THE 
 
 SEMI-CENTENNIAL CONVENTION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 3ARD OF Domestic Missions, 
 
 HELD AT 
 
 NEWAEK, E. J., 
 
 WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1882. 
 
 By Order of the General Synod. 
 
 NEWAKK, N. J. : 
 
 Amzi Pierson & Co., 21S-220 Market St. 
 1883. 
 
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THE JUBILEE MEETING. 
 
 The Jubilee Convention, appointed to be held by the General Synod at New¬ 
 ark, N. J., on November 8, assembled at the First Reformed Church at 11 
 o’clock A. M. 
 
 S. R. W. Heath, Esq., President of the Board, presided. 
 
 Rev. T. Chalmees Easton, D.D., of New Brunswick, read the 110th Psalm, 
 and Rev. Dr. Gustavus Abeel offered prayer. 
 
 An address of welcome was delivered by Rev. Dr. W. H. Gleason, the pastor 
 of the Church. Rev. Dr. William Oemiston, of New York, responded in be¬ 
 half of General Synod. 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Ransfoed Wells, as the first pastor of the church in which 
 the Convention met, made an address full of interesting reminiscences. 
 
 During the recess the ladies, in large numbers, met and organized the Ladies’ 
 Central Executive Committee of Domestic Missions. A.fter the recess a paper, 
 prepared by the Rev. Edwaed W. Bentley, D.D., “ On the Past and Future of 
 the Reformed Church in Home Missionary Work,” was read. It was responded 
 to by Rev. Dr. Goyn Talmage. A paper was also read by Rev. A. Thompson, 
 “ On the Special Work of the Reformed Church among the Hollanders. 
 
 A kindred paper “ On the Work among the Germans” was read by the Rev. 
 Leopold Mohn, D.D., of Hoboken, N. J. 
 
 A paper was also read by the Rev. Dr. John A. Todd, of Tarry town, N. Y., 
 “ On the Church Building Fund^ its Missionary Character, its Vital Importance 
 and its Peculiar Claims.” 
 
 It was responded to by the Rev. Dr. Edwaed A. Reed, of New York. 
 
 Before the session closed Dr. West presented totals of the receipts of the 
 Domestic Board for each decade since its organization. They were as follows: 
 
 From 1833 to 1842. $46,843 
 
 “ 1842 to 1852. 85,835 
 
 “ 1852 to 1862. 158,340 
 
 “ 1862 to 1872. 257,154 
 
 “ 1872 to 1882. 339,319 
 
 THE EVENING SESSION. 
 
 During the day the ladies who had come as delegates from the various Classes 
 met with the brethren of the Board, to arrange for organized efforts in behalf 
 
4: 
 
 of the Home work. Accordingly, the opening paper of the evening was to dis¬ 
 cuss woman’s work, and a paper was read by the Rev. Coenelius Brett, of 
 Bergen, N. J., “On Woman’s Works in Behalf of the Board of Domestic Mis¬ 
 sions.” 
 
 It was responded to by the Rev. James LePevee, of Middlebush, N. J. The 
 final paper of the evening was read by the Rev. David Waters, L.L.D., of 
 Newark, on ‘ ‘ The Special Claims of Domestic Missions, ” and it was very heartily 
 responded to by the Rev. Dr. Oemiston. 
 
 A stirring address was delivered by Mr. Livingston L. Taylor, of the Theo¬ 
 logical Seminary at New Brunswick, pledging the services of a consecrated 
 band for hard work. 
 
 The farewell address was delivered by Rev. Dr. W. J. R. Taylor, of New¬ 
 ark. A final prayer by Dr. A. R. Van Nest, and the Benediction by the Rev. 
 W. H. Clark;, closed the Convention. 
 
ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 
 
 By Rev. W. H. GLEASON, D. D. 
 
 Mr. President, Delegates and Friends :— 
 
 In behalf of this church and our denomination in this city, it becomes my 
 duty and privilege to welcome you here. 
 
 We greet you/or what you are —brethren known and honored in every field 
 of Christian work. 
 
 We greet you/or what you represent —the right wing of our Reformed army, 
 consecrated by its glorious mission in the past and to its more glorious mission 
 in the future. 
 
 We greet you for what you bring with you —hearts of devotion, thoughts of 
 wisdom, words of counsel and of cheer. 
 
 We greet you/or what you shall lea,ve with us —the personal influence of your 
 presence, and the permanent effect of your deliberation and work. 
 
 Thus we welcome you to this church, so closely identified in its origin and 
 history with the cause you have met to promote. In a few months it too shall 
 celebrate its jubilee year. It gave its first pastor to engage in your service. It 
 has been both child and parent of missions, fostered by you in its infancy and 
 weakness, fostering you and your beneficiaries in its maturity and enlargement. 
 It stands to-day, “ mater pulchra filia pulchriorf the fair mother of even fairer 
 children. 
 
 We welcome you to this city, to whose prosperity and progress our denomina¬ 
 tion has contributed no small share, and where that denomination enjoys the 
 confidence and respect of all of every name. 
 
 We welcome you to the associations and intimacies of our homes, whose hos¬ 
 pitalities, we trust, will enable you to thank God and take courage, because of 
 the new ties that shall bind your hearts in Christian love. 
 
 Above all, we welcome you to a precious communion with the Spirit of all 
 grace. May He dwell richly in each heart and in this assembly, in His name 
 convened. May He guide you in your determination so that in all things you 
 may be able to say “It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us.” May our 
 churches be instructed and inspired by what shall here be said and done. May 
 our missionaries have the weak hands strengthened and the feeble knees con¬ 
 firmed. May the Mission Cause receive a new and permanent impulse. May 
 
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 thereby more fully God’s kingdom come and His will be done. Then shall this 
 meeting and greeting not be in vain, and then shall the work of our hands be 
 established upon us—which may God grant, and to His name be all the glory. 
 Amen. 
 
 m 
 
 Dr. Oemiston, as President of the General Synod, was called upon to respond 
 to the address of welcome. In substance he spoke as follows : 
 
 Mr. President :— 
 
 I cannot but regard this as one of the felicitous events of a very highly favor¬ 
 ed life, to be called upon to respond to such an address, so full of genial Chris¬ 
 tian sentiment, and cordial, kindly hospitality, and which has made us all feel 
 that we are at home and among brethren ; and on an occasion of such intense in¬ 
 terest and momentous importance to our entire Church,, her growth, her work, 
 and her glory. 
 
 I rejoice that we meet in the city of Newark, on the banks of the Passaic. 
 It is a fitting place for such a Convention. As we pass through her streets our 
 spirits are stirred by a kind of mercantile melody—an anthem of energy, earn¬ 
 estness and enterprise, formed by the stroke of her hammers, the ring of her 
 anvils, the whistle of her engines, the whir of her spindles, and the hum of her 
 hives of industry, which lift her to a pre-eminent position in the State and give 
 her a high place among the manufacturing cities of the Union. 
 
 It is also as delightf ul as it is fitting, that we meet in a church which will soon 
 celebrate its Jubilee anniversary. Scarcely fifty years ago it was the only Re¬ 
 formed church in the city; now there are six, all vigorous, prosperous and 
 active, healthful, hopeful and helpful. The •mother, not yet venerable, has 
 good reason to be proud of her numerous family of fair and happily settled 
 daughters. 
 
 This meeting is a Jubilee festival, an occasion for grateful retrospection and 
 joyous thanksgiving. In view of all God’s goodness to our fathers and to their 
 children ; in view of all His loving kindness graciously vouchsafed to our an¬ 
 cient Church during the last half century, our hearts are glad, and we are here 
 to rejoice together, thank God, and take courage. But it behooves us to be 
 solemn as well as hilarious. In considering the great question of missions, we 
 enter into the counsels of the Eternal God, our Heavenly Father—the divine 
 purposes of grace and mercy towards a lost world; we listen to the last solemn 
 and authoritative injunction of our risen and empowered Redeemer, “ Go into 
 all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.” This great Convention, 
 assembled at the call of our General Synod, will be a failure if it does not cherish 
 in each one of us the heart and mind of Christ, self-denying, unwearying, de¬ 
 voted, self-sacrificing. Our privileges and opportunities are prolonged and 
 multiplied; notwithstanding our long continued forgetfulness of the divine 
 commission, and our criminal, selfish neglect of our brother’s weal, God still 
 forbears and is waiting, reaching forth the hand of Benediction, and sounding 
 into our ears with authority, “ Go preach My Gospel.” That word is as fresh 
 and forceful now as when it first fell from the lips of Jesus; and it must be 
 sounded through this Convention until each heart responds. Here am I, Lord, 
 send me, I will go. The voices of our brethren from all parts of our laud, who 
 
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 are constrained to spend silent Sabbaths, who have not their wonted means of 
 grace, who hear not the sound of the church-going bell, who have not the privi¬ 
 leges and ordinances of God’s house, come to our ears with plaintive, pleading, 
 potent power, and say in accents which cannot be denied, “ Come over and 
 help us,” and we unitedly and cheerfully say. We come. The weight of the Mas¬ 
 ter’s authority, gratitude for our own precious advantages, and deep, tender sym¬ 
 pathy with the needs and claims of our brethren, our fellow-citizens, our kins¬ 
 men, according to the flesh, all unite in stimulating us to earnest, high and holy 
 endeavor, to future grander and more heroic service. Our motto is, the world 
 —specially our own land, the whole land—for Christ. 
 
 Gathering inspiration from above, from around, from the past and from the 
 future, we come together not merely to congratulate each other, or rest on 
 laurels already won, not even simply to bewail the errors and failures of the 
 past, but to take an enlightened view of the fields yet to be possessed, to 
 strengthen and inspire each other with zeal and courage to prosecute the work 
 with freshened vigor, enlarged views, more ardent hopes, more dauntless cour¬ 
 age, more unflinching self-denial, and a loftier consecration. We will not rest, 
 neither be weary until our entire land owns for its sovereign ruler and rightful 
 sovereign the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 In the name of the General Synod, in the name of this large Convention, we 
 thank the brethren of Newark for their generous reception—it is just like them. 
 Many of us have already tested the coziness of their inglesides, the largeness of 
 their hearts, and the boundlessness of their hospitalities. We also thank him 
 who has given so winning and constraining a form to their welcome. May they 
 and he alike receive a welcome and a reward in that day for their kindness to 
 us to-day. 
 
The Past and Future of the Reformed Church in 
 
 Home Missionary Work. 
 
 By Rev. EDWARD W. BENTLEY, D D. 
 
 The Reformed Church has always been a Missionary Church. To a great ex¬ 
 tent she has caught and applied the Master’s command, “ Go ye into all the 
 world and preach the Gospel to every creature.” To this fact must be accredited 
 her own position and extension in this Western world. Our forefathers could 
 not come without bringing, nor could they remain without extending its bounds, 
 and yet they were natural even in church building. They did nothing furiously, 
 pushed nothing to an extreme. The Church spread as thej^ spread. As fast as 
 they gained a permanent foothold they planted the Church. And each church 
 became a centre for a missionary influence. Each church had its neighbors, who 
 also, sooner or later, aspired to an independent church life. And to achieve 
 this they needed help from those already established. And they had but to 
 prove their necessity to find relief. True, our Reformed Church has always 
 been conservative, sometimes too much so. Her theory has always been, better 
 one large and strong church than two weak and feeble, and in conformity with 
 this belief they often took more than a Sabbath day’s journey to reach their 
 place of worship. Willing to do this themselves, they demanded the same will¬ 
 ingness on the part of others. But as soon as they recognized the justice of aid 
 they were prompt to bestow it. Hence, as their population spread t*he number 
 of churches increased. The larger churches were divided and the smaller 
 churches grew strong and vigorous. 
 
 Nor was this all. No sooner was the pressure of necessity taken from their 
 own shoulders than the Reformed Church began to think of others. Their In¬ 
 dian neighbors began to attract their attention, and as early as 1643, preceding 
 by several years John Eliot in Massachusetts, Rev. Joannes Megapolensis was 
 holding regular services among the Mohawks, many of whom united with his 
 church at Albany. And so in many localities in New York and New Jersey, 
 tradition relates that the Indians were ministered to by our Reformed Church 
 pastors. This w^as in fact “ Home Missionary” labor. It was touching with 
 the finger of the Gospel those whom God had made our neighbors. And the 
 work thus begun was followed up. In or about 1700 Rev. Bernardus Freeman, a 
 
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 pastor of the Reformed Church at Schenectady, reported to the English “ Society 
 for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts” something of the success of his 
 work in behalf of the Mohawks. Some of his translations into the Mohawk 
 tongue were printed in New York in 1713. In 1776 the New York Missionary 
 Society was formed, in which the Reformed Church took an active place. 
 This, though not ostensibly a Home Missionary organization, did a large and 
 successful work among the Indians. It sent a Missionary to the Choctaws in 
 Georgia, granted aid to Rev. John Sergeant, in Stockbridge, Mass., and also to 
 that noble African, Paul Cuffee, in his ministry among the Indians on Lono- 
 Island. 
 
 In 1797 the Northern Missionary Society, which had its headquarters at 
 Albany, was formed by a union of the same denominations as composed the 
 New York Society. Its work was chiefly, if not entirely conflned to the In¬ 
 dians of Central and Western New York, and yielded encouraging returns. 
 
 In 1786 the Synod of the Reformed Church, moved by the appeals for aid in 
 Church extension within its own borders, appointed a committee “ to devise 
 some plan for sending the Gospel to destitute localities, and to report at the next 
 session.” In 1788 this committee recommended the taking of contributions in 
 all the churches. This was the distinctive beginning of Home Missions in our 
 Church. With the means thus provided the several Classes were able to send 
 out ministers and licenciates to preach the Gospel in various directions. 
 
 In 1789 the Synod directed the Classis of New Brunswick to ordain and send 
 as a Missionary to Hardy county, West Virginia, Rev. Jacob Jennings, who 
 had for several years been practicing medicine, and exhorting and catechising 
 among the destitute settlements on the head-waters of the Potomac. The sub¬ 
 ject of Church extension, as early as 1790, became an item of regular business 
 in all the Classes. 
 
 In 1791 General Synod made its Deputati Synodi a Committee on Church Ex¬ 
 tension, which arrangement w’as broken up two years later by the reorganiza¬ 
 tion of General Synod. 
 
 In 1792 Rev. Robert Gray, of Poughkeepsie, undertook a preaching tour of 
 six weeks’ duration along the Susquehanna, and during a few subsequent years 
 such excursions were continued by other ministers. 
 
 In 1794 Rev. John Cornelison organized our first Home Missionary Church at 
 Tioga, in the Chenango Valley. 
 
 From 1790 to 1796 the people of Mercer county, Kentucky, stimulated, doubt¬ 
 less, by the success of Rev. Mr. Jennings in West Virginia, had been sending up 
 annual cries for help to the General Synod. In this later year Peter Labaugh, 
 a theological student, volunteered to visit them, and the Synod directed the 
 Classis of Hackensack to ordain him and send him out as their Missionary. He 
 organized a church at Salt River, in Mercer county, but finally concluded not to 
 remain as its pastor. 
 
 In 1798 the Classis of Albany sent Robert McDowell to Canada, who itinerated 
 along the shore of Lake Ontario and the River St. Lawrence, for a distance of 
 300 miles. He organized six large churches, and in 1800 he became the settled 
 pastor of three of them. Subsequently three of our ministers were sent upon 
 preaching tours to this same field. This work was continued under the super- 
 
 
10 
 
 vision of Synod’s Committee till 1819, when the field was given up for want of 
 means to support it. 
 
 Meanwhile calls for help for the home field were multiplied. The Synod, 
 with a view of meeting these, transferred its standing Committee of Missions 
 from Albany to New York, and gave permission for missionary work elsewhere 
 in the States. Fields immediately opened up in Herkimer, Fulton, Schoharie, 
 Saratoga and Warren counties. New York ; in Sussex, New Jersey, and in Pike 
 county, Penn. A church was organized at Spotswood. Work was also done 
 in the valley of the Mohawk, and at Stillwater in New Jersey. In 1822 the 
 Missionary Society of the R. D. Church was organized, and its Board of Man¬ 
 agers was made Synod’s standing Committee on Missions. This society was 
 the beginning of new life, and during the ten years of its existence collected 
 more than $30,000, and aided about 100 churches or stations, and 130 mission¬ 
 aries. 
 
 Meanwhile the Church made but halting progress. The work was new and 
 * the Church was compelled to feel its way. It seemed to be moving more by 
 impulse than by intelligent principle. In the main it did its work piecemeal 
 through local committees and by special contributions. It had not reached the 
 point of combining its energies, of compacting and centralizing its agencies, 
 and bringing them all to depend upon a common treasury, and to aim at a com¬ 
 mon result. And this multiplication of committees and agents, and these di¬ 
 versities of methods led to misunderstandings and complaints. One portion of 
 the Church was jealous of another. One association found fault with another. 
 Synod made successive changes, and in 1831 changed the basis of all the opera¬ 
 tions by constituting the Board of Missions, and in 1832 the Board of Domestic 
 Missions of General Synod was formally organized. 
 
 In 1837 the first church of the denomination was organized in the great West, 
 at Fairview, Illinois. This was followed by other churches in Michigan, Illi¬ 
 nois and Wisconsin. So that in four years the Classes of Michigan and Wis¬ 
 consin were added to the Church. 
 
 In 1846 began the great immigration from Holland which was destined to 
 give to our domestic work a new impetus and a wider field. Driven from home 
 by a religious persecution, combined with the pressure of material want, these 
 Hollanders came over and settled in Western Michigan, bringing with them 
 their churches founded upon the same Biblical standards which lay underneath 
 our own. Very soon they recognized their need of sympathy, fellowship and 
 material aid. Their emigrants in many localities were scattered, ignorant of 
 our language, destitute of preachers, whom they were unable either to procure 
 from abroad or to prepare upon the spot, and yet pressed upon by the need of 
 having their Church life organized and rendered secure. Facts of this nature 
 inclined their leaders to look favorably toward our Reformed Church already 
 established and prosperous here. This feeling was promoted by the friendly 
 overtures of General Synod. In 1850 the matter of union was brought up in 
 General Synod, which took the Classis of Holland under its care and placed it 
 in ecclesiastical relation with the Classis of Albany. In 1851 the Classis of 
 Holland was organized, and since then our work among the Hollanders has 
 grown to wide dimensions. Many of their churches have become strong and 
 
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 self-sustaining, and new ones have been formed and supplied with the preached 
 Word. In all ways has the Church exerted its wisdom and energy in helping 
 them on, and they on their part have seemed to consent loyally and with confi¬ 
 dence to the Church’s exertion and rule. 
 
 The German immigration has also shared in our sympathy and assistance. 
 Nearly all of our Eastern Classes have had more or less to do in aiding, encour¬ 
 aging and directing this “ feeble folk ” to stand upon their feet and take care of 
 themselves. We have now some thirty-five of these churches on our list, all of 
 whom have been aided to a greater or less extent by our Domestic Missionary 
 funds. 
 
 During the past year we have aided at the East 41 churches, 2,241 families, 
 and 3,481 members ; at the West, 37 churches, 1,836 families, and 2,498 mem¬ 
 bers ; making a total of 78 churches, 4,077 families, 5,979 members. 
 
 Our collections for Domestic Missionary purposes from all sources were 
 $29,030.01 ; and our total expenditures were $23,640.30. 
 
 An essential adjunct of our Home Missionary work is our Church Building 
 Fund. This originated by an act of General Synod in the year 1862, and from 
 the first was so hedged around by safe limitations that it could not well be per¬ 
 verted. And this, I say, is an essential adjunct of our Home Missionary work. 
 Our denomination is small, and is not given to any extensive emigration in a 
 compact form. Hence, in none of our new settlements, save those of the Hol¬ 
 landers, can we find the nucleus of a church ready to combine and organize 
 upon a Reformed basis. 
 
 In almost every initial attempt at church building in the West you will find 
 enough of Congregationalists, or of Presbyterians, or of Methodists, who are 
 ready to join hands in starting an enterprise with which they are already ac¬ 
 quainted and whose advantages they have previously experienced. But our 
 Church is not thus favorably known. Our order, our polity, our soundness in 
 the faith, our persistent adherence to the Word of God; are not generally under¬ 
 stood. Hence, to win men to our fold, to build up the Reformed Church, we 
 must show them our work in its actual operation ; we must place a church in 
 the midst of them, and invite them to hear the Gospel as we preach it. When 
 we have once pursuaded them to sit in our pev;s, to join in our songs of praise, 
 to listen to the truth as we hold and teach it, the most difficult part of our task 
 is done. Time was when, could I have compassed a church building in Omaha, 
 I would gladly have undertaken to build up a Reformed Church in that city, 
 and should have had no fears for the result. 
 
 But this aside, our Church Building Fund is essential, wherever men strug¬ 
 gling with poverty, hard pushed to find bread for their homes, are striving to 
 erect a house of worship. Natural sympathy combines with Christian duty to 
 enlist our endeavors. We look first at the benevolence of such aid, and the 
 thankfulness with which it is received, and then forward to the not remote fu¬ 
 ture when the Church thus assisted shall be itself assisting others. It is sow¬ 
 ing the seed of a perennial harvest. Give us a church building fund at all pro¬ 
 portioned to our work, at all adequate to our necessities, and we can go on our 
 way with uplifted heads. Our fund now amounts to some $65,000, which has 
 been put to use as fast as collected, and the major part of it has had from the 
 
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12 
 
 first a specific direction. We ought to have at least a hundred thousand dollars, 
 the income of which shall be constantly available. 
 
 And now, with this rapid review of the past, let us look forward. If we are 
 asked, as many have asked, “ Cui honof we have something to say. Many 
 looking upon us and our work have said : ‘ ‘ Why continue it ? It is but a drop 
 in the ocean. You are but a small denomination, and there is nothing to keep 
 you from being swallowed up by others whose reputation is world-wide, and 
 whose object and whose composition are essentially the same with your own. 
 Y"ou have a snug position, a harmonious membership, a desirable location. 
 Why not be satisfied with that ? Why add yours to the complication of boards, 
 and machinery, and men that are trying to Christianize the land ? Why should 
 you, the least and the weakest of all, persist in trying to keep step with the 
 strong tribes going up to possess our country ? Why not join forces and stand 
 in line with them, and shout your cries of victory at last with theirs ?” Well, 
 there are several reasons. First, though our denomination is small, we think it 
 has a place, and a right, and a duty with the largest, bravest and most showy 
 of all the denominations. AVe know of no obligation and no necessity to dis¬ 
 solve our organization and unite with any other. 
 
 As we stand, we have a culture, a form, an outfit to which we are accustomed, 
 which we think is advantageous and right, and which wins us favor and gives 
 us power where others, or ourselves even, would fail without them. We have 
 the prestige of a quiet, advancing, spiritual life, where other denominations 
 have been convulsed and torn. We have preached Christ and ministered His 
 ordinances, while other denominations have been scolding and disputing. We 
 have tried to leave mere worldly plans and interests alone, and to bend our en¬ 
 ergies to the Master’s work. 
 
 And if we have not done everything as well, we have, as we think, done 
 some things better than those around us. And hence, in our past record we 
 find nothing to discourage us from maintaining our organization, and going up 
 as one of the tribes of our American Israel. And then, secondly, we have this 
 to say : What we have been we expect to be ; we do not propose to change. 
 AVe have tested and proved our faith, and are content with all its unfoldings. 
 It is the old faith of the Christian Church, the faith that God is just, that man 
 is a sinner, that to satisfy God’s righteous justice, Christ, the Son of God, came 
 in man’s likeness, took man’s place beneath the law, suifered and died in man’s 
 stead. 
 
 It is the faith that they who are saved grow up into Christ’s likeness, and are 
 justified on the ground of His righteousness. 
 
 We hold that the Word of God, contained in the Scriptures of the Old and 
 New Testaments, was so communicated to inspired men that they wrote it as they 
 received it, so that, adding nothing to it, and taking nothing from it, that Bible 
 is now man’s infallible guide of faith and practice. And further, we believe 
 that as man shall live or die, so also shall God find and judge him at the end of 
 the world. 
 
 Our faith is in fact the same faith which we have drawn from our Bibles, 
 the same faith which has made us acquainted with God, which has convinced 
 us of our sin and misery, which has told us of God’s great love to us, and 
 
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 His wondrous sacrifice for us, which has assured us of forgiven sin, and in¬ 
 spired us with bright hopes of heavenly glory. It is the same faith which has 
 held us when sinking, which has lifted us when falling, which has given us 
 courage in the forlornest crises of life, which has changed the impossible into 
 the actual, and made earth a stepping-stone to heaven. It is the same faith 
 which multitudes of our fellow-men, living, have trusted in, and dying have 
 rested upon. The same faith which has rendered their lives glorious and their 
 death triumphant. 
 
 We have no commission to judge God from a human point of view. We have 
 no authority to apologize for any of the mysteries with which He wraps Himself, 
 nor to explain any of His enactments from which He has not withdrawn ihe 
 cover. 
 
 We believe that without our aid He is perfect, and that when His hour comes 
 He will justify all His ways. 
 
 And being content to hold these views, we propose to hold them unchanged. 
 To any one of our ministers holding a belief discordant with these, we have 
 simply to say : “ The world is wide, you may hold what views you please, but 
 you must go without the bounds of the Reformed Church to do it. The formula 
 which you signed on your entrance to your ministry with us is a sacred compact, 
 and your change in doctrine now gives it force. ” 
 
 An d thus our work of purification is done. The holder of the new faith goes 
 forth to seek fellowship where he may, and leaves us to go on our way untram¬ 
 melled. 
 
 This is a process which we have gone through with more than once without 
 noise or confusion, and we can do it again. We have no thought of suffering 
 our Reformed Church to become unrebuked the nesting-place of “ Ists and 
 Isms.” Our sense of responsibility is too great, our work too serious, a place 
 in our ministry too solemn for such idle and useless speculations. We care not 
 to go without a “ Thus-saith-the-Lord ” behind us. We have no philosophical 
 theories to broach, no sphere of recondite study to exhibit, and no rage to be 
 thought learned, or daring, or original, to gratify. 
 
 On the contrary, that series of divine truths which our fathers formulated and 
 proved, which has come down to us bearing the indorsement of Luther, and 
 Calvin, and Zwinglius, and Knox, which has received the indorsements of 
 synods, and councils, and churches, for which Christian heroes have contended 
 and martyrs have died, truths which have nourished the living hearts and dy¬ 
 ing experiences of the noblest of the earth—these truths, I say, are enough 
 for us. 
 
 Nor from this statement let any one infer that our ministry is less learned, 
 less studious, less familiar with the entire range of theological verities and specu¬ 
 lative truths than their neighbors about them. 
 
 They are as devout, as thoughtful, as open to the reception of new truths, 
 and new views of truth which pertain to the glory of God, or the welfare of 
 man, as any others. And it always has been so. From the Reformation down¬ 
 ward they have been recognized for their acuteness, their genius, their broad, 
 firm grasp of Scriptural, polemic and expository thought. In all crises they have 
 Stood manfully and intelligently by the standards, they have dealt vigorous blows 
 
14 
 
 in defence of the faith, and have made full proof of their ministry as servants 
 of Christ. 
 
 And holding these truths, and proposing still to hold them, we think there is 
 place and room for us among the hosts going up to evangelize our land. We 
 think there are multitudes who have only to know us to appreciate us. Thou¬ 
 sands who know nothing and care less about various “ winds of doctrine,” still 
 do care whether Christ can forgive their sins, and heal their souls, and fit them 
 for heaven. And to such we mean to tell the story of the Cross, with all it sig¬ 
 nifies of life and glory. This is our errand, and to such do we propose to con¬ 
 vey it. 
 
 Thirdly—We are well equipped to do this work. The spirit of intelligence is 
 abroad among our people. Our schools have a high standard and are multiply¬ 
 ing in all our centres of population and infiuence. Of our colleges we scarcely 
 need to speak, Rutgers has won a renown of which we are not ashamed. Its 
 part is pre-eminently honorable, and over its future there hangs no cloud. Hope 
 College is emerging from the struggles which, in common with all other insti¬ 
 tutions of its kind, have hindered its progress into the light of a brilliant day. 
 Its work thus far, with all its discouragements, has been nobly done, and it 
 looks to the future with promise and hope. In provision for theological in¬ 
 struction we are abreast of the foremost. Our New Brunswick Seminary is 
 amply endowed, and it is able to respond to all the demands of the years to 
 come. 
 
 Looking to her past, “ to name her is to praise,” and we know her future will 
 not belie her past, and it is the earnest intention of the Church to place a like 
 equipment at the earliest possible period at the West. The withdrawal of theol¬ 
 ogy from Hope College was the result of a necessity now fast passing, if it has 
 not already passed away. 
 
 And our Board of Education has facilities adequate for sustaining both these 
 institutions to their fullest extent. 
 
 Or, if she has not the funds in hand she knows where to find them. The Re¬ 
 formed Church has never been niggardly in providing for her beneficiaries, 
 and the possession of such appliances as these but strengthens our desire and 
 confirms our purpose to go forward. 
 
 And lastly, we plead Christ’s own command. His commission rings in our 
 ears and lies deep within our hearts. This land, with all its unequalled resources 
 belongs to Him, and what we can do towards making it His must be and shall 
 be done. 
 
 To this end are we organized, and to this end do we propose to work on, and 
 fight on, and struggle on. For Him do we labor, and in Him do we trust, and 
 by and by the glorious end shall come. By and by He Whose right it is shall 
 reign King of Nations as He now does King of Saints. 
 
special Work of tke Reformed Churcli Among the 
 
 Hollanders and Germans. 
 
 A Paper read before the ‘‘^Domestic Missionary Conference^ held at NewarJct 
 
 N. J., November 8, 1882, 
 
 By Rev. ABRAHAM THOMPSON. 
 
 I gladly avail myself of the invitation of the committee to speak concerning 
 the special work of the Reformed Church among the Hollanders and Germans 
 in this country. 
 
 At an early day the connection of our Church with the Germans was close 
 and intimate, and many of our older churches were originally German. It is 
 only recently, however, that attention has been turned, to any considerable ex¬ 
 tent, to this class of immigrants. We have rather left them to the Lutherans 
 and German Reformed Church. That there is opportunity for labor among this 
 large class of our population no one doubts. I do not feel myself competent, 
 however, to present their claims before this Conference, nor is it necessary, in¬ 
 asmuch as one—than whom no one is more competent—will present their cause 
 in an address during the progress of this meeting. I feel that it will be doing a 
 favor to all to leave this part of the subject to the historical knowledge, the 
 learning and eloquence of one who has made it a special subject of study, and 
 whose labors in that line have been abundant. We are to hear from the Rev. 
 Dr. Mohn! 
 
 Of the Hollanders I can speak from personal experience and observation. 
 Thrown among them as instructor in Holland Academy, immediately after 
 graduation—and then by far the greater portion of my ministerial life being in 
 daily contact with them—it would be strange had there not been a deep and 
 deepening interest in their welfare. Their language was‘mastered in their 
 churches under such men as Van Raalte and Oggel, and in their private re¬ 
 ligious assemblies. Many an hour have I been stifled with their tobacco smoke, 
 and many a time has my head ached over their long—very long—discussions of 
 Bible themes. And though, proverbially, a Dutchman may not be able to 
 
16 
 
 “see after four o’clock,” yet he can discern points of theology close up to mid¬ 
 night, as I can testify. 
 
 A ministerial brother said recently, “I see little cause for 2 , jubilee in our 
 ‘Domestic’ work.” Perhaps others may have thought so, but a more intimate 
 study of the past will dissipate such feelings. The present always has its roots 
 in the past. It is Ood, as Tvell as men, that makes history. This Church, in 
 which we have a name, is His more than it is ours. Pie has had more to do 
 with it than we have. Looking at the past we wonder, not that it has not ex¬ 
 tended, but that it exists. Nothing but Dutch stubbornness could have held it. 
 Historical circumstances had been such that no organization of all our churches 
 for united work was possible until about the time that the “Domestic Board” 
 came into existence. Efforts had been made, but they were individual and 
 desultory. From that time to this the growth and extension has been healthful, 
 and at times rapid. Daring the period 1849 to 1859 one hundred and fifty 
 churches were organized. Since the organization of the Board we have tripled 
 the number of our ministers, and have multiplied our churches by two and one- 
 half. 
 
 It was in this, the period of our greatest expansion at home, that our Foreign 
 Board undertook its separate work, and the attention and means of the Church 
 were taxed to the utmost to sustain the work thus providentially thrown upon 
 the Church. But with that work well established, it is time again to turn atten¬ 
 tion to the work at our own doors. Our work is expanding in every direction. 
 The future has great things in store for us, if we do not neglect the leadings of 
 God’s Providence. This very Conference—and the one this day in session in 
 Chicago—are evidences that the Church is asking what the Lord will have us to 
 do. The call for these meetings by the General Synod betokens that the whole 
 Church is ready to go forward where the Lord shows the way. That call of 
 the Synod reads : “The Church needs to be aroused. Other causes—worthy, 
 important—have dominated the mind of the Church and overshadowed the 
 cause of Domestic Missions. Some in our communion, we fear, regard our 
 Church as chiefly designed by Providence to care for the Holland brethren 
 who come to our shores. We are convinced that no Church can ov ought to 
 flourish on this continent whicii limits its efforts by sectional or race restrictions. 
 We welcome tenderly the Plolland immigrants, but we should also aim to estab¬ 
 lish churches among all who are destitute of the means of grace in every part 
 of the republic where a church is actually needed. By loyalty to the spirit and 
 genius of the ancient Church whose history we inherit, by every indication of 
 of God’s Providence, we call upon our people to make this Jubilee year a year 
 of noble enthusiasm, substantial giving, and solid, progressive labor in this great 
 cause! ” To that language every lover of the Church will give a hearty response. 
 Not wholly, not chiefly, perhaps, is our Church designed to care for the Hol¬ 
 landers, but yet largely and specially. Providence has made it our special work. 
 
 We cannot separate ourselves from our history. Of our 500 churches now 
 existing, it will be safe .to say that four-fifths of them at least have sprung 
 almost directly from those originally speaking the Holland language. The in¬ 
 stances are rare—exceedingly rare—where churches have been organized without 
 a nucleus of those who had been trained in these churches. And where such 
 
 4 
 
17 
 
 organizations have been formed they have usually failed. These &xefactSy not 
 theories. What has occurred with the early churches in this region will occur 
 in the Holland churches now existing in this country. They will continue to 
 exist and to send off branches, and gradually they will become English-speaking 
 churches, and hold the ground as they do in Somerset county, in this State. 
 
 It is the duty of the Church to preach the Gospel to “every creature; ” but 
 she must not fritter away her efforts and resources in attempting things imprac¬ 
 ticable. Our efforts should be directed wisely. 
 
 Our Church has limited its Foreign Field to three localities—in China, India 
 and Japan; but not all the heathen are found in these countries. While en¬ 
 deavoring to preach to “every creature” the Church yet wisely concentrates its 
 efforts, believing that by so doing the greatest good will be accomplished. In 
 their zeal our fathers sent ministers to Canada, to West Virginia and Kentucky. 
 Some of the largest and most flourishing Presbyterian congregations in Canada 
 were gathered and organized by missionaries chiefly from tbe Classis of Albany. 
 It was a good work. But we see that their efforts might have been directed more 
 wisely. There were waste places within their very borders—there were whole 
 
 V 
 
 communities allied to them by language, by contiguity, by acquaintanceship, 
 who were neglected or left to others. It behooves us not to make similar mis¬ 
 takes, though they were made with the very best of motives. 
 
 The Lord has sent us a large body of people who are our special care. They 
 are allied to us by race (originally by language), by faith and polity. Our 
 Church came from the Netherlands—whence these people come. They bear to¬ 
 day the same names which stand on our earliest Church rolls. They speak the 
 same language in which our minutes of consistories, classes and synods were 
 kept; a language which has never ceased to be spoken in some parts of the 
 Church, and a language in which some of the ministers could always preach. 
 
 When the immigration of 1847-49 was poured upon our shores, it was not 
 accidental but promdential that there were such men as Drs. Dewitt and 
 Wyckoff— ‘•^nomina clara et 'Generabilia" —to meet these refugees and to wel¬ 
 come them in their own language to this land; men that could tell them that 
 here was the Church of their fathers, the Church of Dordrecht and Heidelbergh, 
 holding the doctrines in their purity, doctrines which they could not hear in the 
 degenerate Church of the Fatherland. Was it not a Providence that threw these 
 new-comers under the influence of two such men—men honored and revered for 
 their worth and piety by all the Church—representative men of the Church in 
 America? Sixty thousand of this people are probably now in this country. 
 They are allied to us in faith. They belong to us, and with us by their confes¬ 
 sions, catechisms, standards and theology. They have been fed on the same 
 doctrines as we ourselves have been fed upon. It is not similar doctrines which 
 they might have learned in Scotland or Germany, but the same doctrines pro¬ 
 mulgated at Dort. Not similar statements from Westminster, but the same 
 from Heidelbergh. Their catechism begins not with “What is the chief end 
 of man?” but “What is thy only comfort in life and death?” That catechism 
 they have learned —that their ministers preach without any mental reservations. 
 When they have met in ecclesiastical assemblies in their own land they have 
 called themselves not a Session, nor Vestry, nor Council, nor Presbytery, nor 
 
18 
 
 House of Bishops, nor General Assembly, but a Church, a Consistory, Classis, 
 Synod, names familiar to them and to U8. They need learn no new doctrines 
 and no new nomenclatures with us. 
 
 Providentially they were directed to us, and united with us in Church fellow¬ 
 ship. They form to-day one-eighth of our membership, and comprise nearly 
 one-sixth of our churches (10,075 members and 75 churches). They occupy as 
 much territory now (probably) as was occupied by the Church at the formation 
 of our General Synod, and have about three-fourths the number of churches. 
 They have more than one-third as many churches as were in the denomination 
 when the Domestic Board was organized (viz., 75 churches—204 in 1832). 
 
 As a Church, our growth has been limited almost exclusively to the localities 
 where the Hollanders first settled—New York and New Jersey, the Raritan, Hud¬ 
 son and the Mohawk. This matter is worthy serious consideration in all plans 
 for the future. We learn from the past. Account for it as we may, we have 
 not been successful on a large scale in planting churches outside these limits. 
 
 The Classis of Illinois was organized more than forty years ago, and to-day it 
 has only two self-sustaining English-speaking churches, and they were formed 
 by large colonies from our churches in Somerset county. The Classis of Michi¬ 
 gan was formed the same year, and its record is scarcely more encouraging. 
 
 I offer no explanation—I call attention only to facts. The Church has not 
 grown outside the limits of Holland immigration. That it cannot, I will not 
 venture to affirm or even to suggest. But I do say that all its past history shows 
 that where the Hollanders settled, there has been its growth and its strength. 
 These colonies of Hollanders who have settled recently in our country have 
 come to stay. They have made it a home for themselves and for their children. 
 Most of them have united with our Church, and they mean to stay. 
 
 The people who came twenty-five and thirty years ago are caring for them¬ 
 selves and helping their fellow-countrymen. No better investment was ever 
 made by the Domestic Board than "when it sent Drs. Dewitt, Wyckoff and 
 Garretson to confer with Van Raalte, Van der Meulen and others, and when 
 they gave them aid to erect churches and support ministers in the wilds of 
 Michigan. That seed has brought forth some sixty, some seventy, and some 
 an hundred fold. But multitudes more are now coming; the same good work 
 must be continued. Eight thousand came last year, and the number will be 
 larger the current year. The same helping hand must be extended, and it will 
 be with like precious results. 
 
 There is an insufficient number of ministers to supply the existing churches. 
 Those now arriving come usually unattended by ministers. There is the same 
 lack from which our Church suffered here a hundred years ago. The people 
 arriving cannot build their churches. Most of them have only enough to get 
 them to the free lands of the Government or the cheap lands in the Northwest. 
 Now is the time they need help—in the beginning. What has occurred may be 
 reproduced in many locations. I know of what I affirm. I have been in the 
 log houses which served for ])laces of worship in the forests of Michigan. 
 Twelve years ago I preached in a house made from the sods of the prairies in 
 Iowa; and again, three months ago, I stood in the same place, and looking 
 round about could see four church buildings which this Domestic Board has 
 
19 
 
 helped to build—four places of worship where seven hundred church members 
 and a population of three thousand people regularly worship. 
 
 In July last I was within the enclosure of the First Reformed Church of 
 Dakota. I say “enclosure,” for it is not a house. It sounds large to say 
 “First Reformed Church of Dakota”—“First Newark,” “First Somerville,” 
 “First Kingston.” How would it sound to say, “First Reformed Church of 
 the State of New York?” But the whole State of New York could be put into 
 one corner of Dakota, and leave abundant room for all New England and more. 
 
 The “ First Reformed Church of Dakota ” worships in an “enclosure ”—not a 
 house. It is 16x24 feet, constructed of unplaned boards, placed perpendicularly, 
 with a board roof; it has no lining—no walls—and the rudest benches for seats. 
 There are horse-sheds about our churches in New Jersey and New York which 
 afford better protection to the horses against cold and rain than does this enclos¬ 
 ure for God’s people. The whole building cost seventy-five dollars, and it was all 
 that these settlers could do. During the Winter the mercury sinks often to 20 
 and 25 degrees below zero, and yet that place is full of worshipers. During 
 the Winter of 1881-2 almost the only fuel used in their assemblies, and in their 
 homes, too, was the prairie grass dried, twisted into knots or balls, and then 
 burned in stoves. Think of going to church under such circumstances—and 
 yet these Holland people did it regularly. 
 
 A minister left a comfortable church and home in New York and went with 
 his wife and infant daughter to that frontier of our Church. The wife told me 
 cheerfully the story of their experience. 
 
 “Let me,” said she, “give you a sarhple of our fuel during that Winter”— 
 and then with her own hands she twisted this knot of hay, and said : 
 
 “This was our only fuel during all that bitter Winter, and I learned well 
 how to prepare it for the ‘ stove. ’ ” 
 
 Build churches—build parsonages—support ministers under such circum¬ 
 stances ! Why, these new settlers must struggle for simple existence for them¬ 
 selves for the first few years. Help them at the first—send them ministers— 
 help them to homes for their ministers, and to houses of worship, as our Board 
 is doing to the utmost of its ability, and they will in a few years be ready to 
 help others! 
 
 Motley calls attention repeatedly to the zeal of the Hollanders for education. 
 That same spirit has ever characterized them, and also their descendants in this 
 country. We know what strenuous efforts have always been made to secure an 
 educated ministry. Many know with what faith, and patience, and sacrifice 
 the foundations of Rutgers College and our Theological Seminary were laid. 
 They are doing the work for which they were designed. But our borders have 
 expanded, our churches are by the Great Lakes and beyond the “Father of 
 Waters.” Hope College has arisen in the midst of our churches as Queens 
 College did a hundred years ago. What Queens College did for the churches 
 here so must Hope College do for our churches in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois 
 and Iowa. It was a long strife ere the churches could all be led to see that they 
 never would be supplied with ministers if they were to depend for them on 
 Amsterdam; and we should not repeat their mistake by supposing that the 
 churches in the West can be suflaciently supplied from New Brunswick. To- 
 
20 
 
 day there are young men looking forward to the ministry of the Reformed 
 Church whose homes are fourteen hundred miles west of this. Shall we com¬ 
 pel them to go so far from their homes to receive their education as our fathers 
 did their young men a hundred years ago ? May we not expect rather that the 
 young men of our Western churches will seek schools of the prophets among 
 other denominations and nearer their own homes ? And in nine cases out of 
 ten will their future ministry not be in the Church which educated them ? Self- 
 preservation is a law for churches as well as for individuals. We are raising up 
 a ministry in India, in China and Japan. Shall we not raise up a ministry in 
 our own great Northwest ? A ministry who belong to the region ; a ministry 
 to serve the people among whom they have been born and raised ; a ministry 
 who shall preach in English, Dutch or German, as may be required. Not a 
 Dutch^ not a German, but an American ministry, trained to serve the Dutch and 
 the Germans in America, on American soil, and themselves and their children 
 to become Americans. 
 
 The desire for thorough Christian education in the principles of our Reformed 
 Church has taken deep root among the Holland churches. At its last session 
 General Synod made the following deliverance, viz. : “Each year makes it 
 more apparent that our work in the West must be an educational work. The 
 Church can have but limited effect upon those who know neither its language 
 nor its history in this country. We must care for the children and youth, and 
 instruct and train them for usefulness in the Church. The Synod therefore sug¬ 
 gests to the Board of Education that it may be to the best interests of our 
 Church to establish schools under the care of Classes, where the youth of our 
 Church may be prepared for college, and where they may be thoroughly in¬ 
 doctrinated in Gospel truths and the standards of our Church.” 
 
 That minute of General Synod had not been put in type before the vigorous 
 churches of Northwestern Iowa had incorporated the “Northwestern Classical 
 Academy.” Their papers have been presented to the Board of Education 
 and have been approved by that body; and the Board of Domestic Missions 
 stands ready to-day to co-operate in helping on this enterprise, so auspicious of 
 good to the churches in the Northwest. Located on the confines of Iowa, 
 Minnesota and Dakota, it has a field of usefulness broad and great. Thriving 
 towns and villages are springing up in every direction, and I think I am not 
 mistaken in saying that there is not another religious school of any denomina¬ 
 tion within a hundred miles of this, in any direction. Our Church is growing 
 in this immediate vicinity faster than in any other place within our bounds. 
 Four new churches have been organized since the Spring meeting of Classis. 
 What other Classis has organizedchurches since last April ? Have all the 
 other Classes combined added four to the denomination ? “ Westward the Star 
 
 of Empire takes its way.” 
 
 New settlements are being formed by Hollanders one hundred miles west of 
 the Iowa line in Dakota. It is too late to do anything at this season of the 
 year, but when the Spring opens they will need a missionary and a place for 
 worship. Shall we not follow these people with our sympathies, our prayers 
 and our means ? 
 
 The limit set to this paper forbids enlarging. Something has been said, I 
 
21 
 
 trust, to call attention once again to those so nearly allied to us in kin, in faith 
 and polity; to show that God has committed them as a special charge to the 
 Reformed Church in America; that we cannot neglect them and be true to our¬ 
 selves, to our forefathers, to those who shall come after us; nor true to the 
 great Head of the Church. What special work has our Church if it is not this ? 
 Why has our separate existence as a Church—a Church springing from Holland 
 —why has it been preserved, if it be not to care for Hollanders seeking their 
 homes within our borders ? No other work which the Domestic Board has 
 done in the fifty years of its existence has given such quick and such large re¬ 
 sults as in aiding these Holland brethren. No work in the future is likely to be 
 so permanent and wide reaching. The colonies in Michigan, Wisconsin and 
 Iowa will be to those regions what the early colonies have been to New York 
 and New Jersey. What college and seminary have been to us here, will be Hope 
 College and the Northwestern Classical Academy to them there. 
 
 We lost here by delay and strife. We should not repeat the history in the 
 West. What we have done on foreign soil—in China, India and Japan, is a 
 pledge of what we can do at home. We have schools there, and can build them 
 here. The ladies of our Church are educating boys and girls for the Master. 
 Are there none that can do the same for the Church in our own land, and 
 among these the children of our ancestors? Noblewomen have to-day their 
 memorials in church buildings in Illinois and Iowa. Would it not be a fitting 
 and enduring work if the ladies of the Church should take it in hand to build 
 the “Northwestern Classical Academy?’' What better jubilee ofiFering could 
 they make? They hare a memorial in Ferris Seminary in Japan, in Arcot, and 
 in Amoy. Why not now plant an academy for sound Christian culture in a 
 field unoccupied, where three great States join? 
 
The Special Work of the Reformed Church Among 
 
 the Germans. 
 
 By Rev. LEOPOLD MOHN, D.D. 
 
 I believe in a Holy Catholic Church. I never shall join in the hue and cry: 
 
 Hie mra ecclesia, Me Spiritus Sanctus /but as a son of the Reformed 
 Church, I arise up on this her memorial day to call her blessed. Among the 
 many virtues that adorn her, 1 extol the catholicity of her character; among 
 the many works that she has done, I make mention of her obedience to Christ’s 
 behest: “to teach the nations.” Born “ under the Cross” and refined in the 
 furnace of persecution, she has remained “ steadfast in the truth that was once 
 delivered to the saints,” and notwithstanding all the changes that time and local¬ 
 ity have produced, she holds forth in her confessions, liturgy, scientific and 
 practical theology the Gospel of the grace of God, which makes Christ the cen¬ 
 ter from which all truth proceeds, to which all truth points, the living corner¬ 
 stone in which the whole building, fitly joined together, grows into a holy temple 
 of the Lord. While her Protestant sisters have taken their names from the 
 great men that were prominently active in their organization, from the peculiar 
 ecclesiastical policy which they possess, or from the nations among which they 
 had their origin, she calls herself simply “the Reformed Church,” whether in 
 Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, France, Hungary, Bohemia, Africa, 
 Asia or America, and as in the Old World the languages of different nations 
 resounded from her pulpits, when she offered an asylum to the persecuted 
 Christians of other lands, she alone, among all the Churches of the Reforma¬ 
 tion, has succeeded in calling together an oecumenical council in the Synod of 
 Dortrecht, at which nearly all Christian countries were represented by their 
 learned theologians, to lift up a standard against error, and to set forth the eternal 
 truths of the revelation of God in reference to the salvation of a ruined world. 
 
 In coming to this country she remained faithful to the tradition of the father- 
 land, for the early dominies were truly apostles, filled with pentecostal fire and 
 gifts, preaching the Gospel to all people around them, for of the 116 ministers 
 of the colonial period 9 preached wholly or in part French, 14 German, 9 Eng¬ 
 lish, 5 to the Indians, and 79 Buteli only, and it is a significant fact that the first 
 ordination administered by Reformed pastors on this continent was that of a 
 German brother, whom the New York dominies commissioned to preach to his 
 
23 
 
 countrymen in the Mohawk Valley, in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. When, 
 as a fruit of his labors, in which he was assisted by faithful men, the German 
 churches became a host by themselves, and consequently organized a Synod of 
 their own; when the Indians were exterminated, and with the change of gov¬ 
 ernment the Dutch and French immigration decreased, English became the 
 language of the Church and held its exclusive sway for decades, till about thirty 
 or forty years ago, when the rising tide of German immigration directed the 
 attention of the Rev. J. Rudy, of Pennsylvania, to the large and growing Ger¬ 
 man population of New York. Constrained by the love of Christ, he left his 
 rural parish to preach the Gospel as a missionary to his brethren in the great 
 city. The Collegiate Church, the mother of the denomination in this country, 
 extended to him a helping hand, and the result of united labor and sacrifice 
 was the establishment of the Evangelical Mission Church in flouston street, to 
 which, after the untimely death of its noble founder, the sainted Guldin min¬ 
 istered for a number of years, through whose direct and indirect influence a 
 number of German churches have been founded in this city and its environs, 
 yea, even in the far West, that together present the most successful part of the 
 operations of the Domestic Board, to which they offer to-day, at this semi¬ 
 centennial jubilee, their sincere congratulations and heartfelt thanks. 
 
 Thus the work has been begun, and with the continuing and increasing cur¬ 
 rent of German immigration, that now assumes the magnitude of an inundation, 
 and brings a large portion of the intelligence, working power and capital of 
 Europe to these shores, the field widens to our view, and the opportunities for 
 planting new churches multiply from day to day. 
 
 True to our motto, “ Nulla 'ce&tigia retrorsum,''' we cannot go back nor stand 
 still, for stagnation is death, and as a living organism we must grow, we must 
 go forward. A great part of the work can be done by the American churches 
 in such localities where the Germans are settling among them, by establishing 
 German Sunday-schools, so that by the children the parents maybe reached and 
 not be separated from them in the enjoyment of Gospel privileges. And when 
 a messenger of Christ can be procured to preach to these people in the language 
 which they understand, these churches ought to open their doors for German 
 services, so that on the holy Sabbath day they ma}'' exercise the blessed duty of 
 hospitality in its most lovely form and have “ the stranger within their gates,’’ 
 just as the Christians in continental Europe; even the Roman Catholics not 
 excepted, open their churches for the accommodation of English and American 
 tourists, that they may enjoy the privilege of hearing the Word of God in their 
 own language, while in the pursuit of pleasure and recreation. And in many 
 places, where the incoming German moves into the houses of the outgoing 
 Anglo-Saxon and Knickerbocker, who seek more eligible abodes, the extinction 
 of the establishment might be prevented simply by a change of language in the 
 massively built church, which then need not be torn down or given over to pro¬ 
 fane uses, and leave large portions of our immense and growing cities, filled 
 with people that perish for the lack of knowledge and that are isolated from 
 Gospel influences, as though they lived on a South Sea island, without a sanc¬ 
 tuary. 
 
 While in the West the German churches have grown into large and influential 
 
24 
 
 bodies, ■with their literary and theological institutions, they are comparatively 
 weak in the East, where our Church has developed its greatest strength. As 
 historic tradition and similarity of doctrine shows a close relationship between 
 them and us, and makes them truly our cousins German, it is apparent that our 
 Church has here a mission to perform, to which duty clearly points, to which 
 opportunity invites, to which accomplished and prospective success encourages, 
 but in which we have been outdone, as far as zeal is concerned, by Methodists, 
 Presbyterians and Episcopalians. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the difficulties that attend every new effort, notwith¬ 
 standing the want of a proper system of working as a result of the circum¬ 
 stances under which the work has been done and carried on thus far, the Jubilee 
 Board has attained results to which it can point with satisfaction and gratitude. 
 But if these difficulties are removed, if systematic arrangement, supervision 
 and execution give place to merely desultory attempts and spasmodic efforts, 
 these results will grow into culminating success. The greatest of these diffi¬ 
 culties, that ought, that can be removed, is the want of proper means for the 
 education of a German ministry. Hitherto our main dependence has been 
 placed upon importation from Europe or upon the institutions of other denom¬ 
 inations. However acceptable our acquisitions from these quarters have been 
 in general, the time has now come when we must make a well devised effort to 
 obtain a ministry to the manor born, a consummation devoutly to be wished. 
 We have two colleges; in both the language and literature of Germany form a 
 part of the regular curriculum of study, according to the educational status of 
 the country. We have in the library of the Seminary a large and well selected 
 collection of German books, the princely gift of one of the sons of the New 
 York church. We may have, at some future day, a Dutch or a German Profes- 
 sor to fill a theological chair. But what we now need is a preparatory school, 
 in which German youths, who have the ministry in view, may be prepared for 
 college, and at the same time receive grammatical instruction in the language 
 which they have to use in preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ to their 
 own people. 
 
 The Classis of Bergen, by constituting the long-established and now well- 
 organized school of the German church in Hoboken a classical academy, has 
 made a beginning in this direction. May God bless, may His people foster this 
 enterprise, and may it furnish men to aid the Domestic Board to plant churches 
 of Christ all over the land, wherever Germans by their intelligence and industry 
 assist in developing the resources of this vast country. This is fulfilling a pa¬ 
 triotic as well as a Christian duty. 
 
 But all that has been said may be controverted by the assertion, which not 
 unfrequently is made, that it is the duty of the Church to Americanize the im¬ 
 migrated masses; i. e., to influence, yea, compel them, to use the English lan¬ 
 guage in their families and churches. How this can be deduced from the 
 injunction of Christ, to disciple the nations, to teach them the Gospel so that 
 they can understand it, for which purpose the first messengers in the absence 
 of schools were endowed by the Holy Ghost with the gift of tongues, is difficult 
 to perceive. It is clearly a reversion of law and order to require of those that 
 are to be taught to learn the language of the teacher, instead of the teacher 
 
25 
 
 learning the language in which he is to teach. The cause of many of the trou¬ 
 bles that distract our Holland churches in the West lies in the undue haste that 
 many American-born ministers, church officers and members have shown to 
 change the national character of the immigrant congregations. Since the 
 stream of immigration flows with unabated strength, since the connection with 
 the fatherland is more frequent and complete than formerly, since the literature 
 of Holland and Germany as well as the status of general education in those 
 countries is to-day greatly superior to that of the time of colonial settlement, 
 there will be as much danger in too great haste as there was in too great delay 
 in times gone by. Language is a Arm bond in all human relations, and the 
 holier and more intimate the latter, the firmer and more endurable the former. 
 Language cannot be fabricated; it has a historic growth; it can neither be 
 abolished by an ukas or a Synodical resolution, and if it dies, it dies a natural 
 death. If there is to be a change, it must come in the course of natural events 
 and in its own appointed time. But that time has not yet come for the Holland 
 and German languages. Besides, it is not the use of the same language that 
 forms harmony of sentiment, but the union of mind and spirit. The true uni¬ 
 fication of the nation will be brought about and secured by an union in Christ, 
 the great Head of the Church, that is composed of all peoples, tribes and 
 tongues, in which there is neither Greek nor Jew, neither Roman nor Barbarian, 
 neither bond nor free, but all and in all Christ Jesus, Who liveth and reigneth 
 forever. King of Kings and Lord of Lords, to Whom be praise and glory, as it 
 was, is now and shall be, world without end. Amen! 
 
THE CHURCH BUILDING FUND. 
 
 Its Missionary Character, its Vital Importance, and 
 its Peculiar Claims upon the Church. 
 
 By Rev. JOHN A. TODD, D,D. 
 
 The PHnceton Review for April, 1869, in an article on the Planting of the 
 American Churches, gave utterance to two sentences of which every member 
 of the Reformed Church in America may feel justly proud. They are these; 
 “Presbyterianism was first planted in this country by the Dutch. And the 
 beginning of its strength was New York.” To be able to look back to an en¬ 
 terprising and honorable ancestry is a privilege not to be despised. We should 
 always be ready to recognize the value of such a distinction to its fullest extent. 
 And yet, while we do it, we should never forget that if we ourselves prove dis¬ 
 loyal to the principles which inspired our forefathers, and made them what they 
 were, or if we, through the love of ease or the love of gain, become indifferent 
 to the great interests of the Church and of the State, which they willingly made 
 so many sacrifices to promote, we do but shame ourselves by the contrast, even 
 while we seek to honor them. 
 
 The planting of Christian Churches upon American soil, as centers of spirit¬ 
 ual light, and of elevating infiuence to the people, was a mission too noble and 
 too grand to be exaggerated by any words of eulogy which we can employ. 
 All that is best and loftiest in our national characteristics is to be traced back 
 to the sublime Christian faith and Christian morals which had their source in 
 the Word of God, and were nourished into fruitfulness and power under the 
 fostering agency of religious worship. The men and the women of those earlier 
 generations had a just sense of their position and their responsibilities, and, in 
 their devotion to great public ends, the establishment and the growth of a soci¬ 
 ety in which the virtues of the Gospel should be at once the informing life of 
 its patriotism and the pledge of its stable prosperity in the future, as well as the 
 preparation of individual souls, through Jesus Christ, for a glorious immortal- 
 
27 
 
 ity in heaven, they set us an example which we, their posterity, should regard 
 it as our highest honor to remember, and to imitate to-day. 
 
 They built their churches, they founded their schools, and they provided for 
 their order of worship, along these eastern shores of the continent, it is true. 
 But the western border of the narrow strip of territory they occupied was just 
 as much, nay, it was even more the frontier of civilization and Christianity 
 than any line that can now be drawn on this side of the Pacific coast. For be¬ 
 yond their territory all was dark—dark as unmitigated heathenism itself; but 
 beyond the farthest line that we can now draw there is still some degree of 
 illumination, obscured it may be by the surrounding darkness, and even some 
 centers of Gospel truth, and saving influence, adapted to meet the spiritual 
 wants of men. The results that have grown out of those early endeavors are 
 before us. We see a nation of fifty millions of people, great, free, and in some 
 sense Christian, with its schools, its churches, and its Sabbaths. If it is not all 
 that we could wish it to be, we can believe that the same moral forces that have 
 thus far developed so much of good will in the future be capable of developing 
 still more. 
 
 We thus draw from our past experience an argument which, next to the obli¬ 
 gation devolved upon us by Christ’s own command to preach the Gospel to 
 every creature, at home as well as abroad, is the most practical and the most 
 powerful plea for Domestic Missions. This is the illustration of our Saviour’s 
 words that “Wisdom is justified of her children.” In such an enterprise, 
 surely, Patriotism and Religion are allied forces. Their march across the con¬ 
 tinent is step by step, and hand in hand. As the Christian is a patriot, be seeks 
 the welfare of his country. And as the patriot is a Christian, he claims his 
 whole country for Christ. No man can be a patriot, in its truest sense, who 
 ^does not lend his sympathy and his support in some way to this noble under¬ 
 taking. No man can be a Christian, in the loving and generous spirit of the 
 Master Whom he claims to serve, while he stands aloof, in cold indifference to 
 a cause which involves the extension of His kingdom and the glory of His 
 Name. 
 
 Even with collective, organized Churches this work is, and ever must be, a 
 matter of self-preservation. For whenever they surrender themselves to ease 
 and to mere indulgence, confining their efforts to their own narrow sphere, 
 neither doing nor caring to do anything to extend the boundaries of Christian 
 influence over the world, lying in sin and death around them, that moment the 
 gangrene of doctrinal and spiritual decay has begun its fatal work in their own 
 members. It may require time to bring on the final catastrophe, but sooner or 
 later it will come. When Dr. Duff, the great Scottish Missionary, declared 
 that “The Church that ceases to be evangelistic will soon cease to be evangeli¬ 
 cal,” he uttered a saying upon which the history of the Church, through all the 
 Christian ages, has stamped the seal of undoubted truth. 
 
 Nor is this all. Our own country, large as it is, is not to be the limit of the 
 Church’s efforts. Our Saviour’s last command took in a far wider field of 
 operations. He said, “ All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth : Go 
 ye, therefore, and teach all nations.” “Go ye into all the world, and preach 
 the Gospel to every creature.” If we wish to obey it, and to evangelize the 
 
28 
 
 world, with its population, according to the last statistics, of 1,433,800,000 
 souls, there is no instrumentality so promising and so efficient as the multiplica¬ 
 tion of Christian churches all over the land, from north to south, and from east 
 to west, to swell the volume of Gospel inffuence, with their gifts, their prayers, 
 and their sons and daughters to be laborers for Christ on heathen shores. Dur¬ 
 ing the Crimean War, when the allied armies of Western Europe were gathered 
 around Sebastopol, struggling to wrest that fortress from the grasp of Russia, 
 the Hungarian patriot, Kossuth, referring to the revival of the Polish national¬ 
 ity as the most paralyzing blow to Russian power, said to them, “You will take 
 Sebastopol at Warsaw.” And so, with equal signiffcance, we may say in regard 
 to the conversion of the heathen nations to Christ, “You will take Asia and 
 Africa in the Western States and Territories of America.” There the work of 
 Christian patriotism for our country, and of Christian benevolence for the 
 world, is to be rendered most certain and productive. 
 
 But how shall that be done ? What are the means to be employed ? Where 
 are the points of special importance to which it behooves us, as a Church, to 
 turn our most vigilant attention? It is not too much to say that, with the sin¬ 
 gle exception of the living preacher himself, there is nothing of more vital mo¬ 
 ment than the erection of comfortable and attractive church buildings, suited 
 to the wants of the people, into which they may be gathered on the Sabbath 
 day, and through the week as opportunity offers, to engage in public worship 
 and to be brought under the elevating and moulding power of a preached Gos¬ 
 pel. But who shall erect them ? It is not given to all men, nor to all com¬ 
 munities, to be rich. Especially is that true in regard to the overwhelming 
 mass of those who lead the vanguard of civilization upon our western frontiers. 
 They have to fight the battle of physical existence for themselves and for their ^ 
 families, and however they might be disposed to build churches, and to support 
 the institutions of religion, they are powerless to do it, because they are too 
 poor. 
 
 In some cases, indeed, they have undertaken to do it, but only with such im¬ 
 perfect results as their scanty means would allow. There are few records more 
 pathetic and touching to the heart, in the literature of our Domestic Missions 
 for the last fifty years, than those that tell of the labors which poor emigrants 
 from the east have performed to build their rude churches—sometimes a mere 
 framework enclosed with rough boards, and covered over with brush or sod, so 
 that they and their children might have a place where they could mingle their 
 hearts together in prayer to the God of their fathers, with whom they had once 
 worshiped in the old church now far away toward the rising sun, or where they 
 could unite in loving communion with the same Saviour Whose tender faithful¬ 
 ness had been the support of parents and dear ones who had since been trans¬ 
 ferred to the Church Triumphant in the skies. Such as they were, the churches 
 thus provided were the work of hands hardened with honest toil, and they were 
 completed and offered to God by those who built them, with patient labors 
 taken from the fields, where they earned their daily bread. 
 
 Now, it was to the pressure of just such wants as these—wants which it was 
 impossible by any other means to supply—that the Chueoh Building Fund, 
 connected with our Board of Domestic Missions, owed its first suggestion, and 
 
29 
 
 its subsequent existence, which, as a vital necessity to the Church’s growth and 
 expansion, has been continued down to this day. 
 
 But what is the Church Building Fund ? What is the plan upon which it is 
 organized and administered ? What does it propose to do ? And what claim 
 has it upon the friendly interest and the generous contributions of the Church ? 
 If we take these questions in their order, and give to each a brief and compre¬ 
 hensive answer, we shall have before us all the facts that we need to know, in 
 order to form an intelligent and proper judgment. 
 
 1. What is the Church Building Fund ? It is a fund which in its origin 
 dates back to 1854. As first proposed, it was to consist of not less than $25,000, 
 but under the necessities that have arisen from the growth of our Church, east 
 and west, it has now become much larger, and it is to be hoped that as the 
 Ch'urch continues to extend her borders the fund will continue to increase, in 
 order to meet the demand. The object contemplated was of a strictly mission¬ 
 ary nature. It was, and is now, to aid feeble congregations everywhere, but 
 especially in the great west, where the need is always urgent, in providing for 
 themselves suitable houses of public worship. It was felt, and j ustly, that with¬ 
 out a church edifice of their own the people could never have a church home, 
 with all the tender and sacred associations that gather about it. They might 
 worship temporarily in a school-house, or in a court-room, or in a concert-hall. 
 But that could never be a church home, nor a source of that peculiar religious 
 influence which, lingering in the house of God, seems to fall upon the hearts of 
 those who habitually worship in it. 
 
 To understand the vast importance of having suitable church buildings for 
 the people, we have only to imagine what the effect would be upon religious 
 growth and progress if all the church buildings in the land, with their heaven; 
 pointing spires, were demolished, and a dead, worldly blank were to take their 
 places. It was not without reason that the late Dr. Bellows, as he pointed to 
 the spire of the Presbyterian church on Madison square, New York, made the 
 remark, “ I tell you this city is being saved and educated by its steeples.” To 
 say nothing of the benefit to those who go in to worship, there is a silent virtue 
 that emanates from the very presence of the house of God that leaves its whole¬ 
 some influence upon the community around it. To aid in filling the land, and 
 especially the west, with just such centers of moral power is the object which 
 the Church Building Fund contemplates. 
 
 2. What is the plan upon which that fund is organized and administered ? 
 Al l contributions made by the churches to this object—and they are all urged 
 to contribute every year—are received by the Treasurer of the Board of Do¬ 
 mestic Missions, and are held by him subject to the control and direction of the 
 Board. Whenever a feeble congregation anywhere desires to be aided in build¬ 
 ing a house of public worship, it must first obtain from the Classis within whose 
 territories it is located a recommendation to the Board, stating the amount re¬ 
 quired, and stating also the amount to be raised by the people themselves who 
 make the application. It is then within the power of the Board, upon proper 
 examination, and in its best judgment, to grant the loan requested, either in 
 whole or in part. If it be deemed desirable, the loan may be granted in sepa¬ 
 rate installments, the amount of the advances and the time when they shall be 
 
30 
 
 made to churches in process of erection being left in the discretion of the Board, 
 which is required always to take, as the usual approved security for each ad¬ 
 vance, a first bond and mortgage upon the property. The bond and mortgage 
 are made payable, under ordinary circumstances, at the end of a year. The 
 interest upon the loan may be remitted at the option of the Board of Domestic 
 Missions, and when it is so remitted the church is required to take up an annual 
 collection for the Church Building Fund. The church is expected to pay back 
 to the Board the amount of pecuniary aid it has thus received as soon as its re¬ 
 sources will enable it to do so. It is one of the standing rules of ^he Church 
 Building Fund that no church shall be aided which would have a debt remain¬ 
 ing upon it after receiving assistance from this fund. 
 
 It is thus seen that while the Board secures by bond and mortgage the amount 
 of its loans, it is at the same time enabled to lend timely and important aid to 
 struggling churches in the most trying period of their existence, by remitting 
 the interest, and by waiting until they shall be able to repay the loans. When 
 a loan is thus repaid it is invested in some new enterprise, on the same princi¬ 
 ples and the same conditions. And thus, as a stream is made to turn the wheels 
 and spindles of a hundred factories in succession, as it fiows on its course, so the 
 contributions made to the Church Building Fund are multiplied a hundred-fold, 
 by being used in building church after church, through a series of years. It is 
 not surprising that other denominations, as our Episcopal brethren, for exam¬ 
 ple, having seen the satisfactory working of the plan among us, have adopted 
 it as a valuable instrumentality in their own domestic missionary efforts. 
 
 3. What does the Church Building Fund propose to do ? It proposes, in the 
 hands of the Board of Domestic Missions, and by the blessing of God upon it, 
 to do its utmost in order to become a powerful supporter to the domestic mis¬ 
 sionary in his arduous and self-denying labors. And so, while aiding in the 
 erection of new churches among the destitute, it is at the same time contribut¬ 
 ing to help on his work, and to inspire his courage. It proposes, in the same 
 hands, and under the same blessing, to lend its support and encouragement to 
 those who, in the midst of spiritual desolation, would gladly do what little their 
 poverty would permit to establish the public worship of God in their communi¬ 
 ties, and to bring their friends and neighbors under the blessed influence of the 
 Gospel of Christ. It proposes to assist, so far as it can, in gathering together 
 in a common center Christian congregations, to be, by their spirit and example, 
 a restraint upon vice and wrong in all their forms, and to be sources of health¬ 
 ful influence that shall tend to make men better citizens, better neighbors, bet¬ 
 ter Christians, serving God and their fellow-men, and so the better prepared for 
 the joyful communion of the redeemed in heaven. It proposes to create, wher¬ 
 ever its power extends, living, earnest, spiritual churches, from which there 
 shall go forth missionary prayers, missionary gifts, and missionary laborers to 
 scatter the saving truth in Christ Jesus among all nations, and to promote the 
 happiness and'the salvation of human souls. And surely, an agency that was 
 organized, and is now efficiently used, for the production of such results is one 
 on account of which every patriot and every Christian ought to thank God, and 
 to take new courage. 
 
 4. What claim has this Church Building Fund upon the friendly interest and 
 
31 
 
 the generous contributions of the Church ? It has sveey claim that can possi¬ 
 bly grow out of the fact that it is a great and beneficent agency, maintained 
 simply and only for the honor of God, and for the temporal and eternal wel¬ 
 fare of men. There are hundreds of self-sustaining churches in our country 
 to-day that owe their existence, and all their usefulness, under the blessing of 
 heaven, to the timely aid they received from this Church Building Fund. And 
 that is something that should plead trumpet-tongued for our most cordial sym¬ 
 pathy and support. The churches thus warmed into life and vigor are now 
 helping to do for others, beyond them, what was done in their time of trial for 
 them. This fund has a claim, too, arising from the fact that, being already in 
 hand, it can be used with promptness in special emergencies to save an imper¬ 
 illed church already half-completed, where the long and tedious process of ob¬ 
 taining subscriptions and of making collections for the purpose would be less 
 effective, and in many cases would utterly fail. The claim is rendered all the 
 stronger by the consideration that the fund is never to be used for the estab¬ 
 lishment of competing churches, that spring out of a mere denominational 
 rivalry, in places already supplied, or where there is no need that they should 
 be built. The fund is designed for those places, and those only, where, in the 
 best judgment of the Board of Domestic Missions, a pressing need actually ex¬ 
 ists, and where the aid which it affords would enable the people to secure a 
 spiritual blessing, of which they would otherwise be compelled to live in want. 
 
 If there is any object, next to the support of the missionary himself, that has 
 a just claim upon the deepest interest of the Church, it is this. Twenty years 
 ago the General Synod, in a report on Domestic Missions unanimously adopted, 
 said, in regard to the Church Building Fund, “No measure connected with the 
 work of the Board oan be of more vital importance, * * It is not only 
 an important auxiliary to the other operations of the Board, but it is essen¬ 
 tially necessary to their highest and most lasting success. And it therefore 
 merits a prominent place in the system of annual collections in all the churches.” 
 And what the General Synod said twenty years ago is just as true and just as 
 worthy of our earnest attention to-day. 
 
 It is one of the lamentable features of our time that men, and even communi¬ 
 ties, can spend their money with lavish prodigality upon mere display, upon 
 fashion, upon amusements, and upon indulgencies, all of doubtful taste, and 
 what is worse, often of doubtful morals, which react in terrible ruin upon both 
 the body and the soul, while they have so little to give to the noblest objects 
 that can appeal to the human heart, the advancement and the salvation of their 
 fellow-men from misery and death, and the honor of Christ their Saviour. Let 
 anyone take the single city of New York, and compare the amount spent there 
 for the support of religion with the amount spent for the two indulgences of 
 liquor and tobacco, and he will find the result appalling. And all the more so 
 when he remembers that that which receives the least elevates men and women, 
 and makes them purer and nobler, while that which receives the most demoral¬ 
 izes and degrades them, and casts them down to the lowest depths of debase¬ 
 ment. One of the New York daily papers, in speaking of the fact only a few 
 days ago, said, “ It is surprising that the religious work of the city costs so little. 
 A large part of the expenditures for benevolence is devoted to mission work 
 
32 
 
 outside of New York, so that the total of operating expenses, $3,218,735, is 
 almost the whole cost of religious work on Manhattan Island. There are about 
 7,000 drinking saloons here to the 421 churches, and the amount expended for 
 drink is about $25,000,000 annually. The people pay much more for tobacco 
 than for religion. No hesitation need be felt in asserting that the $6,500,000 
 expended by the churches in New York this year, including $775,224 for church 
 building, will accomplish vastly more good than any equal amount expended 
 for any purpose whatever. When it is seen how much the churches accom¬ 
 plish with a comparatively small amount, there ought to be more freedom in 
 contributing to their treasuries.” 
 
 We can only lay the claims of the Church Building Fund, as of every other 
 benevolent object, upon the enlightened conscience of our people, with the 
 prayer that they may remember their Christian obligations, and sustain this 
 cause with their sympathies and with their means. 
 
 “Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet 
 for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich.” 
 
 “ There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth ; and there is that withholdeth 
 more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. The liberal soul shall be made 
 fat; and he that watereth shall be watered also himself.” 
 
 If in this spirit we address ourselves to the work before us, there can be but 
 one result. It will be success, triumph, our own salvation, the salvation of our 
 country, and the salvation of the world. The command which God gave to 
 Israel, in the parting words of Moses, as the mighty host stood ready to march 
 and to take possession of the promised land, is the same command which God 
 now gives to us : “ Behold the Lord thy God hath set the land before thee ; 
 
 go up and possess it, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath said unto thee ; fear 
 not, neither be discouraged.” 
 
Woman’s Work in Behalf of the Board of Domestic 
 
 Missions. 
 
 By Rev. CORNELIUS BRETT. 
 
 It is assumed that woman may and ought to share with man the privileges 
 and responsibilities of work for Christ. It is no longer necessary to champion 
 her rights. She never needed more than a hint to indicate her duty. Success¬ 
 ful effort has demonstrated the feasibility of a hoi}’- partnership, and community 
 of service. 
 
 The question of the hour is 'practical rather than theoretical; it is, in a word, 
 how to utilize in consecrated effort, so as to produce the best results, that pecu¬ 
 liar gentleness, tact and persistency which inhere in the womanly nature. What 
 device shall we paint on the timbrel of Miriam ? Under which oak shall De¬ 
 borah take the honored seat ? By what formula shall Mary mingle her spike¬ 
 nard for the Master’s anointing ? 
 
 When the timbrel sounds, the waiting Church will join the chorus and the 
 dance. Barak bravely seizes the sword which the prophetess has sharpened. 
 Only a Judas flings carping criticism at the breaking of that alabaster box. 
 
 It is asserted by a female philosopher that woman is a force rather than a 
 power in society. It matters not by what name we dignify her subtle influence 
 and indefatigable zeal, they are undisputed factors in our social life. 
 
 Ten thousand spots in the desert of earth are oases to-day because her smiling 
 face has beamed upon them; nor need she step out of her allotted sphere to 
 bless the world by that sweet presence. Orphaned, friendless and neglected 
 children have been fed and clothed. 
 
 Sisters in misery have been succored ; the widow’s fire kept burning on her 
 hearth. For the aged have been prepared those quiet nooks, whence they may 
 look out in calm meditation on a golden sunset. The pillow of the fevered 
 patient has been smoothed with tender ministry, and the gloomy ward of the 
 hospital brightened with fragrant flowers. 
 
 While teaching a city’s poor the grand secret of self-help, she can satisfy 
 with superabounding hospitality the hungry cravings of a great convention. 
 
 We can hardly imagine what the Sunday-school would be without the putting 
 out to usury of woman’s imperial talent as a teacher of the young. 
 
 In many a church the Ladies’ Aid Society is the pastor’s right hand. With 
 
34 
 
 irresistible determination the church debt is grappled, crying “ Where there’s a 
 will, there’s a way.” She who was “last at the cross, and first at the sepulchre,’’ 
 succeeds where even a Kimball would have failed. Her needle is often a heaven- 
 given lever by M^hich the church is lifted out of the “Slough of Despond;” 
 and when the church has been set in a wealthy place, scintillating with the light¬ 
 ning flash of love, it flies faster than a weaver’s shuttle in her willing fingers; 
 now with Dorcas’ skill to clothe Christ’s poor in decent habit for the sanctuary, 
 and again, as used by Hebrew women, to embroider curtains to deck the fair 
 temple of their love. 
 
 In the same spirit, ever on the alert when work is to be done, w atching the 
 glance of Him Who “ guides His people with His eye,” has the sisterhood of 
 the present generation entered as a faithful laborer the field of the world. 
 
 The early missionaries took their wives with them to distant lands almost 
 unknown. It has never been denied that the larger share of sacrifice fell to 
 the lot of the faithful helpmeet. The Christian home was the constant preacher 
 of righteousness among the heathen ; and beside the care of her household, the 
 mission wife gladly shared the husband’s toil in earnest endeavor to win idola¬ 
 ters to the worship of the true God. 
 
 Sympathy with these labors and trials has, from the beginning, brought the 
 missionary cause very close to the heart of wives and mothers at home; and 
 one of these, pre-eminent by reason of her zeal, became known in every station 
 as the missionary’s friend. Her sumptuous mansion was open to the departing 
 tyro and the returning veteran ; she waved off the packet, laden with the Church’s 
 hope, and welcomed the home-comer on the quay. Every mail brought news 
 fresh from the front, and carried out loving words of good cheer. Conversa¬ 
 tion and correspondence revealed the astounding fact that man stands almost 
 powerless to influence the secluded women of harem and zenana. Across the 
 rolling billows came the cry, loud as from Macedonia of old, “Sisters, come 
 over and help us!” Eager was the response from hearts rejoicing in a new 
 found vocation, “ Here I am, send me.” The “missing link” is ready to be 
 welded in place. Female workers fly to the waiting work. Mission Bands are 
 organized in every church. 
 
 Similar organization in aid of the Board of Domestic Missions has hitherto 
 been wanting, because it has not seemed to be imperatively demanded. 
 
 The work committed to the Board appeared to be easily within the grasp of 
 the brethren appointed to perform it. In as far as Domestic Missions means 
 Church extension. Church officials, working through ecclesiastical assemblies, 
 must bear the larger share of the burden. Watchmen on the walls of Zion, 
 ever on the alert for new strategic points, are in full possession of the enginery 
 for establishing new outposts. The freedom of the American home opens every 
 house to pastor and pioneer evangelist. The wife of a home missionary will 
 labor to the full extent of her powers, often far beyond her strength, as a faith¬ 
 ful coadjutor ; but her name is not in the call, she receives no commission from 
 the Board, is in no sense their servant, and does not come into direct communi¬ 
 cation with the patrons of the cause. 
 
 Thus we see at a glance how consecrated womanhood, prayerfully seeking 
 opportunities for Christian labor, has turned aside from the fair field, because 
 
35 
 
 no corner has been found where work peculiarly feminine could with advantage 
 be performed. In certain quarters the very offer of help would have been an 
 intrusion. 
 
 I do not mean to affirm that all the women of our Church have been neglect* 
 ful of mission work at home. In the Mission-church and Sunday-school female 
 effort, in all its branches, has been most successfully employed. Not only the 
 clean and orderly children of the home school have been taught, but the wild 
 Arabs of our city slums, and the boors of the frontier cabin, have been gathered 
 in the Master’s name. 
 
 The more feeble the resources of struggling organizations, the greater has 
 been the need of fair, festival and mite society to sustain them. Here and 
 there, where there has been no immediate demand for service in the local church, 
 pious thoughtfulness has embraced the home missionary and his household. The 
 well filled box, with a love-token for everj^ one of the family, has tided over 
 the long Winter with comfort and plenty. 
 
 Certain women, emulating the example of those who ministered of their sub¬ 
 stance unto Christ, have with generous gifts made it possible to build churches 
 and establish stations. While these have given of their abundance, the Master 
 sitting over against the Treasury knows of many a widow’s mite, loosened from 
 the trembling grasp of self-denial and penury. Such mites are not lost in the 
 grand aggregate, for the Head of the Church, in answer to fervent prayer, sees 
 and follows in the crested billows, which are sweeping over our earth with the 
 flood of holiness, each separate drop. But with all this individual effort, and 
 the sporadic cases of organized help recently developed, the fact is indisputable 
 —there has been no general rally of the women of our Reformed Church in 
 behalf of Domestic Missions. 
 
 There is, however, no indifference to the cause. It is dear to every heart; 
 its needs are patent. If our sisters are once assured that organization is the 
 need of the hour, that their help will be heartily welcome and can be eflectively 
 employed, they will not another day defer it. 
 
 Let this Convention, in clear and unmistakable terms, give expression to the 
 floating hints of the last few years and definitely declare, the women of our 
 Church ought to organize in behalf of Domestic Missions, long ere the Jubilee 
 Year is ended. Sweet treble will blend with manly bass in singing the grand 
 chorus: 
 
 ‘•Return, ye Ransomed Nation, home.” 
 
 May we briefly note the indications of Providence which point toward a 
 waiting work : 
 
 I. The importance of Home Missions increases with the growth of the great 
 American Nation. 
 
 It is not merely a question of Church extension, it is the regeneration of a 
 whole people. There are fifty millions now, where when this Board began its 
 work there were less than ten. Then our people was homogeneous, and the 
 weight of public opinion carried society over to the observance, at least in out¬ 
 ward form, of Christian institutions. Now, Europe and Asia have emptied 
 their hordes upon us, while vast multitudes of heterogeneous race and varied 
 faith have spread over the mighty empire from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 
 
36 
 
 Then our Reformed Dutch Zion was a little band, upon the Hudson and con¬ 
 fluent streams; now from beyond the Mississippi comes the call for the Gospel. 
 
 Our large cities teem with Christless multitudes. The proletariat, dreaded by 
 political economist, is swelled by the throngs entering our hospitable seaports. 
 The fair prairies are occupied by pioneers of civilization, from whose children 
 either the Lincolns and Garfields or the Robert Ingersolls and Jesse Jameses 
 may be expected. As “ Westward the Star of Empire takes its way,” it is not 
 improbable, in the years to come, Hope rather than Rutgers will be the great 
 college of our Church ; and our rallying point not the Hudson, but the Great 
 Lakes of the Northwest. 
 
 From whatever standpoint we look at our wonderful country and its problem¬ 
 atic future, our interest glows with an intense white heat. If we be patriots, 
 philanthropists, Christians, and in one glance mingle the emotions these three 
 names inspire, how are we looking to-day down the vista of the future? 
 
 When a score of years ago national unity and existence were imperilled, how 
 the women of America sprang to the rescue! They sewed silken stripes and 
 stars into the banner of the republic, made garments for the soldiers to wear in 
 service, and rolled bandages to bind up their wounds, nursed the sick, cheered 
 the dying, and robed the dead for burial. 
 
 « 
 
 Now that love of Christ mingles so largely with love of country, and loyalty 
 to ancestral Church with loyalty to the Union, what will not the women of 
 America and of our Church do to make America Christian ? 
 
 II. The 'pre8ent state of the field imperatively demands an increase in the con¬ 
 tributions of the Church. 
 
 It is true the Domestic Fund is out of debt, but the Church Building Fund 
 rests under a trifline encumbrance. It is true last year a balance in the treas¬ 
 ury was reported, but had it not been for the legacies that balance would dis¬ 
 appear and a debt of $3,300 stand in its place. And, in addition to these sig¬ 
 nificant facts, this statement appears in our Secretary’s annual report, “We 
 are eager and waiting to enter the fields which are beckoning us on, and during 
 the year we shall be compelled to add nearly one-third to the above obliga¬ 
 tions.” 
 
 In a word, the Church does not support its Home Missions, and although econ¬ 
 omy has been strained to the tension of weakened strands, the gifts of the living 
 leave an annual deficit. If Church-extension is to obey healthful demands of 
 a normal growth, so as to give promise of perpetuity in ecclesiastical life ; if 
 the Reformed Church in America is to have even a humble share in evangel¬ 
 izing the nation, there must be a change, amounting almost to a revolution, in 
 our attitude towards Domestic Missions. 
 
 How can the great harvest be gathered when laborers are so few ? While 
 offering our Lord’s prayer for more harvesters, let this experiment be tried. 
 After Boaz and his servants have reaped in the barley field, let Ruth lead the 
 maidens of Judah to glean after the sheaves. Some good handfuls have been 
 dropped, and may be gathered into the apron. 
 
 It is often flippantly asserted : It is folly to divide the benevolence of the 
 household by the line of sex ; the man is the bread-winner, and all comes out 
 
37 
 
 of one purse ; it is all the same, whether the lord of the mansion gives for the 
 family or each member be permitted to cast in a portion. 
 
 But I reply: First of all, it is to be remembered, every church contains a 
 number of women who control the purse of a private fortune ; the widow, the 
 single lady who has inherited the patrimony from a sainted father whose benev¬ 
 olence was known through the Church, and even the married woman who calls 
 her father’s farm her own. 
 
 Secondly^ there are many self-supporting women who insist on laying aside a 
 portion of their earnings for the Lord. 
 
 Thirdly, if husband and wife together began in early life the accumulation 
 of good means in the partnership of home, their goods are common stock. She 
 who has kept his house, tended his children, and by ten thousand economies 
 added to the fund, is just as much entitled, in all equity, to her share as if a 
 business agreement had been mutually made. This question in the true love- 
 filled home is never raised; but it should be raised, if on any theory the wife 
 be deprived of the luxury of a personal benevolence. 
 
 If churlish Nabal refuse the gift, Abigail may with propriety lay her store at 
 the feet of the Lord’s Anointed. 
 
 Fourthly, the apostolic ordinance makes giving an individual duty. As no 
 one can pray in place of another, so no one can give for his fellow. Children 
 should be trained to the act, and not brought up with the idea that the father 
 gives for the few; and the mother should inculcate this lesson, by her own 
 example, keeping up with scrupulous care her private charities. 
 
 Fifthly, these Female Boards do not take a dollar from the regular collectious. 
 The interest excited by their discussions increases rather than diminishes these. 
 Their own gatherings are all clear gain, just so much over and above what would 
 have been given without them. 
 
 III. I claim, therefore, there are missing links to he found to complete the beau¬ 
 tiful golden chain of Home Missions. 
 
 If female workers would discover opportunities for labor distinctively femi¬ 
 nine, they need not look in vain. What is to prevent the Mission Band from 
 corresponding with the wife of the Mission pastor, or with some of the sisters 
 in Christ, who are leaving no stone unturned to make their organization effec¬ 
 tive? 
 
 Such intercourse will at once reveal the peculiar wants of the station, and the 
 Ladies’ Aid Society in the strong church becomes auxiliary to the association of 
 the weaker. The parsonage is furnished, the sanctuary has a new roof to keep 
 out the Winter’s snow, and is warmed by a new furnace that people may in 
 comfort listen to the Word. The Sunday-school is supplied with the best appli¬ 
 ances of modern discovery. If the Sunday-school has not grown into a church, 
 a large percentage of its teachers being women, their heroic efforts appeal to 
 their sisters for sympathy, and from the comfortable church parlors goes forth 
 the substantial help which keeps that school alive until such time as the church 
 grows from it. 
 
 Our large cities employ with great success female missionaries, under the 
 name Bible Readers. With God’s Word in hand they visit tenement houses, to 
 gather children for the Sunday-school and hearers to the Gospel sermon. Econ- 
 
38 
 
 omy has hitherto restrained the Board from experiments in this or any other 
 direction, but if the Female Mission Bands were to make this a feature of tbeir 
 work, who know what might come of it ? 
 
 One of the most important and zealous workers is the missionary at Castle 
 Garden, who gives the right hand of welcome in the name of our Church to 
 emigrants from Fatherland. How precious also would be the sisterly greeting 
 given to the homesick wives and daughters, as with mingled hopes and fears 
 they tread the soil of a new world! A lady assistant to Brother Bechthold 
 would be as much a Missionary of the Cross as the dear sisters who are in 
 charge of our schools in India, China or Japan. 
 
 These suggestions are not intended to exhaust the possibilities of female en¬ 
 terprise, but only to indicate the direction in which further search is to be pros¬ 
 ecuted. 
 
 The Lord will answer by His Providence the petition, “ What wilt Thou have 
 me to do ? ” Already we hear the answer to prayers that have been offered. 
 “Organize and prepare for the work.” “Stand in Bands, and in armed readi¬ 
 ness wait for ‘ the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees.' ” If it 
 seem better not to multiply machinery by organizing a Woman’s Board of Do¬ 
 mestic Missions, let the separate circles make their report to and receive their 
 instructions from the Synod’s Board. Our eflicient Secretary will put them in 
 communication with those who need help. 
 
 The new societies must not in any form come into rivalry or competition with 
 the auxiliaries of the Woman’s Board of Foreign Missions. We cannot afford 
 any clashing of interests within our little household. The spirit of this new 
 call is to approve most heartily all that has been done and is still doing for the 
 heathen. There is no desire to claim a division of the funds which this agency 
 is in the babit of gathering, or in any way to interfere with this admirable 
 organization. There must not be the faintest suspicion of jealousy between 
 workers on this or that side of the line. “ This ought ye to have done, but not 
 to have let the other undone,” is the Master’s admonition, as He sees neglected 
 portions in marked contrast with fields well tilled. It may be better to have 
 two societies, one for each department, rather than one general Mission Band 
 to cover the whole ground. If an individual, for reasons which seem right to 
 herself, prefer one Board above the other, we may utilize that preference in the 
 name of the work at large. Christian effort gives largest scope to individuality, 
 and there must be no dictation in the sacred prerogative of benevolence. In 
 nearly every case, however, the preference will be exercised with a regard for 
 the whole whitening field; the same workers will manage both organizations, 
 and the same names will usually appear on both subscription lists. If it were 
 true that the Church is now doing her very best, and is coming up to the full 
 measure of responsibility in aggressive warfare, it would not be wise to present 
 a new claimant for prayers and gifts. The claimant is urged because it is sin¬ 
 cerely believed that, without abating a tittle of interest in existing institutions, 
 there is room for it in the Church’s heart. Did you ever know a mother to re¬ 
 fuse her new-born babe a place in her home ? I have always found that in the 
 snuggest quarters of the largest families the heartiest welcome is given to each 
 infant stranger. Though the home be like the shoe of the fabled old woman. 
 
39 
 
 as in a New York omnibus, '■Hhere is always room for one more.'"' When the 
 new comer is domiciled and begins to make known his legion of wants, not only 
 are they all supplied, but as from some magic reservoir sisters and brothers find 
 enough and to spare. The new does not displace the old, and yet the new finds 
 abundance waiting for it. So will it be with our Christian workers. A new 
 child is waiting at the door. It is not a foundling. It is the offspring of the 
 Church’s enlarged usefulness, sent in answer to the oft-repeated prayer, “ Thy 
 kingdom come.” Though the household of faith be not a large one, and the 
 home be crowded with a numerous progeny, let every mother’s heart open to 
 take it in. Hold it lovingly in your arms, and tenderly nurture its feeble life. 
 Baptize it in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as a true child of the 
 covenant. Call not its name Isaac, with the derisive laughter of unbelief, sneer¬ 
 ing at its folly. Call it not Jacob, jealously looking askance at the supplanter. 
 But the rather name it in token of its origin— Samuel, asked of God f' and 
 as an expression of the hopes which are bound up in its life, call it yet again 
 Isaiah, Salvation of the Lord.'"* Then, with these good names affixed, train 
 your child in the fear and favor of God, until in years to come it grow to bless 
 our land, and be a support unto the Church of our Fathers. 
 
 V. 
 
the Special Claims of Domestic Missions. 
 
 By Rev. DAVID WATERS, L.L.D. 
 
 This is the topic which has been assigned to me as the particular subject of 
 this paper. After ail that you have already heard regarding this aspect of our 
 Mission work, perhaps some may be almost tempted to look upon my theme as one 
 of supererogation. It is evident, however, that the Board of Domestic Missions 
 did not think so, nor do I. On the contrary, I look upon the duty which the 
 Church owes to that phase of the Master’s work as one of pressing importance. 
 It would be the height of folly in the rulers of any country were they to neglect 
 those duties which are always pressing for attention—those duties which relate 
 to the good government of the land, to the administration of justice, and to the 
 development of the internal resources of the nation—in the eager haste to extend 
 the boundaries of the empire by conquest or treaty. Ultimate ruin would be 
 the final outcome of such suicidal folly. On the contrary, those nations which 
 are the most prosperous—the most successful colonizers and the most potent 
 factors in the civilization and evangelization of the world—are the very nations 
 whose people and rulers attend most diligently to the reform of abuses at home, 
 to the righteous administration of its laws, to the education of the youth, to the 
 development of all the natural resources of the land, to the fostering of all its 
 great industries; and thus, in building up a great nation, strong, and healthy 
 with the pulsafion of a vigorous national life at home, it becomes respected and 
 successful abroad. This, it seems to me, admits of no dispute. What is true 
 concerning the nation is equally true concerning the Church. The Church 
 which neglects its home field in order to wdn victories abroad may gain renown, 
 may win the plaudits of others, and the admiration of the world—nay, may do 
 grand and noble work for the Master—work the influence of which shall never 
 die, which can never die, because it is work for God; but a neglected home 
 field means, first a cessation of growth, then decay, then finally the gasping out 
 of a life which has forgotten to live—the surrender of a great trust, because the 
 palsied hands of a corpse can no more grasp the implements of labor. Such, I 
 trust, is not the fate reserved for the Church which we all love, a Church which 
 is the child of Missionary effort, a Church w^hich has been the instrument of so 
 much good, which has done right noble work in its foreign field, and which is 
 
41 
 
 how stretching out its hands to the great fields of the West, in order that it may 
 take its own share in the work of preaching the Gospel to some of the multi¬ 
 tudes who are pressing onward toward the setting sun, and thus help to brighten 
 their lives with the blessed hopes of the Christian, and build them up in that 
 righteousness which alone can make a nation great. 
 
 Our Domestic is distinguished from our Foreign Mission work by being car¬ 
 ried on in our own land. There is no opposition ; such a thing as opposition 
 should never be thought of as existing between the Home and Foreign Mission 
 work. The work is one—only different branches of the same great task which 
 the Master has committed to the Church in the marching orders which He has 
 given to it, Oo ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature."' 
 Right nobly has the Reformed Church performed one aspect of this great work. 
 It has gone out into the heathen world with a noble courage, with a self-deny¬ 
 ing zeal, with a splendid liberality, with a grand band of heroic men and 
 women, who responded to the Macedonian cry, and who have gone up to the 
 help of the Lord against the mighty. Large has been the measure of success, 
 and wonderful the results which have flowed from the Foreign Mission work 
 of the Church. This work must, from the very nature and conditions of suc¬ 
 cessful effort in a foreign field, expand and appeal to the liberality and zeal of 
 the Church at home—an appeal which, we trust, will be as nobly responded to 
 in the future as it has been in the past. Not for a moment would I have the 
 thought take possession of the minds of any of our people that we have done 
 or can do too much for the advancement of the Lord’s work among the heathen 
 nations of the world. We have not, nor can we. 
 
 But, while the Church has done so well in one direction, every lover of our 
 Zion must desire to see our Home Mission work pressed forward with equal 
 zeal, and supported by as large a measure of liberality. 
 
 When we look at kindred Churches we see that their growth and prosperity 
 have been in proportion to the zeal and earnestness with which they have pros¬ 
 ecuted their Home Mission work. 
 
 The Presbyterian Church in Canada, with which I am somewhat well ac¬ 
 quainted, has never been anything else, with all its equipment of professors and 
 pastors, than a Church organized for Home Mission work. Whatever else it 
 set its hands to do, whether of Collegiate or of Foreign Mission wwk, that 
 Church ever felt that its great mission was to follow the pioneers of the new 
 settlements with the Gospel and the missionary. From Newfoundland and its 
 rocky shores to the plains lying at the foot of the Rocky Mountains and beyond 
 it has occupied the land on the other side of the border, until now, in the course 
 of something like fifty years, it has grown from a scattered band of widely 
 separated churches and missionaries into a compact, united organization, with 
 more than 700 ministers and more than 100,000 communicants. I mention this 
 because I happen to know the facts, and because we have had a share in that 
 great work in the early days of the Church’s life and settlement of the country. 
 As far back as the beginning of the century, when that land was only partially 
 ooened up, the Reformed Church had its missionaries on the northern shores of 
 Lake Ontario, and down by the sea in Nova Scotia. 
 
 What is true concerning that Church is equally true concerning others. The 
 
42 
 
 British Churches which have shown the greatest zeal, and have been the most 
 successful in other departments of Church work, have been distinguished for 
 the success with which they have prosecuted the work of Domestic Missions. 
 The United Presbyterian Church of Scotland has grown to its present distin¬ 
 guished position from a small handful of men who seceded from the Church of 
 Scotland because they could not, with a clear conscience, continue within her 
 pale. It has grown chiefly on account of the earnest, faithful, persevering 
 efforts which were put forth in its own home field—a field apparently occupied 
 by the powerful Church which had the support and prestige which its connec¬ 
 tion with the State gave it. Need I speak of the Free Church of Scotland, of 
 the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, and of the progress which is being made 
 by the Presbyterian Church in England at the present day ?—Churches which 
 are vigorously and successfully prosecuting their Home Mission work. They 
 are what they are because they have done that work thoroughly and well. 
 
 The work of the American Presbyterian Church is before us, and needs no 
 comment of mine to enforce the lesson which it teaches. 
 
 When we consider the extent of the field, the whole land is before us! In 
 our towns and cities, in quiet country villages in the older States, and in the 
 great fields of the West, there are multitudes waiting to be taught the way of 
 life. In the older States there is still an ample field for the best and most per¬ 
 severing efforts which can be put forth. It surely is not our duty to say that 
 the field is already occupied, that other and kindred Churches have entered into 
 possession of the territory, and therefore are not to be disturbed. No; they 
 are not to be disturbed in the fields which they have honestly won, and are dil¬ 
 igently cultivating. We have no desire to enter into the labors of others, or to 
 build upon another man’s foundation. But, because I do not wish to pull down 
 my neighbor’s house and build another for myself on his ground, that surely is 
 no reason why I should decline to enter upon land which I may acquire, and 
 build upon it such a house as shall best suit myself. The new settler in the 
 western world is never prevented from entering upon unoccupied land which is 
 suitable for the purpose of the husbandman because other men may have occu¬ 
 pied the land in its immediate neighborhood. It is rather an inducement for 
 him to settle there, because he shall not be alone in the world. In all our grow¬ 
 ing towns and cities there is ample room for the best efforts of the Reformed 
 Church—efforts which shall not interfere with kindred Churches. Of all con¬ 
 temptible things, the most utterly contemptible is the attempt to build up 
 Churches at the expense of others of kindred faith and order, who are preach¬ 
 ing the.Gospel of Christ with, at least, as much earnestness and fulness as those 
 who may interfere with their work. If the work of the Reformed Church 
 cannot be carried on without such intermeddling, then there is only one thing 
 left for that Church to do, and that is to die—as gracefully as may be, but as a 
 Church to cease from putting forth any signs which shall bear the appearance 
 of life. As we are not dead, and have no intention whatever of dying, it fol¬ 
 lows that, if we are to maintain vigorous health as a Church, we must find work 
 and exercise which shall set the life-blood pulsing to the farthest extremities of 
 the body. That work and exercise can be found in the vigorous prosecution of 
 our Home Mission work. The field is ample enough. It is at our very doors. 
 
43 
 
 In all our towns and cities, with a rapidly increasing population, there is work 
 for us to do—multitudes to be gathered into the fold of the Good Shepherd, 
 that there they may go in and out and find pasture. In the city of Newark, 
 where we are now assembled, there was pot fifty years ago one Reformed 
 church ; now there are seven. The First organized in 1833, the Second in 
 1848, the North in 1856, the West (German) in 1866, the Clinton Avenue in 
 1868, the East in 1869, and the Woodside church later still. The young church 
 in Plainfield, which has grown with such wonderful celerity, is so youthful that 
 I find no mention made of it in the last edition of the Manual of the Reformed 
 churches. 1 mention this to show that the work which has been carried on 
 here and in Plainfield can be equally as well carried on in other growing cen¬ 
 ters of population. We are not to be turned aside from the contemplation of 
 this pressing duty by quietly intimating that the Reformed Church is only 
 adapted to Dutchmen or their descendants. Perhaps that thought may have 
 been lurking in the minds of the fathers when they planted themselves down in 
 the valleys of the Hudson and the Mohawk, of the Passaic and the Raritan. It 
 may perhaps have influenced the course of some in dealing with this all-import¬ 
 ant question. But I trust that time has vanished, never to return. When it 
 comes to that, we are all of one race, nay, of one family. The Dutchmen of 
 Holland are only the people who remained behind when the Angles and Saxons 
 and Jutes crossed the narrow sea to Britain. Those who thus crossed over be¬ 
 came in process of time the English people, who brought their name with them. 
 Then when the Knickerbocker fathers settled in New Amsterdam, and brought 
 their Reformed faith and their Reformed pastors with them, it was simply a 
 branch of the same family, who had come to this new land without stopping 
 for a few hundred years by the way at the island of Britain, with their kinsfolk 
 there. When the English folk came settling in New England, it was the same 
 sturdy race as the people at the mouth of the Hudson, only before they came 
 to the New World they had sojourned by the way for a thousand years, more 
 or less, at the island of Britain. I mention these facts, which have been so 
 clearly developed by the historian Freeman, to show that the people among 
 whom our work lies is one ; that whether we have come to this land from the 
 older Anglen land on the east of the North Sea, or from that land by way of 
 Britain, we are substantially one people. And therefore, if the Reformed faith 
 and the order of the Reformed Churches were found to be suitable for the men 
 of Holland, and their kinsfolk from Scotland and England who sojourned with 
 them in the trying days when the Reformed faith was persecuted in Britain, it 
 must be adapted to the same race still, whether the members of it are to be found 
 in great centers of population such as New York and Newark, Brooklyn and 
 Albany, Philadelphia or New Brunswick, or in quiet river valleys like the Mo¬ 
 hawk and Raritan, in the older settled portions of this New World, or on the 
 very fringe of our advancing civilization, which goes ever westward like the 
 advancing wave of a mighty tide which so far has not reached its highest point 
 and turned into an ebb. No ; that tide of population is still flowing on with 
 undiminished volume and speed, and it will continue to flow until the whole 
 land shall respond to the mighty surf-beat of the advancing wave, which bears 
 on its crest the life of the New World. 
 
44 
 
 Such is the field, aud such the work lying before us. Part of that field has 
 already been brought under your notice, when the claims of the Holland and 
 German branches of the population were pressed upon you. But we must not 
 confine ourselves to these special branches of the Church’s work. Our mission 
 is to enter in wherever we find an open door, and labor earnestly for the ad¬ 
 vancement of the Redeemer’s kingdom. In the East and West the fields are 
 white already to the harvest. Are we to find the reapers, or shall the gathering 
 [u of the great harvest be left to others who have a clearer and keener apprecia¬ 
 tion of the great duty which the Master has laid upon His Church ? This dut}’- 
 the fathers of the Reformed Church in America somewhat clearly compre¬ 
 hended. As soon as the Church gained her independence, contributions began 
 to be taken up, and churches were established in the outskirts of the old settle¬ 
 ments and in central New York. In the period between 1786-1832 no less than 
 250 ministers had begun to labor in the denomination ; since that time nearly 
 400 churches have been organized. I mention these facts to show that the Re¬ 
 formed Church has not only been fully alive to its duty in the past, but that it 
 has been blessed with a large measure of success. 
 
 Let this Jubilee year mark a new departure in the work of Domestic Missions. 
 Much has been accomplished, but more, very much more, remains to be done. 
 
 Our Reformed Church is well fitted to bear its share in this work. Its creed 
 is in harmony with the teaching of the Divine Word and in accord with the 
 standards of the Churches of the Reformation. It sets forth the great truths 
 concerning God and man, the demerit of sin, Christ and the great salvation, 
 with clearness and power. It emphasizes those truths both in its professors’ 
 chairs and in its pulpits, so that from both the one and the other there shall be 
 no uncertain sound. Whilst it quarrels with no man for holding views which 
 are not in harmony with that which it believes to be the truth of God’s Word, 
 it will allow no man, no matter how great his ability, or how wide and varied 
 soever bis culture and learning, to teach either as professor or preacher that 
 which the Church believes to be out of harmony with the Divine Word. This 
 is no small recommendation in such a time as this, when men’s minds are un¬ 
 settled, and when many who ought to know what their message is, seem to 
 know neither w^hat to say nor whereof to affirm. The Church should be like 
 the great beacon on the rocky headland, hashing its saving light out over the 
 tempest-tossed ocean, so that the iron-bound coast may be avoided or the safe 
 haven reached in safety, and not the deceitful light of the wrecker, whose only 
 aim is to lure the unwary to destruction. The false light is the glare of the 
 wrecker’s torch. The Divine Truth is the steady light shining out over the great 
 sea of the world’s life, so that each one who will suffer himself to be guided by 
 that light may reach the Divinely-provided haven where storms shall be no more. 
 This is what the Reformed Church strives to do. It professes to be one of the 
 Master’s great light-bearers, holding aloft the great light of Divine Truth so 
 that it may shine out over a dark world. 
 
 But we can go out with a good conscience, appealing to our fellow country¬ 
 men, not only because we hold and teach the very Truth of God, but also be¬ 
 cause we hold a system of polity which harmonizes with the practice of the 
 earlj Church and is admirably adapted to fit into tbe life of a free country. It 
 
45 
 
 is neither an ecclesiastical imperialism on the one, nor an ill regulated democracy 
 on the other. It welds together in one compact and firmly knit organization 
 all the separate churches of the denomination. It is like a great ecclesiastical 
 commonwealth, with its consistories and classes, its particular and general 
 synods. It makes provision for the complete representation of the people by 
 elders and deacons in the consistory. These may be retained from term to 
 term in the active duties of their office, or a change, if desired, can be made by 
 the vote of their constituents. In the classes and the synods the churches have 
 a full and complete representation. It acknowledges only one Head. It lives 
 in humble, loving, loyal submission to one King—His name is Jesus. He is the 
 Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root and the offspring of David, the bright and 
 morning star. 
 
 A Church thus constituted and governed, a Church which reached its right to 
 hold its creed, to preach the truth and govern itself, by blood and fire, by stake 
 and scaffold, by dungeon and battle-field, may surely go out into this free land 
 feeling that God has given to it no mean share in moulding and building up the 
 life of this nation. 
 
 If this land is not won and kept for the Master’s use by the instrumentality of 
 the Gospel, by the efforts of the various branches of the Church, it will not 
 only be lost to the Church of God, but will be opposed to Him Whose right it is 
 to reign and rule over all hearts. If our Christian civilization and liberty are to 
 be preserved, if the multitudes who are pouring into this land from the Old 
 World are to be not only received, not only adopted as citizens, but assimilated 
 to the life of the nation and built up into its organic unity—then the Churches 
 of God must be up and doing. We of the Reformed Church must bear our 
 share of the burden and do our part in the noble work. Is it not a grand, a 
 noble work? To help to build up the life of a great nation in principles of 
 everlasting righteousness! 
 
 The young man who steps from the seminary with all the glow and zeal of 
 his young life, with all the training and drill of his collegiate career as a prepara¬ 
 tion for his work, into the front ranks of Immanuel’s great army, stands in the 
 place of honor under the eye of the Captain of the Lord’s Hosts. He is a com¬ 
 missioned office-bearer in that great army whose battle is with the banded legions 
 of wickedness, whose war cry is “The World for Christ,” whose motto is 
 “Faithful Unto Death,” and whose promise is “ The Crown of Life.” The 
 Home Missionary who goes out into the new regions of our own land, or into 
 the neglected by-w'ays of the great city, is doing just as noble work as the man 
 who labors in India or China for the advancement of the Redeemer’s kingdom. 
 Nay, his hardships and anxieties may in many respects be more trying and more 
 difficult to bear. There is none of the glow of romance which shines around 
 the man who is working under the sun of a heathen land. On the frontier in 
 the new settlement, in the great city, there is often to be encountered a baptized 
 paganism, harder, colder, more unlovely and repellant than the heathenism of 
 far distant lands. All honor to the men who gird themselves for the fight which 
 is in progress in our own land. 
 
 But I must close. Is it in vain that we have held our Jubilee, which has now 
 reached its closing hours? Are we to appeal in vain to our churches for an 
 
46 
 
 increase of liberality to our young men, for more laborers to go out into the 
 great wide home field where they may toil for Christ, to our men of wealth, 
 for more abundant help for the Master’s cause ? By the love we bear to the 
 Church of our fathers or of our adoption, by the obligations under which we 
 rest to the land in which we dwell, by our love for the spiritual welfare of our 
 kinsmen according to the fiesh, by our sworn vows of loyalty to the Master and 
 His cause, by all these solemn considerations we are bound to make this Jubilee 
 year the beginning of a new era, the starting-point of a- new departure in the 
 grand work of winning the world for Christ.