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IN MEMORY 
 
 LIFE AND MINISTRY 
 
 V 
 
 The Rev. William Pratt Breed. D.D. 
 
 I.ATE PASTOR OF THE WEST SPRUCE STREET PRESBYTERIAN 
 CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA. 
 
One cannot catch the outline of a hill while standing close to its foot, 
 neither can he form a critical estimate of a human life while that life is 
 yet in living, palpitating contact with his own. 
 
 The reader of the following papers, therefore, will not expect to find 
 within them a cool, calm, critique of my father's life and work. This 
 they do not profess to give. A Husband, a Father, a Brother, a Pastor, 
 a Friend, has been taken. This little book gives voice to the sorrow 
 and love of those who have been left. Its pages form the surface upon 
 which scalding tears have fallen and have burned an imprint. Its words 
 are the throbbings — the quick, hot throbbings of distressed hearts. Its 
 lines give the articulate utterance in which the grief, hitherto inarticu- 
 late, of a family, a church, a community, struggle for expression. 
 
 Let one who was unacquainted with him of whom these papers have 
 been written, lay them aside unread. Such a one lacks the key by 
 which to interpret them. Let those who knew and loved my father 
 read, and receive that ineffable comfort which flows from the utterance, 
 by sympathetic lips, of the common sorrow of many hearts. 
 
 Milton, Pcnn a, April 8th, iSgo. W. P. BREED. 
 
SERVICES AT THE OBSEQUIES OF 
 
 REV. WILLIAM PRATT BREED, D.D., 
 
 WEST SPRUCE STREET PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 
 
 S. W. corner of Spruce and Seventeenth Streets, 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 ON MONDAY, FEBRUARY 1S1I1, rSSg. 
 
ORDER OF SERVICE. 
 
 i. Anthem, "I Heard a Voice," Choir. 
 
 2. Invocation Rev. Henry C. McCook, D. D., 
 
 Pastor of Tabernacle Presbyterian Church. 
 
 3. Hymn, No. S98, " Sun of my Soul," Rev. Francis J. Collier, D. D. 
 
 4. Reading of Holy Scriptures, Rev. J. R. Miller, D. D.. 
 
 Editorial Superintendent, Presbyterian Board of Publication. 
 
 5. Address Rev. A. S. Freeman, D. D., 
 
 Of Haverstraw, N. Y. 
 
 6. Address, Rev. Robert M. Patterson, D. D., LL. D. 
 
 7. Chant, " Beyond the Smiling and the Weeping," Choir. 
 
 8. PRAYER, Rev. Stephen IV. Dana, D. D., 
 
 Pastor of Wainut Street Presbyterian Church. 
 
 9. Address, Rev. J. Addison Henry, D. D., 
 
 Pastor of Princeton Presbyterian Church. 
 
 10. Address Rev. Charles A. Dickey, D. D., 
 
 Pastor of Calvary Presbyterian Church. 
 
 11. Hymn, " Asleep in Jesus," Choir. 
 
 12. Address, Rev. Henry C. McCook, D.D., 
 
 Pastor of Tabernacle Presbyterian Church. 
 
 13. Hymn, No. 932, "Abide with Me," Rev. Louis F. Benson, 
 
 Pastor of Church of Redeemer, Germantown, Pa. 
 
 14. Benediction Rev. W. Brenton Greene, D. D., 
 
 Pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church. 
 
ADDRESS BY REV. A. S. FREEMAN, D.D. 
 
 Dear friends, what reminiscences crowd upon my memory as I stand 
 here to-day ; but my words are only preliminary and shall be brief. 
 Ecclesiastically, there are present to-day those who have been more 
 closely associated with Dr. Breed in Presbytery, in Synod, in connection 
 with the Boards of our church, in ministerial relations with the Presbytery 
 and with brethren of other churches in Philadelphia; but there are few 
 among the living who have known him so long and so intimately as 
 myself. 
 
 In the year 1837 we sat together at the same table in the school of 
 Dr. John J. Owen, of New York, fitting for college. In the year 1839, 
 with others of my classraates whom I see here this morning, we entered 
 the New York University. We graduated together in 1843. We entered 
 the ministry together, and though our paths diverged, for more than 
 forty years we have kept up an intimate, and I may say a very familiar, 
 correspondence. We have met as classmates for more than forty years, 
 though not every year, at the reunion of our college class. More than 
 two years ago, the fortieth anniversary of my own pastorate, he came to 
 be with me, and we spent a happy Sabbath, and he remained over 
 Monday evening and attended the social reunion of the congregation ; 
 and how he entered into all with that cheerful, pleasant humor that 
 characterized him. Less than three weeks ago at the Alumni Dinner of 
 the University we sat, four of us, of the Class of '43, side by side, and 
 the President of that class sat near us. How cheerful, how bright, how 
 humorous were his remarks on that occasion ! No matter how many years 
 have passed, when college graduates meet they are boys again together. 
 
 I have thought, dear friends, of the contrast between the occasion that 
 
 9 
 
IO 
 
 brings us together, and his presence with Christ in Heaven. Here we 
 mourn. This family mourn. These brethren in the ministry mourn. 
 This church is a circle of bereaved mourners. Here we weep as we 
 look upon the face of the departed and beloved. But there, he who trod 
 for so many years these streets, his erect form so familiar as he went 
 from house to house on errands of mercy, and sympathy, and love, and 
 cheerfulness, walks to-day the golden streets of the New Jerusalem. 
 
 We may think, as we see him in his casket, that the crown has fallen 
 from his head, but, dear friends, the Hand that was pierced has placed 
 the crown upon his brow. When we heard that he had departed, we 
 said, " It is the day of his death," but Angels say, " It is the day of his 
 coronation." " In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were 
 not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, and if I 
 go and prepare a place" — Ah, dear friends, what does he say? Not, 
 " I will send an Angel or an Archangel to escort you home," but, " I will 
 come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may 
 be also." This Divine escort has taken home to himself the friend we 
 loved. 
 
 I will but repeat words already read. " I would not have you to be 
 ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep " — Oh, no, the 
 Apostle did not say " dead " — " concerning them which are asleep that 
 ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe 
 that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus 
 will God bring with him." 
 
 To this family, to my brethren, to this church, to all who mourn to-day, 
 I add only these words of the Apostle : " Wherefore comfort one another 
 with these words." 
 
1 1 
 
 ADDRESS BY REV. R. M. PATTERSON, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 Tlie first passage of Scripture that flashed into my mind on hearing 
 of the death of Dr. Breed was: " He was a good man and full of the 
 Holy Ghost and of faith." 
 
 The words may be as unqualifiedly and as unreservedly applied to 
 him as the inspired pen applied them at first to Barnabas. 
 
 I. Dr. Breed was a good man in every sense that has been put upon 
 the word in that inspired application. 
 
 Measure his life by the moral code of the Bible, which also men of 
 the world accept as the perfect standard; judge his words and his deeds 
 by its rules of purity, veracity, honest)', justice; and the most unprinci- 
 pled skeptics can detect in him none of those flaws which they love to 
 find in Christians. Leave his personal immortality out of the question, 
 consider only the unblemished reputation he has left as an influence on 
 others, and the most irreligious of the scientific positivists would not 
 hesitate to say : " Let me live the life and die the death of such a 
 righteous man ; and let my last end be like his." 
 
 At the end of his long life and ministry he could, in this pulpit and 
 by the press as widely as lie was known, have said without the risk of 
 a challenge: "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever 
 things are honorable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are 
 pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report ; 
 if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. 
 The things which ye both learned and received, and heard and saw in 
 me, these things, do : and the God of peace shall be with you." 
 
 He was a good, i.e., a large-hearted, a benevolent and gentle disposi- 
 tioned man: free from envy, jealousy, malignity, censorious asperity; a 
 genial, generous, candid man ; looking for the good rather than the bad 
 in others; condemning, but condemning tenderly, the bad where it 
 existed ; and rejoicing in all true work for his Divine Master, by whom- 
 
12 
 
 soever done. It was the good Barnabas who trusted the young convert 
 Paul, and vouched for him when the Apostles were suspicious, and then 
 worked with him, though overshadowed by him, unselfishly glad at 
 what he and others accomplished. It was Dr. Breed's delight to encour- 
 age young men, to help them to the Lord's work, to rejoice in their 
 success in it. The Gospel work at Antioch, imperfect though it may 
 have been, made Barnabas glad, because he was a good man ; so was 
 Dr. Breed glad, as he learned of any and every work for the Master, 
 whether done by him or his church, or by others and other churches. 
 
 This goodness of disposition marked all his intercourse with his 
 brethren ; not only lighting up his social conversation with a perpetual 
 pleasantry, but toning his more formal discussions with them. 
 
 We have seen him in our deliberative bodies in seasons of high excite- 
 ment, amid earnest, tempestuous debate, himself earnest ; but never was 
 he known to forget himself or heard to utter a harsh word concerning 
 an opponent. 
 
 2. He whs full of the Holy Ghost. The believer is a temple of the 
 Holy Spirit. The fruits of the Spirit in the life of Dr. Breed — "love, 
 joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, 
 temperance " — showed that the Divine presence in him was full and all 
 pervading. His Christian character was rounded, not angular. His 
 example might almost be appealed to as a proof of perfect sanctification 
 in this life. He would not himself have claimed it, for those who while 
 on earth are nearest heaven in spirit are the more humbled thereby; but 
 we who knew him will say, that as he passed from earth to the glorified 
 presence of his Lord, he did not need much of a transformation to pre- 
 vent the dread experience of Isaiah, who, when he saw the Lord of 
 Hosts in His glory, was compelled to cry out, " Woe is me, for I am 
 undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen 
 the King, the Lord of Hosts; " or that of John, who, when he saw the 
 same glorious One, fell at His feet as dead. The live coal had touched 
 
13 
 
 Dr. Breed's lips, and his iniquity was taken away, and his sin purged. 
 He was ready to look directly into the brightly shining face and' to see 
 with unblanched eye Him in whom he had so long and fully believed. 
 
 3. He was full of faith. His personal faith in Jesus for his own salva- 
 tion was an assurance. Hence the perennial joyfulness and the wonder- 
 ful fruitfulness of his life. And that faith was not only a saving one in 
 his Redeemer, but an unquestioning one in the Word of God. He was 
 a thoroughgoing believer in the revealed and inspired Bible. He could 
 not tolerate any of the wild scholarly speculations which undermine its 
 plenary authority. A special student of the Reformation times, too, he 
 was devoted to the Reformed Confessions, especially the Westminster. 
 His Calvinism and his Presbyterianism were high, extreme, overmas- 
 tering. He believed in them both with all his heart. In his view they 
 were God-revealed. He held them with singular tenacity ; while his 
 large heart embraced, in the communion of the saints, and in active 
 work, all who loved the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, though they could 
 not see eye to eye with him on all doctrinal and governmental points. 
 
 He was the John of our company ; not the effeminately affectionate 
 John of the common judgment, but the real John of Scripture, who, 
 while loving intensely and seeking tender love, was as intensely devoted 
 to revealed truth, and was stern in his opposition to error. 
 
 Another of our ministers who died since this year opened, on the eve 
 of his death is reported to have clipped from a paper and read with 
 much tenderness these verses : — 
 
 If I should die to-night, 
 My friends would look upon my quiet face 
 Before they laid it in its resting place, 
 And deem that death has left it almost fair ; 
 And laying snow-white flowers against my hair, 
 Would smooth it down with cheerful tenderness, 
 And fold my hands with lingering caress — 
 
 Poor hands, so empty and so cold to-night! 
 
14 
 
 If I should die to-night, 
 My friends would call to mind with loving thought 
 Some kindly deeds the icy hands had wrought, 
 Some gentle word the frozen lips had said, 
 Errands on which the willing feet had sped; 
 The memory of my selfishness and pride, 
 My hasty words, would all be put aside, 
 
 And so I should be loved and mourned to-night ! 
 
 If I should die to-night, 
 E'en hearts estranged would turn once more to me, 
 Recalling other days remorsefully ; 
 The eyes that chill me with averted glance 
 Would look upon me as of yore, perchance, 
 And soften in the old familiar way, 
 (For who could war with dumb, unconscious clay ?) 
 So I might rest forgiven of all to-night ! 
 
 O friends, I pray to-night 
 Keep not your kisses for my dead cold brow ; 
 The way is lonely, let me feel them now. 
 Think gently of me ; I am travel worn ; 
 My faltering feet are pierced with many a thorn ; 
 Forgive, O hearts estranged, forgive, I plead ! 
 When dreamless rest is mine, I shall not need 
 The tenderness for which I long to-night ! 
 
 That was an experience which Dr. Breed had not. The cases are 
 rare, indeed, in which a man can be positive in his opinions and honest 
 in their expression, without suffering alienations of friends and incur- 
 ring the enmity of opponents. Dr. Breed was one of the rare cases. 
 His convictions were strong. He expressed them strongly. He did 
 not avoid controversy when truth required it. But there was something 
 in him and about him which not only bound old friends to him as with 
 bands of steel, but held the respect and good will of those from whom 
 he differed. I cannot imagine that any recollection of alienations or 
 wistful thought of needed reconciliation saddened his last moments. 
 
15 
 
 And I do not suppose the man lives who has the pang that would now 
 flow from the recollection of ever having spoken a harsh word about 
 him or done an unkind deed to him. 
 
 Many a circle has been broken by this departure — nay, not broken — 
 enlarged ; for " in that kingdom where there will be neither marry- 
 ing nor giving in marriage, I think there will be wedded affection, for 
 though the nature be glorified, yet it is human nature still." 
 
 Farewell, then, brother beloved ; tried and trusty friend ; wise and 
 safe counsellor; enthusiastic Presbyterian Churchman; earnest and 
 evangelical preacher; tender and sympathetic pastor; devoted husband; 
 exemplary parent ; loyal servant of Jesus Christ. It is well with thee. 
 Thou hast fought a good fight. Thou hast finished thy course. Thou 
 hast kept the faith. Thou art crow r ned. Thy sleeping body is here, 
 waiting to be hidden away from human eyes, until the Resurrection 
 morn, in the bed that was sanctified by the resting therein of the body 
 of thy crucified and risen Redeemer. It quietly and happily slept itself 
 away after a beautiful old age. But thou, spirit-born, believing, good 
 soul, made perfectly holy, hast entered into the joy of thy Lord. Thou 
 hast already met many whom thou didst in this church, in Steubenville, 
 and elsewhere, bring to Jesus, and whom, by thy preaching and pastoral 
 work and thy writings, thou didst comfort and build up in the faith ; 
 and brethren in the ministry with whom thou didst hold sweet converse 
 and pray and labor, and who had gone before. We hope to follow and 
 meet thee again. Farewell for a little while — -a little while. 
 
i6 
 
 ADDRESS BY REV. J. ADDISON HENRY, D. D. 
 
 Dear friends, what a different scene this is from that which many of 
 us witnessed here some seven or eight years ago, at the time of Dr. 
 Breed's twenty-fifth anniversary as the pastor of this church. That was 
 a scene of joy and gladness. This house was then filled to the over- 
 flowing with those who had come to offer their congratulations, and to 
 speak words of kindness to this dear pastor. He was surrounded by 
 the ministry, he was also surrounded by his elders ; an eldership which 
 any minister in this city, or anywhere, might be proud to have around 
 him. He was here, also, taken by the hand by his congregation, and 
 by a great many friends who belonged to other churches. But this is 
 an hour of quietness, of silence ; it is an occasion of great solemnity 
 and even of sadness, and yet it is the hour of our triumph, because 
 another of the brethren has "overcome" through Jesus Christ our 
 Lord. He has " fought the good fight, he has finished his course, he 
 has kept the faith, and henceforth there is laid up for him a crown of 
 righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give him at 
 that day." 
 
 But why should I be called upon to say anything here, or why should 
 any of these brethren be called upon to say anything that would tend 
 to add to the estimation in which the beloved character that has passed 
 from us is already held in your minds and hearts. I am certain we 
 can say nothing that will add to the admiration which you already have 
 for this noble man, and I do not know why we should say anything, 
 other than it is well for us to speak of the virtues and of the piety of 
 the ministers of Christ and the servants of the Cross, when they pass 
 away from our sight forever. 
 
 I was last Saturday afternoon in the study of my dear friend, the 
 Rev. Dr. Sands, the pastor of the Arch Street Church, and he had upon 
 the mantel-piece of his study a picture of Dr. Breed, and under this 
 
'7 
 
 photograph he had written a verse from some favorite poem. I admired 
 the selection very much, and I have it here in my hand, for my brother 
 said to me " Henry, you can take it with you ; " but I had no idea at 
 that time of using it upon this occasion — for I had not then been asked 
 to make this address ; but I will read these lines which Dr. Sands had 
 placed under the picture of our mutual friend — 
 
 " They never quite leave us, our friends who have passed 
 Through the shadows of death to the sunlight above; 
 A thousand sweet memories are holding them fast 
 
 To the places they blessed with their presence and love." 
 
 Ah, friends, I am quite sure that Dr. Breed's name will be a house- 
 hold word in every family in this congregation, and also in every Pres- 
 byterian Church, at least in this city ; and in many of the families of 
 those belonging to sister denominations. 
 
 I first saw Dr. Breed a good while ago. If you will forgive a 
 personal allusion, I will say when I was in the first year of my Theo- 
 logical Seminary course in Princeton, it may have been in the last year 
 of my college course, it was, however, just after this congregation had 
 entered this beautiful house of worship, and soon after they had called 
 Dr. Breed to be their pastor, that I happened to be one Sabbath day in 
 Philadelphia ; I was told, by a venerable elder, at whose house I was 
 staying, " You must go, my young friend, and hear Dr. Breed preach 
 this afternoon," and so I came to this church and sat somewhere near 
 where that third column is yonder upon my left, and I heard Dr. Breed 
 preach. He was then in his full vigor, and he delivered a most impres- 
 sive sermon from the text, " The harvest is passed, the summer is ended, 
 and I am not saved." Those of you who have listened to the voice of 
 Dr. Breed again and again, will know how he dwelt on those last 
 words; "I am not saved." They are ringing in my ears yet. I was 
 so impressed by that discourse that I went to my home and made 
 a short synopsis of it, and in looking over my treasures a short time 
 2 
 
i8 
 
 ago, I came across that little sheet on which I had written the syn- 
 opsis of that sermon. All this must have been about thirty-two years 
 ago. 
 
 Yes, my friends, he was an impressive man ; and he was a man who 
 was complete in almost every respect. He was a remarkable man ; for he 
 was a theologian, he was a historian, I think we can honestly say he was a 
 scientist, he was a poet, he was a humorist ; and he was a faithful pastor. 
 
 Those of you who recall the little speeches that he made in the Minis- 
 terial Association will testify that what I have said is true of this beloved 
 man. He was an excellent man, he was a good man, but he was also, 
 as we believed in the ministry, a man of distinguished learning and 
 acquirements. 
 
 You recollect, brethren of the ministry, that last paper which he read, 
 just two weeks ago this very day, at No. 1334 Chestnut street, upon 
 "Ancient Oratory," and more especially upon " Demosthenes ' For the 
 Crown! " What a paper that was ! and I am sure the brethren who are 
 before me now will say they entered into the feeling of the remark of 
 one of the gentlemen who followed Dr. Breed when he said : " Who but 
 our own Breed could have written such a paper as that? " 
 
 What pathos there was in every word that he spoke. There was a 
 peculiar tenderness in his voice, and it seems to me that that tenderness 
 grew upon certain occasions, especially during seasons of remarkable 
 religious awakening. Did you ever hear Dr. Breed speak at a meeting 
 where there was unmistakable evidence of the presence of the Spirit of 
 God ? If so, you were touched with the peculiar tenderness of his tones. 
 Those of us who were members of the old Synod of Philadelphia will 
 recollect his earnest appeals at the meetings which were held in connection 
 with this Synod; as for instance, at Lewistown, Lewisburg, Jersey Shore, 
 Easton, Pittston and Lock Haven. We well know how every word that 
 that good man uttered went to the hearts of the ministry as well as to the 
 hearts of the people. 
 
19 
 
 What a sympathizing man he was ! How generous, how noble in 
 every respect ; how he wanted to aid his brethren in the ministry when- 
 ever he could, not only in this city, but elsewhere. Who ever came with 
 a strong appeal to Dr. Breed but met with a ready response ? His con- 
 gregation knew that very well. He opened their hearts when making an 
 appeal, and their purses also. He would listen to the men as they came 
 from the East and the West, from the North and from the South, and 
 from the ends of the earth. It seemed to be impossible for Dr. William 
 P. Breed to turn anybody away. 
 
 How many missionaries will miss this man? how they will miss the 
 sympathy, tenderness and the gifts that have been sent from this congre- 
 gation through the influence of this dear brother. 
 
 Last week I had a letter from a minister who is at present in this city. 
 I refer to the Rev. Prof. Bertrand, of Paris, who is representing the cause 
 of French Evangelization in this country, and he seemed to be somewhat 
 low-spirited, because he had not been able to gain admission to many of 
 the churches to present this worthy object, and as he had heard of the 
 death of Dr. Breed he writes : " Dr. Breed was to help me in my 
 confusion and my troubles." Ah ! that was always true of Dr. Breed ; 
 wherever there was one in confusion or in trouble he had a friend in 
 that man. 
 
 I could speak for hours in regard to him, but I must close these remarks. 
 How we loved him ! And must we give him up? Ah, it is too true; 
 these elders will not have him in their meetings again. His face will 
 not be seen in this room where the Sabbath School gathers, or in that 
 lecture room where he met his people for the last time. 
 
 Dear Christian brethren, shall we never hear that voice in our Minis- 
 terial Association again? Must I go to my work in West Philadelphia, 
 and to my study and prepare my sermons, and plod on in my ministerial 
 work, and endeavor to comfort poor, sick and sorrowing humanity, and 
 know and feel that I am never to go into that study or into the home of 
 
20 
 
 my dear friend and take that beloved hand into mine and look into that 
 faithful face ? It is so ! Be still ! my soul, be still ! " Be still and know 
 that it is God ! " "I was dumb, I opened not my mouth ; because Thou 
 didst it." 
 
 ADDRESS OF REV. CHARLES A. DICKEY, D. D. 
 
 My dear brethren, whether we take this occasion as our opportunity 
 for reminiscences, or whether we take it as our opportunity for present- 
 ing the character and work of Dr. Breed, it is far too short. There 
 cannot be time enough allotted for us all to tell the stories of our 
 friendship. There is not time to tell what we know of his fidelity. The 
 limits of the services are properly marked, and our regard for those 
 whose hearts are so heavily burdened, if nothing else, would deter us 
 from much longer prolonging these services. And yet, what need is 
 there for speech ? What is there to tell that he has not told himself? 
 Is not his character written on our hearts ? Have we not his works and 
 words and character and life sparkling like gems in our memories ? 
 Has not his faithfulness recorded itself these thirty years and more in 
 the memory of every one to whom I speak? His life was an anthem of 
 praise to Christ ; his life is the benediction that he has left us ; and his 
 character — we know that he was gentle and good; we know that he was 
 true and strong ; we know that we could always trust him with perfect 
 confidence; we know that he was firm when firmness was needed, and 
 tender when tenderness was required. We know that he was like a rock 
 in the sea when truth was in peril, and yet we know how easily 
 entreated he was, even, I would almost say, from his convictions, but I 
 dare not — but always easily entreated when he could make peace to abide. 
 
21 
 
 As to his work, I can only think of it as a finished temple, every seam 
 pointed, the spire perfect and touching the sky, furnished to complete- 
 ness, built on Christ, built of Christ, built for Christ. 
 
 Talk of death to-day! We are in the very midst of living things 
 to-day. Ye are the temple that he built; your lives, into which he 
 poured his own devoted life; your hearts, that he turned to Christ; your 
 children, that he showed the way of righteousness; your homes, that 
 will ever be sweet with the odor of his saintly life and his fervent 
 prayers. And he found time to spare, even when so faithful to you that 
 you could never complain ; he found time, saved out of his own indulgence, 
 to bless this city, to overflow himself upon the church that he loved, and 
 to bring back the generous rewards that he so richly deserved. Inti- 
 macy alone can express it. Men or women who never were let into his 
 inner soul cannot know him to-day. The closer the contact, the clearer 
 the impression that he had sweet communions, and constant, with 
 Christ. 
 
 I may be pardoned a single personal allusion, for doubtless it was this 
 consideration that has made it my privilege to pay this word of tribute 
 to Dr. Breed. Our congregations were very closely united, our com- 
 munions were very sweet. We have spent days of prayer together; we 
 have spent weeks of prayer together for the conversion of the world ; 
 we have often exchanged ; we have had frequent communions, and I want 
 to bear testimony to the constant friendliness. I want to bear testimony 
 to the truth that never in all these years has there been seen above the 
 surface, or an indication that there was beneath the surface, any bitter- 
 ness or trouble, and I want to bear the testimony that this outward flow 
 of fellowship and friendship had its counterpart in the closer relation- 
 ships and fellowships of the pastors of these joint churches. 
 
 On Wednesday night, when we were compelled to give up hope, when 
 the very disappointment made the departure seem the sadder, in order 
 somehow to commune with the old friend for a little while, I took from 
 
22 
 
 the shelf the little book that I knew was fullest of himself, "Aboard and 
 Abroad." It is more the reflection of the man than anything he ever 
 wrote. It made conspicuous his convictions and his regard for righteous- 
 ness, but it gave, what many of his works could never show, that outflow 
 of his inner self that made fellowship so sweet. 
 
 In the first letter, that was written on shipboard, he calls to mind the 
 harbor of the city that was familiar in his college days, and describes 
 the receding harbor lights, and the crafts, great and small, passing by; 
 he refers to the Statue, not complete, that was to guard the passage to 
 the sea; he describes the lights of the city fading from view and the 
 spires lost in the mists ; you will remember how he closed that paragraph, 
 "Out of the Narrows, out to the Sea," and as I laid down the book it 
 seemed to me it was his own prophecy of to-day ; it seemed to me that 
 he had but anticipated the description of this longer journey that has 
 left us sad upon the shore. It seemed to me I heard him calling back, 
 " I have seen the city spires fade out of sight, I have seen the harbor 
 lights grow dim, but I am out of the Narrows; I am out at Sea." 
 
 The Narrows look dark to us to-day, and deep, but he has passed the 
 Narrows, and the Unknown Sea across which he floated seems to us lost 
 in shadow and in mist. 
 
 But who ever taught us better than Dr. Breed to believe in the land 
 that is beyond? Who ever taught us better than Dr. Breed to be sure 
 that the Unknown Sea leads to the Father's house ? 
 
 It was not a voyage, like the other, to a strange land. Dr. Breed is 
 homeward bound to-day. Nay, home, for the vessel, doubtless, is already 
 in her other harbor and the Master's welcome is received. 
 
 " Homeward bound." Let us not sorrow as those who have no hope. 
 Many more have met him on the other shore than mourn for him here. 
 Men and women whom he wrought with here; men and women for whom 
 he opened the gate to the Father's house ; the Master whom he served ; 
 more than crowd this house, are rejoicing to-day. Dr. Breed will betimes 
 
23 
 
 come back. Ever)' time I feel a nobler impulse in the memory of his 
 noble life, every time I am prompted to do better work in memory of 
 his untiring zeal, even- time I can hope that my character is lifted in the 
 memory of his purity and faithfulness, I believe I will see his manly 
 form, and that the sweet spirit will, through that sweet face, once more 
 smile its benediction on my soul. 
 
 Whoever may occupy this pulpit, or whoever may uncover the sym- 
 bols of the sacrament, as long as there remains a man, or woman, or 
 child in these pews that ever heard his voice, that ever looked upon his 
 face, so long will there be those to witness to his faithfulness. The work 
 that he did, by the grace of God, will abide, his monument among us, 
 and follow him, as his witness, to his eternal home of rest and reward. 
 
MEMORIAL SERMON, 
 
 REV. HENRY C. McCOOK, D.D., 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE 
 
 WEST SPRUCE STREET PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 
 
 ON SABBATH MORNING APRIL, 21st, iSSg. 
 
William Pratt Breed was born in Greenbush, New York, August 
 
 23d, A. D., lSl6. 
 
 Modern science reaches across the interval of four thousand years to 
 clasp hands with Moses at the Mount of Sinai in declaring the import- 
 ance of heredity as a factor in the character and destiny of men. 
 We cannot, therefore, pass unnoticed or unvalued the Providence 
 that gave our friend a mental and physical temperament drawn 
 from the sturdy blood which has done so much to make our country 
 great. He could join with Cowper in that worthy pride which 
 inspired the lines — 
 
 " My boast is not that I deduce my birth 
 From loins enthroned and rulers of the earth ; 
 But higher far my proud pretensions rise — 
 The son of parents passed into the skies." 
 
 On both sides, his ancestors were of old Puritan stock, and both 
 paternal and maternal grandfathers were soldiers in the Revolutionary 
 War. He would sometimes speak laughingly of the honor of which 
 his family had been deprived by the historic inaccuracy which formed 
 the battle of " Breed's Hill " into the battle of " Bunker Hill." On the 
 father's side the line is traced back directly to Allen Breed, a wholesale 
 grocer of Liverpool, who came over in the little fleet that carried 
 Governor Winthrop and eight hundred immigrants from the old country 
 to the new world in 1630. It was a thorough Puritan stock, with a 
 strong strain of independence and dissent, that led a number of the 
 descendants to branch off into the principles of the Baptists and the 
 Society of Friends. 
 
 27 
 
2S 
 
 A stirring incident of his babyhood, which involved great peril to his 
 life, was a freshet in the Hudson River, which surrounded the house, 
 threatening its destruction, flooded the lower story, and cut it off com- 
 pletely from the mainland. Fortunately, a sudden drop in the tempera- 
 ture froze thick the flooded stream, while it was yet above the first floor, 
 and the parents escaped over the ice, carrying in their arms William 
 and another child. Thus, of this babe, like Moses of old, it might be 
 said that he was " saved from the waters." 
 
 In 1819 the family removed to Stamford, Connecticut ; and in 1822 
 to New Hope, Pennsylvania, where the father had a bakery until his 
 death in 1827. 
 
 The widowed mother and four dependent children were left with no 
 legacy but their industry, sturdy independence and piety. With charac- 
 teristic pluck and foresight, the widow removed to New York City,* 
 as a more advantageous field in which to raise a family, as opportu- 
 nities for employment were more numerous and remunerative than 
 in a small country town. The metropolis of the Nation had long 
 been Philadelphia, but New York had just begun that gigantic develop- 
 ment which soon placed her beyond her ancient rival. 
 
 His Boyhood. 
 
 Yet the city still bore many traces of its' Dutch origin. 
 Life was more simple. The conditions of society had not been revo- 
 lutionized from their primitive American type by the influx of a domi- 
 nant foreign element. There was, therefore, an incalculable difference 
 between the environment of a lad of that period and of the boy who 
 to-day is educated in our modern metropolis. 
 
 His education was chiefly under the influence of his widowed 
 mother, a woman of strong character and earnest piety, whose faithful 
 
 * About 1829. 
 
2 9 
 
 life, as with so many mothers, lives and forever shall live in the work 
 of her son. At an early age he went to learn the bookbinder's trade, 
 and in this occupation gained a sympathy with hand workers, with the 
 lowly and the struggling, which never forsook him, even in his most 
 prosperous days. 
 
 We have a glimpse of the lad, sitting or standing at his bench, 
 sleeves tucked up, a huge workman's apron girt upon him, busy at 
 the details of his craft, while spread before him on the bench was a 
 book of Latin or mathematics. We recall the great 
 
 Apprentice Life. 
 
 men and women who have accomplished an education 
 under like difficult circumstances. Vice-President Wilson with books 
 upon the shoemaker's bench beside him ; Elihu Burritt, the learned 
 blacksmith, studying languages amidst the flying sparks of the red 
 iron on the anvil ; Livingstone, tutoring himself for his life work as 
 missionary pioneer of the dark continent of Africa while he pushed 
 the weaver's shuttle and conned the book that lay upon the loom; 
 Roxanna Ward, the mother of Henry Ward Beecher, studying while 
 she spun flax-, tying her book to her distaff. We are apt to regard 
 these as special cases, but the vision, which we have just recalled, of 
 the New York bookbinder's 'prentice boy, permits us to believe that in 
 our great Republic a multitude of youth have been and still are 
 engaged in fitting themselves amid daily toils for higher and more 
 useful positions. There is nothing more creditable in Dr. Breed's 
 career than the manner in which he thus entered upon it, conning his 
 lessons as he plied a mechanic's task. In the last year of his life his 
 boyhood's training revived, and in an upper room of his house in Six- 
 teenth Street he fitted up a little shop, and employed himself in rebind- 
 ing some of his well worn library books. 
 
 During his apprenticeship occurred a fire that destroyed the estab- 
 lishment in which he wrought, and there survives a family story 
 of the boy fleeing from the flames, through the streets, clad in his 
 
3Q 
 
 shop apron, breaking in upon his mother and crying, with that 
 touch of humor so strongly developed in later years, " Well, ma, 
 my tin cup is gone ! " 
 
 II. 
 
 Dr. Breed was a child of the Church, and an example of the view that 
 those who give the best service to Christ are commonly those who make 
 the earliest consecration of their powers to Him. His pastor was Dr. 
 Krebs of the Rutgers Street Church, of whom he always spoke with the 
 greatest respect and in the tenderest terms, as one under whose ministry 
 he had been led to Christ. 
 
 In his twenty-fifth anniversary address, he said: " It is not, by any 
 means, a surprise to me to find the members of the church entertaining 
 kindly feelings towards the pastor, because I have occupied the place of 
 a member of a congregation myself, and have known what it was to 
 have a pastor. In the home of my widowed mother, in New York, I 
 knew very well, and all there knew very well, that if ever there was need 
 of sympathy, if ever there was need of counsel, if ever there was need of 
 service, there was one man on Manhattan Island who could be appealed 
 to with a certainty of prompt and favorable response, our truly beloved 
 pastor, Dr. John M. Krebs." * 
 
 Those of us who remember Dr. Krebs will recall a sturdy figure, 
 somewhat inclined to stoutness, round cheeks, bushy eyebrows and hair, 
 a genial, kindly look upon a face that had strong characteristics of the 
 historic Dutch ancestry of New York, and a burly form, habitually clothed 
 in a full dress suit. 
 
 One day our apprentice lad, then sixteen years old, was seen timidly 
 passing through the streets of New York to the house of this pastor. It 
 
 * Quarter Century Anniversary, page 109. 
 
3i 
 
 was a heavy heart that he dragged up the " stoop," I have heard him say. 
 But when he came out again, he did not stop to take the steps, but leaped 
 from the door at one bound, ran away as fast as he could to tell his 
 beloved mother the joyful tidings that the lost was found ; that his soul 
 was at peace, and that his life had been forever consecrated to Jesus! 
 
 He did not wait for a ministerial ordination to engage in the work of 
 God. We behold him going up and down the streets of 
 
 , . ,. .. T , . First Christian 
 
 the city as a tract distributor. It was then, perhaps, a vvork 
 more popular business than now, although never was 
 there a period which furnished greater opportunities than the present 
 day for the wise use of the printed page in disseminating the doctrines 
 of salvation. That, at least, was Dr. Breed's view ; and in subsequent 
 life, as a member and long the honored President of the Presbyterian 
 Board of Publication, he had opportunity to give a wide and practical 
 scope to the experience and convictions born of that service. 
 
 For vears the voting convert engaged in this faithful dutv, going from 
 house to house, in the garrets, cellars, up lanes and alleys, seeing for 
 himself the mass of neglected sin and misery that hovels itself in 
 the hidden places of great cities, and gathered that experience and 
 sympathy which made him in later days personally, and through the 
 faithful missionary of his church, a friend and helper of the poor. This 
 feature of his early life in New York City had a strange influence upon 
 his destiny, and that of this congregation, which will presently appear. 
 
 He prepared for college under the tuition of Rev. Dr. John Owen, 
 working at intervals as a journeyman bookbinker. His college training 
 was received in the University of the City of New York. 
 
32 
 
 III. 
 
 Mr. Breed began his theological studies at the Union Seminary, New 
 York City, but after one year spent at that institution, he went to Prince- 
 ton, where he graduated, A. d. 1847. There were giants in those days 
 at this venerable seat of learning, as, indeed, there always have been ; 
 and a walk through the Campo Santo of modern Pres- 
 
 Seminary Life. 
 
 byterianism, that simple but most famous Princeton 
 burial ground, hard by College Campus and Seminary Hall, will reveal 
 to the visitor, as he reads upon the marble such names as Hodge and 
 Alexander and Miller, the intellectual, spiritual and theological furnish- 
 ings that entered into the ministerial outfit of the young candidate. No 
 wonder that under such influences he grew into a sturdy orthodoxy, 
 and went forth to his work one of the best furnished of his class for the 
 duties of the sacred office. 
 
 There is little variety in the ordinary life of the Seminarian, but one 
 interesting episode marked young Breed's theological course. Just after 
 receiving his licensure, he went South to spend a year in teaching at 
 Montpelier Springs, near Savannah, Georgia, in order to secure funds to 
 pay his way through the seminary. At that period it took a letter four 
 weeks to go from Baltimore to Montpelier. There were no envelopes, 
 no postage stamps, and the old-fashioned folded and sealed letters cost 
 twenty-five cents apiece. Those were the days when slavery spread her 
 dark pall above the Southland, and here the licentiate came in contact 
 with an institution which in future days wrought the turmoils of the 
 Rebellion, and which was only burned away from the nation's life by the 
 fires of a civil war. If in after-years he was an enthusiastic patriot and 
 an earnest anti-slavery man, it was because he knew by personal obser- 
 vation the evils of the institution. 
 
 During this service he was invited to supply the pulpit of a Protest- 
 ant Episcopal Church in the neighborhood. He accepted the invitation, 
 
33 
 
 and, arrayed in the ordinary episcopal robes, read the services of that 
 Church and preached his sermons, evidently to the entire satisfaction 
 of all the community. What a curious and striking; . _, . . 
 
 » & An Episcopal 
 
 commentary upon the simpler and sweeter usages of that rector, quoad 
 time! It would be well nigh impossible to conceive of 
 such a thing occurring to-day in a congregation of that venerable com- 
 munion ; and yet it gives us pleasure to believe that in such fellowship 
 of Christian service the life of half a century ago lay nearer to the heart 
 of Christ and the primitive usages, not only of the Apostolic Church, 
 but of that Reformation in which the Anglican communion was born. 
 Such a landmark as this incident permits us to see that in some respects 
 our generation has retrograded rather than progressed. 
 
 In the Seminary, a little band of students bound themselves together 
 for prayer and conference upon the work of Foreign Missions, among 
 whom Dr. Breed found a place. His interest in Foreign Missions was 
 deep, and he was almost ready to offer himself to the Church for foreign 
 service.* 
 
 One da) - a letter was placed in his hand by the venerable Dr. Archi- 
 bald Alexander. It was written by Dr. Charles C. Beatty, of Steuben- 
 ville, Ohio, and it asked that one of the students then about to be 
 graduated be invited to visit Steubenville with a view 
 
 First Call. 
 
 of settlement over the Second Presbyterian Church of 
 that place. The letter was unexpected, and dropped into young Breed's 
 hands as from the very clouds. He decided to visit the church and take 
 a look at the field, and the result was a call and decision to accept. He 
 returned east, married (September, 1847) and took back to his western 
 home as a bride the woman who for all the years of his long life remained 
 at his side the happy, beloved, and helpful companion of his trials, his 
 toils and his triumphs. 
 
 * Historical Discourse, page 60. 
 
34 
 
 In going to Ohio the young couple traveled six days, three of which 
 were spent in canal boats. That simple fact startles one with the image 
 of the wonderful progress which our country has made in the last 
 generation. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The field to which the new minister had come was at that time one of 
 remarkable interest. The city, which bears the name of a distinguished 
 soldier of the Revolution, one of the founders of the Society of the 
 Cincinnati, is situated on the north bank of the Ohio river, just beyond 
 the Pennsylvania line. The principal part of the town is built upon a 
 semi-circular, alluvial flat that reaches from the river's front to a high 
 wall of hills, up whose slopes the suburbs of the city 
 „ . have Gradually climbed. On the opposite bank of the 
 
 Environments. b J i r 
 
 river, stretching up between the Ohio and Pennsylvania 
 borders, is what was then known as the Pan Handle of Virginia ; slave 
 territory it was in those ante-bellum days, before the State of West Vir- 
 ginia had been cut from the western flank of the Old Dominion. 
 
 Opposite the upper portion of the city, on the Virginia side, was a 
 beautiful little valley known as the Cove, that broke the line of the cliffs 
 and added to the charm of the scenery. From these hills 
 of Steubenville, Thomas Cole, the famous pioneer of 
 American landscape painting (as I have been told by my mother, who 
 was one of his pupils), made his studies of the scenery which he wrought 
 into his four celebrated paintings known as the Voyage of Life. 
 
 In this beautiful site a vigorous population had settled. Three con- 
 fluent tides of migration were flowing during the early part of this cen- 
 tury into Ohio, which was then the gateway of the West. One tide 
 came from New England, chiefly the State of Connecticut, swept across 
 northern New York, carrying with it some of the assimilated population 
 
 Steubenville, O. 
 
35 
 
 of that section, and occupied the northwestern corner of Ohio, known 
 as the " Connecticut or Western Reserve." This was the home of Joshua 
 Giddings, Bluff Ben. Wade and President Garfield. Another stream, fol- 
 lowing a little lower parallel, came from the State of Pennsylvania, chiefly 
 from the beautiful central valleys among the Allegheny mountains. But 
 the pioneers were the Scotch and Scotch-Irish population from the rugged 
 foot-hills of the Allesjhenies and the green wheat fields of Washington 
 count}-, who crossed the Ohio border into the new State. There came 
 with them, though not of them as yet, numerous colonies from the Penn- 
 sylvania Germans, who carried into their new home, Stark, Columbiana 
 and Jefferson counties, their thrifty German ways and the bright red 
 barns, such as one still sees gleaming amidst the golden fields of Lan- 
 caster. 
 
 From the border States of the South a Southern migratory wave was 
 flowing northward, some of whom found place along the Ohio River as 
 far up as Steubenville. Representatives of all these and other incoming 
 populations were found in that city. No wonder that 
 Ohio is famous as a land within which mighty men ans 
 
 3 J Population. 
 
 were born, and cultured and prepared for the great work 
 which God had given them to do in this Republic ! Small praise is that 
 to Ohio herself, for it was the best blood and brain, vigor and brawn of 
 the Eastern States that had come to mingle their energy with their 
 blood upon the new soil, and make it thus a mighty Commonwealth. 
 
 I recall among the men of influence in Steubenville of that day such 
 names as that of Senator Tappan, Edwin M. Stanton, the great War 
 Secretary, and his partner, Colonel George W. McCook ; Daniel V. 
 Collier, Colonel James Collier, General Stokley ; the warm-hearted 
 Kentuckian, Dr. Comingo, my own beloved pastor; the Moodys, 
 McDowells, Sherrards, Kilgores, Conns, Leavitts, Means, Andrews, 
 Morse, Leavitt, Dike, Spencer, and a host of others, all of them men of 
 mark, or men of high metal. 
 
36 
 
 The old First Church, under the pastorate of Dr. Comingo was full, 
 and Dr. Beatty, the principal of the Female Seminary, was the chief 
 mover in establishing a second congregation. A house of worship had 
 been built in a part of the city well removed from the mother church, 
 and a flourishing congregation had already been gathered into it. This 
 church, though known on the Presbyterian records and in legal docu- 
 ments as the Second Church, was popularly known, at least among the 
 young men of the city, as the "Seminary Church." Here the young 
 women of Beatty's Seminary worshipped ; and it was 
 Beatty's one f the sights of the town to behold the long column 
 
 Female . 
 
 Seminary. °' tmght young women marching two-and-two, on a 
 
 Sunday morning, to the Church. The chancel seats on 
 either side of the pulpit were filled by them, and they overflowed into 
 the front pews on either side. At that period this school was perhaps 
 the leading one in the West and Southwest. Up the Ohio River, in the 
 steamboats or " packets " that then walked the waters of our Western 
 rivers, and all along the Mississippi and its branches, came from the 
 plantations of the South young women to receive their education. From 
 the far West and Northwest just then opening; from the Eastern counties 
 of Ohio, and all the region around about Pittsburgh, possessed by a 
 sturdy Presbyterian population, the best of the land were garnered to 
 this seat of education.. 
 
 It was no small task to preach to such a company, to say nothing of 
 the numbers of cultivated people who occupied the pews beyond the 
 chancel. It must have been an especially embarrassing position for a 
 young man. Here Dr. Breed took up his profession and began his life 
 work. That it was a successful ministry the records of 
 Fruits of First the Assembly abundantly show. After a year, gra- 
 
 Ministry. ' 3 } ' & 
 
 cious clouds of blessing gathered over the congregation, 
 and God set before Mr. Breed that precious luxury, the young pastor's 
 first revival. It was a heavenly shower, and from that time at intervals 
 
37 
 
 other like showers fell. During the eight years of his ministry, Dr. 
 Breed received to the communion 382 souls, 254 of them on confession 
 of faith.* Certainly this is a remarkable record, an average of 32 con- 
 versions a year ! 
 
 I have alluded to the Female Seminary feature of that pastorate, not 
 simply with the view of giving you a picture of the young man's sur- 
 roundings, but because it formed a most important factor in his usefulness. 
 Among those young ladies occurred a large proportion of these conver- 
 sions. The Seminary was a most useful field, and those bright young 
 spirits, there consecrated to God, went back to their homes to exercise an 
 influence that can never be fully weighed until the Day of Judgment. 
 They became the wives, many of them, of distinguished men of the 
 already established or soon to be established States. They are found to- 
 day occupying positions of honor in high places, among the notables of 
 our country. Many have been the faithful wives of faithful ministers; 
 and greater honor still, not a few of them have found congenial service 
 and a grave in missionary service on foreign fields. 
 
 V. 
 
 Dr. Breed's preaching, as I remember it, was at that period not greatly 
 different in style from that which is so well known by this congregation, 
 except that it was perhaps a little more florid. He was called "a flowery 
 preacher." This phrase in that section and period did 
 
 As a Preacher. 
 
 not carry the meaning which we would give it. The 
 prevailing tone of preaching was severely theological, didactic, inornate 
 almost to barrenness, logical, formal, punctilious in divisions and sub- 
 divisions, lacking in the emotional, a faculty which was remanded to the 
 
 * Historical Discourse, p. 17. 
 
33 
 
 Methodists, most fortunately for that noble communion, and often was 
 unduly prolonged. In some of the congregations the old-fashioned 
 hour-glass still held its place upon the pulpit. 
 
 I remember my boyhood's pastor, in a neighboring Ohio town, turn- 
 ing the glass when he rose to preach, preaching until the sand had all 
 run out, and occasionally reversing the glass again as he passed into his 
 " finally." I remember, too, on one rare occasion when the sermon 
 ceased ere the hour's sand had run, that an elder greeted the pastor after 
 service with a somewhat dolorous and rebuking tone, sweetened by the 
 rich Doric accent of North Ireland : " Ah, docthor, you gev us scant 
 measure, the daay ! " I cannot say that I endorsed the elder's opinion, 
 and there was a growing class of dissenters on that point. It was the 
 older and conservative element that called Mr. Breed a " flowery preacher," 
 and the dissenters approved the style, whatever the name implied. In 
 fact, the young pastor of the Second Church had simply dropped into 
 the current of the age and went with the stream just far and fast enough 
 to do good service as one of Christ's fishers of men, casting the Gospel 
 net into it by the way. His sermons blossomed with the beauty of that 
 Nature which he loved so well, and he delighted to ornament them with 
 quotations from the varied fields of literature, science and history. He 
 was a popular preacher, not only in his own congregation, and among 
 the young particularly, for whom he had strong attractions, but through- 
 out the city and surrounding country. At the meetings of Presbytery 
 and Synod, there was no one whom the people more willingly heard, and 
 when it was known that Dr. Breed would preach, he was sure to have a 
 full congregation. But the chief power of his preaching lay in thepure, 
 sweet, simple but strong and faithful presentation of the very " marrow 
 of divinity," the evangelical doctrine of salvation by grace through Jesus 
 Christ alone, 
 
 The account of Dr. Breed's pulpit qualities would be incomplete with- 
 out reference to his work among children and youth. He had a happy 
 
39 
 
 facility in addressing young people, which, in the days of his early 
 ministry, was as rare as delightful. He was in the van of that great 
 army that in these days is covering the world of child- 
 life with sweet, simple, appropriate and helpful effort. rh °L among 
 The best picture of Dr. Breed's power and methods in 
 this field that I can give, is presented in the following letter from a 
 well-known Philadelphia pastor, Dr. John Henry Sharpe, who was a 
 lad in Dr. Breed's first Sunday School. He thus writes : — 
 
 " There comes up before me, most vividly, a recollection of my youthful 
 days in dear old Steubenville. It was on the Fourth of July, and 
 probably in the year 1854 or '55. We celebrated the day in the Second 
 Church by taking a Sunday-school excursion down the Ohio, many mem- 
 bers of the congregation also going along. To my youthful impressions 
 of the occasion there was a great company on board, and Dr. Breed was 
 the life of it all. Our excursion carried us as far as the little town of 
 Warrenton, Ohio, below YVellsburgh, where we landed. Not long 
 afterward we formed a procession and marched up through the village 
 to one of its churches. I presume there had been some arrangement 
 beforehand for the exercises that followed. The only fact that I re- 
 member with distinctness is that Mr. Breed, then and there, gave a 
 Fourth of July address, whose main points have ever since dwelt vividly 
 in my memory. 
 
 " It consisted of two stories of boys, whose names he strictly withheld 
 until the denouement in each case. The first was the story of a boy 
 who loved the sea, and whose heart and imagination were fired by what 
 he saw of the men-of-war riding up and down the bay before his 
 widowed mother's home, and of the soldiers and sailors who were 
 frequently visitors at the homestead of his elder brother with whom he 
 lived. At last a commission to be midshipman was procured for him, 
 and the evening of the day before which he was to go on board and sail 
 away on the high seas arrived. Then followed the scene of a mother in 
 
40 
 
 tears going to say farewell to her boy, and breaking down ; and then 
 the affectionate son so touched that, though it cost him 
 
 Patriotic Picnic . . , . 
 
 Address tne dream of his life to that hour, he decided he would 
 
 not leave his mother, and cast up his commission. The 
 vessel waited for him next morning, and when he did not come it sailed 
 away without him. 
 
 " ' Who was that boy ? ' When Mr. Breed asked that question, I do not 
 know whether I knew the answer or not, but I know that he had wound 
 us up to such a pitch that there was a great shout — ' George Wash- 
 ington ! ' 
 
 " As soon as the excitement had subsided somewhat Mr. Breed had 
 launched out upon another story. This was of another boy, whose 
 mother, if I recollect the story aright, was also a widow. But the boy 
 was a totally different one. He was disobedient and cruel. He robbed 
 birds' nests. He broke glass bottles into small pieces and scattered them 
 where barefooted little children would tread on them and cut their feet. 
 This boy too lived near the sea, and he wanted to become a sailor, but 
 his mother would not hear to it. But despite his mother's tears and 
 fears, at last he got all things in readiness one night, and then ran off 
 and enlisted in a ship, leaving his mother to mourn his unknown fate. 
 This story the speaker further touched up as to the after history of the 
 boy, and the climax came with the demand for his name. Again came 
 a thundering answer, but I must confess that I was not then enough of 
 a historian to join in naming the traitor, ' Benedict Arnold ! ' 
 
 " I have never since then, I believe, heard these two opposite and con- 
 trasting histories. They were wonderfully effective, and they illustrate 
 a power, which I believe that Dr. Breed possessed in an unique degree, 
 of impressing the youthful mind with telling facts, sentiments and 
 lessons. 
 
 " I believe I mentioned to you the other day his summer visit to Steu- 
 benville in 1858, when he accompanied the Sunday School on an excur- 
 
41 
 
 sion up the river to the "Half Moon Farm." On that occasion he was 
 obliged to address us, and standing up there in the 
 
 & " r A Nature Talk. 
 
 woods with a leaf in his hand, he discoursed about the 
 myriads of living things in every green leaf and in every drop of water. 
 It was a startling revelation to me, and doubtless it was to others. I 
 cannot but believe that it was his wonderful skill in gaining and holding 
 the youthful attention by his vivid power of picturesque description that 
 made his story of the infusoria and animalcula of nature so fascinating 
 and ineffacable. 
 
 " Let me refer to still another delightful memory of mine. I was a 
 scholar in the Infant School taught by Mrs. Breed. As the holidays 
 drew on I was confined at home by illness of some sort. Dr. and Mrs. 
 Breed sent out invitations to the pupils of the Infant School to come 
 to a New Year's part}- at the parsonage. I remember my fear that I 
 should not be well enough to be allowed to go. But go I did, and such 
 an evening we had ! First, we assembled in the parlor. We had many 
 gleesome games there, Mr. Breed joining in them as if he were truly 
 one of our number. I remember quite well how when we were all 
 ranged in rows close to the wall, all around the room, and sitting on 
 the floor, he passed around and swept his two hands 
 
 11 11111 i-i A Night at the 
 
 through mv two palms held close together, in the game, ., 
 
 o - i » & > Manse. 
 
 ' Buttoner ! Buttoner ! Who has the button ? ' I did 
 not get the button nor do I know now who did, but his merry eyes and 
 the touch of his hand are before me now as they were then. Later on 
 we were led mysteriously up stairs. The room was darkened and we 
 were cautioned not to be frightened, but to look intently at the wall 
 opposite. Suddenly a great open-mouthed, glaring-eyed tiger leaped 
 out in a circle of light. It was the first in a series of magic lantern 
 pictures with which he entertained us in a way we could not fail to re- 
 member all our lives long." 
 
 Dr. Breed was equally effective as a pastor. During those eight years 
 
42 
 
 of ministry, the first years, be it remembered, of his public life, not a jar 
 of discord was ever heard within the congregational bounds. A single 
 exception, perhaps, should be allowed. It occurred upon the introduction 
 of an organ as an aid to congregational praise. People of our genera- 
 tion and our present surroundings cannot appreciate the strong feelings 
 and convictions which some of the worthy fathers and mothers, from 
 Scotland and Northern Ireland especially, entertained 
 
 As a Pastor. 
 
 concerning instrumental aid in the musical parts of 
 worship. To them the " Kist o' whustles," as they contemptuously 
 denominated the organ, was only " an abomination " in the house of the 
 Lord. On the day when such an instrument was introduced into the 
 Second Church of Steubenville, at the first sound of the organ, a most 
 excellent and venerable lady, with the true Caledonian blue running 
 current through her veins, started from her seat, and stood stalwart, up- 
 right in her pew. She acted as if a thunderbolt had suddenly fallen 
 upon the church. Turning toward the organ loft, she listened a moment, 
 as though to assure herself that the abomination had actually invaded 
 the sanctuary ; then with a frown overspreading her face, with head erect, 
 with lips firmly set, she stalked down the aisle, and left the church, 
 never again to grace with her presence that " desecrated spot." 
 
 VI. 
 
 Into this field of peaceful usefulness came an agent of that Eastern 
 invasion which has so often raided the pulpits of the west. That agent 
 was Mr. Morris Patterson, a name forever honored and remembered in 
 this sanctuary. He appeared as commissioner from the congregation of 
 West Spruce Street Church. On the 4th, of April, 1856, the Presbytery 
 of Philadelphia had met; a call was presented for the services of William 
 Pratt Breed, and the congregation obtained leave to prosecute the same 
 
43 
 
 before the Presbytery of Steubcnville. I have always understood that 
 
 the direct instrumentality in this call was the late Daniel 
 
 L. Collier, Esq., who had removed from Steubcnville to Cal1 to West 
 
 n Spruce Street. 
 
 Philadelphia, to whose worthy and highly respectable 
 citizens he soon showed what sort of material could be provided from 
 the banks of the Ohio. Knowing as he did the young pastor of the 
 Second congregation, lie discerned in him the qualities that would make 
 the newly organized West Spruce Street Church a success, and upon 
 his recommendation the matter was investigated, with the results an- 
 nounced. 
 
 In the meantime great was the perturbation of spirit in that beautiful 
 amphitheatre on the western shore of the Ohio. The centre of perturba- 
 tion was the parsonage of the Second Presbyterian Church, from which 
 it overflowed into and through the congregation.* 
 
 The Philadelphia call was resisted by the people of Steubenville, led 
 by Dr. Beatty, who felt most keenly, perhaps, the loss that threatened 
 him and his pupils. The Presbytery of Steubenville almost unanimously 
 advised Mr. Breed to remain upon his field. 
 
 But Dr. Boardman and the newly organized West Spruce Street 
 Church were the sort of Presbyterians who believed in grit as well as 
 grace ; and having once entertained the idea that Dr. Breed was their 
 appointed pastor, they could not forego the conviction that whatsoever 
 was foreordained must come to pass ! They, therefore, 
 came before the Presbytery of Philadelphia and upon r reS fl y "^ 
 their action, that venerable body authorized them again 
 to prosecute their call. The result is thus recorded by Dr. Breed in his 
 diary, which it appears he was in the habit of keeping during the most 
 of his life. Unhappily, that diary has been lost, or at least has not 
 been accessible for the preparation of this memorial discourse. " April 
 
 * Historical Discourse, p. 16. 
 
44 
 
 7th, 1856. A most trying day. Presbytery dissolved the pastoral relation 
 between me and the Second Church of Steubenville. Having been led 
 along step by step, I seem to see that I must go to the West Spruce 
 Street Church in Philadelphia, but Presbytery having once refused, was 
 still wavering, was divided, and I having decided the matter in my own 
 mind, let them know fully and plainly how I felt, and they acted at last 
 with no great lack of unanimity. It is painful, but if it prove happy for 
 this Church and for that, I shall never recall the pain with any regret. 
 May the good Spirit of God send his smile upon all concerned."* 
 
 How strange and recondite are the influences that draw our lives in 
 this way or that, and bind the hearts of men together or force them 
 asunder ! Who would have thought that the links of the chain of Provi- 
 dence that drew the Steubenville pastor to his Philadelphia home, had 
 been wrought upon the anvil of Providence in the days when the young 
 bookbinder and college student was serving God as a tract distributor in 
 New York City? Who would have thought that the decision which 
 changed a life, which moulded the destiny of a great congregation, which 
 has made the future for an unknown number of souls, was all based upon 
 a blunder? Yet so it was. 
 
 Dr. Breed has left the facts on record and we cannot be in doubt. He 
 always had dread of rather than desire for a luxurious pastorate. He 
 never had conceived the ambition to occupy what is called a " leading 
 church." His work among the poor of New York City, his profound 
 sympathy with their interests, and conviction that nothing but Christ and 
 his salvation would bring relief and genuine healing to all their burdens 
 and woes, had deeply impressed his mind. He never forgot the expe- 
 riences of those days. And whenever in his Steubenville work the thought 
 was suggested by letters from abroad as to the advantage of another field 
 of labor, the reply to himself was, " No ; if ever I leave this field volun- 
 
 * Historical Discourse, p. 19. 
 
45 
 
 tarily, it will be to go to some great city and labor among the poor." 
 Filled with this purpose and spirit he arrived in Philadelphia. The 
 Church to which he was called he knew to be a colony from the Tenth 
 Church, and the conclusion which he had formed, and which, reasonintr 
 from his New York experience, he thought at the time a natural one, 
 was that it was a sort of Church mission enterprise. Among the first 
 questions that he asked Dr. Boardman, in correspondence, was, " Will 
 the labors there be among the poor? " Dr. Boardman simply answered, 
 " The rich and the poor meet together." 
 
 Judge, then, of his emotions, of his profound surprise and, a-; he 
 declares, disappointment, when he stood at the corner of Seventeenth 
 and Spruce streets, amid the rubbish and debris of the then uncompleted 
 but splendid sanctuary, and, among the homes of those 
 who were to be his people and associates, beheld how strange 
 
 ^ ^ Mistake. 
 
 different was the realization from the expectation ! This 
 was no mission chapel ! This was no missionary enterprise, in the sense, 
 at least, of labor among the lowly poor ! What were his sentiments 
 under the circumstances ? We know, for he has written them : " When 
 I reached Philadelphia and saw the field to which I had come, I exclaimed, 
 ' Well, man proposes ; God disposes. But here I am, and now to the 
 work that lies before me."* Thus, like a good Christian and good 
 Calvinist as he was, he accepted the fact of a leading Providence, and 
 beholding the way of God walked therein. 
 
 Though not precisely in the way that he anticipated, his expectations 
 were not disappointed; for, after twenty-five years of service, he could 
 testify to his own conscience and to his God that, although few pastoral 
 fields include homes of wealth fuller of all that can delight a pastor's 
 heart than the charge to which he had come, yet he found in them a 
 ready response to his appeals in behalf of less fortunate brethren, and 
 
 * Historical Discourse. 
 
46 
 
 was enabled, through the agency of others, to bear the Gospel of Christ 
 to a multitude of the poor. Perhaps he thus accomplished the worthy 
 purpose which had been a moving motive in sundering the Ohio pastoral 
 relation, even more fully than in any other way. 
 
 The lecture room of the new church was opened for worship on Sab- 
 bath, May 1 8th, 1856, and on June 4th following, at the Tenth Church, 
 the installation of the pastor-elect took place. For some 
 
 Installation. 
 
 time thereafter the two pastors, Dr. Boardman and Mr. 
 Breed, preached alternately in the mother church and the church on 
 Spruce street. In fact, it was a collegiate congregation, but this arrange- 
 ment was not of long duration. Collegiate churches and dependent 
 colonies have never been popular in Philadelphia. The genius of the 
 people tends too strongly to independence, and the sturdy American 
 character of its population chafes under the idea of dependence upon 
 another church. 
 
 Next to a man's own congregation, nothing probably has a greater 
 influence upon his character and ministry than the character of his 
 
 neighbors and associates in ministerial life. The first 
 „ . . experience of our western brother was rained at his 
 
 Environment. r t> 
 
 admission to Presbytery. He had been ordained by the 
 Steubenville Presbytery, and a more truly orthodox " Old School" body, 
 to say the least, nowhere could be found, as I can well attest, having 
 been ordained by the same venerable body. Coming from this Pres- 
 bytery after an eight years' pastorate, it might well have produced some- 
 thing of a surprise to know that the Philadelphia brethren insisted upon 
 putting the applicant for membership through the same catechetical 
 exercises required of an incoming licentiate. But those were days when 
 the spirit of "Old School" and "New School" was still rampant in 
 the land. Jealousy, watchfulness, and alas! too often bitterness, if not 
 bigotry, marked the relations of ministers and elders with their co-pres- 
 byters. Therefore, the venerable Dr. McDowell was put to the front and, 
 
47 
 
 with Dr. Musgrave in the chair, whose proclivities were, to say the least, 
 not very strongly towards moderation, we may be well assured that Mr. 
 Breed, of Ohio, was thoroughly tested as to his soundness in the faith, 
 before his papers were passed upon and he greeted with the right hand 
 of fellowship. Me stood the catechism not only with success theo- 
 logically, but with profound good temper, not without a mirthful glance 
 at the seeming oddity, not to say absurdity, of the scene. 
 
 Go back to the days of 1856, and call the roll of the men who then 
 stood foremost in the Presbyterian pulpits of Philadelphia, There was 
 Albert Barnes, facile pn iiccps , massive as a mountain, firm as a mountain's 
 granite heart, pure as the crystal streamlet that trickles down the moun- 
 tain's side ; a character guileless and sweet as the wood- 
 Albert Barnes, 
 flowers that bloom in the mountain dells, and living a 
 
 life as fertile to the world as the plains that skirt the mountain foot rich 
 with the fretting of winter's frosts and sweepings of summer rains. He 
 held his place in the First Church, the mother of us all, in the midst of 
 a people one of whose noblest characteristics has always been unswerving 
 loyalty to their pastors. Close by, in the old Pine Street Church, which 
 the soldiers of King George converted into a stable during the Revolu- 
 tionary days, as a testimony of the feelings with which they regarded 
 the " pestilent Presbyterians," was Dr. Brainard, strong, evangelical, 
 masterful, beloved, as ready for a revival or a patriotic meeting as for a 
 horseback ride along the country roads and under the branching trees 
 of Hamiltonville, just beyond the Schuylkill. 
 
 The cultured and classical Shields was in the old Second Church, 
 which has since crossed the Presbytery borders and built it a sanctu- 
 ary on Walnut street. Dr. Cheeseman was in the Fourth Church, in 
 those days, or a little earlier at least, somewhat profanely denominated 
 among certain of its enemies as the " old fourth-proof Church." At 
 the Arch Street Church crowds of people thronged to hear Dr. Charles 
 Wadsworth, prince of sermonizers, most awkward of orators with his one 
 
4 8 
 
 circulatory gesture, yet most attractive of preachers, eloquent in diction, 
 glowing with evangelical zeal, and all abloom with figures drawn from 
 every field of thought. Alexander Macklin had, for his thoroughly 
 Scottish name, a most harmonious setting in the historic Scots Church, 
 which has at last renewed its youth and found lodgment on South Broad 
 street. Butler, in West Philadelphia, a rural part of the city in those 
 days, was laying the foundations of the Walnut Street Church, which 
 stands to-day easily in the forefront of our best congregations. The 
 Central Church, which has since, like many others, been put on wheels 
 and carried up to Broad and Fairmount Avenue, was under the ministry 
 of the eloquent Henry Steele Clark. 
 
 Johnstone " of that ilk," as he was proud to characterize himself, with 
 a glance at his good Scotch ancestors, was up in Kensington. He ruled 
 his congregation well, — ruled it, for, in the admiring language of one of 
 his devoted parishioners, " he was a lordly mon." With a warm heart 
 in his big chest, and a laughing eye in his rosy face ; with hands as quick 
 to generous deeds as was his tongue to fiery speech, he well illustrated 
 the motto of his beloved Irish Church, " Ardens sed virens." At the 
 Sixth Church, down on Spruce street, was the gentle and courtly Dr. 
 Jones, soon to pass into the Secretaryship of the Board of Ministerial 
 Relief. Dr. E. P. Rodgers, not yet transferred to the Dutch Collegiate 
 Church of New York, was drawing crowds to Penn Square, and waging 
 unremitting conflict within himself between his love for fine pictures and 
 the limitations of his salary. How they would wonder, these last two, 
 could they wake from their long sleep and walk out Chestnut street to 
 Thirty-seventh and see the stalwart child of the happy union between 
 the old Sixth and Seventh Churches — our present "Tabernacle." 
 
 In the Clinton Street Church was Henry S. Darling, loving, beloved, 
 formal but friendly and sympathetic, the beau ideal of a clergyman, not 
 only in his mental furnishings, but in his outward deportment. Up in 
 the Northern Liberties Dr. Thomas J. Shepperd wielded his bishop's 
 
49 
 
 crook with dignity and power. The venerable Dr. John McDowell was 
 bringing forth fruit in old age in the Spring Garden Church, little dream- 
 ing of the days to come when the garden walls which he builded and 
 guarded with such orthodox watchfulness should be invaded by a Uni- 
 tarian from far-away Armenia. Robert Watts at Westminster was dis- 
 playing qualities which soon won for him a call to an honored professor- 
 ship in the Belfast School of the Prophets. Dr. John Jenkins, rich in 
 his pulpit endowments, but too English in sentiment for the coming 
 days of civil war, was in Calvary Church, the nearest neighbor and the 
 powerful New School rival of West Spruce Street Church. Calvary 
 was vigorous with new blood, and, virile with the consecrated wealth of 
 men like Baldwin and Baird, sent forth such ecclesiastical children as 
 Tabor, Olivet and Hope. In the Tenth Church, at Twelfth and Walnut, 
 was Dr. Henry A. Boardman, whose master hand had 
 
 , , r . . . ...... Henry A. 
 
 carved and framed the enterprise materialized at last in _ . 
 
 r Boardman. 
 
 the West Spruce colony, to which Dr. Breed was called. 
 
 There were few congregations in those days, there have been few in any 
 
 day, that in personnel could be held the peers of the people to whom 
 
 he preached ; and the man was worthy of such a flock. His was the 
 
 Damascus blade, keen, polished, wielded by one of the best trained and 
 
 fairest poised minds that the Church has ever known. 
 
 Musgrave. too, was here. Moderator of the Presbytery, his "thunder 
 
 hammer of Thor" in even,- way in sharp contrast with 
 
 Dr. Musgrave. 
 
 the polished weapon which Boardman wielded. There 
 was no sight in Presbyter}- better worth seeing than a conflict of cour- 
 teous debate between these two great leaders, so strangely unlike each 
 other in nearly all their characteristics, yet thoroughly united on some 
 of the greatest movements of the Church. Up in the Logan Square 
 Church was Dr. John Patton. Where is the Logan Square Church ? 
 History moves so swiftly, and the changes in a great city are so many 
 that the names familiar a quarter of a century ago become obliterated. 
 4 
 
50 
 
 That Church has disappeared from our rolls, but Dr. Patton still is 
 among us, not as an active pastor, indeed, but his well-known face is yet 
 familiar in ministerial associations. Of all the company whose names 
 have been mentioned, he and only one other remain. The affable and 
 erudite Dr. Blackwood of the Ninth Church is the single pastor within 
 our city limits that greeted Dr. Breed at his coming. 
 
 VII. 
 
 How impossible by simple arithmetic to sum up such a ministry as 
 
 Dr. Breed's. But figures have their value, and at least give an accepted 
 
 standard of success. During the first twenty-five years 
 
 Philadelphia _ , . . . . „. .. , . , . _ .... 
 
 M - • . of his ministry in Philadelphia 540 persons united with 
 
 his Church on profession of their faith, an average of 
 twenty-two conversions a year. About the same number were received 
 upon certificate. How many others have been brought to Christ through 
 this faithful man's ministry none but God can know. Certain it is that 
 the saving influences of any minister in a large city Church are never 
 to be measured by the results shown upon the records of his own 
 Church membership. 
 
 Oftentimes the most fruitful part of a ministry for Christ is that which 
 meets " strangers within the gates " and those who listen to the word in 
 the frequent services wrought in other congregations, and in general 
 public work. But taking the bare statistics of the two Churches which 
 he served, it is a noble record — 930 conversions. The number received 
 during the interval from his quarter century celebration to his retire- 
 ment from the active pastorate must have swollen this number to more 
 than 1000 souls. A whole regiment of the Redeemed! What a noble 
 army is that to march before the presence of the Throne in the day of 
 
5i 
 
 final glory, and lay down their crowns at the feet of the Lamb, rejoicing 
 in that salvation which was brought to them through the instrumentality 
 of this faithful man of God. 
 
 Dr. Breed's new work was begun under man; - happy auspices, but 
 scarcely was it under full way before it was met by the terrible financial 
 crisis of 1857. As he expressed it, " This wild gale met our bark as she 
 went out of port, straining her timbers, tearing her sails, but her flag 
 brave hands had nailed to the mast." This crisis was followed by the 
 great revival of '?j and '58, in which the new pastor took an earnest 
 part, and which brought renewed strength to his congregation. To 
 quote again his language, " When the pinnacles of our Zion began 
 to glimmer with the rays of the morning, they were first swept 
 by the financial tempest, and then gilded by the great religious 
 awakening.'' * 
 
 The influence of this awakening upon Dr. Breed and his congregation 
 extended through all his ministerial life. What a season it was ! The 
 recollection thereof has not yet died from the memories of many living. 
 On the 3d of February, 1858, began those Union 
 Prayer Meetings in this citv which afterward acquired Revival of 
 
 so wide a notoriety. They were established on the 
 pattern of the Fulton Street Prayer Meeting of Xew York, which had 
 been started on the 23d of April preceding. The Philadelphia meeting 
 began in an ante-room of what was then known as Jayne's Hall. For 
 some days only twenty, forty and sixty persons attended. Suddenly 
 the number went up to three hundred, and it was resolved, not without 
 trepidation, to hold the next meeting in the large hall. The hall with 
 seats for 2500 people was filled. The next day the curtain was drawn 
 away from the stage, and it and the galleries were filled. The next day 
 the partition between the smaller and larger room was taken down, and 
 
 * Historical Discourse, p. 38. 
 
52 
 
 the hall, from street to street, thrown open. " The meeting was unpar- 
 alleled in the history of any city in any age. Wave after wave poured in 
 from the closet, from the family, from the Church, until the great tidal 
 wave rolled its mighty surge, swallowing up for the time all separate 
 sects, creeds, denominations in the one great, glorious, only Church of 
 the Holy Ghost." * The wave spread from one end of the Republic to 
 the other, and its holy influences swept forward to the very beginning of 
 that colossal struggle between the two sections of the country that began 
 when the Sumter fires were kindled in '61. Indeed, it has been univer- 
 sally regarded as God's gracious preparation of his Church for the trials 
 and temptations of that fratricidal war. 
 
 In its essential characteristics, Dr. Sreed displayed in his Philadel- 
 phia bishopric the same qualities as preacher and 
 
 ia ep ia pastor that marked his Ohio ministry. Advancing 
 
 Preaching. ' ° 
 
 years, widened experiences and views of men and life, 
 enlarged responsibilities and changed environments had, of course, their 
 modifying influence; but there was no great revolution in style, no 
 upheaval of nature, no birth of latent powers and faculties, no deliberate 
 entrance upon a new manner of preaching and an antipodal career, as 
 has sometimes occurred to ministers after such translation of labors. 
 His life flowed on over the already well worn channel, broadened, fulled, 
 diversified, but the same. One of his faithful elders thus describes it : 
 "The gospel he has proclaimed has been no new-fangled invention of his 
 own or of any other human brain. It has been ' the old, old story of 
 Jesus and His love.' 
 
 "Sabbath after Sabbath, Wednesday after Wednesday, Friday after 
 Friday, in season and out of season, has he come to us in the fulness of 
 the preparation of the Gospel of peace ; and while he has held fast to the 
 old landmarks, and stood firm upon the fundamental principles of truth as 
 
 * See Historical Discourse, p. 27. 
 
53 
 
 the Presbyterian Church understands them, yet he has ever kept fully 
 abreast with all the recent investigations of science and all its dis- 
 coveries. He has been and is familiar with every art of 
 modern infidelity, and has championed the truth against eorgejun in s 
 
 - ' ' & Estimate, 
 
 all the assaults of recent atheism, deism, evolution and 
 
 other kindred errors. History has yielded to him its treasures, Art has 
 
 been his spoil, Literature has paid him tribute, and to-day his panoply 
 
 for service in the Christian warfare is as complete as that of any of 
 
 whom we have knowledge. 
 
 Perhaps Dr. Breed's greatest power for service lay in the quality of 
 
 his pastoral work. Just after his death I heard a little circle of ministers 
 
 discussing his character and career. Several expressed the opinion that 
 
 he owed very much of his success to his eldership and 
 
 Pastoral Work. 
 
 official members, men of strong individuality and sterling 
 worth, whose moulding hands upon their pastor had shaped as well 
 as sustained him. Certainly there is much to justify such a view, 
 and no one more fully than Dr. Breed himself admitted it and ex- 
 pressed his obligations to his faithful friends. But there was one, 
 at least, in that little circle, who had read more closely and more 
 truthfully the facts which the testimony of these men reveals. Dr. 
 Breed was the bishop over his flock. Power is not always noisy. 
 Bluster is not force. The shoot of Niagara's current just above the 
 Falls is as silent as the movement of the night stars. The babbling 
 mountain brook makes far more noise. A growing corn-field on 
 the fat prairies of Illinois cracks and snaps under the hot suns of 
 August. But under the same vital force the forests of the Alle- 
 ghenies . are lifted up into mighty trunks, noiselessly as a sun-rising. 
 Dr. Breed's power wrought silently, but it was none the less effec- 
 tive for that. This is the testimony of one of his noblest supporters, 
 
 * Mr. George Junkin's Address at Quarter-Centennial. 
 
54 
 
 whose free-hearted help was one of the largest factors in his church's 
 growth, Gustavus F. Benson. * 
 
 " That which impresses us in all this," he said, " is the fact that there 
 
 must be some moving principle in it all, that there must be something 
 
 not apparent which has stirred up these people, as with one heart, to 
 
 come forward and show their affection for their pastor. Himself of a 
 
 loving and sympathetic nature, the most ardent desire 
 
 us avus . Q j- j^j g sou j j. Q j lave sou i s } :e has brought into this 
 
 Benson s 
 
 Testimony. church, since he has been the pastor of it, some six 
 
 hundred people, whose conversion under God has been 
 brought about through his instrumentality. His example has made this 
 a working church. The names of those of its members who have worked 
 the hardest in their own Church, appear upon the rolls of managers of 
 our benevolent societies, of our hospitals, of the boards of our Church. 
 Indeed, I might almost say that wherever in this city good works are to 
 be done, there you will find the names of the members of this Church. 
 " He has made this people a liberal people. It is said of the celebrated 
 Dr. Adam Clark, the great Methodist commentator, one of the most 
 learned men of his day, that when one of his congregation came to his 
 study and told him with great glee that a certain man, noted alike for 
 his wealth and his parsimony, had been converted, the Doctor very 
 quietly turned around and asked, ' Have you converted his purse ?' 
 Our pastor is one of whom I may safely say that, in making conver- 
 sions of his people, he has converted their purses. No Church other 
 than this responds more quickly to any appeal that is made to them for 
 benevolent or religious purposes ; and the records of the general Assem- 
 bly will show that in point of liberality, considered with respect to its 
 proportionate size and wealth, this Church has not been behind any of 
 our sister churches. 
 
 * Remarks at the Quarter-Century Celebration. 
 
55 
 
 " He has made tliis a loving Church. Perhaps, in a larger degree than 
 is generally the case in a city Church, this Church is like one great 
 Christian family. The attachment of its people to their Church and to 
 their pastor is so pronounced as to be remarkable ; and I was never 
 more impressed with this fact than when, in the preparations for what I 
 may call this family celebration, the entire unanimity and enthusiasm of 
 the Church gave evidence of the love of its people for their pastor and 
 of their love for one another." 
 
 Hear the testimony of another ruling elder, happily still among you, 
 who also spoke on that occasion, Mr. George Junkin. " In one respect 
 our history has been most remarkable. In our Session, our Board of 
 Deacons, our Board of Trustees, our Congregational Meetings, our 
 Bible Classes, our Dorcas Society, our Missionary Society, our Sab- 
 bath-school, our Sabbath-school Association, our Sewing School, our 
 Choir (and it has always been a voluntary one), and in our whole con- 
 gregation, we have never had a division, a quarrel, a discord, a strife, 
 a scandal, a divided vote, a sense of alienation ! The current of our 
 whole life has flowed on like a river, unbroken by a storm, and un- 
 checked by an obstruction. 
 
 " And to what shall we attribute this blessed experience ? Not to us, 
 who have composed this Church, in the various depart- 
 ments of Church work and organization to which I have r ' ^ un ln s 
 
 Testimony. 
 
 alluded. The weaknesses of poor human nature have 
 
 existed among us, just as everywhere ; and some of us are about as good 
 
 specimens of crooked humanity as exist! 
 
 " Why, then, this blessed experience of unbroken harmony? I will 
 tell you. Under God, it is due to him to whom the Prince of Peace, from 
 the first, committed the care of this flock. His lovely, unselfish, self- 
 sacrificing, tender, Christly spirit, with its indescribable, yet subtile 
 and controlling influence, has pervaded all this people. Unconsciously 
 to ourselves his has been the almost unseen and unnoticed hand which, 
 
56 
 
 with its magic and unfelt power, has guided all these elements of our 
 natures, so that the entire Psalm of Life which this congregation has 
 been singing down these years has been a harmony, and not a crashing 
 discord. In all the qualities that constitute a faithful shepherd and bishop 
 of the flock of Christ, our pastor, the Rev. William Pratt Breed, if not 
 peerless, is the peer of any and all ; and he has done his whole duty to 
 the charge committed to his care." 
 
 As an illustration of Dr. Breed's wise and spiritual methods of adminis- 
 tering his holy office, one incident may be referred to. At the com- 
 munion of December, 1869, but one person appeared upon 
 . u \ c profession of faith. That seeming barrenness called for 
 
 Revival. r & 
 
 heart-searching and special prayer. The communion had 
 been preceded by a prayer-meeting in the Session room, which was full 
 of solemnity, and in which impressions were made that aiterwards ripened 
 into hopeful conversions. Several cases of sickness and death followed 
 quickly, touching at least three of the ruling elders of the Church. 
 Nothing is more valuable to a pastor in winning souls for Christ than 
 that antennal power which enables him to feel in the atmosphere per- 
 vading his congregation the presence of a spiritual awakening. No man 
 can possess this who is not himself in close fellowship with the Eternal. 
 Dr. Breed, with his keen spiritual power, discerned hopeful signs of a new 
 religious life. His ear lay so close to the hearts of his people and to the 
 face of his God that he could " hear the sound of a going in the tops of 
 the trees." He called the people together and arranged for a series of 
 meetings, beginning February 21st. 
 
 I remember those meetings well, for I had just come from St. Louis to 
 enter upon my labors in this Eastern city. My experience of methods 
 
 was so different from those which I found prevailing here, 
 
 Revival Meet- ^ j could no) . bu(; watcll with care f u l eye t l le methods 
 ing Methods. 
 
 of my new associates. It was a new thing to me to 
 see a protracted meeting conducted by calling a different minister to 
 
57 
 
 preach every night. In the West, when we were not compelled to do 
 all such work ourselves, we depended upon the aid of one brother alone. 
 This kaleidoscopic evangelizing was a great novelty. I wondered how 
 it could succeed. It was my conviction that there was great loss in the 
 introduction of new personalities, new voices, new modes of thinking 
 and applying truth, new spiritual temperaments and temperature; that 
 curiosity in the recurring sermons and divided interest in individuals 
 would mar the success of the work. But this was then the established 
 Philadelphia method, although I believe it does not prevail so exten- 
 sively now. 
 
 The results in this case appear to have been good. Whether they 
 might have been better or not under a different system, it is useless to 
 conjecture. But the very title of the texts and subjects then presented 
 gives us an indication of the sort of work that was done. " Christ 
 seeking the lost sheep"; "When he saw him afar off"; " One thing 
 thou lackest " ; "The Spirit and the bride say come " ; 
 
 Revival Texts. 
 
 " He made haste and came down " ; " Remember me 
 when thou comest into thy kingdom " ; "Almost thou persuadest me to 
 be a Christian " ; "Salvation is from the Lord"; " Lovest thou me ? " 
 " How long halt ye ? " These were some of the texts and themes 
 preached in those services. And at their close, at the regular com- 
 munion of March, 1870, a company of thirty persons stood up and con- 
 fessed their Saviour. 
 
58 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Dr. Breed's personal habits were very systematic, and his home life a 
 pleasant and charming one. In Steubenville his Mondays were given 
 almost exclusively to frolic and fun with his children, or to needful rest. 
 
 On Tuesday he locked the door of his study. The little 
 ch . . footsteps and the baby voices were excluded from the 
 
 hallway, and he gave himself during the rest of the 
 mornings of the week to study. After an early dinner he devoted 
 himself to pastoral work ; and at night, when public engagements did 
 not require him, he was found with his family striving, by various arts of 
 which he was master, to make them happy. His first strength and 
 service were for his Church, and then for his family; and few children 
 have better cause to remember their father with love and gratitude. In 
 Philadelphia, this was substantially his habit. His sexton always knew 
 that he could clean the study on Monday, as the Doctor was never there, 
 and although as years went on changes inevitably came into the family 
 life, he kept on the even tenor of his way, working in the morning, 
 visiting in the afternoon, and resting in his household at night. 
 
 Dr. Breed was a thorough Presbyterian by conviction, both on 
 principle and as the result of experience. He believed that in the 
 organization of our Church there were all the possibilities of successful 
 work for Christ. His general practice as to church government may be 
 summed up in a few sentences. He protested on the one hand against 
 
 what he called the " semi-prelacy " of pastoral domina- 
 n „ . tion or autocracy ; and, on the other hand, against that 
 
 Government. - ' 3 > c» 
 
 Independency shown by frequent appeals to the people 
 for settlement of questions which the Session ought to decide. The 
 pastor and elders are appointed to rule, and they ought to rule in 
 spiritual things with firmness and tenderness, with a full knowledge and 
 conviction of their rightful powers, and at the same time with a full 
 
59 
 
 understanding of and deference towards the powers of the congregation. 
 A Presbyterian Church is a representative republic, in which the 
 authority that under God vests in the people is relegated to certain 
 officers elected by them and ordained for that purpose. Under this 
 conception all the spiritual interests of Dr. Breed's Church were con- 
 trolled by the pastor and ruling elders. For example, the superin- 
 tendent of the Sunday School was an officer of the church, appointed by 
 the Session, and when he withdrew from office his resignation was to the 
 Session, and while in office, he was held responsible to the Session for 
 whatever was done and taught in the school. By this mode of govern- 
 ment, the excitement, partisanship and divisions which have sometimes 
 attended frequent elections in the Sabbath School were avoided. 
 
 In the matter of worship he was a strict Puritan. His sympathies 
 were not with the more liberal Presbyterianism of the Continent, or even 
 the earlier Presbyterianism of the English-speaking churches, but rather 
 with some of its later developments, as under the Cov- 
 
 Worship. 
 
 enanters, and the stern and barren cultus of Puritanism. 
 The Geneva gown, which is the pulpit robe of our forefathers, and is 
 universally worn to-day in the parent churches of Great Britain and the 
 Continent, he long looked upon with disrelish ; but in the last few years 
 of life he desired to see it restored to our preachers. His idea of a 
 church cultus included little of the formal or ritual, although, strange 
 to say, he was the author of a handbook for funerals, to take the very 
 place which a Book of Forms supplies. 
 
 He was fond of music. He himself had written a number of hymns, 
 especially for the use of the children. Flowers he loved dearly, and 
 took the greatest pleasure in searching them out and pressing them for 
 preservation. Yet he could speak in the following terms 
 
 Church Music. 
 
 of the use of music in the praise of God, and of flowers 
 
 for the decoration of the sanctuary : " We have steadily avoided the 
 
 tendency that in some cases has resulted in a sort of combination of the 
 
6o 
 
 religious opera and the horticultural exhibition. And we trust that the 
 day is yet a good way off when our people will be found decking their 
 worship with any of the ribbons of a fantastic ritualism, or straying into 
 the flower-fringed path that so often terminates at Rome." As to special 
 and professional singing in the sanctuary, he had little patience with it, 
 and in speaking of it characterized it as "yielding up the singing gallery 
 to the musical artiste, according to whose creed the chief end of the 
 Church is the organ loft, and the chief end of the performers there is to 
 display their accomplishments, sing their own praises and gratify their 
 cultivated musical taste, and the effect of which is to fritter away the 
 attention, thought, emotion due to the stupendous themes of righteous- 
 ness, temperance and judgment to come." * 
 
 Yet he never had a bitter word against those of us who represent (or 
 claim to represent) the more catholic American Pan-Presbyterianism, 
 and were not in sympathy with his views; but he uttered his opinions 
 with a pleasant smile and clothed their point with a bright pun, a witty 
 saying, or a humorous anecdote, that took away whatever of sting 
 might have been in them. 
 
 On the matter of deacons, he had strong opinions, and considered no 
 
 Church perfectly organized until it had introduced these Scriptural and 
 
 Presbyterian offices. He emphasized the fact that the first officers 
 
 ordained after the apostles, were not elders, but deacons, 
 
 Views on , , . . r , 
 
 _. whose one great duty it was to take care of the poor. 
 
 Deacons. o J r 
 
 He pointed to the fact that this spirit pervaded the 
 early Church ; and while as the centuries rolled on, every other office 
 of the Church was modified and distorted almost beyond recognition, 
 the office of deacons remained long unchanged in its original form, sig- 
 nification and function. He magnified that law of the Presbyterian 
 Church that no one of its members should be allowed to suffer for the 
 
 * Historical Discourse, p. 24. 
 
6i 
 
 necessaries of life, and that they should not be thrown upon the charity 
 of others. It was not simply for the sake of organic symmetry and 
 conformity to the requirements of Christ and the Church that he advo- 
 cated the diaconate, but that the command of Christ might be fully 
 observed and the poor of the Christian brotherhood be clothed with the 
 mantle of Christian love.* 
 
 This deep-rooted devotion to the order and worship of the Presbyte- 
 rian Church was associated with a profound pride in its noble history. 
 He had read widely and well the records of the various 
 branches of our one ecclesiastical family, and his mind . . „. . 
 
 J ' tenan History. 
 
 was in touch with all that was great and worthy in their 
 achievements. The bitter persecutions of the primitive Waldensians 
 among the beautiful mountain valleys of Piedmont ; the conflicts and 
 sufferings of the Huguenots of France, in the days when the noblest of 
 the realm were marshalled under Admiral Coligny in the love and 
 defence of Truth ; the world-reaching influence of Calvin, Geneva and 
 the Protestant cantons of Switzerland ; the noble record of the Reformed 
 people of the Palatinate, along the banks of the sunny Rhine; the ex- 
 citing struggles of the handful of Holland's brave heroes, under William 
 the Silent, to hold their sea-swept land against the assaults of King Philip 
 II and Bloody Alva; the story of Knox and his compeers; of the 
 hunted Covenanters on the heathered hills of Scotland in the days 
 when Archbishop Laud's bitter hand was pressed hard against them; 
 the uprising of the clans as an echo of the thud of Jennie Geddes's 
 stool in the old Cathedral of St. Giles ; the splendid story, with its sad 
 termination, of the days when Presbyterianism held the reins of govern- 
 ment in England and brought in perfidious Charles II, to find that it had 
 put a serpent into its bosom to sting it to death, — these and other historic 
 
 *See Historical Discourse, pp. 22, 23. 
 
62 
 
 records of the mighty conflicts for political and religious liberty, in 
 which Presbyterians led the van and bore the brunt, were familiar to 
 him ; and many of us have felt his power to stir the heart with the too 
 little known tale of the noble ancestors of our American Presbyterian 
 Church. 
 
 This feeling found apt expression in two great movements. The first 
 
 was the erection of the Witherspoon statue. A casual suggestion in the 
 
 columns of a religious newspaper, the " Presbyterian," 
 
 Witherspoon r , . , _ _ ,, , , . , . 
 
 o of this city, caught Dr. Breed s eye and wrought within 
 
 him the purpose of erecting a statue to Dr. John With- 
 erspoon, in commemoration of the iooth anniversary of the Republic. 
 This he regarded as a fitting way to recall the attention of our own 
 people, and as far as possible the people of the land, to the part that 
 Presbyterians had taken in creating and giving character to the 
 Republic. So prominent was that part that Mr. Galloway, in the British 
 House of Commons, denounced the whole Revolution as "a Presbyte- 
 rian movement." The Sons of Liberty in the City of New York, went 
 by the name of the "Presbyterian Junto." Mr. Bancroft writes: "The 
 first voice publicly raised in America to dissolve all connection with 
 Great Britain came not from the Puritans of New England, nor from the 
 Dutch of New York, nor from the planters of Virginia, but from the 
 Scotch-Irish Presbyterians.* That voice was heard in what is known as 
 "The Mecklenburg Declaration" among the Presbyterians of North 
 Carolina. During the time that the Carolinas were occupied by the 
 British troops, every Presbyterian Church was systematically burned, 
 on the theory that it was a nest of treason. In the Congress that 
 created this Republic there was but one clergyman, and he in his person 
 ably represented the combined Presbyterianism of the land. " It will 
 not be questioned," said Dr. Breed, " that in this hour when the fate of 
 the colonies was trembling in the balance, his eloquent voice told 
 mightily for the cause of independence ; nor will it be questioned that 
 
63 
 
 in the even more solemn and difficult matter of organization, his 
 influence was of incaluable value.* " 
 
 Animated by such views, Dr. Breed began the work of raising the 
 money required to rear the Witherspoon Monument. Dr. Boardman 
 gave his earnest and cordial sympathy and influence. Others cheered 
 on the task, but the whole of the work fell upon Dr. Breed. By 
 exchanging pulpits on Wednesday evenings and Sabbaths, and by 
 working during his summer vacations, he presented the subject in more 
 than seventy pulpits, in ten Synods and Presbyteries, stretching from 
 the Atlantic coast to Ohio. With the exception of the First Presby- 
 terian Church in New York, of which Professor Paxton, of Princeton, 
 was then pastor, his own church, besides doing all the work through its 
 pastor, contributed also by far the largest amount of money for this 
 enterprise. No one will ever know how vast was the toil and how great 
 the care out of which this work was consummated. When the contem- 
 plated changes in the position of that statue shall have been finished, it 
 will be fitting to inscribe upon some part of the pedestal that bears aloft 
 the noble effigy these words: "This monument was erected chiefly 
 through the zeal and labors of William Pratt Breed." 
 
 The same spirit found course through the Presbyterian Historical 
 Society, located in this city, and of whose Executive Committee he was 
 the Chairman. In fact, he was, in large part, the Historical Society. 
 The last letter which I received from him was a 
 reminder of a promise made to mve him, for the museum 
 
 r ° Society. 
 
 in the Library Hall of that institution, one of the so- 
 called " communion stanes of Irongray," which I had brought with me 
 from that mountain valley in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, where the harried 
 and hunted Covenanters held their farewell communion in the " killing 
 days," as they have been called, of 1678. 
 
 * See Historical Discourse, p. 39. 
 
64 
 
 The last public service of his life was in the lecture room of his own 
 beloved Church, and the motive of that discourse was his historical 
 interest in the life and labors of the missionary, Brainard. He had 
 received certain memorials of this sainted Apostle to the Indians, to be 
 placed among the historic treasures of his well beloved Society, and 
 these were presented as objective illustrations of this last service. 
 
 An interest attaches to that last service which as yet is known to but a 
 few. Dr. Breed had formed the deliberate purpose to do 
 
 His Last 
 
 for the Church and its Historical Society a work similar 
 
 Service. J 
 
 to that which he had accomplished for the Witherspoon 
 monument. He hoped that God would permit him, as the last work of 
 his life, and the crowning of all his days, to be the instrument in procuring 
 a sum of money that would erect and endow a suitable library and 
 museum hall in which the books and treasures of the society could be 
 safely and reputably housed. He had prepared that lecture with these 
 things in his mind. His plan of campaign was all laid out, and he was 
 just ready to enter upon it when the hand of death struck him. We 
 can better gather his purpose from his own words. A few days before 
 his death, while lying quite ignorant of the serious danger of his dis- 
 ease, his eldest son entered his room, and with cheerful words con- 
 gratulated his father upon seeming to be so much better. " Yes, yes," 
 was the answer. " Dr. Woods must get me out of this ! I want to go 
 through the pulpits of the country, if the brethren will open them to 
 me, for I have got the endorsement of Dr. John Hall, and I think I can 
 raise the $250,000 endowment fund for the Presbyterian Historical So- 
 ciety." Alas, this hope, which spanned like a rainbow his closing days, 
 was not to be realized for him. Yet may we not indulge the trust that 
 this last purpose for the Church's welfare shall not pass stillborn from 
 the earth ? Shall not we, his associates and friends, take up and push 
 it forward to its consummation ? May the echoes of that voice, now 
 silenced in the grave, linger still within the conch shell of Brainard and 
 
6 5 
 
 roll in echoes through the land, summoning all loyal Presbyterian hearts 
 to the noble undertaking which was breathed into its convolutions by 
 the dying breath of Breed ! 
 
 If I were asked to suggest what would be the most fitting monument 
 to our beloved brother, I should answer — a new Library 
 Hall and Museum room for the Presbyterian Historical Monument 
 Society. Such a memorial might well be located in 
 some more fitting site than the present edifice, where it could be asso- 
 ciated with a lecture hall, reading and social rooms, and other conve- 
 niences for Presbyterial assemblages and the monthly gatherings of that 
 Church club which has recently been organized in our city. 
 
 IX. 
 
 A striking characteristic of Dr. Breed was his mirthfulness. Persons 
 who did not know him well, would hardly have suspected that this quality 
 was so strongly developed in him. But the familiars of 
 
 Mirthfulness. 
 
 his home circle, and those ministerial friends who were 
 privileged to come near him in social life, understood it well. I have 
 more than once been strongly amused at the surprise which would come 
 over a group of ministers in a general audience, as some flash of wit, or 
 curious turn of speech, or mirthful phrase, or playful pun would drop 
 from the lips of the solemn and dignified gentleman who was addressing 
 them. One such scene I recall at the General Assembly which met, in 
 1870, at the First Church, on Washington Square, and which was known 
 as the " Reunion Assembly." In the closing hours of that body it fell 
 to Dr. Breed to make some farewell remarks ; and the manner in which 
 he took up a number of prominent members of that venerable body, 
 and played upon their names with well turned puns, was keenly enjoyed. 
 But one of the most amusing features of the scene was the startled sur- 
 5 
 
66 
 
 prise of groups and individuals here and there, as they straight- 
 ened up and leaned forward, and then, catching the mirthful spirit 
 of the man, gave way by very reaction to hearty enjoyment of his 
 address. 
 
 Very recently, indeed, since he retired from the active pastorate, 
 he gave our brethren of New York a similar surprise. His address at 
 an important Church gathering was represented to me by a leading lay- 
 man of our sister city as full of wit, sparkling with humor, and one of 
 the happiest addresses he had ever listened to. It was to my informant, 
 as to the majority of those who heard, a revelation of a most unexpected 
 faculty. Probably the very last thing that he wrote, and which was 
 penned or typed within a week of his death, was one of the wittiest that 
 he ever conceived, and will never be forgotten by the circle of friends 
 for whose benefit it was composed. There can be no doubt that had 
 he chosen to give literary exercise to this faculty, he would have 
 achieved a place among the very foremost humorous writers of the 
 country. Yet, as long as I have known Dr. Breed, and we were ordained 
 by the same Presbytery of Steubenville, and I have known him from my 
 boyhood, I never heard, and never knew any man who heard the slightest 
 departure from the strictest line of purity and dignity in the exercise of 
 a faculty which sometimes leads its possessors astray. This was a good 
 gift of God to him, and lightened many of his burdens, and cheered 
 many of the hours of his discouragements. There is nothing inconsis- 
 tent in the possession and highest exercise of such a faculty, with that 
 tender sympathy which marked his character and made him so eminently 
 a friend of the sorrowing. Indeed, the two faculties lie close by each 
 other in the human mind. The poet has well sung : — 
 
 " So closely our whims on our miseries tread, 
 That the laugh is awaked ere the tear can be dried." 
 
 Dr. Breed held the pen of a ready writer. His literary life was chiefly 
 
67 
 
 in the line of that department of our Church's work which is represented 
 by the Board of Publication, of which for so many years 
 
 J Literary Work. 
 
 he was the honored President. Nearly forty titles of 
 publications of varying importance may be found upon the catalogue of 
 that corporation under the name of Dr. Breed. Most of these are bound 
 volumes, and they have had a wide circulation among the special classes 
 for whom they were prepared. They have added greatly to the useful- 
 ness of his life, and will aid to perpetuate that usefulness now that his 
 busy pen is forever still. For years he has been the Philadelphia cor- 
 respondent of the New York Evangelist, and his letters have been a 
 most interesting feature of that journal to which its Philadelphia readers, 
 especially, were almost always sure to turn first. 
 
 Dr. Breed had a strong love for nature in all her various forms. 
 Earlier in his life he had taken up a specialty in entomology, and pursued 
 it with some degree of success. He was long a member of the American 
 Entomological Society, whose home is in this city, and 
 
 As a Naturalist. 
 
 was also enrolled in the membership of our Academy of 
 Natural Sciences. Though he ceased years ago active membership in 
 these two organizations, he never lost his fondness for Natural History, 
 and for the living things of God in the great world of natural life. Those 
 who came in close contact with him, and those who listened to him most 
 carefully, must have observed how frequently he drew his illustrations 
 and suggestive thoughts from this realm of the Great Creator. 
 
 He was especially interested in the order of insects known as the 
 Lepidoptera, including moths and butterflies, and made a large, and in 
 some features, a valuable collection of those animals. A friend who 
 traveled with him in Europe during a six months' tour, — one of the very 
 bright spots of Dr. Breed's life, has described the outbreaks of his 
 collector's enthusiasm even amid the attractions of the old world. Dr. 
 Breed, who was a ready rhymster, as well as a keen wit and inveterate 
 punster, wrote in verse and read one evening in a hotel parlor, some 
 
68 
 
 humorous incidents of the trip, indulging in a little fun at the expense 
 of his fellow travelers. One of his companions, a child of this church, 
 and now a member of the congregation,* responded a little later with 
 a somewhat similar paper, a part of which I quote as giving us a picture 
 of our friend on one of his collecting tours. 
 
 " The pilgrim carried a staff and a cane, 
 One for the mountain and one for the plain ; 
 Of maps and guide books he had great store, 
 Pockets he stuffed till they'd hold no more; 
 From every ruin a flower he took, 
 And pressed it with care in a little book. 
 
 'At Interlaken he might have been seen 
 Chasing gay butterflies over the green, 
 With a rod and a net to catch his prey, 
 And a paper box to stow them away. 
 But before boxing up the insects dumb, 
 He put them to death with finger and thumb, 
 And said, with a smile, to each pretty fly — 
 ' Don't think me cruel because you must die ! 
 Not for sport, but for science, I'm acting thus ! 
 So die like a martyr, and don't make a fuss ; 
 On a shelf I will put you, when I reach home, 
 With saintly relics I've brought from Rome.' " 
 
 When he greatly widened the sphere of his parish work, and those 
 catholic labors for the Church which fall upon many city pastors com- 
 pelled him to give up his specialty, he turned over his collection to a 
 young nephew who had betn inoculated with the naturalist's fever of 
 research by his enthusiastic relative. That nephew as his years ripened 
 developed into a thoroughly equipped Lepidopterist, made his uncle's 
 gift the basis of a noble collection, won for himself, and still holds, a not 
 inconspicuous place among American entomologists. 
 
 * Rev. Dr. Francis J. Collier. 
 
6 9 
 
 During the bright summer which he spent with his wife at Yentnor, 
 whither he had been sent by his loving people just after the sickness 
 which led to his final retirement, he gave free course to 
 his love for nature. The greater part of his vacation en nor 
 
 ° Vacation. 
 
 was spent in wandering through the fields, drinking in 
 
 fresh air from shore and sea, and communing with nature in all her 
 
 varied forms. Byron's well known lines express his feelings: — 
 
 " I love not man the less, but nature more 
 For these her solitudes, in which I steal 
 From all I may be or have been before, 
 To mingle with the universe and feel 
 What I cannot express, yet may not all conceal." 
 
 During these wanderings, he gathered quantities of grasses and flowers, 
 which he carefully pressed in the well known methods of the botanist, 
 and mounted and packed away. These were brought to America and 
 cherished by many to whom they were sent as mementoes of his Ventnor 
 visit. 
 
 Dr. Breed was a man of great tenderness of heart. His sympathy 
 was keen and deep. Those of his people who have passed through trial 
 know what a friend he was to them in their hour of need, and how his 
 love, like that of a father or a brother, encompassed them 
 
 Sympathy. 
 
 with the tenderest and holiest offices of his ministry. 
 It was this quality that made him pre-eminently a pastor of his flock. 
 Grave, serious, somewhat stiff in his outward manner, let but some sorrow 
 fall, his whole nature responded, lit up as the rugged outlines of some 
 mountain under the glow and warmth of a rising sun, and he was alive 
 in all his being to those touches of Nature which make the whole 
 world kin. 
 
 One of his elders, Mr John D. McCord, informed me that during a 
 long confinement as the result of a serious accident, Dr. Breed never 
 
failed a day, for three mouths, to call at his house and offer prayer at his 
 bedside. One might challenge the entire history of the Church for an 
 example of pastoral devotion and friendship superior to that ! 
 
 X. 
 
 " On the top of the pillars was lily-work!' Thus the sacred writer 
 describes the two columns, Jakin and Boaz, that were set at the " Beau- 
 tiful Gate " of the temple of Israel. They represented 
 
 The Summary. 
 
 attributes of the supreme God of the Hebrews, and 
 exhibited that character which He sought to develop by the services of 
 his house within his people. The pillar was the emblem of strength, 
 the lily-work of the beauty which adorned it, and thus strength and 
 beauty were in the sanctuary. 
 
 I know no text that can better describe my own conception of the 
 sanctuary of that life which so lately stood among us in its manly beauty, 
 and which has been taken hence by the Master-Architect to add to the 
 garnishing and perfecting of that building of God, the spiritual temple, 
 eternal in the heavens : Pillars and lily-work — strength and beauty ! 
 
 Dr. Breed was a manly man. His physical appearance would scarcely 
 
 have given one the impression of robustness, yet he was really physically 
 
 strong, rarely sick throughout his long life, and always ready for duty. 
 
 His slight frame was endowed with a large share of 
 
 " Pillars." 
 
 natural vigor and vitality. But his strength was especially 
 in character, conviction and purpose to do good. The peculiar erectness 
 of his body, which struck every observer, was a fair type of the upright- 
 ness of his character and the orthodoxy of his faith. There was no 
 more broadly catholic clergyman "within our Church, which, to say the 
 least, is not inconspicuous in the sisterhood of Christendom for the 
 catholicity of its communion. He loved the whole Church of God, under 
 
/-I 
 
 whatever name called. He was tolerant toward all forms of faith that 
 seemed to him loyal to the fundamental principles of religion. But there 
 was no man who more sincerely loved, more earnestly cherished and 
 more vigorously defended the doctrine and polity of the Church in 
 whose holy ministry he served. Gentle as were all his ways, con- 
 siderate and tender towards his fellow men, we have seen him stand 
 like a rock in the defence of truths which he regarded vital to the 
 cause of Christ. 
 
 All his characteristics were dominated by conscience and piety. He 
 was a man of tender conscience, quick to turn at every suggestion of 
 duty and to spurn every appearance of evil. He was a man of God. 
 He walked with God. His piety was unobtrusive, but it was of that 
 subtle quality, which made itself acknowledged by all with whom he 
 came in contact. There was nothing of cant or hypocrisy about him. 
 He never flaunted his convictions in the face of friends, nor made broad 
 his phylacteries before the Church, nor flung the banner of his faith 
 upon the outer wall of the world, to flutter and beat in the faces of 
 passers by. But he so lived, that men felt in his presence that they were 
 near to one who was near to Christ. Xenophon in his 
 
 Lily-work. 
 
 Cryopaedia, never once says in direct terms that Cyrus 
 was great, but he so wrote that eveiy chapter deepened upon the mind 
 of the reader the truth that among the leaders of his day, there was 
 none greater than Cyrus. So was it in the life of our beloved friend and 
 father. He never obtruded in direct terms his allegiance to Christ, but 
 the outflowering and fragrance of his life left wherever he went the 
 unmistakable impression that to him Christ his Lord was the Chiefest 
 among ten thousand, and the one altogether lovely. God was to him 
 the over-mastering element of life, and all the springs of his being were 
 in Him whom he adored and served. He sought to see God, and he 
 saw God immanent in Nature, in Providence, in History, in - Church, in 
 
7 2 
 
 the Kingdom and word of Grace, in the Family, in Social Life; and now 
 he has passed on and upward to the Beatific Vision, and henceforth 
 forever shall see God face to face. 
 
 From the scenes of earthly labor to the sphere of eternal rest, God 
 
 hath removed him who lately walked and wrought among us. Our 
 
 sorrow is te*mpered with gratitude when we remember 
 
 Lessons From , ,._ , ... , ,. . . . . . . 
 
 u . T ., the life lie was privileged to live, and the example which 
 
 His Life. r t> ' r 
 
 ■ he has left. In the fullness of Christian character, few 
 of his generation of ministers have excelled him. How few have 
 equaled him we who were his nearest friends and associates freely 
 allow. 
 
 You have visited the studio of an artist-friend and found pleasurable 
 engagement in watching the development of various pictures. There is 
 a canvas on which the background has been laid in, and only here and 
 and there a hump or splash of color, a flowing line, a shade, a gleam of 
 light, mark the outlines of a picture that is to be. Here is a second study 
 on which the motif just begins to show from the crude figures. A third 
 picture is yet further developed, and the master hand appears in the 
 growing forms, proportions, colors. Ah! here is another study! We 
 may stop and admire it. Even the artist will welcome our gaze and 
 criticism. His work is nearly finished. A little more shadow at this 
 point; a little more light at that; a touch of color on yonder hill top; 
 more sunshine in yonder sky, and the master may write his name on the 
 canvas, and the gilder may frame it and bear it away to hang in the 
 gallery with kindred works of art ; aye, if you please, in the very palace 
 of the King ! 
 
 In the gallery of God's Church, where the Divine Artist is painting 
 upon the background of human character the holy images of a heavenly 
 life, there are diversities of developments. Here the crude beginnings 
 of a Christian life ; there the more advanced attainment of one who has 
 
Vi 
 
 been years under the forming hand of the Holy Ghost ; but here one, 
 whose life is nearly done, before whom the Church, aye, and the world, 
 may stand and say, " Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright " ! 
 Such was Dr. Breed. He was among us as one on whom the hand of 
 the Spirit Divine had wrought earth's fairest work. From the back- 
 ground of his life there stood out the spiritual picture of a soul redeemed 
 and fashioned into the image of the Son of God. There needed yet the 
 finishing touches, the shadows of earth to be obliterated, the sunshine 
 of sanctifying grace in preparation for Heaven, and then, framed in 
 stainless immortality, he has found place in the palace of our Heavenly 
 King! Let us strive, as we follow his upward flight, and cry, like Elisha 
 of old, " My Father, my Father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen 
 thereof," so to use the opportunities of life, and accept the grace of 
 Heaven that we, like him, may grow in grace and in the knowledge of 
 our Lord and Saviour, Christ. 
 
 Many of you last saw him as he raised the conch shell of holy Brainard 
 the missionary, to his lips, and made an ineffectual effort to reawaken 
 therein the sounds that had summoned the red men to the following of 
 Jesus. May I not, with this closing vision in mind, give for you the 
 lesson which an American poet has heard in the murmurs of another 
 shell of the ocean — the chambered nautilus: — 
 
 " Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul ! 
 As the swift seasons roll, 
 Leave thy low vaulted Past ! 
 Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
 Shut thee from Heaven with a dome more vast. 
 Till thou at length art free, 
 Leaving thine outgrown shell by Life's unresting sea ! " 
 
 I close this memorial discourse of a life so beautiful, so saintly, so 
 serviceable to man, with the words with which our friend ended his 
 Quarter-century Discourse : — 
 
74 
 
 " And the future, how well we know it ! A brief period of alternating 
 work and rest, peace and anxiety, sorrow and joy, health and sickness, 
 pleasure and pain : 
 
 ' And when the work is done, 
 When the last soul is won, 
 When Jesus' love and power 
 Have cheered the dying hour; 
 Oh ! then the crown is given, 
 Oh ! then the rest in heaven ! 
 Endless life is endless day, 
 Sin and sorrow passed away.' " 
 
MINUTES AND RESOLUTIONS. 
 
Minute adopted by the Session of the West Spruce Street Presby 
 terian Church :■: — 
 
 At a ailled meeting of the Session of the West Spruce Street Presbyterian Church 
 of Philadelphia, held February 15th, 1889, the following Minute was adopted: — 
 
 The Reverend William Pratt Breed, D.D., the first and only pastor of this church, 
 died in the early morning of Thursday, the fourteenth day of February, A. D. 1889, 
 at his residence, No. 258 South Sixteenth street, in the city of Philadelphia, after a 
 brief illness of one week, in the 73d year of his age. The Session desire to place 
 upon permanent record its high appreciation of the services, character and work of 
 its beloved pastor and presiding officer. He was unanimously called to the pastorate 
 of this church on the third day of April, A. D. 1856, and was duly installed on the 
 fourth day of June, A. D. 1856. For more than thirty-one years and five months he 
 performed the duties of his high office with a zeal, a devotion, a degree of spirit- 
 uality, and an entire consecration to the cause of his Master and the best interests of 
 this church, which have had few equals and no superiors in any similar work. 
 With some of the present members of the Session he has been associated during 
 almost the whole of his pastorate, and with all of them for many years. They all 
 testify that, during the whole period of their association it has been a joy to them ; 
 and no jar or dissonance, or divided vote or action, has ever at any time been 
 experienced. The gentleness, the transparency of his character, the sweetness of his 
 temper, his unselfishness, his singleness of purpose, the consecration of his whole 
 being and powers to his Master's work among us, have been such that we cannot 
 speak of them in terms of too high praise. He has labored with a devotion and 
 earnestness which have borne great fruit and endeared him to all the people of his 
 charge. And when advancing years and their infirmities induced him, in November, 
 1887, to tender to the congregation his resignation, it was accepted, only upon the 
 condition that he should continue to be their pastor emeritus, and that his support 
 during the remainder of his life should be their continual pleasure and care. His 
 last service was in our lecture room on the evening of February 6th, and with much 
 of his old earnestness and fervor he told of the great missionary, David Brainard, 
 whom in so very many respects he so much resembled. With those of us whose 
 privilege it was to be then present, those last words of his will be a pleasant memory. 
 We will ever cherish the recollection of our pastor's life, character and labors as one 
 of our most hallowed treasures. 
 
 Attest : Frank K. Hipple, Clerk of Session. 
 
 77 
 
7§ 
 
 Minute adopted by the Board of Trustees of the West Spruce Street 
 Presbyterian Church : — 
 
 The Board of Trustees of the West Spruce Street Presbyterian Church, participating 
 in this deepest and greatest sorrow of our church, would record this Minute upon the 
 death of a beloved pastor, the Reverend William Pratt Breed, d.d. Thirty years 
 and more have passed since he was divinely led to our church as its first pastor ; and 
 in all these years, covering a pastorate almost exceptional as to duration, he has gone 
 in and out before us as the man of God, pure and undefined, clothed as with the 
 mantle of Christ's righteousness and humility, a High Priest of the Lord, ever minis- 
 tering as from the altar in the inner sanctuary where the Shekinah dwelleth. He was 
 the courteous gentleman, honoring social life by his presence ; his footstep was the 
 welcome sound upon the threshold of every home; his genial manner made each 
 fireside to glow with greater brightness ; and his companionship was a pleasure always 
 to be desired, filled as it was with the riches of a cultivated mind and a refined humor. 
 His patriotism was of that type that made his love of country second only to his love 
 of God. Intensely an American, he stood in the pulpit and on the rostrum as a 
 champion of liberty and freedom, the defender of his country's Constitution and his 
 country's flag, the exemplar of a loyal citizen. His friendship, — how is it to be 
 valued ? Kindly by nature, embellished with Christian love, no unkind word had he 
 for his fellows, — generous to others' faults, he was beloved by all, and leaves no enemy 
 to mar this Christ-like legacy. As the only pastor of this church — his ministrations 
 were divinely blest, and many stars will adorn his crown. Though called from us 
 and from earth, his life-work will follow him into the generations to come, through 
 the agency of those he led from death to life. His example pervaded the Church 
 and its work, and hence, through all these years, its harmony has been undisturbed. 
 He was inseparably woven into every family circle, entwined around every heart, 
 and we can but bow in submission, as he has taught us, to the will of his God and 
 our God; and yet with grateful hearts, for his long pastorate, his useful and honored 
 life, and mingling our tears with the Church, the ministry, our fellow-citizens, our 
 fellow-parishioners, and the sorely bereaved family, triumphantly exclaim, amid our 
 united sorrow, " He was faithful unto death." 
 
 Extract from the Minutes. Charles O. Abbey, Secretary. 
 
 From the Minutes of the Presbytery of Philadelphia, April 1st, 1889: — 
 
 Thursday morning, February 14th, 1889, Rev. William Pratt Breed, D.D., passed 
 to his rest, after an illness of just one week. 
 
 Dr. Breed was received into the Presbytery of Philadelphia from the Presbytery of 
 Steubenville, Ohio, May 26th, 1856. On June 4th of the same year he was installed 
 Pastor of the West Spruce Street Church and continued in this relation until Novem- 
 ber 7th, 1887, when, at his own urgent request, on account of failing strength, he was 
 released. His congregation acquiesced only upon the condition that he should 
 
79 
 
 become Pastor-emeritus, and that his support during the remainder of his life should 
 be their continuing pleasure and care. To the last he lived among his people and 
 worshipped with them, preaching and lecturing on Wednesday evenings, and per- 
 forming such pastoral duties as his strength permitted. 
 
 As a preacher, Dr. Breed was always interesting, always instructive, always tender. 
 As a pastor he was almost paternal in his thought and care for his people. The 
 record of his house-to-house ministry, if it could be written, would be full of beautiful 
 experiences and tender incidents. 
 
 As a Presbyter he was faithful and diligent. He took a deep interest in the affairs 
 of the Presbytery, especially in whatever concerned the extension of the Master's 
 kingdom. In his relations with his brethren he was cordial, kindly and thoughtful, 
 interested in their work and ready ever to lend a hand, quick in sympathy with those 
 who were discouraged or in trouble, and faithful in his friendships. 
 
 His life was singularly beautiful, well-rounded and complete. He ripened into the 
 full fruitage of years, of labor, of usefulness. He saw his work finished. He suffered 
 no painful wrench in his circumstances, such as ofttimes in old age tears a godly 
 minister away from his people and from the work of his life, but was permitted to 
 remain in the midst of the associations of long, happy years, and among those for 
 whom he had labored and prayed, — honored, beloved, revered. Never had pastor 
 more loyal and affectionate parishioners, and to the last it was their joy to give him 
 comfort and care. He passed no long period of physical and mental decay, such as 
 in many cases marks the ending of good men's lives, but was permitted to continue 
 in the active service of his Lord almost to the very close. 
 
 We will cherish his name and memory, for there is nothing in his life that we 
 would want to forget. We shall miss his presence and his counsel, but his work 
 remains, not alone in the noble church which has known no other pastor, but in the 
 abiding influence which he has exerted upon the church universal. We should 
 all be better, purer in heart, gentler in speech, holier in life, more earnest in every 
 good work, for having lived so long under the hallowed influence of his Christ-like life. 
 
 The Presbytery of Philadelphia unanimously adopted the foregoing Minute by a 
 rising vote, and directed the Stated Clerk to transmit a copy thereof to the Session of 
 the West Spruce Street Church. 
 
 By order of the Presbytery. W. M. Rice, Stated Clerk. 
 
 Minute adopted by the Presbyterian Ministerial Association, Philadel- 
 phia, at a meeting held Monday, March nth, in the Assembly Room, 
 1334 Chestnut street. Prepared by a committee of three, one from each 
 Presbytery : — 
 
 The Rev. William P. Breed, n.D., a member of this Association, entered upon his rest 
 
 and reward on the morning of Thursday, February 14th, 1S89, in the 73d year of his age. 
 
 It is with sad yet trusting hearts that we record the departure from this life of our 
 
So 
 
 brother. He was a diligent student, an instructive preacher, and a devoted and 
 earnest pastor; but the members of this Association will especially remember him as 
 their beloved friend. Although not absolutely engaged in the active work of the 
 pastorate during the last few months of his life, yet our brother was at this time at the 
 very height of his usefulness, affecting by his speech, his pen, and his life, a wider 
 circle than ever before. God buries the workmen, but carries on the work. The 
 works of this servant of God " do follow him," and hence it is cause both for thank- 
 fulness and hope that his life and example shall still speak after many, many days. 
 
 Dr. Breed was accustomed to make careful preparation for the pulpit. He was, 
 as some of us know, regularly, when not kept from the place by some urgent pastoral 
 engagement, to be found at his table in his study at the church upon the morning of 
 every working day of the week. The only exception he made was upon those Monday 
 mornings when, with his brethren, he sought recreation and encouragement, and 
 real help for his work, in this Association of Ministers. He was heard to say a short 
 time before his death, when asked where he would have his study when another 
 pastor would be chosen for the West Spruce Street Church : "Ah, my dear people 
 will never deprive me of that place, which they know I love so well." 
 
 His ministrations were characterized by great reverence for the Word of God, and 
 ready submission to its authority ; and therefore, while closely adhering to the " form 
 of sound words," his sermons were much relished by hearers, in his own and other 
 congregations, who " desired the sincere milk of the Word." 
 
 In the social circle his presence was ever welcome. His lovely, beaming face, his 
 cheerful disposition, his rare intellectual endowments, his sparkling wit, made him 
 attractive not only to his ministerial brethren, but also in all society. 
 
 Dr. Breed was truly a model pastor, " instant in season and out of season." He 
 regarded pastoral visitation, and especially attending upon his people when in sick- 
 ness and sorrow, as a most important part of his work as a minister of the Gospel. 
 Hence his labors in this direction were unremitting, and the full and blessed results 
 of this beloved pastor's visits in Philadelphia and Steubenville, Ohio, the great day 
 alone will reveal. 
 
 In prayer, whether in the sanctuary, the social meeting, or the home, our friend 
 exhibited extraordinary power and unction ; and coming, as he no doubt did, each 
 Sabbath morning fresh from the Sacred Presence, it is no wonder that his manner in 
 the pulpit was always so solemn and impressive. 
 
 Dr. Breed was a man of ripe scholarship and eminent culture; of high theological 
 and literary attainments ; he was an excellent historian ; a man well read in the 
 various departments of science, but unlike many with less acquirements, his native 
 modesty constantly prevented him from making an unusual display of his various 
 acquisitions. 
 
 Our brother was endowed with a calm yet acute judgment; his counsel we felt 
 could be relied upon. Ah ! how we shall feel the loss of that counsel in this Minis- 
 terial Association, in the Presbytery, and in the various institutions of the Church 
 with which he was connected. 
 
Si 
 
 The fatal illness which seized him upon his return to his home after that Wednes- 
 day evening service of prayer and rejoicing with his dear people, only lasted for a 
 week, and then the saintly spirit of one of the most dearly beloved and faithful 
 ministers of Christ we have ever known joined the heavenly choir and the innumerable 
 company. It seems to us who still linger here that we cannot make him dead. It is 
 hard to realize that we shall never again sec him in yonder seat, that we shall no more 
 in this upper room hear the earnest tones of that voice which was always uttered in 
 defence of that which is honorable and true. But while this bereavement brings with 
 it much of sadness and even darkness, let us, as ministers of Christ, not " sorrow 
 even as others that have no hope." Let us rejoice that our brother was distinguished 
 for the purity of his principles and the transparency of his character. That he walked 
 with God in life and sank to his bed unshadowed by a cloud ; and hence we may say 
 that he is now " present with the Lord." 
 
 Let us rejoice that we have the sure and certain hope of meeting our friend again, 
 when the mysteries of Providence shall be explained by the revelation of its mar- 
 velous issues ; when the morning shall break and the shadows flee away, all but 
 that one bright, blessed shadow, " for he who dwelleth in the secret place of the Most 
 High shall abide (forever abide) under the shadow of the Almighty." 
 
 This Association devoutly prays that God's blessing, which our departed brother so 
 constantly and earnestly invoked upon all his friends whom he cherished so fondly 
 in life, may rest upon his bereaved family, the church of which he was so long the 
 honored pastor, and upon all his brethren in the ministry. 
 
 Rev. J. Addison Henry, d.d.,"\ 
 
 Rev. Joseph Beggs, d.d., (- Committee. 
 
 Rev. W.m. Hutton, j 
 
 Minute adopted by the Synod of Pennsylvania, in Session at Altoona, 
 Pa., October, 1889. Your Committee appointed to prepare a suitable 
 Minute of respect for the memory of Rev. William P. Breed, d.d., would 
 respectfully report as follows : — 
 
 The Synod of Pennsylvania, in session at Altoona, records its tribute of respect 
 for the memory of Rev. William Pratt Breed, D. D., Moderator of this Synod at its 
 meeting in Pittsburgh, in 1883, and, before the consolidation of the Synods twice 
 Moderator of the old Synod of Philadelphia, and who, full of years and honors, on 
 the 14th of February, 1889, had his membership transferred from the Church and its 
 courts here on earth to the General Assembly and Church of the First-born whose 
 names are written in heaven. 
 
 Dr. Breed was born at Greenbush, N. Y., August 23d, 1816; united with the 
 Church in 1832; graduated from the University of New York in 1843, and from 
 
 6 
 
82 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary in 1847 ; pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church, 
 Steubenville, Ohio, from 1847 to 1856, and pastor of the West Spruce Street Presby- 
 terian Church from 1856 till his death, in Philadelphia, last February, the last year 
 being as pastor emeritus. 
 
 As a preacher Dr. Breed was interesting and effective, and as a pastor he was 
 faithful and successful. Nearly 400 united with his church during his first pastorate, 
 and in Philadelphia over 1 100. As an author he was brilliant and instructive. Not 
 less than seventeen volumes came from his pen, besides a large number of tracts and 
 numerous newspaper articles. As a laborer in " outside work," he was one of the 
 most prominent promoters and efficient co-workers. The Witherspoon monument, 
 in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, which sprang from his earnest efforts, and which 
 was practically his work, is a specimen of his abundant labors. As a Presbyter he 
 wielded a strong influence, whether in his Presbytery, or in this Synod, or in the 
 General Assembly, of which he was frequently a member, or in the Councils of the 
 Pan-Presbyterian Alliance, in all of which he was a member, except the last. As a 
 presiding officer he was faithful and efficient. He was President of the Board of 
 Publication and Sabbath-school Work of our Church for many years, and his earnest 
 voice was often heard in its behalf, and many successful appeals came from his able 
 and brilliant pen for its prosperity. As a Christian gentleman, he was kind, gentle, 
 courteous, considerate, a man whom none knew but to love and revere, whose 
 presence was always a benediction. Dr. Breed will ever be remembered by those 
 who knew him as a true friend and a wise counselor, as a beautiful type of a Chris- 
 tian man and a noble specimen of a consecrated minister. 
 
 Dr. Breed's remarkable success in the various positions which he held is due to 
 his versatility of talent, his variety of attainment, his tact in administration, his pru- 
 dence in all matters, his facility in writing, his felicity in expression, his cheerfulness 
 in manner, his purity of heart, his beauty of holiness, his devotion to the Master's 
 work, his adherence to God's truth, and his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 The Synod of Pennsylvania rejoices in the success and value of his manifold and 
 fruitful labors, which will perpetuate his memory in the Church, in its judicatories, 
 and the various other religious organizations with which he was identified ; and the 
 Synod also rejoices in the fact that it bestowed upon him the highest proof of its 
 regard and affection by calling him to the Moderator's chair six years ago. While 
 absent from the Church and its judicatories here below, we rejoice to think of him as 
 present with the Lord in the General Assembly of the Church above. 
 
 While sincerely sorrowing for the great loss it has sustained, the Synod sincerely 
 extends to the family of Dr. Breed its heartfelt sympathies. 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of this minute, attested by the Stated Clerk, be sent to the 
 family of Dr. Breed. 
 
 Respectfully submitted, 
 
 Attest: Irwin P. McCurdy, Chairman. 
 
 James Roberts, Stated Clerk of Synod. 
 
83 
 
 Extract from the Minutes of The Presbyterian Board of Publication 
 and Sabbath-school Work, in Special Session, February 16th, 1889: — 
 
 Upon motion it was Resolved, That a Committee of three be appointed to prepare 
 .1 Mmutc expressive of the views of the Board in reference to the death of its Presi- 
 dent, the Rev. W. P. Breed, D. D., to report at the next meeting of the Board. 
 
 Resolved, That as a testimonial of respect for his memory the store be closed during 
 the funeral services, on Monday, from ten to one o'clock, and that the members, 
 officers, and employees of the Board attend the funeral services. 
 
 Resolved, That in further respect to his memory the office of President be kept 
 vacant until the coming annual meeting of the Board — the Vice-President in the 
 meantime acting as President pro tem. 
 
 A true copy : E. R. Craven, Secretary. 
 
 Extract from the Minutes of The Presbyterian Board of Publication 
 and Sabbath-school Work, in Stated Session, February 26th, 1889. 
 
 The Committee appointed at the Special Meeting, February i6th, to 
 prepare a Minute expressive of the views of the Board in reference to the 
 death of its President, the Rev. W. P. Breed, D. d., reported the following, 
 which was unanimously adopted by a rising vote: — 
 
 This Board deeply laments the removal by death of its late President, the Rev. 
 William P. Breed, D. d. His long experience in the cause of publication and missionary 
 distribution of religious literature, both before and after the reunion of our Church, 
 well fitted him for the leadership of the body to which that cause was entrusted. 
 
 For many years he has stood at our head, a warm, earnest, and intelligent champion 
 of the work of this Board. None of us could excel him in devotion to its interests. 
 Few, if any, gave so much of thought and prayer for its prosperity. 
 
 His voice was often raised in its behalf, and his pen put into language many a 
 vigorous appeal for its support. 
 
 As an example to follow, and a stimulus to incite, we shall greatly miss his life 
 among us. 
 
 His presence and companionship were a benediction. Strong and vigorous, with 
 manly qualities, moved by profound convictions, earnest and bold in his adherence 
 to what he believed to be truth and duty, he was also a tender, gentle, courteous, 
 considerate Christian man, whom none knew but to love and revere. 
 
 We have no memories of him which are not fragrant with pleasant thoughts and 
 helpful suggestions towards a better life. 
 
8 4 
 
 We lay him away from sight, therefore, not to pass out of memory, but ever to be 
 remembered as one of the best of friends, and the wisest of counsellors, as well as a 
 beautiful type of a Christian man and minister. 
 
 A true copy : E. R. Craven, Secretary. 
 
 Resolutions on the death of the Rev. W. P. Breed, d. d., adopted by 
 the Executive Committee of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Feb. 
 25th, 1889: — 
 
 Whereas, it has pleased God to remove by death Rev. W. P. Breed, d. d., Chair- 
 man of the Executive Committee of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Thursday, 
 Feb. 14th, 1889, in the seventy-third year of his age; 
 
 Resolved, That this Committee hereby express their sense of the great loss they 
 have sustained in his removal from the scene of his earthly labors. For a long 
 period he was a member of this Committee and for many years its Chairman, being 
 annually reelected unanimously. Deeply interested in his work, he was always 
 present at its meetings, when not providentially prevented, and gave his counsel and 
 assistance in the transaction of its business with rare wisdom and judgment. In 
 securing contributions to the Library and the collections of portraits and curiosities, 
 obtaining money to make necessary repairs and improvements in the building, and 
 effecting suitable arrangements for public meetings of the Society, he was unwearied 
 and eminently successful. We realize with heartfelt sorrow, that it will be extremely 
 difficult, if not impossible, to adequately fill the vacancy occasioned by his decease. 
 
 Resohicd, That we tender our sympathies to the family of Dr. Breed in their severe 
 affliction, and commend them to the grace of the covenant-keeping God, who can sus- 
 tain in the darkest hour. 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of this action be sent to the family of Dr. Breed, published 
 in the religious journals, and engrossed on the Minutes of the Executive Committee. 
 
 D. K. Turner, Corresponding Secretary. 
 
 Resolutions by the Ministerial Union of Philadelphia, upon the 
 death of Dr. Wm. P. Breed, d. d. Passed March 25th, 1S89: — 
 
 At a previous quarterly meeting of the Ministerial Union of Philadelphia, held on 
 December 31st, 1888, Dr. Breed read a paper on "The Propriety of Observing, with 
 Appropriate Religious Services, the Centennial of the Inauguration of the First 
 President of the United States." 
 
35 
 
 This Ministerial Union is composed of the Ministers of the various evangelical 
 denominations of Philadelphia and vicinity. 
 
 Upon the occasion when Dr. Breed's paper was read, the Union met in the Hall 
 of the American Baptist Publication Society, 1420 Chestnut Street. The reading was 
 listened to with profound interest by the large assemblage there convened. At the 
 conclusion great applause was expressed, and commendatory remarks thereon were 
 made by prominent men of various denominations, and a large Committee was 
 appointed to devise and suggest a plan for the centennial observance in Philadelphia. 
 Dr. Breed was appointed upon this Committee, and all looked forward in confidence 
 that he would take a leading part in carrying out the celebration in accordance with 
 the enthusiasm which his paper had awakened. But, alas ! when the Ministerial 
 Union again came together on March 25th, 1889, in Wesley Hall, 1018 Arch Street, 
 Dr. Breed was greatly missed and mourned over by his brethren. When that Com- 
 mittee to prepare for the Centennial Celebration reported progress, allusion was 
 made to the death of that esteemed one of their number, and the following Resolu- 
 tions were unanimously adopted by the assemblage : 
 
 "Resolved, That we are reminded in our meeting, by the absence of our beloved 
 and reverend brother, Dr. Breed, of the fact that in the midst of life we are in death. 
 
 " By the sudden ending of the life of this good man and his translation to his 
 heavenly rest, we mourn most of all that we shall see his face on earth no more. 
 We sympathize with the Church in the loss she has sustained in the going out of this 
 great light. 
 
 " We tender our sincere condolence with the immediate family, and pray that his 
 mantle may fall upon them and upon his brethren in the ministry of all the Churches. 
 
 " Resolved, That the officers of this Ministerial Union furnish a copy of this paper 
 to the family of our deceased brother, whose memory we cherish." 
 
 The above is a true copy of the action by the Ministerial Union, held on March 25th, 
 1889. 
 
 Signed : Andrew Culver, 
 
 Secretary of the Ministerial Union. 
 
 The following resolution was passed by the Presbyterian Sabbath- 
 school Superintendents' Association, at their meeting held at the Second 
 Presbyterian Church in Germantown, February 18th, 1889: — ■ 
 
 Resolved, By the Presbyterian Sabbath-school Superintendents' Association, that 
 in the death of Rev. W. P. Breed, D.D., the Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia and 
 of the country has lost one who will be missed by the entire Church, and particularly 
 by the Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia. 
 
 That the Association desire to bear to the family the above as our conviction, and 
 
86 
 
 also desire to express our sympathy with the family, believing at the same time that 
 their loss for the time is his gain, and that in the future life they and we will learn to 
 know that God doeth all things well. 
 
 And that the Secretary be authorized to convey the same to the family of Dr. 
 Breed. 
 
 The above is a true copy from the minutes of the Association. 
 
 Robert P. Field, Secretary. 
 
 Pennsylvania Bible House, 
 
 701 Walnut Street, Phila., 
 
 February 14th, 1889. 
 Mrs. Rev. W. P. Breed and Family. 
 
 Dear Friends. — At the stated meeting of the Board of Managers of the Pennsyl- 
 vania Bible Society, held this day, the death of your esteemed husband and father 
 was officially announced. After a full appreciative expression of the feelings and 
 sentiments of those present, it was unanimously resolved that the President and Cor- 
 responding Secretary of our Board be instructed to convey to your stricken and 
 bereaved household the assurance of our heartfelt sympathy and condolence, as also 
 of the genuine regard and fraternal affection entertained for the departed by all his 
 associates. 
 
 Dr. Breed was intimately identified with the cause of Bible distribution in our own 
 and in foreign lands, and contributed valuable aid in securing this desirable result. 
 
 He was most highly esteemed by all his brethren and co-laborers, for the uniform 
 urbanity and Christian consideration of his intercourse toward all with whom he came 
 in contact. 
 
 His memory will be most tenderly cherished by us as that of an able and fearless 
 defender of the plenary inspiration of the word of God, a bright and conspicuous 
 example of its influence in moulding individual character and directing personal 
 aims and ambition, and will be held as an inspiration and impetus in prosecuting the 
 work he loved so well. 
 
 We rejoice with you in the rich legacy he has left you of an exalted Christian 
 character and the fruits of a life of untiring activity and usefulness in the Master's 
 service. 
 
 We commend you to the Grace of our common Lord and Saviour, and beg you to 
 accept assurances of our personal regard and sympathy. 
 
 Very Respectfully Yours, 
 
 (Signed) J. B. Dales, President. 
 
 W. M. Baum, Cor. Secretary. 
 
»7 
 
 At a Stated Meeting of the Executive Committee of the Evangelical 
 Alliance, held on Monday Afternoon, February iSth, 1889, it was — 
 
 Resolved, That we have heard with profound sorrow of the death of the Rev. 
 William Pratt Breed, D. d., one of the honored Vice-Presidents of the Alliance since 
 its organization in Philadelphia, and the faithful pastor of the West Spruce Street 
 Presbyterian Church since its foundation. 
 
 That in the death of Rev. Dr. Breed, we feel that a Prince and a great man has 
 fallen in Israel; a man who had power with God in his clear apprehension of divine 
 truth ; in his faithful presentation of the doctrines of the Gospel of Jesus Christ ; in 
 his abounding faith in prayer ; in his fidelity as a shepherd and bishop of the flock over 
 which the Holy Ghost made him overseer; in the wisdom of his counsel in all 
 religious organizations, and in the pure and blameless life that marked his ministry 
 in this city for more than a generation. 
 
 That in the death of the Rev. Dr. Breed we feel that the Evangelical Alliance as 
 well as the Church Universal and this whole community have suffered an irreparable 
 loss. 
 
 That we tender our deepest sympathies to the widow and children of the Rev. Dr. 
 Breed, and pray that the " Father of mercies and God of all comfort " will pour into 
 their hearts the consolations of His all abounding love. 
 
 That this resolution be entered on our Minutes, and that a copy of the same be 
 sent to the family of him who, having finished his course in faith, doth now rest from 
 his labors. 
 
 J. H. Hargis, ~\ 
 
 Attest: Lewis H. Redner, [- Committee. 
 
 J. S. CUMMINGS, Secretary. W. A. Selser, ) 
 
 At the Managers' meeting of the Philadelphia Auxiliary of the Ameri- 
 can McAll Association, held on Monday, March 4th, 1889, the following 
 Minute was unanimously passed: — - 
 
 It is with profound sorrow that we record the death of the late Rev. W. P. Breed, 
 D.D., who has been a member of our Advisory Board since the formation of the 
 Auxiliary, and whose past life of holy serving needs no eulogistic words; all who 
 knew him must have felt the power of such a life in all his relationships ; truly it was 
 the power of an endless life upon which he has now entered. His gentleness and 
 Christian courtesy towards all were prominent traits in his character, while his broad 
 and well-cultured mind enabled him to be the true friend of all missionary work. 
 
 Especially did he respond to the more recent work in the evangelization of France, 
 in whose religious history none were more intelligent, and consequently he was 
 
88 
 
 thoroughly alive to the present religious crisis, and the need of persistent effort on 
 the part of Christian America to lay hold of the opportunity of giving the Bible to 
 France. In his death we have lost a true and steadfast friend of our cause, and there 
 will be missed from the world one of its most noble men. 
 
 To the stricken family, and the church of his past ministry, we tender our heartfelt 
 sympathies, praying this affliction may prove to lift their hearts heavenward, whither 
 the beloved husband, father and pastor has entered into full fruition of faith. 
 
 This Minute shall be placed upon the records of the Auxiliary, and a copy of it 
 transmitted to the family and Presbyterian papers of the city. 
 
 By order of the Board of Managers, 
 
 Maria S. Emory, Recording Secretary. 
 
 Resolutions of the Directors of the Pennsylvania Institution for the 
 Deaf and Dumb, adopted at a meeting held March 6th, 18S9 : — 
 
 Resolved, That the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Institution for the Deaf 
 and Dumb hereby records the loss that it has suffered by the death of the Rev. 
 William Pratt Breed, D.D., on the 14th of February, 1889, in the seventy-third year 
 of his age. Elected to membership in the Board in the year 1S82, he was always 
 willing to devote his time and ability to the performance of his duty ; and during 
 the seven years of his service as Director he endeared himself to all with whom he 
 was brought in contact, by the modesty, kindness and gentleness which were distin- 
 guishing traits of his sympathetic nature. By his death the Board has lost a valuable 
 associate, the commumity an exemplary citizen, and Christianity a tried and faithful 
 advocate. 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of this minute be sent to his bereaved family. 
 
 John F. Lewis, Secretary. 
 
 Letter in The Evangelist, of which Dr. Breed was the regular Phila- 
 delphia correspondent for many years : — 
 
 REV. WILLIAM PRATT BREED, D.D. 
 
 BY REV. J. HENRY SHARPE, D.D. 
 
 We in the City of Brotherly Love mourn the departure of Dr. Breed as our St. 
 John the Beloved. The light of love was still in his eye and the elasticity of essential 
 youth was still in his step, for he was one whose energies were predominantly spiritual, 
 and these gave their tone to his slight and fragile physique. At threescore years 
 and ten he had still the fire and force of other years, albeit his erect form and fine 
 expressive features had become more spirituelle. We revered and loved him as one 
 
89 
 
 whose buoyant bearing and abounding activity seemed to betoken many years more 
 of beneficent leadership in the Church. His sudden departure, therefore, seemed like 
 a transition to the heavenly sphere. 
 
 As nearly, perhaps, as ever permitted in our times, Dr. Breed enjoyed an ideal 
 pastorate. Like Dr. Boardman in the Tenth Church, of which the West Spruce 
 Street Church was the child, Dr. Breed grew with the church of which he was the 
 first and only pastor. His previous pastorate at Steubcnville, Ohio, had been the 
 novitiate merely, and it was into the second pastorate he poured his still youthful 
 energies. Pastor and people alike were animated by the hopes and aspirations of 
 their untried and promising future. It was the beginning of a pastorate that subsisted 
 unbroken through the average period of human life. The children he baptized in 
 their youth he united in marriage at their maturity. Upon the sons of the fathers 
 whom he followed to their rest he laid the hands of consecration to take the places 
 of their sires at his side. For thirty and three years he ceased not day nor night to 
 minister unfalteringly to this church of his love. He loved it to the end and died in 
 its service. 
 
 In every such pastorate the church itself must be one that makes it possible. The 
 West Spruce Street Church was happy in its pastor, and the pastor happy in his 
 church. When his people chose him they were not mistaken in their affinities, and 
 when he became their pastor his affinities for them drew them about him in life-long 
 loyalty. It was a marriage made in heaven, and was to be indissoluble until death. 
 Although the time came when he was forced to demit the arduous responsibilities of 
 other years, he was still retained as pastor-emeritus, and his support continued for 
 life. The action of the congregation in making this provision was a fitting sequel to 
 the memorable occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his pastorate, when the 
 affecting testimony of loving words was substantiated by sharing with him generously 
 in their temporal bounty. Such loyalty to an aged pastor is more an honor to the church 
 capable of it than to the pastor receiving it. 
 
 Dr. Breed was too prolific to confine his ministrations to the bounds of his pastorate. 
 He cast a reflected honor on it and on himself by the service he rendered in other 
 kindred spheres. His wise counsel and skillful leadership were in constant demand 
 in the various courts of the Church and in its Boards, and other benevolent agencies. 
 His knowledge of parliamentary practice, his swift perception and decision, his unfail- 
 ing self-control, his kindly humor and genial tact in every emergency marked him 
 as a model presiding officer, whether in court or in committee. No name was more 
 frequently suggested as fitting for the moderatorship of Presbytery, Synod or General 
 Assembly, and he never failed to acquit himself with honor in such offices as he tilled, 
 but it was in the Board of Publication, perhaps, that he rendered his most signal 
 service, being active in all its counsels and its presiding officer since 1876. On count- 
 less occasions of greater and lesser moment, as at college and seminary commence- 
 ments and historic anniversaries, his was a burning and shining light. 
 
 His wit and humor were a lambent flame that never failed to play brightly on any 
 theme he treated. Yet few were capable of such touching pathos or of such tender 
 
9 o 
 
 sympathy with the suffering and sorrowing as he. No matter what the occasion, 
 whether joyous or solemn, his spirit ever vibrated truly to its key-note, and responded 
 with an almost feminine fineness of intuition. He had a strong sense of the dramatic 
 in personal character and historic incident, and it was his admiration of noble doing 
 and enduring, rather than philosophic insight, perhaps, that guided him in his historic 
 studies. In picturing the strongest characters and scenes, his pen was more adequate 
 than his voice. Yet he loved to throw himself with an abandon of heroic fervor into 
 the words and actions of his chosen character. At such times his dramatic force 
 often shook his slight frame as if it might shatter it. 
 
 It was as a writer, perhaps, rather than as a speaker, that his reputation had the 
 greatest lustre. As his sparkling letters in The Evangelist bore witness, he was a 
 born paragraphist. He was a brilliant epigramist. Only grace restrained him from 
 being a punster. A lively fancy was his strongest mental trait. All that he wrote 
 had a charm all its own. His style had the logic of life, and he cared little for any 
 other. His books, tracts, addresses and letters flew to their mark. It is much to say 
 of fugitive writing that it does even this. He had, perhaps, no hope himself that 
 anything he wrote would abide. 
 
 Dr. Breed's power was in the manifest purity and intensity of his personal and 
 spiritual affections. His was the heart of St. John, quick to kindle with love, quick 
 to inflame with righteous fervor. If ever he had wrath, it was like his Lord's, only 
 the reflex of his glowing love. His sympathies were so potent he disarmed his oppo- 
 nents without argument, and still won to his good-will those who had to differ with 
 him. He was a dear lover, but a poor hater, and he so loved even his enemies, that 
 they were at peace with him. Love panoplied him from head to foot, and enemies 
 he had none, for he vanquished them into friends. His whole pastorate, as well as 
 his whole history in and out of the church, was a reign of peace as well as purity. 
 His was an unenviable spirit who ever had aught of ill to say of this beloved brother. 
 
 This model Christian pastor was fruitful in the vital force that makes force. Not 
 only were there a countless number to attribute their conversion to his saintly influ- 
 ence, but there were many also glad to confess him their father in the Gospel, following 
 in his footsteps to become, like him, heralds of the word of life. Of the two sons 
 who bear his honored name, one of them also treads in his footsteps as a Gospel 
 minister ; but perhaps there are a score or more besides, who might rise up to call him 
 blessed of the Lord, because either directly or indirectly he led their feet into, the 
 paths of the bearers of glad tidings. From his first Ohio field onward through the 
 long course of his Philadelphia pastorate, he was both the inspirer of young men and 
 their helpful counsellor and friend in all his points of contact with them. Being dead, 
 he yet speaketh through a generation of his spiritual sons, aiming to perpetuate his 
 spirit and the lessons of his life. 
 
 Is it any wonder that such a man should have drawn to his funeral services in the 
 church which itself is his enduring monument, a great host of ministerial brethren, 
 and with them many from other denominations ? Is it any wonder that not even the 
 wind and rain of the stormy morning hindered a great concourse of all classes to 
 
9i 
 
 render their homage to the beloved dead ? A life so complete touched both speakers 
 and hearers more with gratitude than with grief. A tribute of tender grateful eulogy 
 pervaded the prayers and addresses alike. All who participated sustained some 
 intimate personal relation to their departed friend. Each of them spoke fittingly, 
 and often eloquently, from his personal point of view, and the whole service was a 
 chaplet of flowers gathered from the choicest in the garden of their hearts. One 
 could only wish that he who so slept under it all might have heard it ere he slept ! 
 Alas ! why do we refrain from saying what would make a heaven of earth to our loved 
 ones until thev have attained to heaven without us ! 
 
APPENDIX NOTE. 
 
 The following, is a list of Dr. Breed's published works. By the Presby- 
 terian Board of Publication. 
 
 No. 
 
 12 A Dream 321110 tract, 8 pp. 
 
 828 Anthropos Bound Volume 
 
 Bible Lessons on Palestine. See Question Books, 
 
 641 Book of Books, ' ■' 
 
 1 1 17 Christ Liveth in Me, 
 
 1 191 Feeding on Christ, 
 
 705 Grapes from the Great Vine, '• 
 
 909 Hand- Book for Funerals, ' •' 
 
 805 Home Songs, " ' 
 
 914 Jenny Geddes, 
 
 190 John Potter and Uncle Ben, iSmo tract, 4 pp. 
 
 675 Lessons in Flying, Bound Volume 
 
 821 Little Priest •' " 
 
 776 Manna Crumbs (Rutherford), " " 
 
 52 Man Responsible for his Belief, 1S1110 tract, 76 pp. 
 
 1204 Model Christian Worker, , Bound Volume 
 
 1 143 Presbyterianism 300 years ago, " " 
 
 1167 Presbyterians and the Revolution, 
 
 904 The Prisoners, '■ 
 
 768 The Sunny Mount, " ■' 
 
 64 The Theatre, .... iSmo tract, 40 pp. 
 
 861 Under the Oak. Bound Volume 
 
 1 175 Witherspoon, " " 
 
 156 Bridge, The, ... l8mo tract, 12 pp. 
 
 499 Bridget Sullivan, Bound Volume 
 
 130S Brief, Church History in, " 
 
 243 Brief Memoirs of the Pious, 
 
 1243 Brighter Days, 
 
 101-12 British Reformers, (each) " 
 
 loo British Reformers, Lives of, " " 
 
 137 Brocken, Spectre of the, iSmo tract, 24 pp. 
 
 Broken Basket, The. See Little Books for Little Readers. 
 1339 Broken Pitchers Bound Volume 
 
 846 Broken Window, " " 
 
 Aboard and Abroad. Funk & Wagnalls, New York, . . 
 
 92 
 




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