWTE 
 
 R!A>f" CHilKCH'#' 
 
 ■^t-Cl<:iiDviJlfc-Obio- 
 •ReV'.R •AlexaXder-D'P'Pa:mor- 
 
 Cburcbes of a Ccnturi?. 
 
REV JOSEPH ANDERSON. 
 
 PASTOR 1800-1830. 
 
 LICENSED OCTOBER 17, 1798. 
 
 APPOINTED TO PREACH AT THIS PLACE ON THE 4th SABBATH IN OCTOBER. 1793. 
 
 STATED SUPPLY IN 1799. 
 
 ORDAINED AND INSTALLED AUGUST 20, 1800. 
 
 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER ORDAINED IN EASTERN OHIO. 
 
 BORN 1767. DIED 1847. 
 
REV. JOSEPH SMITH, D. D. 
 
 PASTOR 1834-1837. 
 BORN 1796. DIED 1868. 
 
REV. JAMES ALEXANDER, D. D. 
 
 PASTOR 1839-1846. 
 BORN 1798. DIED 1879. 
 
t/^yO-^-^'--^^ ''^ii\ 
 
 REV. JOHN MOFFAT, 
 
 PASTOR 1847-1860. 
 BORN 1816. DIED 1875. 
 
REV. DAVID R. CAMPBELL, D. D. 
 
 PASTOR 1861-1866. 
 BORN 1820. DIED 1873. 
 
REV. ROBERT ALEXANDER, D D. 
 
 PASTOR 1867. 
 BORN 1837. 
 
Centennial Celebration* 
 
 3ime I5tb, 1898. 
 
 prooramnic. 
 /IDonuno Session— 10=12. 
 
 Invocation. 
 
 Hymn 435. 
 
 Reading of Scriptures. 
 
 Prayer, Rev. Walter L. Alexander. 
 
 Anthem — Rejoice in the Lord, Perkins. 
 
 Historical Address Rev. Robert Alexander, D. D. 
 
 Greeting from the Community, Hon. J. W. Hollingsworth. 
 
 Hymn 597. 
 Prayer. 
 
 Bftcrnoon Session— 2*5. 
 
 Hymn 442, ( Sung- as it was one hundred years ago.) 
 
 Greeting from Sister Churches .... 
 
 Rev. Thomas Balph, D. D,, Pastor of U. P. Church. 
 
 Greeting from the Presbytery of St. Clairsville 
 
 Rev. W. V. Milligan, D. D., Cambridge, O. 
 
 Anthem — Children of the Heavenly King Wilson. 
 
 The Eldership of St. Clairsville Church, 
 
 William Alexander, Esq., Bridgeport, Ohio. 
 Solo — Fear ye not, O Israel ! Buck. 
 
 Prayer. 
 
 10 
 
Centennial Celebration. 
 
 JEvcnina Session— 7 ©'clock. 
 
 Hymn 575. 
 
 Prayer. 
 
 Anthem — Hark. Hark, My Soul SbclUy. 
 
 Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, 
 
 Rev. D. A. Cunningham, D.D., L.L.D., Wheeling, W. Va. 
 
 Anthem — How Beautiful Upon the Mountains, Moore. 
 
 Presbyterianism in America, 
 
 Rev. James D. MotTat, D.D., LL.D., Pres't W. & J. College. 
 
 Solo and Chorus — Only Remembered by What 1 Have Done, . . . Sankcv. 
 
 Benediction. 
 
■% 
 
 LARD PRE 
 
 EELING, W. 
 
 BULLARO PRESS. 
 
 WHEELING, W. VA. 
 
Ilntrobuction- 
 
 ?ARLY in the year 1898 it was determined that a Centennial Celebration of the 
 \ First Presbyterian Church of St. Clairsville should be held on the l5th of June, 
 to commemorate the organization of the church and the introduction of Presby- 
 terianism into Eastern Ohio. In due time, committees were appointed to make all 
 suitable arrangements for so important an event. A committee sent out a cordial invi- 
 tation to all former members of the congregation to be present and enjoy the occasion. 
 A chorus choir of eighteen voices was organized and placed under the training of Prof. 
 J. W. Schofield, of Martin's Ferry, to have charge of the music. A committee of 
 young people decorated the church in a handsome manner with national colors 
 and flowers and palms. The ladies of the congregation, in united action, secured the 
 use of the Court House Hall, and prepared, on a large scale for serving a 
 lunch to all people who attended the celebration. A special evening train was ordered 
 on the C. L. & W. R. R. for the accommodation of visitors from Wheeling and other 
 cities, who might desire to return after the evening service. Great interest was felt in 
 the coming event, not only in the Church of St. Clairsville and the immediate com- 
 munity, but in the surrounding churches of the Presbytery, and throughout the coun- 
 try generally, as far as it was known. 
 
 At length the day arrived, and all arrangements had been made in a most com- 
 plete and satisfactory manner. The day was one of the most perfect of all the season, 
 with sky clear and air balmy and exhilerating. The people came in large numbers, 
 from far and near, to enjoy the exercises, and attended with unflagging interest to the 
 close. The singing of the 23d Psalm, led by Prof. Schofield and Rev. Dr. Milligan, 
 who served as precentors, "lining out " and singing as they did a century ago, made a 
 very deep impression, and recalled precious memories of other days. The singing by 
 the choir in every selection was unusually fine, until they reached the climax in the 
 solo and chorus, " Only Remembered," which made an impression on every heart 
 never to be forgotten. Altogether, it was a notable occasion, surpassing the highest 
 expectations, and to be cherished in fondest recollection. The exercises began at 10 
 
 13 
 
A. M., according to the programme within, which was followed closely in every par- 
 ticular. 
 
 Rev. Joseph A. Donahey of Bridgeport, presided over the morning and evening 
 sessions, and Rev. L. Mechlin, D. D., of New Athens, over the afternoon session. 
 Those who led in prayer were. Rev. Walter L. Alexander, of Rock Hill; Rev. W. W. 
 Morton, of Allegheny; Rev. R. S. CoflFy, of Bellaire, and Rev. B. J. Brown, of Mt. 
 Pleasant. In addition to all those named, other ministers present were: Rev. Dr. 
 David A. Cunningham, Wheeling, West Va.; Rev. Dr. J. D. Moffat, Washington, 
 Pa.; Rev. Dr. W. V. Milligan, Cambridge, Ohio; Rev. John E. Fulton, Bellaire; 
 Rev. T. C. McNary, Uniontown; Rev. A. D. McKay, Centerville, and Rev. D. V. 
 Mays, Poland, Ohio. 
 
 Ibtstortcal a^^re00. 
 
 By the Pastor, Rev. Rob't Alexander, D. D. 
 
 When the early settlers crossed the Ohio river and pressed their way into the un- 
 broken wilderness, they were too much concerned with their struggles in building their 
 rude cabin houses and clearing their land, that they might have subsistence for them- 
 selves and their families, to take time to think of what might be "an hundred years to 
 come." Who of them in their greatest stretch of imagination ever thought of these 
 things that are so familiar to us and to all the people of this day? Who of them 
 could have supposed that we who now live so long after their time, could feel so much 
 interest in them and their work, and would so gladly gather up anything of the com- 
 monplace of their lives, if that were possible? 
 
 Into this region they came to begin a mighty undertaking, to clear away the for- 
 ests that thickly covered these fertile hills and valleys, to prepare their humble homes, 
 and to endure the hardships with which we are altogether unacquainted. The lines of 
 travel for these early settlers were directly westward, in about the same latitude, with 
 little change of climate from that to which they had been accustomed; and thus they 
 pressed into this great region of Eastern Ohio, as soon as the way was open to them, 
 from Eastern and Western Pennsylvania, and from Delaware and Maryland. For the 
 most part they were of that hardy stock of people to whose intelligence and courage, 
 and heroism and piety, this country owes so much in securing her independence and in 
 
 14 
 
forming her government. No historian has ever yet brought out fully the blessed in- 
 fluence of the Scotch and the Scotch-Irish people on this continent. It will be written 
 up some day, and their work will be appreciated more than ever it has been. This 
 was the kind of people who came pouring into this wilderness country an hundred 
 years ago, to take possession of it, and to make a home in it for themselves and their 
 children. The Indian was just disappearing over the hill tops to the west, yielding up 
 his birthright to advancing civilization, and these early settlers came and took posses- 
 sion. They deprived themselves of many of the comforts of life when they crossed the 
 mountains and crossed the Ohio river and came to this untrodden wilderness. They 
 came not in Palace cars, drawn by swift going trains, rapidly transporting them and 
 their household goods; but in wagons drawn usually by oxen and horses, bringing 
 with them little more than the bare necessities of life. 
 
 But whatever of the comforts of life they were forced to leave behind them, there 
 was one thing they did not leave, and that was their religion, the same type of it to 
 which their forefathers had held when threatened with prison or death, and to which 
 they held with a tenacity stronger than death. It was this same Presbyterian 
 faith, that like good seeds] wafted on the billows, came across the ocean and took 
 root in New Jersey, and Delaware, and Maryland, and Pennsylyania, crossing over 
 the Alleghenies into Western Pennsylvania, and then carried across the Ohio and 
 planted here in the virgin soil of the wilderness. It was a propitious time when this 
 movement was made. The state of religion had been very low, all over the United 
 States, in the years following the great Revolution. French favor and protection, had 
 introduced French infidelity, which spread everywhere with amazing rapidity. It had 
 seemed to good people at the close of the last century, as if the very foundations of 
 morality and social order were going to destruction. Infidelity and atheism were bold, 
 confident and defiant. But as of old, prayer arose continually from the people of God, 
 and the answers of mercy came. The symptoms of better times soon began to appear 
 in religious awakening and a deep sense of moral desolation. The work of the Lord 
 was to be revived greatly,, and the first signs were beginning to appear. It was at this 
 time, and under these circumstances, that these people came here, some of them from 
 localities where the Spirit of God was then moving in power on the hearts of the peo- 
 ple. No sooner were the first of these pioneers settled in their rude and hastily con- 
 structed cabins, than the missionary spirit led Rev. Drs. John McMillan and Thomas 
 Marquis to come over the Ohio and seek the scattered sheep of Christ's flock, and to 
 make some arrangement to have the gospel preached to them. The records of the 
 Presbytery of Ohio, in Vol. I. and Page 19, show their appointment on this mission as 
 
 15 
 
early as the 2d and 3d Sabbaths of November, 1796. During the next year, 1797, a 
 few supplies were also sent to this point, called in the records " Indian Wheelin Creek," 
 and also to "Indian Short Creek," which finally became the church of Mt. Pleasant. 
 The next year, 1798, witnessed regular supplies appointed, and we date the organiza- 
 tion from that year, though there is no formal act of organization recorded — nor is 
 there such record of any of the early churches. From this year, " Indian Wheelin 
 Creek " and " Indian Short Creek" appear on the roll of churches, and are represented 
 as such in Presbytery. They have therefore the honor of being the oldest Presbyterian 
 Churches in Eastern Ohio. 
 
 The first place of worship was half a mile north of this place, at the present site 
 of the Union Cemetery. It was what was called a " tent," or mere shed over a plat- 
 form as a stand for the preacher, while the people sat on logs under the wide spreading 
 branches of the forest trees. This was the primitive meeting place of all the earlier 
 churches, and it was a favorite meeting place here, as it stood on the rising ground 
 above the gateway leading into the cemetery, in the midst of a beautiful grove that 
 then occupied the ground. Long after the congregation had better accommodations, 
 they were still accustomed, in pleasant weather, to meet under the trees, around this 
 "tent," for their preaching service. 
 
 Then succeeded the log cabin church, that was built some time in 1799, and stood 
 about the middle of the older part of the Cemetery, a humble place of worship, with- 
 out floor or chimney, and roofed with clapboards; where the gospel was preached for 
 eight years. Rude as it was, this house was in keeping with the humble abodes of 
 most of the people. To it the people came from far and near. Mr. John Cunning- 
 ham and his wife, who settled on McMahon's Creek, near Bellaire, in 1805, came 
 with great regularity to this church, a distance of more than twelve miles, on horse- 
 back, and by a bridle path through the forest. This they did until 1812, when the 
 church of Rockhill was organized, of which Mr. Cunningham became one of the first 
 ruling elders, Mrs. James Kelsey, the mother of the late James Kelsey, Esq., came 
 also from the neighborhood of Rockhill, traveling a distance of ten miles, to attend 
 services here. On communion seasons the people came together in great numbers, 
 some coming a distance of twenty or thirty miles from other congregations. Those 
 were precious communion seasons, services extending through four days and closing on 
 Monday, the strangers from a distance taxing the hospitality of the people to the utmost, 
 and some of them camping out in their wagons. All this gave rise at that day to the 
 campmeeting, which in its origin was really a Presbyterian institution, and adopted at 
 a later day by other denominations. 
 
 16 
 
This first cabin church gave place to a larger and more comfortable log building, 
 erected on the same ground, a little west of the present fountain in the cemetery. It 
 was built in 1808, and was erected by the united labor of the people and by their own 
 hands. Pastor, elders and people all took part in the good work and soon completed 
 it. It was of the length of three logs, the middle one held in place by short logs, thus 
 forming a recess in each of the long sides. In one recess the pulpit stood, and the 
 seats and aisles were arranged with reference to it. This house was heated by stoves, 
 and must have been a vast improvement on the former humble cabin. At that time a 
 movement was made to change the location of the church to the town of St. Clairs- 
 ville, which was a rising village, with eighty houses and four hundred inhabitants, and 
 four years before had become the county seat of Belmont county. 
 
 On October 6, 1806, the Hon. Josiah Dillon, Judge of the Common Pleas Court, 
 made a deed to the congregation for a lot on which to build a church in town, through 
 Alexander Boggs, George Ireland, Alexander Gaston and David Rusk, acting as trus- 
 tees. The consideration mentioned in the deed was "twenty-five cents in lawful 
 money." But this kind donation did not induce the congregation to change the loca- 
 tion of the church, as the people were attached to the original site, near their place of 
 burial, and besides they feared the contaminating influence of the town, and regarded 
 it as unsuitable for a place of worship. So they remained in that beautiful 
 and retired locality near the graves of their kindred, until 1822. By this time, a more 
 substantial building was desired by the congregation, and the town having grown to a 
 place of considerable importance, a commodious brick church was erected within the 
 limits of the village, in the northwest part of it. The exact location was the southwest 
 corner, opposite the Friends' Cemetery. The change thus made created some dissatis- 
 faction among the people, but not to the serious injury of the church. This building 
 was of brick, had galleries along one end and two sides, had doors to the pews, and 
 must have been a house of style and capacity. Its cost was three thousand dollars, no 
 inconsiderable sum of money to collect at that day. It was the most commodious 
 church in all this region. It was often used for popular meetings, as it would seat 
 more people comfortably than than any other building in town. It was used by the 
 congregation as their place of worship for nearly twenty years. 
 
 Shortly after its organization, the name of the church had been changed to 
 " Richland," from the name of the township, and by this was known on the records 
 of Presbytery. But an act of the Legislature, on the l9th of January, 1827, incor- 
 porated the church under the name of "The First Presbyterian Church of St. Clairs- 
 ville," with William Bell, Andrew P. Happer and Dr. John McCracken as the first 
 
 17 
 
trustees. 
 
 This third house was totally destroyed by fire on Friday morning, October l5th, 
 1841, amid the great lamentation of the people. Services had been held in it on the 
 evening before, and it was supposed that a defective flue was the cause of the accident. 
 But the congregation was not utterly discouraged, for they at once prepared to rebuild. 
 The necessary arrangements were made, a new site was chosen on Marietta street, and 
 in the Spring of 1843, one of the best churches in this part of the country was finished 
 and ready for use. It was a brick house, 45x80 feet, with stone basement, with fine 
 audience room, and well built walls. The brick was made by Darius McVey, on the 
 ground where the church was built. Thomas McLaughlin built the stone work of the 
 foundation, Charles Bailey laid the brick, and John McNeice, who is still living and 
 resides near Glencoe, made the mortar. The contractor for the carpenter work was 
 Mr. Scott, of Wheeling. The roof was strongly framed, with the king truss, and was 
 self-supporting. It was, however, unfortunate in its foundation, part resting on the 
 rock and part on the clay, with the usual result that the east end of the building set- 
 tled and cracked the walls on both sides, over every window. The building of that 
 church was a great undertaking for the people. Some were disaffected by the change 
 of location, and even if they had been perfectly united, the whole cost of seven thou- 
 sand dollars was a large sum to raise in the hard times that then prevailed in this 
 country. Builders' liens were raised against the work and threatened to stop it or 
 sacrifice the property. At one crisis, Capt. Thomas T. Thompson rescued the building 
 from the hands of the Sheriff, by the payment of three hundred dollars to satisfy a 
 judgment. At another crisis, one thousand dollars must be raised immediately to 
 satisfy the legal claims of builders, and four men came forward. Rev. James Alexan- 
 der, the Pastor, Hon. Benjamin Ruggles, Hon. Robert Jefferson Alexander and Mr. 
 Joseph Morrison, and on their personal security borrowed the money, paid off the 
 claim, and then said to the faint-hearted and discouraged people, "Now, let us all 
 rally to this work and save our church from dishonor." Under such leadership they 
 soon rallied, and all the debt was finally cleared away. That building served a great 
 and useful purpose in this congregation, great good was done within its walls, and of 
 many souls it was the place of their spiritual birth. With frequent repairs and im- 
 provements in the interior, it was a comfortable place of worship, but the settling of 
 the east wall was still going on gradually and surely, with no hope of checking it, and 
 the people felt that a new church was needed to meet the wants of the times. While 
 they hesitated to undertake so great a work, the question of building a new church 
 was settled in an unexpected manner. The l5th of April, 1887, will always be mem- 
 
 18 
 
BUILT 1842. WRECKED BY 
 TORNADO APRIL 15th, 1887. 
 
BUILT IS 
 
orable in the history of this place and community. The day was mild and clear, with 
 no premonition of the desolation that would reign before the sun went down. About 
 three o'clock in the afternoon a dark cloud arose in the west, and out of it came a tor- 
 nado that carried destruction before it and left ruin in its pathway. It swept through 
 the village with a power that seemed to be irresistible. While many private houses 
 were crushed in a moment, and the United Presbyterian church was totally destroyed, 
 the Presbyterian church was stripped of its roof, its cornice torn away, its west gable 
 driven in, and its walls spread and further cracked, till it was beyond repair, and it was 
 at once decided to take it down and build another one. Many of us are familiar with 
 the work that was thus suddenly thrust upon us. To secure this site, the largest space 
 available for such a building; to remove the houses that stood on this ground to the 
 other side of the street in good condition; to secure a subscription to meet the great ex- 
 pense; to settle on plans of building and give out contracts; to hold fairs and fes- 
 tivals and dinners and concerts and socials to raise money; all this was labor into 
 which this congregation entered with heart and hand, and which, now that it is past 
 and gone, seems sometimes as if it had been a dream. The stone of which this house 
 is built, of superior quality, was quarried within the bounds of the congregation, 
 part of it on the west side of the Union Cemetery grounds, and the greater part on 
 the farm of Mr. John S. Hutchison, who donated all that was needed. The ma- 
 terial of the old building was used in the foundation and inner walls, and all the new 
 material of every description was of the very best quality. The floors are of the best 
 quality of yellow pine, and the interior wainscotting of birch. The slate on the roof 
 came from the famous Peach Bottom quarries of York County, Pa. The contractors 
 received the material of the old church to utilize as far as practicable, all 
 other stone needed delivered on the ground, and $14,946 in cash. The further ex- 
 pense of quarrying and hauling stone, of heating and lighting, frescoing and furnish- 
 ing, increased the entire cost of the building to the sum of $21,000. The pulpit fur- 
 niture, donated by different persons, adds $200 additional. From first to last, every 
 expense was carefully guarded and every dollar turned to the best account. We owe 
 so much in this arduous undertaking to the good hand of the Lord, directing in every- 
 thing, so that no dissensions arose about anything, so that there was no interruption 
 in the work of any kind, so that we secured such an accomplished architect as Mr. Isaac 
 Pursell, of Philadelphia, and such competent builders as Messrs. Bourner and Phillips, 
 of Newark, Ohio. After standing nearly ten years, the walls are as solid as when 
 first built, and so closely did the builders follow the plans, that the architect's drawing 
 of the building before its erection is the best picture that has been made of it, 
 
 19 
 
The result of all this effort of this congelation, is this church in which we meet 
 to-day, and which stands as a monument to the taste and zeal, and liberality and pub- 
 lic spirit of the people who lived here, and belonged to this church, in the closing de- 
 cade of the first century of her history. Long may this house stand as the home and 
 the meeting place of this congregation. May these walls stand as firmly as they do 
 this day, when 1998 shall come; and when every one assembled in them now shall 
 have passed from earth, may the coming generations find this house strong and safe, 
 and still as well adapted to God's worship as it is to-day ! 
 
 We have now reviewed the progress of this church, step by step, from the tent 
 and the cabin to this beautiful and convenient church home. These have been the 
 changes a century has produced in the local dwelling place of this congregation. These 
 have been the places where the people in passing generations have met with God and 
 He has met with them, to reveal His truth, to display His grace and to unveil His 
 «ylory. Some of the dearest associations of earth are connected with the house of 
 God, the assembled worshippers, the gospel preached, and the blessed communion of 
 saints at the Lord's Table. Dear as the place of birth and childhood, the most sacred 
 place on earth is the place of deep religious impressions, where one is born to God. 
 Even "the Lord shall count when He writeth up His people that this man was born 
 there." 
 
 But now let us return to the beginning of our history, and consider the people 
 who worshipped in these different houses, and filled the communion table, within this 
 century; and also those who have preached the gospel here during this time. In the 
 midst of all the trials and privations of pioneer life, we have seen how anxious these 
 people were for the public worship of God; and what pains they took to have a place 
 for public worship, even if in the early days they must build it with their own hands; 
 and what long distances some of them traveled to the place of worship. They did not 
 settle down here absorbed in the struggle for subsistence, indifferent to the ordinances 
 and to the ministry, or even satisfied with occasional preaching. They believed, as 
 true Presbyterians, in the importance of the pastoral office, of one over them in the 
 Lord, to watch for their souls. As they were praying for the Lord to send a faithful 
 shepherd to seek the scattered sheep of Christ's flock in the wilderness and gather them 
 into the fold, the Lord in His providence was preparing one for them. On October 
 27th, 1797, Mr. Joseph Anderson, of Washington Co., Pa., at that time a man of 
 thirty years of age, appeared before the Presbytery of Ohio and offered himself as a 
 candidate for the ministry, that in due time he might be licensed to preach 
 the gospel. He was subjected to a rigid examination. Greatly as they needed minis- 
 
 20 
 
ters, the Presbytery was most careful as to the kind of men they would commission 
 to preach the g'ospel. "Upon his producing sufficient testimonials of his being a regu- 
 lar member of the church, and of his having gone through a regular course of litera- 
 ture, the Presbytery proceeded to converse with him upon his experimental acquaint- 
 ance with religion, and proposed to him some cases of conscience, and having obtain- 
 ed satisfaction, agreed to take him on trials, and appointed him to prepare a Latin 
 exegesis, to be delivered at the April meeting." Thus the old records show the care 
 with which they guarded the entrance to the ministry. They encouraged no short 
 methods of preparation or easy ways of admission to the sacred office. The theme 
 for his Latin Exegesis was to be, "An Christus quo Mediator adorandus sit.^" In 
 April, 1798, he delivered his Latin thesis, and had other parts of trial assigned him. 
 Finally, he appeared in Presbytery October 17th, 1798, the next meeting, and after a 
 thorough examination in theology, and after the delivery of a trial sermon and lecture, 
 he was licensed to preach the Gospel. He was immediately appointed to visit the 
 Northwest Territory, west of the Ohio river, and preach at " Indian Wheelin Creek" 
 on the fourth Sabbath of October, 1798, and at " Indian Short Creek " on the first 
 Sabbath of November. He then supplied these churches occasionally, and on October 
 l5th, 1799, at the request of a committee from these churches. Presbytery appointed 
 Mr. Anderson as a Stated Supply for one year. But at the meeting on April l5th, 
 1800, a call from the united congregations of "Indian Wheelin Creek," now 
 changed to "Richland," "Short Creek," that afterward was changed to Mt. Pleasant, 
 and " Cross Roads," afterward known, and to this day, as "Crabapple," was made 
 for the pastoral services of Mr. Anderson, and accepted by him. His ordination took 
 place at Cross Roads, Western Territory, (now Crabapple) on August 20th, 1800. 
 Presbytery met at that place on the I9th of August. The members present were: 
 Ministers — John McMillan, James Hughes, John Brice and Thomas Marquis. Elders — 
 Samuel Dunlap and John Irwin. On Wednesday, August 20th, " Presbytery pro- 
 ceeded to the ordination of Mr. Joseph Anderson, and by fasting and prayer, and with 
 the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery, solemnly ordained him to the holy office 
 of the gospel ministry, and installed him pastor of the united churches of Richland, 
 Short Creek and Cross Roads, W. T." Dr. McMillan preached on the occasion from 
 2 Corinthians, 5 :20, and Rev. John Brice gave the charge. 
 
 I have entered into all these details, because this was an event of vast importance, 
 that took place that day. It was the first meeting of the Presbytery of Ohio in the 
 Northwest Territory, west of the Ohio River, and this was the first Presbyterian or- 
 dination in Eastern Ohio. That event is worthy of some permanent monument to 
 
 21 
 
commemorate it, and it is hoped one will be erected some day near Crabapple church. 
 The Rev. Joseph Anderson was a man of zeal and true piety, sound in the faith 
 and abundant in labors, of good presence and address, but of moderate abilities. After 
 serving the three churches about four years, he gave up Crabapple, which then 
 passed under the pastoral care of Rev. Dr. John Rea, in connection with the church of 
 Beech Spring. Mr. Anderson then continued pastor of the two churches of Richland 
 and Short Oeek for many years, giving two-thirds of his time to Richland and one- 
 third to Short Creek. He finally gave up the pastorate over Short Creek, but con- 
 tinued as stated supply for some years afterward. On the 30th of October, 1830, he 
 resigned his pastoral care over this church, but still continued to reside in the bounds 
 of the congregation, on his farm one mile north of town, which he bought from the 
 Government February 27th, 1807, and sold to Robert Smiley in 1835. It is now 
 owned by Mr. John Porterfield. He was very laborious, and supplied Concord and 
 Rock Hill, and other vacant churches, as opportunity offered. He removed to Mis- 
 souri in 1835, became a member of the Presbytery of St. Charles, preached as he was 
 able for a few years and died in Monticello, Mo., in 1847, aged 80 years. He accom- 
 plished much good in this congregation in the face of great difficulties, and here faith- 
 fully sowed the seed of the kingdom, the fruit of which others have been gathering 
 ever since. None of us know the hardships of the pioneer ministers who at that day 
 went about seeking the good of the people, making long journeys over roads almost 
 impassible, crossing bridgeless streams, following bridle paths through dense forests 
 and over fallen timber, and exposed to summer's heat or winter's cold. Mr. Ander- 
 son's labors over all this region were most arduous and self-denying. But he labored 
 among a people of genuine piety, who had been well trained in religious duties, and in 
 the principles of Presbyterianism. They were men of zeal and prayer, and were strong 
 in faith. 
 
 The marble tablet on the wall to the right of the pulpit was placed here at the ex- 
 pense of the Rev. Drs. Thomas R. Crawford and Robert Alexander, in memory of the 
 faithful pioneer work performed by Rev. Joseph Anderson. In the thirty years of Mr. 
 Anderson's ministry here, the following persons were connected with the session: 
 David McWilliams, William McWilliams, James McConnell, were the first, and after- 
 ward came William Ramage, Arthur Irwin, Robert Laughlin, John Perry, Matthew 
 Anderson, John Marquis, Robert Bell, Wm. Paris, Sr,, Robert Morrison, Humphrey 
 Alexander, George Anderson, John Rankin, Andrew P. Happer, Franklin Bell, John 
 Culbertson, Joseph Laughlin and Andrew Work. Besides these, as men prominent in 
 the early membership of the church, though not in the eldership, may be mentioned 
 
 22 
 
the names of William Bell, William Boggs, Reese Boggs, Wm. Paris, Jr., Alexander 
 McConnell, Michael Grove, Joshua Anderson, Wm. Mathers, David Hutchison, Sam- 
 uel Mutchmore, Samuel Robinson, William Robinson, Joseph Marshall, Samuel 
 Crawford, David Rusk, Allen Stewart, Alexander Clark, Charles Collins, William 
 Dysart, Louis Sutton, John A. Grove, Jacob Erastus Grove, William Grimes, William 
 Booker, Robert Duncan and John McMechan. John Patterson and William Templeton 
 took a deep interest in this church in the earlier years of its history. They with a few 
 others mentioned above became leading men in the Associate Reformed Church, which 
 was organized here in 1832. All of these ceased from earthly labors long years ago. 
 They were all men of integrity and honor as citizens, and consistent friends of Christ 
 and his Church. 
 
 After the resignation of Mr. Anderson, the Rev. Alexander Logan supplied the 
 pulpit for one year, and for three years following the Rev. William Fuller and others 
 supplied it for short periods. The congregation was in a divided state and could not 
 agree on a pastor. Even the Presbytery rebuked them for their divisions, and exhorted 
 them by special resolutions to study the things that make for peace and to agree as 
 soon as possible on a pastor. At length a call was made in July, 1834 for the Rev. 
 Joseph Smith, and he became Pastor in October of that year. He was a son of Rev. 
 David Smith, and a grandson of Rev. Joseph Smith and Rev. Dr. James Power, who 
 were among the most distinguished of the pioneer ministers of Western Pennsylvania. 
 He was born July l5th, 1796, educated at Jefferson College and at Princeton Theo- 
 logical Seminary, and licensed in April, 1819. After three years of missionary labor 
 in Virginia, he was ordained April 22d, 1822, and became pastor in Staunton, Va., 
 and in Frederick, Md., previous to his coming to St. Clairsville. His pastorate here 
 was short, but pleasant and successful. A revival of great power occurred during 
 the ministry of Dr. Smith. A protracted meeting had been held in the beginning of 
 1836, and God's Spirit was poured out in a wonderful manner. The church was 
 revived, old stumbling blocks were removed, and a serious division which had existed 
 in the church for years was effectually healed. There were also added to the church 
 on the 12th of March following, fifty-nine persons, many of whom were baptized, 
 showing the aggressive character of the work. Hitherto the church had received her 
 increase of membership from her own children; now a movement was made on the 
 world, and old and young yielded as trophies of redeeming grace. Permanent fruits 
 followed, as they always do a genuine revival of religion. It is said that only one per- 
 son of all that number then received, dishonored his profession. This revival was 
 much talked of over the country, and the addition to the church was the largest that 
 
 23 
 
had been made to any Presbyterian church in all this region. The membership of the 
 church was raised to 240 by this large accession, and from the number came two who 
 entered the ministry — Rev. John P. Caldwell and Rev. Ebenezer Henry, good and faith- 
 ful men, who, after rendering valuable service to the Church of Christ in various 
 places, have long since finished their earthly labors. The ministry of Dr. Smith was 
 highly acceptable to this congregation, and left a sweet impression that is felt and 
 spoken of to this day. He was dismissed in October. 1837, after a pastorate of three 
 years, to become President of Franklin College in New Athens, Ohio. After two 
 years in that position he was called a second time to Frederick, Md. , and then to Elli- 
 cott's Mills. For five years he served as agent of the Board of Domestic Missions, 
 then settled at Round Hill and Elizabeth, and finally at Greensburgh, Pa., in 1856. 
 Ten years after that he resigned and rested from a ministry of forty-seven years, until 
 death released him from all earthly labors, December 4th, 1868. 
 
 Dr. Smith was greatly blessed in his ministry wherever he labored. He was instru- 
 mental in bringing into the church five hundred persons. He was a devoted man, an 
 excellent, impressive and earnest preacher, and a model Christian gentleman. He is 
 best known as the author of the " History of Jefferson College," and "Old Redstone." 
 He has left a son. Rev. James P. Smith, D. D., who is a prominent minister of the 
 Presbyterian Church (South), and editor of the Central Presbyterian, of Richmond, 
 Va.; also a daughter, Maria B., who is the wife of Rev. Dr. J. C. Barr, of Charleston, 
 West Va. There are only six persons now living who were members of this church 
 in the ministry of Dr. Smith. One of them, Mrs. Matilda McConnell Brown, of 
 Summerfield. Ohio, removed from this congregation years ago; another, Miss Mary 
 Boggs, became one of the first members of West Brooklyn church, at Warnock, and 
 Miss Almira Work, of Morristown; ^he others are still in this church, and are as 
 follows: James Hutchinson, Mrs. Caroline V. Grove and Miss Elizabeth Duncan, all 
 of them far advanced in years. 
 
 After the close of Dr. Smith's pastorate, in 1837, the pulpit was supplied for two 
 years by Revs. Thomas J. Gordon, James Kerr, John McCluskey, William R. Work, 
 and others. The last named, Rev. Wm. R. Work, was a son of this church, of one of 
 the prominent families of the congregation, and when licensed to preach, April 18th, 
 1838, was called to the pastorate here, but declined coming, and settled shortly 
 afterward near Philadelphia. 
 
 In October, 1839, a call was extended to the Rev. James Alexander, which was ac- 
 cepted, and soon after he began his labors in this place. He was born near Mercer, 
 Pa., September 25th, 1798, graduated from Jefferson College in 1826, studied theology 
 
 24 
 
with his pastor, the Rev, Samuel Tait, and was licensed to preach the gospel by the 
 Presbytery of Erie on the 9th of April, 1828. In October of that year he was ordained 
 and installed pastor of Salem, Greenville and Big Bend, in the Presbytery of Blairs- 
 ville, where he labored successfully for six years, and received to the churches one hun- 
 dred members on examination. In 1834 he was called to Hopewell, in the Presbytery 
 of Ohio, where belabored until 1839, when he came here. During his ministry here 
 he had many difficulties to contend with. The house of worship was totally destroyed 
 by fire and great financial embarrassment fell on the congregation in their effort to re- 
 pair their loss. The spiritual growth of the people was greatly retarded by a heavy 
 church debt, and their energies were almost paralyzed. While building the new church, 
 the congregation worshipped in the Court House, and as the place was not well ar- 
 ranged for reading sermons, the preacher was compelled, by force of circumstances, to 
 abandon the use of the manuscript, and thus, as he said himself, was "saved from 
 reading as by fire." 
 
 In June, 1846, he resigned his pastorate here, and preached his farewell sermon 
 from Phil. 4:9, "Those things which ye have both learned and received and heard and 
 seen in me do: and the God of peace will be with you." As a little boy present that 
 day with my parents, 1 remember that farewell sermon, and as he reiterated the context, 
 "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, 
 whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of 
 good report," his form and manner rise before me now, and his tones of voice I still 
 recognize through more than half a century. After leaving here he was successfully set- 
 tled in Martin's Ferry, and spent thirteen years in that place, giving part of his ser- 
 vices to the church of Wheeling Valley. While he was in Martin's Ferry the church of 
 Kirkwood, in Bridgeport, was organized by him, and for a time enjoyed a part of his 
 labors. 
 
 In 1859, Dr. Alexander was called to Allen Grove and Wolf Run, in the Presbytery 
 of Washington, and in 1867, to Moundsville, West Va., in the same Presbytery, where 
 he continued in the active work of the ministry for ten years, and until by the infirm- 
 ities of age he was laid aside from the labors he loved so well. Dr. Alexander was a 
 large and strong man physically, and bore a striking resemblance to the famous Dr. 
 Guthrie, of Scotland, when he stood in the pulpit. He was a faithful and earnest 
 preacher of the Gospel, sound in doctrine and strong in faith, and his labors in the 
 ministry were greatly blessed. He died in Moundsville on the 26th of July, 1879, 
 having spent fifty years of his life in the active work of the ministry. He gave to the 
 church two sons, who are faithful and successful ministers of the word. Rev. Joseph 
 
 25 
 
Kirkwood Alexander, ot Morning Sun, Iowa, and Rev. Walter L. Alexander, pastor of 
 Rockhill and Coalbrook, in the Presbytery of St. Clairsville; and another one, Mr. 
 William Alexander, of Bridgeport, of whom the father said, that he was well satisfied 
 that he was doing as much good as he could ever have done in the ministry. 
 
 1 )uring the pastorate of Dr. Alexander there were chosen to the eldership, John Jep- 
 son, James McConnell, Robert Smiley, F. H. Brooks, H. H. Fiske, A, C. Work, John 
 Tate, Sr., and John Porter. These were all conscientious and reliable men, ready at all 
 times for the service of the Lord, and with the best interests of the church at heart. 
 They have also long ago passed from earthly service. About this time there were two 
 men of great prominence in church affairs, who, though not publicly in the membership 
 of the church, took a deep interest in everything that concerned its welfare. They were 
 Hon. Benjamin Ruggles and Mr. Joseph Morrison. Judge Ruggles was a man of 
 national reputation, and in the foremost rank of able lawyers. He was Judge of 
 Common Pleas Court for five years and U. S. Senator for eighteen years, and all his 
 life filled a high place in the social and political world. He was distinguished for his 
 liberality, not only in large gifts to the church in the time of her pecuniary troubles, 
 but in constant and private acts of kindness to his pastor, in which his wife joined 
 him heartily. This unique and beautiful pulpit is here as a memorial of Benjamin 
 Ruggles and his wife, Clarissa Ruggles, who was one of the most faithful members 
 this church ever had, placed here by the contributions of their relatives and descend- 
 ants, a fitting and loving tribute to their worth. Mr. Morrison also rendered invalua- 
 ble services in those days, not only by gifts, but by superintending the building of the 
 church, in a faithful and intelligent manner. 
 
 The only members, whose names are now on our church roll, who united with the 
 church under the ministry of Dr. Alexander, are: Mrs. Adeline Chambers, Mrs. Mar- 
 garet Dick and Miss Jane Fulton. 
 
 Supplies were sent by Presbytery for one year after the close of Dr. Alexander's pas- 
 torate, and then a call was made for the services of the Rev. John Moffat, a licentiate 
 of the Presbytery of New Lisbon, in August, 1847. This call was accepted, and he 
 was ordained and installed pastor in June, 1848, the only pastor whose ordination 
 took place in this congregation. Mr. Moffat was born in Westerhall Parish, in Scot- 
 land, January 1st, 1816, and came to this country in July, 1838. After uniting with the 
 church of Middle Sandy, in Columbiana County, Ohio, he prepared for the ministry, 
 pursuing his studies in New Lisbon Academy and in the Western Theological Seminary 
 in Allegheny, Pa., and was licensed to preach the Gospel in June, 1847. This was his 
 first pastoral charge, and here for more than thirteen years he preached the Gospel 
 
 26 
 
with great earnestness and power. He believed the Gospel sincerely and preached it to 
 men from the fulness of a warm and earnest heart. A season of considerable awaken- 
 ing was enjoyed in 1858, in which thirty-two persons were added to the church, and 
 the membership was greatly revived. Mr. Moffat resigned this charge January 1st, 
 1861, to become pastor of Rockhill and Bellaire, and in 1863 was called to the Second 
 Presbyterian Church of Wheeling. He labored there with great acceptance till his 
 health failed in 1871. He died in Wheeling, December 27th, 1875. He also gave to 
 the church a son, the Rev. Dr. James D. Moffat, of Washington, Pa., who is not only 
 distinguished in the ministry, but is one of the most successful College Presidents of 
 this country. 
 
 During the ministry of Mr. Moffat there were added to the Session, Samuel Ramage, 
 James Hutchison, John Tate, Jr., Thomas T. Thompson, Samuel B. Work and 
 Samuel Cunningham, and shortly after his resignation, and while the church was 
 vacant, there were added Dr. Henry West, William Chambers and William H. 
 McBride. There are now upon the church roll the names of only twenty-six persons 
 who were in the membership of the church prior to 1861 and at the close of Mr. 
 Moffat's pastorate. 
 
 After the resignation of Mr. Moffat, on January 1st, l86l, the pulpit was vacant a 
 few months, and then the Rev. David R. Campbell was called to this field of labor, 
 October 1st, 1861, and entered on his duties in the following December. He was a 
 native of Washington County, Pa., born March 20, 1820, and graduated from 
 Jefferson College in 1842, and from the Western Theological Seminary in 1846. He 
 was in the same year licensed to Preach the Gospel by the Presbytery of Washington. 
 Transferred to the Presbytery of St. Clairsville, he labored as a stated supply at 
 Woodsfield and Beallsville for some time, and on the 6th of October, 1847, he was 
 ordained to the work of the ministry and installed pastor of these congregations. He 
 was afterward settled at Mt. Prospect, in the Presbytery of Washington, and then 
 at two Ridges, in the Presbytery of Steubenville, from which place he was called here 
 in 1861. His ministry in this place was remarkably successful in the ingathering of 
 the people to the membership of the church. In the beginning of 1862, an unusual 
 interest was manifested in religion, and at the communion in March twenty-two per- 
 sons made a profession of religion. From that time, the spiritual condition of the 
 church was very encouraging, the attendance on church services larger than usual, and 
 the attention of hearers marked and solemn. This interesting state of things continued 
 for three years, when, in 1865, the gathering clouds of mercy burst upon the people, 
 and the most powerful and glorious revival of religion took place which was ever ex- 
 
 27 
 
perienced in this region. The careless were aroused, the stout-hearted were humbled, 
 and the caviller was silenced. All were forced to say, "Behold, what hath God 
 wrought!" The subject of religion was the general theme of conversation, not merely 
 as the people met at church, but on the street, in the store, in the shop, in the family 
 circle, and everywhere. The immediate result of this work of grace, was the addi- 
 tion to the church of one hundred persons. The I9th of March, 1865, will long 
 be remembered as a great day in the history of this church, when so many stood up to 
 take the vows of God upon them. It was without doubt a genuine work of God's 
 Spirit. The successful labors of Dr. Campbell terminated here Feb. 18th, 1866, and he 
 at once took charge of the Second Presbyterian Church of Steubenville, Ohio. There 
 he labored also with great zeal and success for five years, and then failing health com- 
 pelled him to resign. His death occurred at his home in Steubenville on February 
 25th, 1873. Dr. Campbell was a man of deep piety and sound learning, greatly de- 
 voted to his work as a minister of the Gospel both as a faithful expounder of the word 
 of God, and as a wise and judicious and untiring pastor, watching over the flock, 
 over which he was set as an overseer. 
 
 The present pastor was called to this church Sept. 22d, 1866, but did not enter upon 
 his work until January 1 st, 1 867. He was born in Belmont County, Ohio, southwest of 
 Bridgeport, on the l5th of June, 1837, and is a great-grandson of James Alexander, who 
 settled on what is known as the Scotch Ridge, in Belmont County, in 1 798. He united 
 with the Presbyterian church of Rockhill, April 1st, 1854, under the ministry of Rev. Dr. 
 Benjamin Mitchell. His early life was therefore spent within eight miles of this place, 
 where he hasso long preached the Gospel. He attended the Linsly Institute in Wheeling, 
 spending three years under the famous teacher. Rev. Dr. John W. Scott, then two years 
 in Washington College, Pa., where he was graduated June 20th, 1855, and after pur- 
 suing a full course of theological studies in Princeton, New Jersey, took an annual 
 course in Edinburgh, Scotland. On the 6th of January, 1858, he was licensed by 
 the Presbytery of St. Clairsville to preach the Gospel, and on the 7th of August, i860, 
 was ordained to the ministry by the Presbytery of Donegal, in Little Britain church, 
 in Lancaster County, Pa. , over which he was installed pastor at the same time. His 
 pastorate there covered a period of more than six and a half years, and he resigned in 
 December, 1866, that he might accept a call from this church. Beginning his labors 
 here January 1st, 1867, his installation took place in the following April, and by the 
 great blessing of the Lord upon us, the relation continues to this day. We can de- 
 voutly say, only goodness and mercy have followed us in all these years. He has 
 
 28 
 
been with us, who of old gave the promise to His people, *' Lo, 1 am with you always, 
 even to the end of the world." Under the divine care we have been living, and to His 
 hand we trace all our success. "Not unto us, O Lord! not unto us, but to Thy 
 name be the glory." Never have we been given up to strife or confusion or great re- 
 ligious decline, while again and again has the Lord come to us with the gracious in- 
 fluences of His Spirit, to refresh and strengthen His people and to convert and save 
 souls. 
 
 During this pastorate the communion has been observed one hundred and twenty- 
 five times, and seldom has such a season passed without some coming into our mem- 
 bership on profession or certificate. In 1873, we received on profession 41 persons; In 
 1877, 59 persons; in 1879, 103 persons; in 1886, 42 persons, and in 1893, 43 per- 
 sons were received. In all other years there have been accessions in smaller numbers, 
 till in the aggregate the additions to this church in the present pastorate amount to 795. 
 Of these, 549 were on profession, and 246 on certificate. Of the membership, 156 
 have died, and 339 have been dismissed to other churches, while others from time to 
 time are placed on the retired list. The whole present membership reported to the 
 General Assembly is 410. But all over this country good and faithful Christians are 
 to be found who have gone out from the membership of this church, to aid other 
 churches and to be valuable helpers in every department of church work. No one can 
 tell how far reaching the influence of a church is, as its members are thus scattered 
 abroad, families and individuals reproducing their church life elsewhere. 
 
 An interesting part of the preparation for this centennial celebration was the sending 
 forth of invitations to former members, who now dwell in fifteen States, and from the 
 Atlantic to the Pacific. So great is the work that has been done in this congregation 
 in its growth and advancement in these passing years. 
 
 What a privilege it has been to labor for Christ in the last half of the nineteenth 
 century, in the midst of the mighty religious movements of the day, with harmony 
 among the different branches of the church, and the greatest missionary enterprises 
 that have evertaken place since the ascension of the Son of God. There never was 
 such encouragement to go forward with all branches of Christian work as in these last 
 years. New opportunities are arising on every hand — new fields opening in every 
 quarter. What a period it has been for church activity, for using time and money and 
 labor for Christ. This church has not stood in the background in activity, though we 
 often feel that if every heart was interested and every hand engaged, far greater things 
 could have been done. In the first forty years of the history of this church, little or 
 nothing was done by the churches in outside benevolence. Occasional collections for 
 
 29 
 
missions were taken, but no organized and systematic effort was made to propagate 
 religion. The Boards were not organized and the people were not called on to sup- 
 port them. But the past sixty years show great enlargement and advancement in 
 benevolent work. Within that time this church has given to benevolence, and outside 
 of our local expenses, the sum of $28,500, with perhaps many gifts to religious ob- 
 jects of which we have no account. Six churches stand on the outskirts of this con- 
 gregation, one of them, Wheeling Valley, organized sixty years ago, and the other five, 
 Farmington, West Brooklyn, Coalbrook, Bannock and Pleasant Valley, all organized 
 between the years 1870 and 1887, and all of the six encouraged and aided by the pas- 
 tors and people of this church, and without that aid some of them, perhaps, would 
 have no existence to-day. Instead of being weakened by the members we gave to 
 these organizations, and the money we gave to enable them to build their houses of wor- 
 ship, we are stronger to-day because of them, as they stand like a circle of forts around 
 us, all of them within cannon shot, not threatening us, but strengthening the cause of 
 religion and Presbyterianism in all this region. If we have been laboring and giving 
 money, it has been to some purpose, and when we have laid our offerings before the 
 Lord, we believe they have been acceptable in his sight. 
 
 Whatever has been proposed and urged on the people of this church, at least in the 
 last third of a century, they have bravely undertaken and accomplished. Nothing un- 
 reasonable or impracticable has ever been proposed, and when anything has been un- 
 dertaken, the possibility of failure has never been recognized. 
 
 The first money the present pastor collected in this congregation, was for the pur- 
 chase of the church bell, which cost $384, and was manufactured at the great foundry 
 of Meneely & Co., West Troy, New York. For thirty years and more it has been 
 sending its sweet tones over these hills and vales, calling the people to the worship of 
 God. May its voice still be heard when the next Centennial shall come! Since that 
 time, one expense after another has been borne, for the comfort and convenience of 
 the church, till in these last years, this beautiful house of worship has been erected to 
 stand, as we hope, as a meeting house for the worship and service of God, for genera- 
 tions yet unborn. You that have contributed to its cost, even though at great self- 
 denial and sacrifice, may well feel that this is the best investment you have ever made, 
 for yourselves and your families, and the community in which you live. 
 
 The Sabbath school has been helpful in this church, as one of the arms of its activ- 
 ity. In the first thirty years of the history of the church, the instruction of the youth 
 in the Bible and the Catechism rested with the parents, in their homes, and there is no 
 suspicion that the parents in those eartier years neglected their duty. But about sev- 
 
 30 
 
enty years ago a movement spread through the churches of this country to estabUsh a 
 more systematic study of the Bible, not only in the home, but in the church, and 
 though many looked with little favor on the innovation, the Sabbath school has work- 
 ed its way and reached many who had no home training nor instruction. No doubt 
 there were some in this congregation who looked with little favor on it, but it had 
 strong advocates and earnest friends. Mr. George Anderson, long a ruling elder, was 
 the first Superintendent, and served in that capacity many years. He was a most 
 zealous and earnest Christian, and until his death, in 1862, continued to take the deep- 
 est interest in Sabbath School work. The work he began has been carried on to the 
 present time with good success. A great field is thus open for wilUing workers, and 
 in it through all these years, consecrated and faithful ones have been serving the Lord, 
 in sowing the seed of the Kingdom in the hearts of the young. The ideal Sabbath 
 school is one composed of all the people of the church, old and young, engaged in the 
 blessed work of studying God's word. The nearer this is realized the more efficient 
 the work will be. May it be thus in coming years in this church! 
 
 The Woman's Foreign Missionary Society was organized Nov. 1st, 1871, and was 
 one of the first, if not the very first, organized in the Presbytery. It has shown the 
 advantage of systematic and persistent effort for Foreign Missions. By far the greater 
 part of the money given to this cause in this church, in the last quarter of a century 
 has come through the treasury of this Society. > 
 
 The Woman's Home Missionary Society was organized January l6th, 1886, and 
 has also done efficient work in the aid of Home Missions. The monthly meetings are 
 held in common, but the funds of the two societies are kept separate. In all the his- 
 tory of the church the Christian women have been foremost in every good work, with 
 a zeal and perseverance that overcame all things. When the work of building the 
 present church was undertaken the ladies organized a Ladies' Aid Society, whose ob- 
 ject was to raise money in various legitimate ways for the great end in view. The 
 efforts they put forth were persistent and untiring, and the result most gratifying. 
 More than $3,000 was raised as the result of their self-denying efforts. 
 
 The following additions have been made to the Session during this pastorate: On 
 June 4th, 1874, Joseph J. Taggart and Robert H. Anderson; On June 20th, 1878, 
 Henry Daniel, Samuel R. Finney, Wm. Lee, Sr., John A. Grove and George Jepson; 
 on June 1st, 1890, Wm. F. Schumaker, George V. Brown, John W. Riley and John 
 Elliott; and on April 17th, 1898, John D. Hays, Addison E. Rusk, Elbridge G. Amos, 
 Louis M. Sutton and James O. Dixon. One of these, Mr. Anderson, is a nephew of 
 a former elder, Andrew Work; Mr. Jepson is a son of a former elder, John Jepson; 
 
 31 
 
and two of them, Mr. Brown and Mr. Sutton, are great-grandsons of David McWil- 
 liams, who took a most active part in laying the foundations of this church, and was 
 one of its first elders, one hundred years ago. 
 
 Those who have entered the ministry from the membership of this church are as 
 follows: Rev, John P. Caldwell, Rev. Ebenezer Henry, Rev. Wm. R. Work, Rev. W. 
 Morris Grimes, Rev. Boyd M. Kerr, Rev. Alexander S. McConnell, Rev. Hugh White- 
 ford Parks, Rev. Sherman H. Doyle, Ph. D., and Rev. Geo. H. Feltus. All these 
 have passed away from earth except Mr. McConnell, of Deadwood, South Dakota, 
 Mr. Doyle, of Philadelphia, and Mr. Feltus, of Watertown, New York. The three of 
 the above with whom the people of this day are best acquainted, and who entered the 
 ministry under the present pastorate, are Messrs. Parks, Doyle and Feltus. Mr, 
 Parks, pastor for many years of Beech Spring and Hopedale, died July 29th, 1897, 
 and has ""one to a higher service and a glorious reward, but the others are in active and 
 succesful labor, and we can say of them that they are workmen that need not be 
 ashamed, nor is there any reason why this church should be ashamed of them. 
 
 As we stand to-day and look back upon the century that has closed, we see the 
 lovin<^ hand of a gracious God leading this church onward, from a small beginning to 
 widening power and influence, as the years roll on; generations passing away and 
 others rising up to fill their places; the workmen dying but the work living and still 
 carried forward, and we praise God for all that his people have been able to do in His 
 name. The foundations were laid in the wilderness by the faith and prayers of godly 
 men who from the first determined that where they dwelt , there God should be wor- 
 shipped, and His Gospel should be preached. The Lord has put honor on their toil 
 and self-denial and zeal, and has kept this church through all dangers and trials to this 
 hour. He surely entered into covenant with all these pious ones of the past, and has 
 been to this day fulfilling His promise, "My Spirit that is upon thee, and my words 
 which 1 have put into thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the 
 mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed." 
 
 Let us now, in conclusion, turn our eyes from the past and ask, what of the future? 
 What greater and better things are to be done by this church than the fathers ever did? 
 What better service is to be rendered, and what greater encouragement shall we find in 
 the work of the Lord? It is believed by wise and far-seeing men that we are now en- 
 tering on a new era of great changes, that will call forth the faith and the best energies 
 of the Church of Christ. There are soon to be opened great fields for missionary 
 labor of which the fathers never dreamed, and of which we did not think a little while 
 ago; great work in our own land for its more speedy evangelization, work which we 
 
 32 
 
hardly realize, but which is to press upon us as it has never yet done. We must bear our 
 part in this onward movement, and train the young to do greater and better things 
 than we have done. This church is not to rest in the pleasant memories of the past, 
 but to arise and gird herself for greater service. You of the present have done things 
 that thirty or forty years ago none ever dreamed of as possible in this congregation. 
 All this shows the possibilities of the future. Greater things have been done for 
 Christ than ever have been done, in gathering souls into the Kingdom, in cultivating 
 the piety of the people, and in making greater impressions on the community and on 
 the world. May the future of this church be worthy of the past. Profiting by the 
 mistakes of others, inspired by their zeal and encouraged by greater facilities for labor 
 and clearer knowledge of God's will, may we all be made more useful in God's 
 service, and those who come after us do greater things for Christ and the church than 
 any of us could ever have done. And it will all be to the Glory of our Lord and 
 Saviour. 
 
 33 
 
(BreetitiGe of tbe Communtti?, 
 
 Hon. Jesse W. Hollings worth, Judge of the Common Pleas Court, brought the 
 Greetings of the Community in the following address: 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Christian Friends: 
 
 It affords me great pleasure, as the representative of the citizens of St. Clairsville 
 and vicinity, to welcome to our midst this representative body of one of the dominant 
 churches, not only of the new, but of the old world. 
 
 The generous hospitality of our people, of all shades of Christian belief, is too well 
 known and understood by all, to require at my hands a word of commendation. 
 
 We preach, and profess to practice, the good old Bethlehemic doctrine, ' ' That the 
 stranger within our gates shall be as welcome as one born among us." The occasion 
 that has convened us to-day, with all it symbolizes, marks this as one of the most 
 memorable, as well as the most significant gatherings ever held in our town; a town, 
 too, whose civil history embraces a full century of time. Then, my friends, it would 
 seem supremely befitting that as a Christian organization you should pause as you 
 stand to-day upon the doorstep of the twentieth century and roll back the scroll of 
 years, and review the grand achievements that have led through this century of your 
 church life, step by step up the rugged steepes of time to this one hundredth mile- 
 stone — sometimes under the radiant sunshine of a blessed prosperity, sometimes under 
 the sable shadows of seeming adversity. 
 
 But a few years since and we celebrated the one hundredth birthday of our nation's 
 civil life, with the pageantry befitting the march of progress, that had carried us 
 onward to the zenith of our matchless powers, and raised us as a nation to our 
 present commanding position of honor and respect from the Empires and Kingdoms 
 of the old world. 
 
 At each step of this onward march of progress we have been writing pages of civil 
 history that, through the aeons of time will live on after us. These pages, my 
 friends, point to us this lesson, that if we ever realize in hope's full fruition the grand 
 possibilities that God in His eternal fitness and ordering of things has made it possible 
 for us to achieve, it must be done in the future, as in the past, by our unfaltering de- 
 votion to the great principles that make for our lasting peace and our eternal good. 
 
 34 
 
Our forefathers met and mastered the great questions of national policy that involved 
 our nation's civil life, and our perpetuity, by a loyal adherence to the grand cardinal 
 principles of truth and justice, upon which our Republic was founded, and by a firm 
 and determined negative to every measure that was in conflict with them. The great 
 principles of civil and religious liberty, for which they so bravely contended, could 
 never have been engrafted upon our national policy by any compromise with tyrannical 
 oppression or the blighting curse of bigotry, or civil or religious intolerance. 
 
 In the exercise of a foresight, directed by the wisdom of God, they wove a warp and 
 woof of organic law that was as broad as the human race and as deep as its sufferings 
 and its necessities. The great fundamental doctrines of truth they laid with such 
 care were not alone adapted to their purposes and their needs, but was alike adapted to 
 the advanced and changed conditions that confront us upon the threshold of this twen- 
 tieth century. 
 
 When this mighty ship of state, freighted with its institutions of civil and religious 
 liberty, was launched upon the seething sea of active life, we were a mere handful of 
 colonists, with little of national resources but the sturdy hearts of a pioneer ancestry, 
 and a broad expanse of country templed with the wild and virgin forests and inhabited 
 with the wilder beasts. 
 
 The possibilities of art and science were the mere day dreams that crept upon our 
 visions. The limited means of intercourse we enjoyed with the great world outside 
 made us peculiarly a nation and a law unto ourselves. In this pure atmosphere of 
 quiet were the firm foundations of our civil and religious institutions laid. 
 
 But the humming wheels of tireless progress soon turned us into the sweeping chan- 
 nels of development, and we caught up the spirit of the times and set about the devel- 
 opment of the national resources that characterized our new world. Step by step we 
 advanced until in a few short years we were evolved into a great commercial and 
 industrial people, and sent our flag and our products abroad, until to-day we thread 
 the farthest wave, wherever the enlightened intelligence and ingenuity of man has 
 found a foothold. 
 
 The changeless law of change has thrust itself, like a crested wave, upon the roll- 
 ing, swelling sea of human progress, until to-day we stand face to face with new issues, 
 new relations and new conditions. 
 
 With this onward march of civic life has gone hand in hand, as God's helpmeet, the 
 Christian organization you represent to-day. 
 
 The pioneers of your church organization caught up the spirit of civil and religious 
 liberty, with which the free institutions of this new world had been baptized, and you 
 
 35 
 
have kept abreast with the vanguard in the work of Christian civilization. The Pres- 
 byterian Church of St. Clairsville, as a cogent integral of the universal Presbytery of 
 God on earth, has through this century of its Christian life, contributed its potent influ- 
 ence towards the upbuilding of the Master's kingdom. Inspired by a Christian zeal 
 born of a love for the eternal God, and a ceaseless desire for the elevation of the great 
 brotherhood of man nearer and closer to the Fatherhood of God, you have reared an 
 imperishable temple to His honor and glory, that, 
 
 "As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form. 
 Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm, 
 Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
 Eternal sunshine settles on its head." 
 
 Again, we extend to you all a most hearty greeting, trusting that the associations of 
 this day may be cherished by you all as valued souvenirs all down your life's path- 
 way; that the inspirations born of this hour may prove incentives to you to enter 
 upon your Christian work of the century that lies before you, hoping ever and pray- 
 ing always for the advent of that glorious day when the ' ' mountain of the Lord's 
 shall be established in the top of the mountain, and shall be exalted above the hills; 
 and all nations shall flow unto it." 
 
 36 
 
Ipreeentatton Spcecb anb IRepl^, 
 
 At the close of Judge HoUingsworth's address, Mr. George Jepson, one of the Elders, 
 came forward and said he had a speech to make that was not put down on the pro- 
 gramme, and at the same time Mr. Samuel Campbell came from the session room at 
 the right of the pulpit bearing a handsome case of silver table ware. Mr. Jepson 
 spoke as follows: 
 
 The friends of Dr. Alexander, having learned that this was the anniversary of his 
 birth, have prepared and asked me to present this beautiful case of silver as a slight 
 token of their love and esteem to him and his wife. 
 
 Having been intimately associated with our beloved pastor during the whole of his 
 life in our midst, I probably know more of his work and labor of love than most of 
 you, and I knov/ that his only thought has been for the glory of the Master and the 
 good of this people. For nearly a third of a century he has stood between the living 
 and the dead; consoling the sorrowing, sympathizing with the bereaved, and bringing 
 comfort and consolation to those in trouble. 
 
 Dr. Alexander has always been first in every good work. He is a born leader of 
 men, always with the out-posts at the front, and never asking others to undertake any 
 work in which he would not take a leading part, and do far more than his share. 
 
 This beautiful church building is his monument, and I firmly believe that, but for 
 him, it would never have been built. 
 
 In all his work here he has been most ably seconded by his noble wife, and, as they 
 have grown up, his most helpful and dutiful daughters, who are a constant incentive 
 to good works. My excuse for saying all this is, that it is true, and 1 bring to him the 
 good wishes, and assure him that he has the earnest prayers of his people. Dear 
 friends, let us tell him so. You have no idea how helpful it will be. How much 
 easier his work, and how much better done, when he knows that he has the sympathy 
 and support of those for whom he labors. 
 
 To these kind words the pastor replied: 
 
 Dear Friends: It is not easy for one to speak under such circumstances. I cannot 
 do more than express our warmest thanks for this unexpected gift so generously be- 
 stowed. We accept it as an expression of your friendship, and will always cherish it 
 
 37 
 
as such. We have lived and labored among you for almost a third of a century. IWy 
 wife and I came here when we were young people, and have given you the best service 
 of our lives. Our children have grown up with your children, and have never known 
 any other home than this. How much of love we have received in these passing 
 years. If success has attended our labors here, it is because of your co-operation in 
 every good work. No leader can ever accomplish anything without faithful and loyal 
 followers. No pastor can ever be successful without the respect and confidence of the 
 people; and all this you have freely given. The Savior himself said "a prophet is 
 not without honor save in his own country." But here is an exception; for my 
 birth place was almost in sight of this spot; in childhood and youth 1 was acquainted 
 with this congregation; yet 1 have had your respect and honor and love through all 
 these years. Again we thank you for this elegant gift — and for all these kind words 
 that have been spoken, and which we will always gratefully remember. 
 
 38 
 
iACrV-i . (>TLL>u:a^..^_^^l.t__ , 
 
 PHOTO BY GUTEKUNST, 1880. 
 
evcetirxQQ from Sieter Cburcbes, 
 
 An Address by Rev. Thos. Balph, D.D., Pastor of the United Presbyterian Church. 
 
 Fathers and Brethren: 
 
 I count myself happy, that it is my privilege to join with you in the 
 Centennial celebration of the organization of the First Presbyterian Church of St. 
 Clairsville. An event, so important, which is the sequence of such a past history as 
 has been read, a history which is so marked by present prosperity and blessings, a his- 
 tory which is so prophetic of a brighter, better and more blessed future, demands at 
 your hands the devout commemoration of grateful, loving hearts, as is given this day. 
 This event is a monument of the faithfulness of our covenant God to this blood- 
 bought church. " My kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant 
 of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee." 
 
 I am here, not to sermonize, but to bear to you, brethren, the warm-hearted, 
 (])hristian greetings of the sister churches of this community, whose history for nearly 
 three score and ten years has run parallel with your own. 1 could wish that my 
 brother, the pastor of the M. E. Church, were here to speak for himself, whose warm, 
 brotherly heart and catholic spirit is in closest sympathy with you to-day. But I know 
 he will endorse the salutation that I bring. While we march under somewhat different 
 banners, and we would not on this occasion minimize these differences, yet we possess 
 a common heritage so great, so precious and so unifying that we all walk together as 
 heirs of the grace of life; and hence our greetings are most cordial and sincere. We 
 bless you in the name of God. We greet you because you are the pioneer Presby- 
 terian church in Eastern Ohio. To have the honor of planting the standard of the 
 the cross in the "regions beyond," in new territory, is a consummation devoutly to be 
 wished, and to maintain that standard untarnished for a century is a double honor. 
 
 We greet you because of the faithful maintenance of Presbyterian polity and doctrine 
 during these long years. You have kept that which was committed to you, none has 
 taken your crown. Fidelity to the Westminster standards, pure and simple, adherence 
 to Presbyterian polity, the maintenance and promulgation of sound doctrine according 
 to the Calvinistic system, the divine authority inspiration and inerrancy of the Word 
 of God, the doctrine of salvation by grace, of justification by faith alone, with all that 
 
 39 
 
pertains to and di:5tinguishes Galvanism from other systems, has been proclaimed 
 from this sacred desk with no uncertain sound. 
 
 We greet you because of your denominational fidelity. You are Presbyterians, and 
 we honor you because you are not only Presbyterians in name but in fact. We recog- 
 nize with you, that the onward march of the sacramental host to ultimate victory will 
 best be promoted by each maintaining the truth as he sees and understands the 
 truth, and wherein we are otherwise minded, God will show even this unto us. 
 
 We greet you because of your broad charity, catholicy and brotherly love. You 
 recognize that no man is Lord of the conscience; to his own master he standeth or 
 falleth. And hence it is that the communion of saints in the fellowship of the Gospel, 
 in Christian intercourse and good v^orks has, in such a marked degree, characterized 
 the churches of this community. We have not fallen out by the way, for we are 
 brethren. 
 
 We greet you because of your Christian activity. Your spiritual eye is not dimmed 
 nor strength abated. You are strong and vigorous still after the lapse of a century. 
 You have strengthened with these rolling years. "Thy youth is renewed like the 
 eagle's." Your achievements in the past, and they have been many and great, have but 
 fitted you for the greater achievements to which the opening twentieth century is in- 
 viting you. That you will broaden your vision; that your outlook will take a wider 
 range; that your consecration will be more complete; that your Christian beneficence 
 will be multiplied ; that desires for the conversion of the world will be more and more 
 the burden of every heart; that faith will be stronger, love more fervent, holiness more 
 pervading, spirituality more heavenly, and life and conduct more Christ-like, are expec- 
 tations warranted by your prophetic history of the past, your strength and vigor of the 
 present, and the demands of the dawning century, which, in the light of prophesy, pre- 
 sents an arena for Christian activity and achievement such as the world has never 
 seen. ' ' Gird on the whole armor of God." 
 
 We greet you, because you are a strong advocate of every public virtue, of good 
 citizenship, and Christian citizenship, of every moral reform — an advocate of every- 
 thing that is elevating, ennobling and sanctifying: and wielding a trenchant blade against 
 the vices and evils of the day, seeking no compromise with wrong and asking no 
 quarter. 
 
 We greet you, because this pulpit, and you will pardon the personality, is orthodox, 
 evangelical, safely conservative, and sufficiently liberal and aggressive. A pulpit doc- 
 trinal expository, practical, in which the word of God is rightly divided, giving to each 
 his meat in due season — milk for babes and strong meat for those "of full age, who 
 
 40 
 
by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." A pulpit 
 loved and respected at home, honored and trusted abroad, and that has "a good report 
 of them that are without," the occupant of which is both a preacher and a pastor, and 
 one that so excels, as that it is difficult to say whether he is the better preacher or 
 pastor. 
 
 For these and many other reasons that cannot now be enumerated, we bear to you 
 on this centennial anniversary our Christian greeting. We rejoice with you to-day. 
 We love you as brethren. We admire your soundness of doctrine, your steadfastness 
 in the faith, your perseverance in the divine life; and we are animated by the hope that 
 the future may be more abundantly fruitful, bright, blessed and glorious than the past. 
 
 Our prayer is, that, "peace may be within thy walls and prosperity within thy 
 palaces." 
 
 "And now, may the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord 
 Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 
 make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well 
 pleas-ing in His sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen." 
 
 41 
 
(3reetinas from tbe presb^^ter)?. 
 
 An Address by Rev. W. V. Milligan, D.D., of Cambridge, Ohio, by appointment 
 of the Presbytery of St. Clairsville. 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Brethren: 
 
 I highly appreciate the honor of bearing the greetings of my brethren of the 
 Presbytery of St. Clairsville to this Centennial Assembly. I esteem this privilege, be- 
 cause this day itself will live in the memory and in the history of Presbyterianism; and 
 because we are gathered on this honored spot, where the Presbyterian Church on this 
 side of the river was born. 
 
 No fabric of fiction, woven with highest skill, can surpass the story of this morning. 
 The story of men of brave hearts, doing and daring for their Master, "the arms of 
 their hands made strong by the hands of the Mighty God of Jacob." What we as 
 Presbyterians are holding to-day, as a possession, is not our blind share of the Church 
 of Christ, tossed out to us impersonally by the operation of chance; but our God 
 brought us right here, leading us by the hand. These pioneers possessed the audacity 
 of faith, and we have entered upon the peaceful possession of it, and have the respon- 
 sibility of keeping it. 
 
 They praised Jehovah with a psalm, a long time ago, which said, "Thou hast 
 brought a vine out of Egypt; Thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it." God 
 continued to repeat that process, until one hundred years ago. He prepared room before 
 it at St. Clairsville, and the keeping of this vine, that has been filling the land, has 
 been committed to successive hands. It was suggested that the part of the program I 
 should try to fill should be to tell somewhat of a few noble men I knew fifty years ago; 
 a kind of saddle-bags fraternity, on horseback, traveling to appointments in rude 
 meeting houses far apart. 
 
 1 remember, with great distinctness, a Presbytery to which 1 went with fear and 
 trembling, and before me to-day rise the faces of Mitchell, and Alexander, and Moffat, 
 and Kerr, Boyd, Mattery, Dool, Armstrong, Williamson, Crawford, Grimes, Lane 
 and Mahaffey. Three of these honored men still live — Dr. Crawford and Dr. Arm- 
 strong, and Rev. Mr. Boyd; all retired. 
 
 The sun of that day has set to most of you, and out of the night I shall attempt to 
 
 42 
 
bring out a portrait or two of flasli light pictures, that possibly will not seem to the 
 older people very accurate pictures. 
 
 The first figure that rises up before my memory, occupying the central place, and of 
 largest proportions, is Benjamin Mitchell. It is possible that he may be more to me 
 than to others the embodiment of excellence, because he was the first minister of 
 Christ's Gospel upon whom my conscious eyes rested, and afterwards continued fort- 
 nightly to look into his kindly face, and my ears heard his rich expressive voice utter- 
 ing the Gospel of the Son of God. I have heard no other man who so continually 
 spoke with tears; his masterful voice, tremulous with emotion, possessing a person- 
 ality that convinced you that there v/as a heart behind it all that yearned for your 
 highest welfare, and capacious enough to take in a whole congregation. He reached 
 his climax of power when he stood at the head of a communion table, with long rows 
 of bowed heads on either side of it, and told of the sufferings of Calvary, and what it 
 was for, that "He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities;" 
 or told how the Lord had ' ' prepared a feast of fat things full of marrow, of wines on 
 the lees, wines on the lees well refined," and then dropped into his favorite quotation, 
 "Die He or justice w«s/, unless some other able, and as willing, pay the rigid satisfac- 
 tion, death for death." 
 
 Dr. Mitchell was a favorite in our homes. He had dignity, with his goodness, that 
 was in social life often broken up with a convulsion of merriment, that shook him de- 
 lightfully. The children, in their quiet corner, loved to hear him, and wondered if he 
 was not nearly as great, and as wise, and as holy as God. When the catechism hour 
 came we trembled lest we should stumble, because we would not appear to disadvan- 
 tage before him, while we knew that his sympathy was such, that he would say "yes " 
 to the answer, though wrong. 
 
 James Alexander's portrait is pictured very distinctly on the cardboard of my brain. 
 A commanding figure; brow lifted until wrinkles ran across his forehead; a twinkle 
 about his eyes that told of pleasure in his heart; lips that came together with a snap 
 that was very expressive of character, that meant firmness, that meant, "I place my- 
 self right here to stay." Dr. Alexander and Dr. Mitchell grew into companion pieces, 
 a great deal together, loving friends. Dr. Alexander's sermons and thoughts were 
 clearer cut than the other's, and he made a clearer analysis of his subject. Dr. Mitchell was 
 more diffusive, flowing, mellow; and attracted general attention better than the other. 
 Lovely and pleasant were they in their lives, and their memory is revered in all this 
 region where their work was done. 
 
 One other picture I shall attempt to draw — John Moffat. He stood in the Presby- 
 
 43 
 
terian pulpit in this city for a number of years, and here I knew him best. Being a 
 schoolmaster here for a short time, I attended the services in the Presbyterian church 
 with great interest, that grew on me every week. He was an effective orator, without 
 being an orator; an orator from the forcefulness of his thought, and the great earnest- 
 ness of his manner. His temperament was nervous, his circulation rapid, his face 
 florid, which deepened as he warmed in his subject, that heightened the effectiveness of 
 his speech. A man of great popularity, he took advantage of his popularity for good 
 purposes. 1 remember a personal difficulty springing up between some parties, and he 
 said in his pulpit: "It must be made up, or you will see my face no more." And I 
 think that it was heard of no more. It was my fortune to be here when the famous 
 Swedenborgian debate occurred. Mr. Moffat was a prominent figure in that debate. 
 He was not a logical debater, such as Dr. Young, of the Associate Reformed Church, 
 who stood shoulder to shoulder with him, but had just as much to do with its success 
 as the other. When I was a boy I was not a good shot in a squirrel hunt, but I knew 
 just how, with my club, to scrape the bark of the tree, and pound the bushes and the 
 logs, and make him move out of his hiding place, make him move until the more 
 skilful marksman would see where he was. Mr. Moffat got up an " arousement " in 
 fine style all through that famous debate. 
 
 These men and their companions were the people that took up the mantles of the 
 Elijahs of one hundred years ago. 
 
 The beautiful myth says, when Theseus was sent to King Minos with a company of 
 youths and maidens to be sacrificed to the Minotaur, which dwelt in a cavern of a 
 thousand twisted alleys, Theseus said: "Send me in first, and I will fight and kill the 
 monster," Ariadne had conceived a passion for the manly Grecian, and as he started 
 in she handed him a clue of threads, that he might know how to come back out of the 
 mazes of the labyrinth. These grand men of the past had the clue, and they put it 
 firmly into the hands of the children, and fastened it with great care to their fireside 
 altars, to the church pew, to the pulpit, and to the communion table. May we furnish the 
 clue as faithfully, and fasten it as strongly, that the monsters that have grown up 
 about us, may be pounded to death. These noble men bore their burdens bravely, 
 until He who called and sent them, said, "Thou shalt rest and stand in thy lot at the 
 end of the days." These men were successful because they were men of character. They 
 were manly men; they were gentlemen — manly men and gentlemen, with the grace of 
 God in their hearts. If they seemed somewhat unpolished, it was designed on their 
 part; for they would be "all things to all men, that by all means they might gain some." 
 Men of learning, but not using it as a snare; shunning profane and vain babblings; 
 
 44 
 
preaching a plain, unvarnished gospel. 
 
 Dr. Guthrie says a flood rose and spread over some lowlands in Scotland. A man 
 fell into the flood and was carried by a current out from shore, and caught upon a tree 
 and climbed into the branches. From the shore they knew no way to reach him, and 
 night coming quickly on, in the morning they found the tree was gone and the man 
 had perished. One, who was esteemed a fool among the wise, said: "1 could have 
 saved him, I would have dropped a float into the water just where he fell in, and the 
 same current that carried him there would have carried the float to the same tree." 
 
 How carefully these teachers of the past taught, that Jesus was born into the world 
 as we are, yet without sin, but allowed himself to be carried by the same current that 
 sin created, where we are struggling for life, that we may lay hold upon Him and He 
 upon us. He goes down under the flood with us, but it is not possible that He should 
 be holden ot death, and so if we are united to Him by faith, and die with Him, it 
 is not possible that we should be holden of death either. 
 
 Our fathers were men of strong convictions, and held their opinions tenaciously, 
 and frequent disputations occurred between those of different churches, over their dif- 
 ferences. And it may be a question whether we have not gone to the other extreme. 
 They exercised their office with care. They would have asked Saul why he thought 
 he was called to be an Apostle. When the Holy Ghost called one to be an overseer, he 
 took care of the flock of God. He wanted to know why one thought he was called to 
 be a professor of religion before he was admitted to the Lord's table, and as often as 
 the observance was repeated, they required him to secure a "token" that his Christian 
 conduct in the meantime was approved by the "Elders." 
 
 The pastor discoursed at length on what would disqualify for going to the table of 
 the Lord before anybody was invited, that nobody might through ignorance or pre- 
 sumption come without the wedding garment. 
 
 We smile at the tenacity with which they clung to forms when they were no longer 
 of use. We remember the insistance of some of the dear old people, that reading two 
 lines of a hymn before singing was an essential of religious worship. A good old 
 elder once demanded of me some scripture showing that it was right to sing without 
 lining before abandoning the custom. 
 
 If any of these good people made any trouble in heaven when they got there, it 
 would most Ukely be because they could not consent to change their forms of worship. 
 Nevertheless, let us beware lest the looseness of the forms of our modern Christianity 
 allow the devout spirit our fathers possessed to escape and slip away. 
 
 45 
 
Z\)c leiberebip of St. Clairevllle. 
 
 An Address by Mr. William Alexander, of Bridgeport, a son of Rev. Dr. James 
 Alexander, who was Pastor from 1839 to 1846. 
 
 Christian Friends: 
 
 In the year 1839 my father came to St. Clairsville. The old National road was then 
 the great highway from the East to the West. Mail coaches and passenger coaches 
 carried our letters and the travelers. Scores of wagons — schooners, as some one 
 named them — with their belled teams, carried the products of our country from us and 
 in return brought the merchant his stock. No railroad then, no telegraph, no tele- 
 phone, no express, no photographs, no snap-shots — but O! such splendid scenery along 
 this pike, and the mute, but beautiful and solid and well-proportioned and mechanically 
 finished mile-stones, pointing the way and telling the distance, but also in outline tell- 
 ing that men, honest men, skilled workmen, had wrought in the quarry and brought 
 forth good work, square work, such work as has for seven decades been approved by 
 master workmen. Some one has said that "each man's hearthstone is the mile-stone 
 from which he measures all the distances of life." "A boy's will is the wind's will, 
 and the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 
 
 You will pardon me for reference to some incidents stored away in memory's deposi- 
 tory during the five or six years of boyhood's home life here. I love to look at these 
 old mile-stones, these honest, true way marks. For these men were also true men, honest 
 men, that lived for a purpose, and have had their work approved; and of them 1 have 
 a boy's impressions. You will remember the story in the old school book, of the widow 
 of Tyrol and her crippled child, and how she in her poverty went up on the mountain 
 side, and there by her self-denial and toil earned scant living for the cripple and herself. 
 One day the children of the village came out to play under the trees on the mountain 
 side. The mother carried her lame boy where he could see them in their plays; but 
 the day went fast, and the sun was dipping, and the boy was left alone. Then his 
 heart ached. The mother came to take him home, and found him weeping and la- 
 menting his helpless condition, which the playing of the children had brought before 
 him as he never saw it before. He begged her to leave him, the helpless, useless one, 
 to die. The mother said, "Hans, Hans, have I not told you often, 'God has a plan for 
 
 46 
 
every man, a work for me to do. ' " He would not be comforted and begged her to leave 
 him there. After she had gone, he thought of what the men had told his mother, that they 
 kept on the mountain top wood and tinder and flint and steel, and for what? The danger 
 signal, so that if the hated French, their enemies, came, the signal fire could be lighted 
 and the country be aroused. His mind was aroused, and by great exertion he climbed 
 to the mountain top. He found the tinder and the flint and the steel there, as was re- 
 ported. But a noise attracted his attention, and looking over the mountain he saw 
 men, soldiers, yes the enemies of Tyrol. "God has a plan for every man, a work for 
 me to do." he thought, and quickly he lighted the signal fire; and soon others were 
 lighted on every mountain top, and Tyrol was in arms to guard the passes and 
 drive back the enemy. When all was safe, the question was asked, ' 'Who saved us? Who 
 discovered the enemy and lighted the first signal pile?" When it was known that the 
 widow's crippled boy had discovered the enemy and kindled the first signal fire, they 
 gathered at the humble home to find that the signal fire that warned them of danger 
 revealed the poor cripple to the deadly aim of a French soldier. The mother had 
 found him wounded and dying, and had carried him home. As he lamented over his 
 mother, left alone after he should die, the grateful people assured him they would care 
 for her; she would be their mother, and her pension would be ample. The monu- 
 ment they raised over him said, "He saved Tyrol," and "God has a plan for every 
 man — a work for me to do." 
 
 When I look back and think of the men of one hundred years ago, the men that 
 blazed the way for the coming engineer; good men, true men, tower up before me as 
 mile-stones — way marks; men who builded with their own hands the log churches and 
 log school houses, and kindled the signal piles to tell of the enemy. Although they 
 have gone, they made it possible for us, who have entered into their labors — by tradi- 
 tion — I like that word, (the handing over, giving possession of the title in law) to show 
 to others the way, the truth and the life — the Christ life. 
 
 Let me name David McWillams, William McWilliams, James McConnell, William 
 Ramage, Arthur Irwin, Robert Laughlin and John Perry, among the first Elders of this 
 church. Some of them had gone before 1839. I remember well that good man, that 
 true man, David McWilliams. I have seen him at church, the old church that was 
 burned, and often in his kindly visits to my father, generally on Monday. How all 
 respected that man! He was a great light in this church. Men honored him, and 
 boys respected him and would take off their hats to him. He reminded me of Pilgrim 
 in the old edition of Pilgrim's Progress, when, with stalf in his hand he wended his way 
 into town. 1 often heard him tell of the trials of the early settlers of this neighbor- 
 
 47 
 
hood, and of the log churches that they had down by the cemetery. 1 remember see- 
 ing some of the logs of one of these old churches. I will give you the following story 
 which 1 heard from David McWilliams, and which 1 understood to be his personal ex- 
 perience. At one time game appeared to be scarce, and they were short of meat. 
 After several long hunts they were still in want, When the Sabbath day came he arose, 
 and looking out of the window at the rear of his cabin, he saw a fine deer drinking, or 
 licking for salt, near the spring. He reached for his rifle on the wooden hooks that 
 held it overhead, and as he was about to open the door, he remembered it was the 
 Sabbath. The rifle was put back in its place, for he remembered the Sabbath. These 
 men "remembered the Sabbath day to keep it holy." On Monday morning he awoke, 
 and thinking of his experience of the previous day, he went to the window, and, to his 
 surprise, there stood a fine buck in about the same place. He took down the trusted 
 rifle again, and softly opening the door, rested the gun on the frame and fired. He 
 knew he had his game, but imagine his astonishment when he went to secure it, that 
 there were two dead deer. A beautiful doe had stood close beside the buck, and his 
 one shot had killed both. This was his reward for keeping the Sabbath. 
 
 James McConnell was a man of fine presence and generous disposition, always 
 ready to do his part, and his sage counsel and worthy example, attracted attention and 
 won the confidence of all. 
 
 There were many others I remember, but cannot speak of them at length. Andrew 
 Work, followed by his son, A. C. Work, and his son-in-law, Samuel Cunningham, 
 and Humphrey Alexander, all earnest Christian men. A quiet but very exemplary 
 man was George Anderson, whom we boys called "Uncle George," quick and active to 
 the day of his death. I can hear him sing his favorite, Benevento, whenever the meter 
 would suit. He was the Superintendent of the Sabbath school, and was always on 
 time, for his regular rising time, Sunday and Monday, summer and winter, was five 
 o'clock a. m. Of John Rankin and Andrew P. Happer I can tell you but little, for I 
 only heard of their good deeds. Andrew P. Happer lived in that house in "Frog Hol- 
 low," just this side of Judge Kennon's house. Look at the stone work and the car- 
 penter work in that house, that has stood seventy years, and you will be able to know 
 something of a man that was a near relative and whose piety and sage counsel were 
 the inspiration of that eminent minister and physician who did so much for China, 
 Rev. Dr. Andrew P. Happer. 
 
 Franklin Bell, firm as a rock, staid and true, was always ready to stand up for the 
 right. 
 
 John Jepson, known to many of you, crippled for life at the barn raising on the 
 
 48 
 
Lambert Pond place, but having a will that helped cement the broken bones and enabled 
 him to overcome every disadvantage and do a good work through a long life, not only 
 with you but also in the city of Wheeling for some years, and then returning to you 
 full of life and hope. 
 
 But time will not allow me to speak of many of these way marks, old way marks 
 that stand out so distinctly in the past. 1 remember John Tate, Sr., and also H. H. 
 Fiske. He it was who sold the maps of Ohio, that Hugh Anderson, that wonderful 
 engraver of copper plate, executed, who indeed made almost all the bank note plates 
 for all Eastern Ohio Banks. 
 
 But I must say something of my old teacher, F. H. Brooks. He came to you from 
 Massachusetts, and opened a female seminary and an academy, which were far beyond 
 any like institutions in much larger places. They were an inspiration to the cause of 
 higher education, and were patronized by many from a distance, and, I will say, were 
 supported and assisted by many of the best citizens of this community. His health 
 failed, and the hard times of 1842 brought discouragements. He took a position with 
 a large publishing house, and was a very successful agent. He went aboard the ill- 
 fated steamer Moselle at Mobile. A porter in that city once pointed out to me the 
 spot where he with many others lost their lives by that terrible explosion. He was a 
 fine scholar and a cultured and Christian gentleman wherever he was. Many men 
 look back to that old academy and give Franklin H. Brooks credit for the founda- 
 tion of their attainments. 
 
 Time will not permit me to mention more of these solid way marks — men of char- 
 acter, of this church and other churches. 
 
 Having entered into their labors, what are the lessons we should gather? What is 
 our duty? What is our responsibility? These men were thinkers and men of action 
 and duty. Their greatest wealth was character — character was the heritage they left. 
 The progress of the century is wonderful. The advance of civilization, education and 
 mechanical development is almost beyond comprehension. The old wayside smithy 
 has disappeared. The great mills and furnaces belch forth night and day, producing 
 thousands of tons of moulded and shaped products. With all this has come a massed 
 population and a greater need of large and strong character. The question for us is, 
 are we going to maintain it, nourish and develop it? Are we going to increase char- 
 acter. Christian character? Do some say the church is losing her power? Does she 
 not portray the Christ character? He gave us rich heritage, but said, " Ye are my 
 witnesses." Are we true disciples, pointing the way — living the life — handing over the 
 very Christ life unto others? There is no society nor association that evil doers or 
 
 49 
 
wicked interests fear more to-day than they do the power of the church. Why? 
 Because they know that in some home a mother of great rehgious faith is moulding 
 the Hfe of a boy, or a father or faithful teacher handing over to that boy a character 
 that will in his day undo their wicked deeds. The rewards, the comforts, the joys of 
 this life are many, but I know of none greater than that of the Christian mother or 
 father, or faithful teacher, that is handing over the title of character, that is to live, to 
 be, to do, may he to suffer for Christ's truth. 
 
 I met a lady one day on the streets of Columbus, a child of old Mt. Pleasant church. 
 I knew her mother, a saint. That woman had followed her class to the camp, and had 
 followed them to Tampa. Letters come to her daily from them. She teaches a class 
 every Thursday at the Old Ladies' Home in Columbus. When I met her she was getting 
 clothing for the needy of a deceased minister's family. Is this handing over the Christ? 
 
 Brethren of the Eldership, let us be true disciples, true to duty. Stand by the right — 
 the Christ right. "Walk about Zion, go round about her, tell the towers thereof, 
 mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces, that ye may tell it to the generation 
 following." 
 
 One who was once among you, a lady dead for fifty years, told me of her old pas- 
 tor who at family devotions would pray for his children and his children's children. 
 The children's children's children of David McWilliams still serve you in the same re- 
 lation as that father in Israel did. 
 
 Young men, may 1 not say a word to you? Many of you I know take 'The Book 
 as the revelation of God," the principles of Christian faith, and quote its rules of prac- 
 tice. Why not as true men then confess Him before men, whose life you point to, 
 whose death you acknowledge, and whose resurrection you point to and celebrate. 
 You take the cross and crown of victory and wear it as a badge of your faith. Why 
 not as a loyal soldier enlist in the ranks and defend the right and follow His leadership, 
 and thereby by tradition and example hand down the Christ life, the Christ character? 
 Has it not been done by the men that we have named of this church, and those of 
 sister churches — such men as William Templeton, John Patterson and Solomon Bent- 
 ley, Sr.. of the U. P. Church, and Matthew Thoburn and William Kennon, and other 
 Godly men, of the M. E. church, who laid the foundations here. Young men, stand 
 fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught. Let me close the words to 
 you men — young men — by quoting the following closing sentences of Bishop Law- 
 rence, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in his address to the class of '98, of the 
 Ohio State University. "The richest gift that any of you can make in this world is 
 that of a strong, saintly and Christian character. As we run our eyes back over the 
 
 50 
 
vista of centuries, it is not the makers of great fortunes, the selfish conquerors, the in- 
 teresting cynics, or the pleasure seekers, that our eye rests on with satisfaction, but the 
 figures of those who in the battles for humanity, in the routine of duty, and in the 
 heroic work of sacrifice, have lived and died for the people." 
 Such men and woman, we in the words of Matthew Arnold, hail: 
 
 " Thus in the hour of need 
 Of your fainting, dispirited race. 
 Ye, like angels, appear 
 Radiant with ardor divine. 
 Beacons of hope ye appear! 
 Languor is not in your heart; 
 Weakness is not in your word; 
 Weariness not on your brow. 
 Ye alight in our van! At your voice, 
 Panic, despair, flee away. 
 Ye move through the ranks, recall 
 The stragglers, refresh the outworn. 
 Praise, reinspire the brave; 
 Order, courage, return; 
 Eyes rekindling and prayers 
 Follow your steps as you go. 
 Ye fill up the gap in our files, 
 Strengthen the wavering line, 
 Stablish, continue our march. 
 On to the bound of the waste, 
 On, to the City of God." 
 
 51 
 
ZTbe Scotcb-IFrieb preabi^tcriane. 
 
 By Rev. David A. Cunningham, D.D., L.L.D., Pastor of the First Presbyterian 
 
 Church of Wheeling, W. Va. 
 
 Members of this Church and Congregation and Fellow Citizens: 
 
 At a great missionary meeting in Chautauqua, New York, I was once introduced by a 
 gentleman who was presiding, and who knew little of my antecedents, in these words: 
 " Ladies and gentlemen: You have been addressed by a couple of native Americans, 
 and it now affords me pleasure to introduce as the next speaker, one who was born 
 among the heather hills of Scotland, on the other side of the Atlantic." 1 began my 
 address by stating that I claimed a better birthright than that; my father and my 
 grandfather were born in the north of Ireland, and their ancestors had come from 
 Scotland, but that I had the honor to be a Scotch-Irish American Presbyterian, born at 
 a later date in the State of Ohio. This will partly account for my presence here on this 
 centennial occasion. 
 
 If there are any of you here to-day who do not happen to be of Scotch-Irish descent, 
 do not feel badly nor slighted if I do not say much about you, for it is of the Scotch- 
 Irish Presbyterians I am to speak. There are many pleasant and interesting things I 
 could say about you and your ancestry, but that is not my theme. 
 
 Let us inquire. Who are the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians? Whence came they? And 
 what made them the men and women they are? These questions can only be touched 
 on in my limited time. 
 
 About the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Lowland Scot begins to show 
 himself, and for two centuries is tried and disciplined and sifted by battles with soil 
 and weather, and battles with southern English and northern Gael. During that period 
 he struggles with poverty and politics, confessions and theology, and at last under the 
 sealing and finishing hand of John Knox, he stands forth the man fitted to look every 
 rival in the face and maintain his own in war or peace, in frozen lands or torid heat. 
 
 See him, the Scot of to-day, intelligent and thrifty, liberty loving and fearless, clear 
 minded and defiant in conscience. Every busy center and trading town where civiliza- 
 tion has gone, knows the canny Scot. 
 
 But how did he become mixed with the Irish, so as to be called Scotch-Irish? 
 
 52 
 
I 
 
 Those of you who are acquainted with the geography of Ireland know that it is divided 
 into four provinces — Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connaught. Ulster is the part 
 nearest Scotland. So that when Britain determined to send colonists into Ulster, she 
 selected them chiefly from the Lowlands of Scotland. The transplanting of the Scot 
 into Ulster, kept for the world the essential and best features of the Lowlander. One 
 of the important facts in history is the plantation of Ulster, 
 
 The l6th of April, 1605, should be for us all memorable, by all historic, ancestral 
 and constitutional rights, for that l6th of April was, as all State papers show, "The 
 day of the Great Charter." On that day was given forth by the English Court that 
 charter under which the men appointed for the purpose were authorized to start a 
 movement, the end of which the world has not yet seen. In Ulster stood the trans- 
 planted Scot, the man of opportunity, of usefulness and order, the man of law, and 
 self-respect, and self-reliance, with a war wasted country to reclaim and to hold. Just 
 as to these western shores came the strongest souls, the more daring and select, so to 
 Ulster from the best parts of lower Scotland came the picked men to be Britain's favored 
 colonists. They became the genuine Scotch-Irish men. But after three-quarters of a 
 century of peace and prosperity, dark and wicked forces change the Ulsterman from 
 the contented colonist to the exasperated emigrant. 
 
 From 1633, when Wentworth opened his star chamber of despots, and his high com- 
 mission courts of persecuting prelates, to 1704, when the sacramental test grew un- 
 bearable, Ulster was distracted by tyrants and prelates. The wrongs of the once con- 
 tented colonist were five fold : he was wronged by the State, by the Church, in his 
 home, in his trade, and in his very grave. When his righteous anger was, in the open- 
 ing years af the I8th century, reaching its whitest heat, the stirring American colonies 
 began to tell upon him. The transplanted Scot is now ready to become afresh a col- 
 onist, as the transplanted Scotch Irishman. Yes, the Ulsterman is best called by our 
 own phrase, the Scotch-Irish-Presbyterian. So he appeared on the American continent 
 a distinct man, an immigrant seeking a land of greater freedom, in him wrought the 
 forces of outraged right, of self-assertion, of hope, and of sympathy. 
 
 When the war of the Revolution broke out, he was found in the front, the first to 
 start and the last to quit. As one has said, "he had reached a land where, not pedigree 
 but prowess, not classes but character, not rank but rights, fixed a man's place and 
 opportunity — a land where no church would dare brand his children, nor bar them 
 from the fullest privileges in school or college ; a land where his marriage was 
 sacred, his vote was free, and his grave inviolable." Great Britain never lost 
 such hearts as the men and women who had themselves, or whose fathers and mothers 
 
 53 
 
had kept the pass at Derry and Enniskilbn. 
 
 I stand now where 1 can say that the Ohio of to-day, a century ago, was a wilder- 
 ness that required strong arms, resolute wills and a fixed purpose, to subdue. The ad- 
 vance-guard came to the mouth of the Muskingum in 1788, to be followed in Decem- 
 ber by a settlement "opposite the mouth of Licking creek," where the Queen City now 
 stands. When the year 1800 came, there were some localities thickly settled along the 
 Ohio river, and some in the interior of the State. In this coming of immigration, no 
 nationality stands more prominent than the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. It was aggres- 
 sive, bold, and sure of action, and in reclaiming the wilderness, building the home, the 
 church and the school, none were more progressive. The trend of the Scotch-Irish 
 immigration to Ohio was in two main lines; one over the mountains, through New 
 York and Pennsylvania. These settled chiefly in the eastern and central parts, forming 
 communities, mostly Presbyterian. The other came from the Carolinas and the 
 Huguenot settlements in the South. 
 
 But it was the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians who, for the most part, laid the foundations 
 in this immediate region, as the names on your early church roll will show, and 
 their children and their grand-children and their great-grand children are here to-day, 
 to join in the one-hundredth anniversary of the organization of this church. 
 
 We are now ready to answer the question, ''What made the Scotch-Irish the men they 
 are?'' It was the Word, the Spirit and the Grace of God. We have been celebrating 
 in our Presbyterian churches the 250th anniversary of the Westminster Assembly and 
 of the formation of the Westminster Standards. It was l5o years before the organi- 
 zation of this church. A work was done in that Assembly in those trying days which 
 has yielded a bountiful harvest. 
 
 Dr. Archibald Alexander once made this statement, that the Reformed Protestant 
 Theology reached its zenith in the 17th century. The Westminster Assembly was con- 
 vened near the middle of that age, and in the mid-day light of its learning and genius. 
 Had we no histories of its members, and no records of its discussions, the contents of 
 the Confession of Faith itself, are enough to teach us that those profound and illustri- 
 ous scholars were enriched with all the stores of sacred learning gathered from previous 
 ages, and culminating in their glorious epoch. They knew the past history of the 
 church, and of doctrine, and of philosophy, and had before them all the great symbols 
 of the previous ages, from the Council of Nice to the Synod of Dort. Providence 
 thus qualified them for their important task to the most eminent degree, and set them 
 in that historic epoch most favorable to success. We are taught that the Word of 
 God liveth and abideth forever. The structure which is built exclusively upon this, is, 
 
 54 
 
like it, permanent and enduring. In this we find the chief glory and value of our 
 Presbyterian Standards. It is for this reason they remain as well adapted to the l8th 
 and l9th as to the 17th century, to America as to Great Britain, to a popular as well 
 as to a regal commonwealth. For example, the Shorter Catechism is as modern as 
 the Bible, and its truths are as imperishable. It answers succinctly such questions as 
 What? and How? respecting God, man, time and eternity; for it is founded on the 
 Word of God. It gives the briefest and best answers in the English language to such 
 questions as, What is God? What is sin? What is prayer? What is faith in Jesus 
 Christ? What is repentance unto life? The- survival of the Shorter Cate- 
 chism, its associations, its doctrines, its practices, its logic, its instructions, its 
 fruitage, all plead for its continuance as a text book in the home and in the Sabbath 
 school. It has been memorized by the young, recalled by the middle aged, and medi- 
 tated upon by the old, in England, Scotland and Ireland, for the last two hundred and 
 fifty years. It was brought with the Bible and the Confession of Faith by the Scotch- 
 Irish Presbyterians to America, and was studied by the boys and girls in the log cabins 
 of the pioneers who laid the foundations of Presbyterianism in the great States. It has 
 been food for the mind, meat for the soul, and inspiration for the life of many of 
 God's chosen people. It has developed strong men and women, who served and 
 glorified God in their generation, and are now enjoying him forever in ' 'the General 
 Assembly and Church of the Firstborn which are written in Heaven." Thomas Car- 
 lyle said in 1876, "The older I grow — and I now stand on the brink of eternity — the 
 more comes back to me the sentence in the Catechism which I learned when a child, 
 and the fuller and deeper its meaning becomes, ' Man's chief end is to glorify God and 
 enjoy Him forever.' " Rufus Choate once quoted an answer of the Catechism in one 
 of his legal arguments, and turning to the Court said, " May it please your honor, my 
 mother taught me this in my earliest childhood, and I trust I shall not forget it in mine 
 age." One of the most eminent missionaries to Turkey wrote, "In the days of our 
 fathers and grandfathers, that Catechism was a wonderful institution, and the descend- 
 ants of those families that were most thoroughly drilled in it are now undeniably the 
 very bone and sinew of New England, whether considered politically, socially or re- 
 ligiously." 
 
 Should we not continue then, diligently to teach the doctrines of the Bible and our 
 Catechism, because if faithfully inculcated, they will do in the future what they have 
 already so often done in the past? In former years, and in older lands beyond the seas, 
 and in later years on this American continent, they have made great and good churches, 
 churches as great and good as any the world has yet seen. They have made great and 
 
 55 
 
good denominations — denominations as great and good as any that have yet marked 
 the history of the world. They have made great and good men and women — men and 
 women as great and good as any with whom God has yet blessed the human race. 
 Wherever the truths of the Bible and our Catechisms have been inculcated, they 
 have purified and elevated and ennobled all the institutions of the world — the family, 
 the State and the Church. 
 
 But let us never forget how these Scotch- Irish Presbyterians and their ancestors back 
 in earlier centuries, trusted in God and depended on Him. The other instrumen- 
 tality working with the Word, in the equipment of these grand old Presbyterian heroes, 
 was God's sovereign and stupendous providence. Steadily and surely the King of 
 Glory was delivering the Church from her two ancient oppressors, Rome and Caesar. 
 And if England had seen God's amazing power, Scotland more. From the common 
 people to the lords, and from the lords to the throne, arose the tide; and monarchy 
 was powerless to say, "Hitherto, but no farther." The blood of eighteen thousand 
 martyrs flowed, but every drop of it had a voice to cry from the ground and to preach 
 the Word. The very agonies of the dying were the birth throes of eternal living. 
 Driven from hope, in man, to whom could the saints go but unto the Sovereign God.? 
 When in old Greyfriars churchyard, in Edinburgh, the Covenanters dipped their pens 
 in the blood gushing from their hearts to self-made openings in their veins, and signed 
 their allegiance to Jesus as King, we can see how, out of the suppressed groans and 
 prayers, not loud but deep, in that awful hour they must have looked for support to 
 the Sovereign God and His everlasting arm. Well may Froude say of these Presby- 
 terian Calvinists: "They were splintered and torn, but no power could bend or melt 
 them." And the reason Froude gives is good: "They dwelt, as pious men are apt to 
 dwell in suffering and sorrow, on the all disposing power of Providence. Their burden 
 grew lighter as they considered that God had so determined that they should bear it." 
 
 In conclusion, brethren, you are to be congratulated that you belong to the genera- 
 tion now celebrating the hundredth anniversary of your church organization. ' ' The 
 fathers, where are they?" They have gone to receive their crowns. They began the 
 century, with the forest all around them, in faith, prayer and hope; see that you go 
 on in the same spirit. You are to be congratulated that you have had such noble, 
 heroic, God-fearing ancestry — and that you are living, earnest, faithful Christians, so 
 far as the grace of God has made you such. See that you are true, first to the Head 
 and King of Zion; second, to the Church redeemed by the blood of the Lamb; third, 
 to your own souls; and, fourth, to the cause of Christ, throughout the whole earth. 
 
 We stand at the close of a marvellous century to-day — "the climactric century of 
 
 56 
 
time," as one has said. We cannot expect ever again to have a century like the one 
 now closing. During it God has opened the door of access to more human hearts than 
 during all the other centuries put together. 
 
 " Fling out the banner; heathen lands 
 
 Shall see from far the glorious sight: 
 And nations, crowding to be born, 
 
 Baptize their spirits in its light. 
 
 Fling out the banner; let it float 
 
 Skyward and seaward, high and wide; 
 Our glory only in the cross, 
 
 Our only hope the crucified." 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 57 
 
ZTbe riDtseton of tbc preeWerian Cburcb* 
 
 Rev. James D. Moffat, D.D., LL.D., President of Washington and Jefferson College, 
 
 Washington, Pennsylvania. 
 
 The centennial exercises to which I have listened to-day have been of peculiar inter- 
 est to me. I can sympathize with the pastor and people of this church in their min- 
 gled joy and sadness, as past scenes and persons long gone are recalled to memory. 
 But having been living for so many years in other places, my experiences to-day may 
 be different, more personal in character. The flight of time comes to me with special 
 force when 1 think that my own recollections carry me back over one-half of the cen- 
 tennial period of this church, 1 have recollections of two or three scenes which took 
 place when we lived in a house on this street, Marietta street, not far south of this spot, 
 which must have taken place about the year 1848. I was but little past two years old, 
 and account for my ability now to recollect these few scenes by the fact that 1 have 
 been recalling them for many years, and occasionally speaking of them. Coming 
 back to the scenes of my boyhood, I have that feeling, which so many others have 
 spoken of, that nothing is as large as it once seemed to me. The old homes, old 
 school houses, and the old haunts seem to have grown less as I have grown larger. 
 But there is a peculiar pleasure in the return to the mind of names long since forgotten, 
 when the places once more appear in view. Frog Hollow, Goose Hollow, Greasy 
 Hill, Jug Run, where we found our first "ole swimmin hole;" and Indian Falls, under 
 whose projecting rock, in a deeply shaded glen, we often stood and let the cool, clear 
 water fall over our head and body; and the Indian Rocks, not far away in the woods, 
 where we would roast green corn, to which we had no other title but that the sweat of 
 our brows had been shed in getting it, and where the caverns suggested the traditions 
 which had come down from the times of Lewis Wetzell and his Indian foes, the tradi- 
 tions and caverns uniting with conscience, I suppose, to make us somewhat apprehen- 
 sive of impending doom; — what a multitude of varied associations do these old places 
 stir in the minds of many men who were boys in this town from twenty- five to fifty 
 years ago! 
 
 1 remember the old church, which stood across the street from this one, to which 
 my father came with the anxieties young ministers always experience in undertaking 
 
 58 
 
their first charge. It was a plain, one-story church, somewhat longer than its width, 
 with vestibule and choir gallery over it at one end, and pulpit at the other. On each 
 side of the pulpit were pews, but the the two nearest the pulpit were much roomier 
 pews than the rest. They were indeed small rooms, in which the seat ran clear around 
 from the door to the door again. One of these, on the south side, was the pastor's 
 pew, not much liked by the younger members of the family, because of the 
 pressing necessity for such excellent order in the full view of the congregation. The 
 large square pew on the opposite side was occupied by Judge Ruggles and his family. 
 The Sabbath school and prayer meeting room was in the basement below. As the 
 ground sloped rapidly from the front end of the church, it was only the east end of the 
 building which had a basement, the most of which was above ground, but when a door 
 at the west end of the Sabbath school room happened to be open we could see a clay 
 bank. Here I got my first introduction to the Sunday school, and the Wednesday 
 night prayer meeting, where the Elders were careful to overlook in their prayers no 
 worthy object or class, certainly not the Jews, and all expressed in rich scriptural 
 language and solemn tone, which makes the modern Y. M. C. A. prayer seem some- 
 times almost irreverent by contrast with such memories. Very pleasant, too, are the 
 memories which cluster about certain names of persons, who, in one way or another, 
 became identified in our youthful minds with some phases of church work. Uncle 
 George Anderson, John Jepson, James Hutchinson, William Chambers, Franklin Bell, 
 and many others, each with its own suggestions, appear in memory. During my 
 father's ministry there was a preaching service held on the Sabbath afternoon during 
 summer months at some school house or grove in the country. These services were 
 always very largely attended by the people of the neighborhood, and the pastor's chil- 
 dren enjoyed such services far more than those held in church, for they involved a ride 
 over these beautiful hills and valleys, and a good country dinner at some house nearby, 
 where the children were sure to be well provided for. These services were held in all 
 directions. In the north, not far from Mr. Hutchinson's; in the east, near Mr. Bell's 
 or Mr, Taggart's; in the south, near Mr. Chambers' and in the west, at the County 
 Home. True, these are only my personal recollections, and you might be spared re- 
 cital of them; but it is one evidence of a church's usefulness that some very pleasant 
 personal recollections are connected with its life and services. 
 
 But I must turn away from these personal recollections to say something on the 
 topic 1 have been asked to discuss. It will, perhaps, be recognised as one appropriate 
 to this closing hour of your great day. The St. Clairsville Church, with its hundred 
 years of history, is but one among many thousands of Presbyterian churches in our 
 
 59 
 
country, and its mission harmonizes with that of the church at large. What is that 
 mission? What kind of Christian work is our church specially fitted to do? It need 
 scarcely be said, that as a branch of the Church of Christ, our church unites with 
 others in a common mission. We attempt to do the work in the world which is com- 
 mon to all Protestant, and especially Evangelical churches. It sometimes needs to be 
 said that the points wherein we agree with other Christian churches are both more nu- 
 merous and more important than those wherein we differ. Our mission is, first of all, 
 to do what we can toward making men and women and children faithful and consistent 
 followers of Jesus Christ. But each church, separated from others by peculiarities of 
 doctrine or practice, may be supposed to have in view the making of some distinct im- 
 pression on the world, or the cultivation of some special type of Christian character. 
 In no other way can it fully justify its separate existence. 
 
 There are four terms which may tolerably well describe four types of religion, to one 
 of which historic churches have in the main contributed. These are Intellectual, Emo- 
 tional, Active and Formal. In the Intellectual type special attention is paid to doc- 
 trine, its elaboration and defence. In the Emotional type, certain affections and spiritual 
 experiences are looked upon as the goal and test of a genuine religion. In the Active 
 type, certain philanthropic works have prominence, and doctrinal belief and emotional 
 experiences treated with comparative indifference. In the Formal type, the forms of 
 public worship assume great prominence, and occasion the inference that compliance 
 with the prescribed rites carries with it all the value of doctrinal and emotional religion. 
 It will not do to name any of the historic churches as exactly illustrating these types, 
 for all have changed from year to year, growing more like each other and becoming 
 less and less distinctive. Churches which in one period of their history would be pro- 
 nounced Emotional, have become more Intellectual; the Intellectual have become more 
 Active or Formal; the Formal are not indifferent to doctrine, nor destitute of mission- 
 ary spirit. But our church has been regarded throughout its history as devoted largely 
 to the cultivation of the intellectual type of religion. It has adopted the longest and 
 most systematic of all modern creeds; has made the discussion of doctrine the most 
 common form of pulpit discourse; has insisted that its children should be made famil- 
 iar with its Shorter Catechism as early as they are capable of committing its words to 
 memory; has required that its ministers have the best education obtainable; has given 
 special encouragement to a high theological education by founding and maintaining 
 theological seminaries; and has extended fostering help to all forms of popular educa- 
 tion, and provided endowment for colleges and universities for both young men and 
 young women. The results also may fairly be appealed to as sustaining the claim that 
 
 60 
 
our church has realized that its mission is to produce an intellectual type of religion. 
 
 Now, we do not claim that this type is the highest type, It will have to be admitted 
 that the highest conceivable type is that which combines all these excellencies in proper 
 proportion. Indeed, no life could be called religious in which certain emotions were 
 wanting, or which did not lead to the doing of good and respect for proper forms. 
 What we may claim is that we have been wise in giving the place to the intellectual 
 element we have generally given to it. 
 
 Knowledge lies at the basis of all genuine feeling, right action and reasonable forms. 
 Therefore, it has ever been the theory of our preaching that we must make our first 
 appeal to the intellect of men. Of course, there is a danger, and we have encountered 
 it in our past history, of underestimating the importance of the emotions and activities 
 of religious life; and men may rest in a sound creed as all they need, as truly as 
 other men may rest in a decorous attention to ceremony. But we have corrected that 
 one-sided preaching, and now teach as faithfully as any church can that works are the 
 truest tests of faith; and peace, joy, love and assurance are fruits to be looked for and 
 enjoyed by the intelligent believer. On the other hand to guard against illusive and 
 temporary feelings, we have taught that all experiences should be rational; that is, 
 have their roots in what we know, and that all truly philanthropic work must stand the 
 test of actually accomplishing the good we intelligently aim to etfect. The ideal 
 Christian is one who knows what he believes, why he believes what he does, and feels 
 sure it is just what he should believe concerning God and man and their relations, and 
 who, in consequence of this intelligent belief, experiences and yields to those impulses 
 which urge to all right actions, which express our love to God and fellow man; and 
 who will not despise the rites of a church, but endeavor to make intelligent use of 
 them to stir his emotions and remind him of convictions too easily forgotten. 
 
 Now, so far as our church has contributed toward this ideal type, it has been mainly 
 through four agencies: — 
 
 1. First, the constant practice of doctrinal preaching and teaching. The West- 
 minster Confession of Faith has been made the basis of the preaching. This secured 
 to Scriptural expositions a certain depth and breadth, which the somewhat hap-hazzard 
 way in which modern preachers select their texts, according to their own fancy, or 
 with a view to pleasing the popular fancy, can never know. 
 
 2. A second agency has been the Family life, an inheritance from our Scotch and 
 Scotch-Irish ancestry, but after all originally fostered by the pulpit and the creed of 
 Presbyterianism. For generations the Presbyterian family in which the instruction and 
 training of the children was neglected, was a remarkable exception. Out of these fam- 
 
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ilies came our most devoted ministers, missionaries and elders, and a membership in- 
 telligent at least in the Bible and certain doctrinal discussions. 
 
 3. A third agency has been the persistent demand that men proposing to enter our 
 ministry should take time to make the most thorough scholastic and theologic prepara- 
 tion. This seems to have been insisted upon as earnestly during the earlier years of 
 our country's history as in later times. It might have seemed unnecessary that men, 
 expecting to preach to the rough pioneers of a century ago, should be able to read 
 Latin and Greek and Hebrew, but our Presbyterian ancestors took a different view of 
 the matter. In their judgment it mattered not how ignorant the people might be, the 
 preacher, whose mission it was to elevate a community, and to deal successfully with 
 all kinds of people, could not be too well prepared for his work. When Rev. Thaddeus 
 Dod was preaching in a fort at Amity, in Washington county. Pa., and starting his 
 classical school in a log hut, he was asked by a Presbytery in New Jersey if he could 
 not find work in his county for young men who had spent but two years in fitting 
 themselves to preach. But Mr. Dod replied that the country in which he was laboring 
 was very rough and hard to cultivate, the stumps were deeply rooted, and two year old 
 steers were not equal to the task of clearing the forests for farming. The ministers 
 then in the county were all graduates of colleges, and competent to teach as well as 
 preach. Their very scholarship gave them higher standing among men who lacked 
 education. 
 
 4. A fourth agency has been the zeal manifested by Presbyterian ministers and peo- 
 ple in promoting both popular and higher education. It has been characteristic, par- 
 ticularly of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, to plant a school beside the church. Earnest as 
 were the fathers in missionary zeal, they were no less earnest in educational zeal. The 
 pioneer preachers in all this region of country, Western Pennsylvania and Eastern 
 Ohio, were the founders of schools. Among the first live ministers in Washington 
 county, three were founders of classical schools, and began to teach Latin and Greek 
 to the boys whose fathers were spending part of their time in clearing off the forests 
 and a part in fighting Indians. How easy it would have been to ridicule their efforts, 
 and how plausible would have been a demand then, that education should be practical. 
 But McMillan and Dod and Smith and Henderson were far wiser in their day than 
 many of our time who think they are advanced. They realized the importance to the 
 whole country about them of raising a well educated ministry on the ground, as likely 
 to prove more useful than men imported from the East, or from the old country. Out 
 of their schools grew permanent academies, and out of their academies grew colleges, 
 and two of these colleges, now united, have educated in little less than a century more 
 
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ministers for the Presbyterian Church than any other institution in the country in the 
 same time. 
 
 In our devotion to these four agencies our church does not stand alone. The virtues 
 we claim are not exclusively ours. As I have already said, churches which once differ- 
 ed more widely have grown more alike. I have no disposition to glorify the Presby- 
 terian Church at the expense of others, but I would that we might all understand in 
 what way we have grown and done our work in the world, that we may guard against 
 changes which tend to limit our growth and our influence. 
 
 I fear, that in respect to all four of these agencies by which we have done our best 
 work in the past, we shall have to admit that the present generation is not as zealous 
 as past generations have been. 
 
 Doctrinal preaching and instruction has given way too much to other methods, 
 which promise more immediate popularity, but certainly not more permanent effect. 
 
 Family life is undergoing changes, some of which are unavoidable, some useful, but 
 it is questionable whether the average young person has as intelligent conceptions of 
 religious truth as in olden time. 
 
 Presbyteries are not all zealous in selecting and calling to the ministry the brightest 
 of their young men; they wait for them to offer themselves, and then are not as par- 
 ticular as they might be in requiring that they take full time to secure a college edu- 
 cation in an institution clearly up to the standard. 
 
 In the matter of colleges and their proper endowment our church once stood at the 
 head of the list in this country. But we have allowed ourselves to be outstripped in 
 educational work by churches which once were supposed to disparage education in 
 their ministry. The Methodist, the Baptist and the Congregationalist churches all 
 have more colleges and more money invested in their endowment than the Presbyterian 
 Church. And yet our Church is possibly the richest, certainly the most liberal giver 
 of money to religious objects. Are we acting wisely in taking the fourth place in our 
 support of the higher education? We still hold the first place in supporting theologi- 
 cal training, but if so large a proportion of Presbyterian sons are drawn to colleges and 
 universities other than Presbyterian, will the best of them or enough of them find their 
 way into our ministry? These are very serious questions. Equipped as we are, and 
 with traditions we may well be thankful for, we certainly should regard it as still the 
 mission of our church to contribute to the production of the highest type of Christian 
 character, but it is not likely we can do our work any better than by following in all 
 essential particulars the methods of the past. 
 
 63 
 
Umpromptu abt)re06e0. 
 
 At the close of the afternoon session, a few short, impromptu speeches were made 
 by some of the brethren present. 
 
 Rev. Walter L. Alexander, of Rockhill, a son of Rev. Dr. James Alexander, pastor 
 from 1839 to 1846, rejoiced to hear the things that had been said to-day of his father 
 and of the good and faithful men before and after his time, who had done such noble 
 work. He hoped the addresses of the occasion would be put in permanent form to 
 preserve them as a part of the church history of this country. 
 
 Rev. B. J. Brown of Mt. Pleasant, represented the church that was a twin sister of 
 this one, both having been organized in the same year, and served at first by the same 
 pastor. He congratulated the people on the history of the past, and the success of 
 this celebration. 
 
 Rev. Dr. James D. Moffat, of Washington, Pa., a son of a former pastor, though 
 expecting to address the people in the evening, spoke briefly of his early recollections of 
 this church, and of the interest he felt in its success. He congratulated the people, 
 among other things, on the beautiful day they had chosen for this celebration, and did 
 not think there could have been a more perfect one within the last hundred years. 
 
 Dr. Samuel L. Jepson, an elder in the First Presbyterian Church of Wheeling, and 
 son of Mr. John Jepson, a former elder of this church, was called on, and responded 
 as follows: 
 Mr. Chairman: 
 
 Your call to me is so unexpected that 1 have not one moment in which to collect my 
 thoughts. Referring, however, to President Moffat's closing allusion to this beautiful 
 day, 1 may give a poetical finish in the words of our poet Howells: 
 
 "What is so rare as a day in June! 
 
 Then if ever, come perfect days; 
 Then heaven tries the earth, if it be in tune, 
 
 And over it softly her warm ear lays." 
 
 It does seem as if the God of the universe, in anticipation of this centennial celebra- 
 tion, and as a reward for the great work accomplished by this grand old church, had 
 lovingly sent one of those perfect June days, with the sun shining in all his glory, and 
 yet the air as pure and stimulating as it can ever be, so that all who wish might come 
 
 64 
 
from far and near, to join in celebrating this day, which is to be memorable in the 
 lives of so many. 
 
 This has been to me, and doubtless has to many others, indeed *'a time for memory 
 and for tears." As I have sat here listening to the relation of one incident after another 
 that takes me away back to childhood and youth passed in this community, many hav- 
 ing relation to the character and life of my own sainted father and mother, 1 find myself 
 compelled to press back the tears that well unbidden to the eyes. And as the lives and 
 Christian character of the many men and women who were pioneers in Christian work 
 in this community are set before us to-day, I cannot but feel that the most precious pos- 
 session any one can have is, the knowledge that he comes of a sterling Christian ancestry. 
 Good Presbyterian blood is a possession to be proud of; and good Presbyterian training 
 makes not only the best of Christian men and women but the noblest kind of Ameri- 
 can citizens. Where can better citizens, or nobler men and women be found, than 
 among the Scotch-Irish Presbyterian families of the land? The permanent success of 
 this great republic would be assured, could their number be quadrupled. I would urge 
 therefore, perseverence in all efforts to educate the children and youth of the church in 
 the truths of the Bible and the doctrines of Presbyterianism. 
 
 My father, as you all know, was long an elder in this old church. A brother has 
 succeeded to the office; and you have recently called to the eldership one whom the 
 law and the holy bond of matrimony have made my son. You may therefore rest as- 
 sured that I shall all my life continue to have a great interest in the unity and prosperi- 
 ty of this church and congregation, and shall treasure the memory of this day, and 
 these centennial services, which have been so joyous to us all. 
 
 Wm. Alexander, Esq., of Bridgeport, better acquainted with the church as it was in 
 the years of his father's ministry than any other present, arose and said: 
 Mr. Chairman: 
 
 Will you pardon me for arising again to speak of some things not yet mentioned? 
 I want to speak especially about the choir that filled the gallery at the west end of the 
 church. In the early forties, W. C. Van Meter, then a student at Granville, Ohio, 
 came to this place and taught vocal music. He had a large class which met in the old 
 M. E. Church. He had been a pupil of Lowell Mason, and was a very proficient and 
 excellent teacher. From this class two choirs were organized — one in the M. E. church 
 and the other in the Presbyterian church. In the first, I remember Stephen Gressinger, 
 H. M. B. Clayland, the McGill sisters, Emily Carothers and the Wilkins sisters. In 
 the Presbyterian choir, were Louisa Alexander, Mary Ann Paris, Elizabeth Paris, Susan 
 Paris, Mary Ramsey, Adaline Bell and the Sutton sisters, and Samuel Paris, William 
 
 65 
 
 I 
 
Paris, William Anderson, Ross Justice, Robert Dean and John Ramsey as leader. 
 How they could sing! They used Mason's Harp, Vols. 1 and 2. When on a bright 
 summer day like this, they would sing that beautiful anthem, 
 
 " Jerusalem, my happy home," 
 every one in the house gave attention. When Ross Justice would take the tenor solo, and 
 William Anderson came in with his incomparable bass voice, that made the windows 
 shake, yes rattle as if it thundered, there was music, sacred music, lifting all up to the 
 solemn service of the hour. I remember a solemn scene, when that choir stood around 
 the coffin of Elizabeth Paris, the first of their number taken, and sang, 
 
 •' Sister, thou wast mild and lovely," 
 and the hymn was never more appropriate. They then followed to the grave, and 
 with touching pathos came, 
 
 " Thou hast gone to the grave, but we will not deplore thee, 
 Though sorrow and darkness encompass the tomb." 
 
 On Communion Sabbath, just before the service, they would chant, 
 
 "Beyond where Cedron's waters flow, 
 Behold the suffering Savior go. 
 To sad Gethsemane. " 
 
 Then the service would close with some appropriate hymn to Dundee, St. Martin's 
 or Duke Street. I have heard many choirs, but when that old choir selected one of 
 the grand old anthems of Lowell Mason, or rendered "Daughter of Zion, awake from 
 thy sadness," I have never heard the sentiment brought out with more expression as a 
 part of the worship of God. Of that old choir, I have noticed here to-day, Mrs. 
 Louisa Alexander Thompson, Mrs. Susan Paris Ramage, and Mr. Samuel Paris. 
 
 Let me, in closing, tell you some things of that music teacher, Mr. Van Meter. He 
 established a Female seminary at Lexington, Ky., his native State. The use of a cer- 
 tain text book on moral philosophy was condemned by some of the patrons of the 
 school. Pinally a mob gathered at his door, but he defied them and warned them not 
 to cross his threshold. They did not. The intense feeling aroused ruined his school, 
 and he left Kentucky forever. He went to New Orleans, where he filled the pulpit of 
 a Baptist church, temporarily vacant. One day his attention was turned to the con- 
 dition of things at the "Pive Points," in New York City." He resolved that he would 
 go there and see for himself. He went and established a mission for the poor and 
 neglected children. I once saw 800 children in his school. I met him in a western 
 city with fifty orphans, for whom he was seeking homes, and among them were twin 
 
 66 
 
sisters, who he said^'ere not to be separated. I saw him give ten or more away at a 
 large meeting in a public hall one evening. He afterwards went to Rome, and there 
 established a similar work. He sang the Christ life into thousands of such as Christ 
 took in His arms and blessed. 
 
 Rev. Dr. L. Alechlin, of New Athens, Ohio, added a few words of congratulation, 
 and expressed his great pleasure in the interesting occasion. He rejoiced in the success 
 that had attended the congregation in the past, and in what they had been able to 
 do for Christ. Let them gird themselves for the future. He reminded them of their 
 splendid advantages and opportunities, and of the great responsibility resting on them, 
 to carry on the work of the Lord and make the future worthy of the past. 
 
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