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 Commmoxation 
 
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ipufatox^ Qto^e. 
 
 AT a meeting of the Consistory held July 9, 1889, it 
 was announced that the senior minister, the Rev. 
 Dr. Vermilye, would complete in the autumn the 
 fiftieth year of his connection with the Collegiate Church. 
 As this was a period of continuous ministry which had been 
 accomplished only once before in our history, it was deter- 
 mined to hold a commemorative service in the month of 
 October, at which a proper expression of the views of the 
 Consistory should be made, to be accompanied by similar 
 words from representatives of the various bodies with which 
 our senior minister had been associated. The Rev. Dr. 
 Chambers and Messrs. Bookstaver, Locke and Brower were 
 appointed a committee to make the necessary preparations, 
 which they did after communicating with the recipient of 
 the testimonial. The last Tuesday in the month was fixed 
 for the time, and handsomely engraved cards of invitation 
 were issued and widely distributed. 
 
 At a meeting of the Consistory held October 3d, a min- 
 ute was adopted in reference to the event, which was 
 engrossed in a peculiarly graceful form, attested by the 
 signatures of the ministers, elders and deacons, and then 
 bound in a style of simple but costly elegance. It was put 
 in the hands of Dr. Vermilye on the evening of the com- 
 ^ memoration. 
 
 ^ There was a very large gathering at the Church, embrac- 
 
 '^ ing some of the leading ministers of nearly every denomina- 
 ,^ tion and a great many prominent citizens, not a few of 
 
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4 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 whom had been associated with Dr. Vermilye in different 
 religious, charitable or literary institutions. The pulpit was 
 occupied by the speakers of the occasion, and also the Hon. 
 John Jay, the Hon. Seth Low, President-elect of Columbia 
 College, Mr. John A. King, President of the New York His- 
 torical Society and the Rev. Dr. H. Y. Satterlee, while the^^ 
 members of the Great and Acting Consistories were seated in 
 their usual pews on either side of the pulpit. One of our 
 leading religious journals * in its graphic report of the jubi- 
 lee thus spoke : 
 
 " The pulpit was tastefully decorated with palms and chrysanthe- 
 mums, and on the communion table was a large frame-work of white 
 chrysanthemums edged with maiden-hair ferns, and on this white back- 
 ground in red carnations were the dates 1 839-1 889. The service was 
 most impressive throughout, and the care which had been bestowed by 
 the committee of arrangements was rewarded in a service of dignity and 
 beauty, which admirably befitted the occasion. The music was marked 
 by rare taste, both in the appropriateness of the selections and their ren- 
 dition. The united choirs of the Collegiate Churches sang well, and 
 their part in the services was not marred by ostentatious display." 
 
 Besides the floral decorations in front of the pulpit there 
 was on a stand near the desk a very beautiful basket of 
 flowers, a voluntary offering from the Leake and Watts 
 Orphan House. 
 
 * The New York Observer. 
 

 Benedic Anima in B flat, - - - Dudley Buck 
 
 PRAISE the Lord, O my Soul, 
 And all that is within me praise His holy name. 
 Praise the Lord, O my Soul, 
 
 And forget not all His benefits. 
 Who forgiveth all thy sins, 
 
 And healeth all thine infirmities. 
 Who saveth thy life from destruction. 
 
 And crowneth thee with mercy and loving kindness. 
 O praise the Lord, ye angels of His, 
 
 Ye that excel in strength. 
 Ye that fulfil His commandment. 
 
 And hearken unto the voice of His word. 
 O praise the Lord, all ye His hosts, 
 
 Ye servants of His that do His pleasure. 
 O speak good of the Lord, all ye works of His, 
 
 In all places of His dominion. 
 Praise thou the Lord, O my Soul. 
 
 Address of Welcome, The Rev. Talbot W. Chambers, 
 D.D., LL.D. 
 
 Prayer, The Rev. James H. Mason Knox, D.D., LL.D., 
 President of Lafayette College 
 
 The Resolutions of Consistory and Address, The 
 Rev. Edward B. Coe, D.D. 
 
 The Response, The Rev. Thomas E. Vermilye, D.D., LL.D. 
 

 PlYlil>^ :, ' |Nq. S'SXi' *? Gidribus things of Thee are spoken. 
 
 ("Austria,") F.J. Haydn 
 
 f < • « < ' 
 
 c • c o a 
 
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 ' 'fro BE SUNG STANDING) 
 
 GLORIOUS things of thee are 
 spoken, 
 Zion, city of our God ; 
 He whose word cannot be broken, 
 Formed thee for His own abode : 
 On the Rock of Ages founded, 
 
 What can shake thy sure repose ? 
 With salvation's wall surrounded. 
 Thou mayest smile at all thy 
 foes. 
 
 See, the streams of living waters, 
 Springing from eternal love. 
 
 Well supply thy sons and daugh- 
 ters, 
 And all fear of want remove : 
 
 Who can faint, while such a river 
 Ever flows their thirst to as- 
 suage ? •'. 
 Grace, which, like the Lord', the 
 Giver, 
 Never fails from age to age. 
 
 Round each habitation hovering, 
 
 See the cloud and fire appear, 
 For a glory and a covering, 
 
 Showing that the Lord is near : 
 Thus deriving from their Banner 
 
 Light by night, and shade by day, 
 Safe they feed upon the manna 
 
 Which He gives them when 
 they pray. 
 
 Address, The Rev. Morgan Dix, S.T.D., Rector of Trinity- 
 Church 
 
 Address, The Rev. Richard D. Harlan, Minister of the 
 First Presbyterian Church 
 
 Magnificat in A, 
 
 J. Stainer 
 
 MY soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit hath rejoiced in 
 God my Saviour, 
 For He hath regarded the lowliness of His hand-maiden, 
 
 For behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed, 
 
 For He that is mighty hath magnified me, and holy is His name. 
 
 And His mercy is on them that fear Him throughout all generations. 
 
 He hath showed strength with His arm, 
 
 He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. 
 
 He hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the hum- 
 ble and meek. 
 
 He hath filled the hungry with good things, 
 
 And the rich He hath sent empty away. 
 
 He remembering his mercy hath holpen His servant Israel, as He prom- 
 ised to our forefathers 
 
 Abraham and his seed forever. 
 
 Address, The Hon. Enoch L. Fancher, President of the 
 American Bible Society 
 
Address, Merrill E. Gates, LL.D., L.H.D., President of 
 Rutgers College 
 
 DOXOLOGY 
 
 Praise God, from whom all blessings flow ; 
 Praise Him all creatures here below; 
 Praise Him above ye heavenly host ; 
 Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 
 
 Benediction, - - The Rev. Roderick Terry, D.D. 
 
 Committee 
 
 The Rev. Talbot W. Chambers, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 Hon. Henry W. Bookstaver 
 
 Frederick T. Locke 
 
 William L. Brower 
 
 tU (^nit\> Cgoirs of t?e Coffe^iate Cgurc^ 
 
 Carl Walter, Organist of Church at Fifth Ave., and Forty-eighth St. 
 H. G. Hanchett, Organist of Church at Fifth Ave., and Twenty-ninth St. 
 Louis C. Jacoby, Organist of Middle Church, Lafayette Place. 
 
CotttmtmovaiiH Mert)ice 
 
 At eight o'clock the chair was taken by the Rev. Dr. Chambers, the 
 Senior Acting Minister, and the Exercises commenced with the 
 anthem Benedic Anima, Psahin CIII., in B flat, after which the 
 chairman pronounced the short address of welcome that follows. 
 
 Z^t (^t>iuss of T27efcome+ 
 
 WE are gathered here, as the programme states, to 
 commemorate the completion of fifty years of 
 service by the senior minister of the Collegiate 
 Church. That cycle of time is spoken of as most impor- 
 tant. Mr. Gladstone told Mr. Depew last Summer that he 
 considered it the most desirable half century in which any 
 man could live. He referred to the progress which was 
 made in Great Britain in the emancipation of the Roman 
 Catholics, in the abolition of West India slavery, in the 
 repeal of the corn laws, and in the removing the restrictions 
 upon suffrage. Even so has it been upon the continent of 
 Europe : witness the unification of Italy and of Germany ; 
 the emancipation of the serfs in Russia ; the opening of 
 China and Japan to commercial intercourse; the discovery 
 of the sources of the Nile and the Congo, and the thorough 
 exploration of inter-tropical Africa; the accomplishment of 
 the abolition of slavery throughout Christendom, for the 
 last shackle has fallen from the last slave in a Christian 
 land. Note, also, the extraordinary advances of physical 
 science, much greater than in any previous century, and the 
 flourishing literature of the Victorian period in every depart- 
 ment of human genius. So, too, the progress in our own 
 
lO COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 country. The annexation of Texas ; the war with Mexico ; 
 the acquisition of large territory on the Pacific ; the re- 
 moval of the Great American Desert which used to figure on 
 our maps, and the railroads crossing the continent ; the 
 marvellous development of the States on the Pacific slope; 
 the war for the Union and its happy result; the amazing 
 stimulus which it gave to every form of human effort. All 
 these things make the half century distinct and memorable. 
 
 But our attention is turned from this wide outlook upon 
 public affairs to a single life: to fifty years in one man's 
 career. Serving in the same church during all that period ; 
 in times of peace and in times of war ; meeting all the vi- 
 cissitudes of human things ; maintaining the same character 
 without shadow of change. 
 
 I remember very well dining with Dr. Vermilye in his 
 house at Albany in the month of July, 1839, ^^^ some 
 pleasantries were passed across the table respecting the 
 call which was then in contemplation. During the whole 
 intervening period he has been able to hold steadfast his 
 position, and to discharge all the various duties which come 
 upon a minister in a metropolitan church, besides those be- 
 longing strictly to his own parish. 
 
 In the name of the Consistory it is my pleasure and 
 province to thank you for your presence, to welcome you 
 here, and invite you to join with us in giving proper atten- 
 tion and emphasis to a career so distinguished. Many of 
 those who were invited accepted the invitation and are 
 present. Others have declined with regret, among whom I 
 may mention his honor, Hugh J. Grant, Mayor; Justices 
 Bradley and Blatchford of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States ; Rev. Noah Porter, D.D., LL.D., ex-President of 
 Yale University ; Rev. Josiah Strong, Secretary of the 
 Evangelical Alliance ; Alex. E. Orr, President of the New 
 York Produce Exchange ; The Rev. Drs. Mabon, Wood- 
 bridge and Demarest of the Theological Seminary at New 
 Brunswick, N. J.; Right Rev. Henry C. Potter, D.D., 
 LL.D., Bishop of the Diocese ; Right Rev. Bishop Bedell ; 
 Rev. John W. Brown, D.D. ; Rev. Wm. J. Seabury, D.D. ; 
 
FIFTY years' service II 
 
 Rev. Henry Mottet, D.D. ; Rev. Cornelius B. Smith, D.D.; 
 Rev. Philip A. H. Brown ; Rev. Wm. T. Sabine, D.D. ; Rev. 
 Geo. D. Boardman, D.D., of Philadelphia; Rev. J. S. Riggs, 
 D.D., of Auburn; Rev. J. M. Stevenson, D.D. ; Rev. How- 
 ard Crosby, D.D.; Rev. J. M. Worrall, D.D.; Rev. S. B. 
 Rossiter, D.D. ; Rev. Wm. M. Taylor, D.D. ; Rev. Geo. 
 H. Smyth, D.D. ; Rev. David Waters, D.D., of Newark, 
 N. J. ; Rev. Herman C. Berg, of Brooklyn ; Rev. Livingston 
 L. Taylor, of Port Jervis, N. Y. ; Rev. F. N. Zabriskie, D.D., 
 of Princeton, N. J.; Rev. R. S. MacArthur, D.D.; Rev. 
 Robert Collyer; Rev. J. D. Wickham, an uncle of a 
 former mayor of this City, who in his ninety-third year 
 is still vigorous in mind and body ; Stephen P. Nash, Esq. ; 
 Prof. Geo. L. Peabody ; Hon. Robert B. Roosevelt ; Wm. 
 H.Crosby; Hon. Abraham Lansing, Albany; A. L. Ack- 
 erman, Titusville, Pa. ; Ten Eyck Sutphen, of Brooklyn ; 
 Chas. H. Booth, of Englewood, N. J.; Peter R. Warner; 
 Allan C. Hutton, of New Brunswick, N.J. 
 
 It is proper on every such occasion to invoke the divine 
 presence and blessing, and this will now be done for us by 
 the Rev. James H. Mason Knox, D.D., LL.D., President 
 of Lafayette College, the son of the eminent man who was 
 the senior minister of this church when Dr. Vermilye was 
 called. 
 
 (ptagetH 
 
 ALMIGHTY and ever blessed God, Father, Son and 
 Holy Ghost, lift up upon us thy countenance and 
 give us peace. 
 We come into Thy presence with grateful praise. We 
 give Thee most hearty thanks for the circumstances of 
 goodness and loving kindness in which we are assembled 
 this night in the Sanctuary of Thy house. 
 
 We remember the days of old, and bless Thy name that 
 in many generations Thou hast led this people like a flock 
 by the hand of men whom Thou hast counted faithful put- 
 ting them into the ministry, and who approved themselves 
 
12 COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 as the ministers of God, by pureness, by knowledge, by 
 long suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love 
 unfeigned, by the Word of truth, by the power of God : who 
 watched for souls as they who must give account, th^t mey 
 might do it with joy and not with grief. 
 
 O Lord God of Israel, there is no God like Thee in 
 Heaven above or in Earth beneath, who keepest covenant 
 and mercy with Thy servants. 
 
 We lift up our hearts and voices to Thee to-night in 
 humble adoration and praise for what our ears have heard, 
 and our eyes have seen, and our souls have felt of Thy 
 great goodness to this congregation called by Thy name 
 by the men whom Thou hast given to it as Thy ambassa- 
 dors to declare Thy will. We thank Thee for the grace of 
 which they have been the almoners, for the light and 
 peace and comfort of Thy word, which they ministered by 
 the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, and for the help 
 they gave to whatsoever hastened the day when He who 
 was delivered for our offences and raised for our justifica- 
 tion shall come again without sin unto salvation. 
 
 And, now, gracious God, God and Father of our Lord 
 and Saviour Jesus Christ, we thank Thee for Thy servant, 
 our venerated father, whose long continuance in the pas- 
 torate of this church we celebrate to-night ; for his work 
 and labor of love in the care of souls, for his rightly divin- 
 ing the Word of truth, for his manifestation of the Spirit of 
 Him who came to seek that which was lost, for his gentle- 
 ness, aptness to teach, and patience. 
 
 We bless Thee that in all things he has made full proof 
 of his ministiy received of the Lord Jesus, and that now 
 that he wears the hoary head as a crown of glory because 
 found in the way of righteousness, his eye is not dim nor his 
 natural force abated. 
 
 Thou art faithful, O our God, to Thy word ; they that be 
 planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts 
 of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age to 
 show that the Lord is upright. He is our Rock and there is 
 no unrighteousness in Him. 
 
FIFTY YEARS' SERVICE I3 
 
 With tender love we commend our father to Thy most 
 holy keeping, for what remains to him of this mortal life. 
 Thou hast been his shepherd, and h^ has not wanted any 
 good thing. Thou hast made him to lie down in green 
 pastures. Thou hast led him beside the still waters. Thou 
 hast anointed his head with oil. His cup runneth over. 
 Surely goodness and mercy have followed him all the days 
 of his life, and he shall dwell in the house of the Lord for- 
 ever. He has fought a good fight, he has kept the faith, and 
 there is laid up for him a crown of righteousness which the 
 Lord shall give him in that day. 
 
 Till that hour of his coronation, we entreat Thee, good 
 Lord, deal very gently with him. Smooth his pathway. 
 Sustain his faltering steps. Give him abundance of Thy 
 peace, and when the last of earth shall come, give him 
 to fall asleep in Jesus to awake in the blessedness of those 
 who have turned many to righteousness, and who shall 
 shine as the stars forever and ever. 
 
 And we entreat thy favor. Almighty God, still to abide 
 with this church, this branch so manifestly of thy planting, 
 that Thou mayest be glorified. In the years that are past, 
 Thou hast been with it to make it a power in the earth for 
 the praise of Thy name. At this time when it is en- 
 gaged in these acts of piety, gratitude and love, on 
 which Thou lookest so approvingly, be pleased, O Lord 
 most merciful, to show thyself in the outpouring of Thy 
 good Spirit on all who are here and all who are represented 
 here. 
 
 Arise, O Lord, into Thy rest. Thou and the ark of Thy 
 Strength. Let Thy priests be clothed with righteousness 
 and let Thy saints shout for joy. Here do Thou dwell. 
 Abundantly bless the provision of Thy house. Satisfy Thy 
 poor with bread. 
 
 And so we pray for the Church universal. Grace, mercy 
 and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ 
 be with it. Hasten the day, Lord God of Israel, the blessed 
 promised day when the watchmen on the walls of Zion 
 shall lift up the voice. With the voice together shall they 
 
14 COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 sing, for they shall see eye to eye, for the Lord has brought 
 again Zion. ^ 
 
 All we ask in His name, and for His^ke who has taught 
 us when we pray to say: 
 
 Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be 
 
 THY NAME, THY KINGDOM COME, THY WILL BE DONE IN 
 EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN, GiVE US THIS DAY OUR 
 DAILY BREAD, AND FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES AS WE 
 FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US, LEAD US 
 NOT INTO TEMPTATION, BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL, 
 FOR THINE IS THE KINGDOM, THE POWER AND THE 
 
 Glory for ever, Amen. 
 
 The Chairman then said: An appropriate minute in reference to the 
 fifty years of service of Dr. Vermilye, has been prepared by the Con- 
 sistory. This will now be read in your hearing by the Rev. Dr. 
 Coe, who will accompany it with an address to which Dr. Vermilye 
 himself will respond. 
 
 Z^t (S^tBoMiom of ConBi$tox^* 
 
 THE minute adopted by the Consistory of this church 
 at their last regular meeting is as follows : 
 
 " Reformed Protestant Dutch Church 
 Of the City of New York. 
 
 In Consistory, October 3, 1889 
 
 1. As the Reverend Thomas Edward Vermilye, D.D., 
 LL.D., will conclude during the present month the fiftieth 
 year of his service as one of the Ministers of the Collegiate 
 Church, the Consistory have much pleasure in expressing as 
 follows their sentiments on the interesting occasion. 
 
 2. We devoutly recognize the goodness of our Heaven- 
 ly Father in preserving the life and health of our senior 
 pastor, so that he has accomplished a longer term of service 
 than any of his predecessors save only the Rev. Gualterus 
 DuBois, whose ministry began in the year 1699 and ended 
 with his life in the year 1751. 
 
FIFTY YEARS SERVICE I5 
 
 3. During this long tract of years, so eminent in science 
 and letters as to be known as the brilliant Victorian period, 
 Dr. Vermilye was enabled to fulfill the functions of his 
 office, both as preacher and pastor, with signal ability and 
 success. 
 
 4. Being contemporary with eight colleagues, three of 
 whom, the revered Knox, Brownlee and DeWitt, have gone 
 to their reward, he with them has habitually maintained the 
 dignity and usefulness of our metropolitan pulpit, and 
 showed himself a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. 
 
 5. In the various public institutions with which he was 
 connected, whether belonging to our own denomination or 
 the church in general, he was fitted to render, and did ren- 
 der, most efficient service as a wise counsellor, a faithful 
 officer, and an eloquent advocate. 
 
 6. Having been born and brought up in this City where 
 he commenced his ministry in the year 1826, though after- 
 wards he prosecuted it for a time in West Springfield, Mass., 
 and again in Albany, and having spent a half-century in 
 subsequent labor here, he became completely identified 
 with its interests, and was always active and zealous in for- 
 warding whatever contributed to its welfare. 
 
 7. In his private and domestic life, and in intercourse 
 with his brethren of all branches of the church catholic, he 
 strikingly illustrated the virtues to be expected from his 
 Huguenot descent and his representative connection with an 
 ancient church of Holland origin. 
 
 8. Although his life-time is almost contemporaneous with 
 the century now approaching its tenth decade of years, we 
 trust that the same gracious Providence which has preserved 
 hitherto the fulness of his mental vigor and so large a meas- 
 ure of bodily strength, will continue the same gifts for years 
 to come. 
 
 9. In view of all the foregoing the Consistory now ap- 
 point the 29th day of the present month for a public service 
 to be held in the church on Fifth Avenue and Forty-eighth 
 Street, at which this minute shall be read, and appropriate 
 addresses made by representatives of sister churches." 
 
l6 COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 Dr. Coe : I have now the honor and pleasure of handing 
 a suitably engrossed copy of this minute to the Rev. Dr. 
 Vermilye. 
 
 €^t (^iiviee of t^e (Be)), ©tr. Coi* 
 
 THE pleasant duty which has been entrusted to me this 
 evening of adding to the resolutions just read a 
 few personal words, might perhaps have been more 
 appropriately committed to my senior colleague, Dr. 
 Chambers. For my personal acquaintance with the Col- 
 legiate Church and its ministers does not go back very far. 
 It covers only the last ten years. Of the beginning of Dr. 
 Vermilye's ministry in this City I cannot speak from my 
 own personal knowledge, since I was at that time literally 
 less than the least of these my brethren, for I was not even 
 born. And yet these last ten years of delightful inter- 
 course and association with the dear and venerable gentle- 
 man whose jubilee we are met to celebrate to-night, have 
 been like a perfect afternoon in Summer, which in its tran- 
 quil and satisfying beauty shows plainly enough what the 
 early morning must have been, and what the high and 
 brilliant noon. 
 
 It is to all of us, who are variously related to this 
 church, a matter of sincere rejoicing and of devout grati- 
 tude to God, that He has permitted us to see this day. A 
 half century is a long time, longer than the majority of 
 human lives, much longer than the active career even of 
 most of those who are spared to a good old age. And 
 yet in the history of this country it would be possible to 
 gather together not a few names (and it would be a cata- 
 logue of noble and illustrious names) of men who have 
 passed a half century of years in the active and efficient 
 ministry of the gospel, holding to the last the same inspir- 
 ing faith which animated them at the beginning, and pro- 
 claiming it with that broadening charity and that deepen- 
 ing tenderness and sympathy which are the beautiful fruit 
 of a long experience of life. But a ministry of this length in 
 
FIFTY YEARS SERVICE 1 7 
 
 one church is very rare. It is in our days extremely in- 
 frequent. It vi^as not common even in the more sedate and 
 slow-moving days of our fathers. The Dutch Church 
 enjoys an excellent reputation for keeping its ministers and 
 for taking good care of them, but of the thirty men who 
 have held the office of minister of the Collegiate Church 
 since it was organized in July, 1628, only one has until now 
 occupied the position for fifty years — Domine Du Bois, 
 who came to this country from Holland in 1699 and who 
 died in 175 1. Of the others seven have been in the service 
 of this church for forty years or more, including three of 
 the colleagues of Dr. Vermilye, Dr. Knox, Dr. DeWitt 
 and our honored and beloved Dr. Chambers. And it is 
 interesting to observe how few such careers, succeeding one 
 another, are needed to carry us back to a time which seems 
 very remote. Six years before Dr. Vermilye was installed 
 in the old Middle Church on Nassau street, Dr. Gerardus 
 Kuypers died. But Dr. Kuypers was himself installed on 
 the Sunday following the day on which General Washing- 
 ton was inaugurated President of the United States. Thus 
 the ministries of these two men, with a gap of only six 
 years between them, cover the whole century of our history 
 as an independent and self-governing nation. In 1789 
 Domine Ritzema was still living, having been summoned 
 from Holland in 1744 as a colleague of Du Bois, who was 
 born in 1666. It is thus easy to believe that the elder of 
 these two men must often have rehearsed to his younger 
 associate his recollections of those stirring times, distant 
 from us by two centuries, when the great revolution in 
 England ended in the accession of the Dutch stadtholder 
 to the throne, and the liberties of both countries were 
 finally secured by the third William of Orange. Measured 
 in this way, how short time seems! And how many 
 momentous events may be covered by a single human life ! 
 
 But it belongs to Dr. Vermilye rather than to me to 
 speak of the changes that he has witnessed. I am rather to 
 say a word of that which has not changed in all these fifty 
 years — the feeling of respect and confidence and affection 
 
l8 COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 which all who have here been associated with him have 
 cherished towards him. Many of them are not here to give 
 utterance to it. Of those who welcomed him at his coming, 
 but few remain ; most of them are fallen asleep. Of his 
 eight colleagues three, whose names are still honored in all 
 this community, Knox, Brownlee and DeWitt, have gone 
 up to receive the reward of their long and eminent ser- 
 vice. The composition of the consistory and the member- 
 ship of the church have almost completely changed as the 
 years have gone forward. Instead of the fathers have come 
 the children, and the children's children, and many who 
 were not "to the manner born" have found in this ancient 
 church their Christian home. But we who are now here are 
 at one with those who have left us in our loving regard for 
 him whose completed half century of labor we celebrate to- 
 night. If we do not ourselves remember it, we know very 
 well with what grace and beauty of person and manner, 
 with what charming melody and fervor of speech, with what 
 strength of Christian conviction, and what fire of Christian 
 enthusiasm he came to his work in this city fifty years ago. 
 We know with what fidelity and persuasiveness and power 
 he has preached the unsearchable riches of Christ, year 
 after year and decade after decade, to great congregations 
 who came to love and honor him, while he taught them to 
 love and honor the Master. We know with what unfailing 
 courtesy and tact, with what tenderness of sympathy and 
 wisdom of counsel he has mingled with those who have 
 always welcomed his presence in their homes as at once 
 their pastor and their friend. Many now present will recall 
 the lofty and animated eloquence with which he maintained 
 the cause of truth and righteousness and national honor in the 
 trying days of the Civil War. And a much larger number of 
 persons than this church could hold are conscious of their in- 
 debtedness to him for religious instruction, consolation and 
 incentive, while they have felt that the consistent beauty of 
 his Christian life was an alluring illustration of the gospel 
 that he preached. It has been an honor and an advantage 
 to the church of which he has now for many years been the 
 
^ FIFTY years' service I9 
 
 Senior Pastor, that he has held so high a social position in 
 this community and has been able and ready to serve in the 
 administration of so many important institutions of philan- 
 thropy and of religion, some of which are represented here 
 this evening, to add their tribute of respect and gratitude to 
 ours. It is a noble and useful career over which he can now 
 look back, with nothing in it to be ashamed of or concealed ; 
 and we all — his colleagues in this ministry, the officers and 
 members of this church, and those who are more or less 
 closely associated with us — have felt the unanimous and 
 hearty desire to mark the fiftieth anniversary of his instal- 
 lation by this service of public recognition and regard. We 
 congratulate him upon that which is past, — upon the work 
 that he has done, upon the well merited honors that he has 
 already received. We rejoice that he is with us still. We 
 pray that, if the Master will, he may yet tarry with us for 
 many years. If we see and hear him less frequently now 
 than a few years ago in our pulpits, we love to see him in 
 our social gatherings, at our Sabbath worship, in our homes 
 and in his own. Whenever we are called to bid farewell to 
 those whom God takes from us, we feel that his words of 
 consolation and hope have a meaning and a power which 
 the words of younger men do not possess. And at the 
 Lord's Table we love to see him ; his presence there is itself 
 a benediction. To me at least the Holy Sacrament, as of- 
 ten as we observe it, seems to lack something if, before we 
 rise, we do not hear his voice, growing more tender and 
 more impressive every year, speaking to us of the love of 
 the dear Lord, whom he has served so long, and who is then 
 so near to him and to us all. At such times I have often 
 thought, as many others, no doubt, have also thought, of the 
 familiar story of the Apostle John, that in his old age, when 
 his active ministry was ended, he used still to meet at times 
 with the church at Ephesus, and with the light of the 
 Master's glory shining on his face, to say to those 
 who were gathered around him, " Little children, love one 
 another." 
 
 Dear friend and father, may God keep you in His love, 
 
20 49 COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 and fulfill to you the promise that at evening time there 
 shall be light — within, around, and above ! 
 
 I SHOULD be strangely lacking in sensibility, hardly 
 fit to be called human, if I could appear in this place 
 on this occasion, without profound emotion. You as- 
 semble to offer your congratulations on the close of a pas- 
 torate of fifty years. First, my grateful acknowledgments 
 I humbly offer to the Angel of the Covenant that has led 
 me and fed me all my life long. Nor can I, nor would I re- 
 frain from returning to the Consistory, the people of the 
 congregation, and to you revered brethren and friends, my 
 heartfelt thanks for this memorable token of kind regard. 
 
 I feel that I have come to a very solemn point in my 
 life's history. The current of thought turns back, not 
 through half a century of years only in this church, but al- 
 most to the hour of my earliest consciousness in this my na- 
 tive city ; — then of small limits, now arraying itself in 
 grandeur, spreading onward and outward, and destined, as 
 it seems, to become the metropolis of the world. The past 
 is again present. Objects then familiar, but now obliter- 
 ated ; forms and faces of relatives and friends long since 
 gone, seem to present themselves as living realities ; echoes 
 rise from the deep solitude of bygone days ; voices seem to 
 come up all around me, saying in tones of solemn admoni- 
 tion "The place whereon thou standest is holy ground." 
 The years have been very swift — startling in the number 
 they have so noiselessly multiplied — and age has come, apt 
 to be burdened with bodily infirmities, to feel abatement of 
 mental vigor, reverses and bereavements, premonitions of 
 final departure. Yet is it not always nor necessarily dark 
 and joyless. Often " at eventide it is light." A Christian 
 spirit softened by time and grace may learn to bow with 
 
FIFTY year's service 21 
 
 sweet submission to a Father's will ; leans lovingly on Jesus' 
 bosom ; stretches out the wings of faith and hope, essaying 
 to rise to better regions and a holier communion. And thus 
 even the hoary head may become a crown of glory. 
 
 At the time when I came to the Collegiate Church in 
 1839 the Old Middle, an antique structure, afterwards the 
 United States Post Oflfice, on Cedar, Nassau, and Liberty 
 streets ; the North, a fine edifice on the corner of Fulton 
 and William Streets; and the new granite church at the 
 corner of Fourth Street and Lafayette Place, were the 
 places of worship. The Consistory Building was at the cor- 
 ner of Nassau and Ann Streets. A large portion of the 
 people lived below Chambers Street and the down town 
 churches had yet large congregations, but the flow had 
 commenced up town which made the new church and an- 
 other minister necessary when I was called to the co-pas- 
 torate. It is a singular historical memory that when it was 
 proposed to build on Lafayette Place the project was met 
 in the Consistory with strenuous opposition, it being said 
 that a congregation could never be gathered in that far-off 
 region. The same thing was true, as I had good reason to 
 know, when the Twenty-ninth Street, and in a measure, 
 when the Forty-eighth Street church was built. So little 
 did old New Yorkers realize the prospective growth of our 
 city and the necessity of church extension. But indeed, 
 what prophetic eye could have foreseen the vast proportions 
 it has attained in fifty years, or the still greater it shall at- 
 tain in the fifty years to come. At once, however, the new 
 Fourth Street church was filled, and soon it was found nec- 
 essary to open a small edifice on Ninth Street, between 
 Broadway and the Bowery, as a chapel of ease. 
 
 The Pastors in 1839 were the Rev. Drs. Knox, Brownlee, 
 and De Witt ; very diverse in their gifts, but all able and 
 faithful men. After Dr. Brownlee was laid aside by paraly- 
 sis, the Rev. Dr. Chambers was called, and subsequently 
 the Rev. Drs. Joseph T. Duryea, James M. Ludlow, and 
 William Ormiston have held the pastorate but have retired 
 to other spheres of labor. I was the last minister installed 
 
22 COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 in the venerable Old Middle church. And it is worthy of 
 remark that the church edifices existing when I became 
 pastor have all disappeared before the advance of trade. 
 The ancient order of rotation in ministerial services has also 
 given place within the last twenty years to separate pastor- 
 ates, the option having been reserved to me of preaching in 
 the churches in rotation on Sabbath mornings. 
 
 A pastorate of fifty years in the same church, to which 
 may be added in my case pleasant and I hope not unprofit- 
 able ministries in Vandewater Street in this city ; in West 
 Springfield, Mass., and in the ancient Dutch church in Al- 
 bany, making about sixty-three years of ministerial service; 
 ■—such a pastorate although unusual in these days of mi- 
 gratory pastorates, in general must present much uniform- 
 ity with little to gratify curiosity. Yet the pastor's diary, 
 prepared in a right spirit, might be very instructive. Minis- 
 ters are often brought into the inmost scenes of individual 
 and domestic life ; into connection with strange and some- 
 times beautiful developments of character ; with exciting 
 experiences religious and irreligious ; with the doubts and 
 the ecstacies, the hopes and the dreads which agitate the 
 human heart. And to be made, in a sense, the physician of 
 souls is an awful trust. Surely he should aim to be refined 
 in feeling, gentle in speech, not brusque nor rough in man- 
 ners, and earnest in piety. Of his public functions in an es- 
 tablished charge, pastoral visitation is prominent; mainly 
 valuable, however, as it must be, conducted in a city like 
 this, in bringing pastor and people into kindly acquaintance 
 and so preparing them for mutual benefit ; him to know 
 their state and wants, them to receive his message with 
 profit. 
 
 With the great increase of population, also, within half a 
 century great changes have taken place in the line of Christ- 
 ian work. It is a day of action. Benevolent societies are 
 to be conducted both in and out of the church ; the poor to 
 be looked after tenderly, visited and ministered unto, and a 
 Christian sagacity used with rich and poor to " compel them 
 to come in." The larger part of these manifold agencies 
 
FIFTY YEARS SERVICE 2$ 
 
 has grown up within fifty years, and all rely upon the pastor 
 for sympathy and active co-operation. 
 
 But the great work of the pastor is to be a teacher 
 " holding forth the word of life." Go, preach the gos- 
 pel, teaching all nations, is His divine commission. " Preach 
 the word," saith Paul. " I am set," saith he "for the de- 
 fence of the gospel." By this must be meant a definite 
 system of truth, entirely distinct from the prevailing philos- 
 ophies and religions. It is styled " the faith " ; things to be 
 believed. The church of God has ever had its fixed faith. 
 It has ever maintained that "holy men of God spake as 
 they were moved by the Holy Ghost." What they gave 
 forth was therefore, in the strictest sense, God's word. 
 They were instructed what to say and how to say it. The 
 scriptures indited by them were divinely inspired and there- 
 fore of absolute authority, all-sufificient for life and doctrine. 
 Less than infallible in the whole and in its parts, it ceases 
 to be God's word. The specific teachings of these scrip- 
 tures have from time to time been formulated into conven- 
 ient creeds, such as the so-called Apostles' Creed, and the 
 creeds of the Reformed Churches ; the Heidelberg Cate- 
 chism, the Thirty-nine Articles of the Protestant Episcopal 
 Church, the Westminster Catechism and Confession, and 
 other Reformed symbols. These all contain one system ; 
 speak substantially one language ; embody the cardinal 
 principles of the New Testament, and thus express " the 
 faith delivered to the saints." Upon the doctrines thus set 
 forth the life of the Church has hung in all ages ; on them its 
 influence and glory depend. As they are kept in the popular 
 mind and affirmed or weakened by the ministry, has the 
 Church put on her beautiful garments, or walked in sack- 
 cloth and depression. Moreover it should be particularly 
 noted that these consentient creeds, formed at different 
 times, in different countries, by men of very diverse culture, 
 must be taken as so many independent testimonies to the 
 divine nature of the communications and of the doctrines 
 which the Bible certainly teaches. The least that can be 
 affirmed is that all these learned and devout men in con- 
 
24 j^ COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 scientious search of truth, in such varying conditions, have 
 ever found the Bible to be such as their creeds declare. Yet 
 this faith of the Church has been received with no easy cre- 
 dulity, but in all times has encountered the keenest exam- 
 ination and the most hostile criticism. Nor this from the 
 ignorant nor profane alone, but notably from science and 
 learning without, and from speculation within its own 
 bosom. 
 
 I have lately re-read Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, 
 valuable for its arrangement and statement of facts and 
 opinions, and particularly useful for its chapters on the 
 heresies and divisions in each century. Never has the faith 
 seemed at rest. No learning or ingenuity, no objection 
 that imagination could invent to modify or overthrow the 
 word and its doctrines, has been wanting ; objectors have 
 reviled ; sects have arisen ; but here it stands stable as the 
 pillared firmament. The Ark has outridden every storm. 
 Amidst the precious relics of the ancient world, the wealth 
 of poetry, eloquence, art, no gift so precious as our Bible 
 has come down the stream of time. Paul met the " opposi- 
 tions of science falsely so-called," but before the simple 
 word preached, the subtleties of the Greek philosophies 
 faded away and believers were multiplied. No learning or 
 sagacity of modern times have excelled the attacks of Por- 
 phyry and Celsus, but they have been long forgotten, while 
 the Bible and the old faith of our creeds lives on and 
 spreads. Who now reads the deistical writers of the last 
 century, able beyond example as they were and determined 
 to banish the blessed Gospel from the earth. But the word 
 of the Lord endureth. Nor was it ever more manifest than 
 at this hour that it has within it " the power of an 
 endless life." The impelling motive of most of these 
 opponents is pride of intellect or hatred of what to 
 us appears to be as much a dictate of reason as a 
 doctrine of revelation, to wit, that the Supreme Ruler 
 must be held "to do his pleasure in the armies of heaven 
 and among the inhabitants of the earth." That by a won- 
 derful combination "justice and judgment are the habi- 
 
FIFTY YEARS' SERVICE 2$ 
 
 tation of his throne, while mercy and truth go before his 
 face." Hence the awful doctrine of absolute sovereignty, 
 wherever it appears, is resented in seeming forgetfulness 
 that there are awful facts in God's daily providence which 
 are seen and felt, and can be neither disputed nor resisted. 
 The secret spirit of much objection and of some sects, is 
 undoubtedly a wish to modify or exclude this principle in 
 its far-reaching relations. Yet glorious sovereignty and 
 boundless love go hand in hand in the government of the 
 world, and in the scheme of gospel truth. 
 
 The last fifty years, and indeed the last century, have 
 been marked with uncommon mental activity and boldness in 
 various departments of learning. New discoveries in science 
 as is claimed, and new theories have as usual been brought 
 into sharp antagonism with the Bible and the truths which 
 shine on its pages as if written with a sunbeam. Perhaps 
 the most formidable attack upon our faith ever made from 
 this quarter is now in progress. But the bearing of the al- 
 leged facts and their relations to revealed truth are yet 
 under discussion, and in the contest unbelief may not yet 
 exult. When we consider the past history of mental and 
 even of physical science : the limits of human reason ; the 
 natural ardor and positiveness of inventors and discoverers 
 how often what was yesterday received as demonstration is 
 modified or rejected to-day ; and how apparently irreconcil- 
 able diversities have by fuller knowledge been harmonized ; 
 modesty and reserve are seen to be a prime requirement in 
 all human investigations. Nor do we doubt, since all truth 
 is one, that what is proved true in the claims of modern 
 science will in the end be found in full accord with the prin- 
 ciples the Christian Church has always gathered from Holy 
 Writ. The consonance of its doctrines with the wants of 
 the soul, and its entire history, forbid us to fear. 
 
 Within the Church, also, various imagined improvements 
 have appeared. Of this class are the Future Probation 
 theory and the Higher Criticism. These are not new. For 
 a large part they are pure speculation ; and a logical mind 
 will perceive that they are on lines of thought which, if 
 
26 S COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 severely pursued, will lead into most objectionable posi- 
 tions ; — the former into Universalism, and the latter even 
 into simple Deism. 
 
 Another insidious opponent to the received faith of the 
 Church, and a boasted substitute for it, appears in a popu- 
 lar humanitarianism. Law and sin ; ruin in Adam and 
 recovery only by the atonement of Jesus the crucified; the 
 soul-renewing Spirit and the eternal Judgment are themes 
 little regarded ; — indeed, in reality disrelished. And Paul's 
 expositions of the Christian verities are unsavory. Man 
 and his relations to this life are mainly considered ; the vir- 
 tuous play of the amiable instincts of nature and personal 
 well-being here, will be a sure passport to a divine reward 
 hereafter. This scheme can hardly be said to have been 
 congested into a system or a separate sect, but is diffused 
 through several, where it finds a congenial home. And yet 
 mere philanthropy, though admirable in its sphere, is in no 
 proper sense a religion, — a binding the soul back to God. 
 In truth, if it rise not from the sure foundation Jesus Christ, 
 it is little better than disguised paganism. And pagan 
 morality, however refined, however exquisitely set forth in 
 forms of beautiful speech, never had the power to curb and 
 purge the wild passions of the soul or to renovate the 
 domestic and social conditions, and was a failure even for 
 this world. Seneca's morals, written amidst the highest re- 
 finements of the highest classes in imperial Rome, but in 
 the most corrupt state of society the civilized world proba- 
 bly ever saw, had no influence upon his age, scarcely upon 
 himself. Man is immortal ! Man is accountable ! And no 
 scheme of mere moral teaching has ever yet had power to 
 invigorate conscience to its awful functions and steady the 
 faltering footsteps of earth's wayward pilgrims, or answer 
 the fearful question " Wherewith shall I come before the 
 Lord." The blood of Christ alone can give light, peace, 
 assurance, " the joy unspeakable and full of glory." Not 
 human virtue but a divine daysman must be its strength. 
 And this modern philanthropy for religion, without convic- 
 tion of sin, without spiritual conversion, without an atoning 
 
FIFTY YEARS' SERVICE 27 
 
 Saviour, is as cold and deathlike as the vicinage of the 
 grave. 
 
 These are some of the existing issues and thus through- 
 out her history the Church and her faith, according to 
 prediction, have been in constant conflict yet evermore 
 victorious. Her ministry still proclaims those pregnant 
 truths which have ever given peace and hope to men ; 
 which gave new life to the world amidst the ruins of falling 
 empire and an effete idolatry; and her bow still abides in 
 strength. We have heard much of " Progressive Christian- 
 ity " and the " Church of the future." That there may be 
 variations of form, and that there will be a fresh outpouring 
 of the Spirit, is to be expected. But if it is intended that 
 men shall ever get beyond the Bible or its peculiar doctrines 
 as summarized in our catechisms and creeds ; shall reach 
 something higher, holier, more sublime ; — it is a pretense 
 fraudulent and delusive. These truths were given not for 
 a race or an age, but for all times and all people. Their 
 message is to man; the same to the Jew and the Gentile, 
 the learned and the savage. The old teachings contained 
 within the covers of our Bible and the ordinances of the 
 New Testament Church are sufficient and perpetual. 
 
 The earth moves, indeed ; it is in one constant flow, but 
 there are things upon it that never change. The grand 
 Pyramid has loomed upon the desert for ages past and will 
 continue until the final consummation. So the Church 
 which is the pillar and ground of the truth is monumental 
 and imperishable. The sacred Book it is commissioned to 
 guard and diffuse to all nations ; its ministry which has lived 
 in succession hitherto and with which the Saviour has 
 promised to abide until the end of the world ; its appointed 
 ordinances ; — these shall never be lost and can never change. 
 They are God's ordained means to gather his elect from the 
 ruins of the fall, and they will stand while there is a sinner 
 to be saved by grace or a saint to be sanctified and speeded 
 on his way ; while the earth remaineth and until the light 
 that burns in yonder sky goes out and ancient darkness 
 comes again. Nor then shall his glorious Gospel have 
 
28 ^ COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 failed. But the Church in the wilderness shall pass to the 
 Church of the first-born in heaven ; and to the redeemed 
 throng of " numbers without number," justified in the name 
 of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God, shall be 
 thrown wide the celestial gates "on golden hinges turning." 
 These will be the trophies of divine wisdom and power and 
 love for which the earth was upreared and rolled out its 
 ages ; in which the great problems of moral agency and 
 predetermination, of providence, of sin, and of redemption, 
 were wrought out and forever solved, and sovereign wis- 
 dom and love have triumphed. " And the ransomed of the 
 Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs and ever- 
 lasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and 
 gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." 
 
 That we may all come to that blissful re-union is the 
 Pastor's fervent prayer. 
 
 At the conclusion of Dr. Vermilye's remarks all joined in the singing 
 of Hymn No, 557, " Glorious things of Thee are Spoken, " 
 
 (" Austria ") J. F. Haydn. 
 
 After which the chairman said : — " When the Rev. Dr. Morgan Dix was 
 invited to be present and speak on this occasion, he consented in a 
 very cordial and graceful letter. The reason why he is not here 
 will appear by the following letter, which I will read : — " 
 
 Trinity Rectory, October 29th, 1889. 
 
 " Dear Dr. Chambers : — I regret very sincerely that I 
 cannot be with you this evening, but I am suffering from a 
 heavy cold, and my physician forbids me to go out at 
 night. 
 
 " When you invited me to the Commemorative Service 
 about to be held, you asked me to say a few words on the 
 occasion. If I had been present I should have complied 
 literally with your request ; as it is, I shall write what I in- 
 tended to say. 
 
 " It gives me great pleasure to add my voice to those 
 which now do honour to the venerable and eminent Senior 
 Minister of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church in the 
 City of New York. Dr. Vermilye and I have been for 
 
FIFTY YEARS' SERVICE 29 
 
 nearly thirty years co-workers in the Board of Trustees of 
 the Leake and Watts Orphan House, It is one of those 
 Boards, which are composed of ex-ofificio members, and it 
 has the happy effect of bringing together clergymen who 
 otherwise might not have had an opportunity of working side 
 by side. As a member of these Boards, I have had the ad- 
 vantage of knowing many eminent men ; Dr. Phillips, of 
 the First Presbyterian Church, Dr. Paxton, his successor, 
 and my young friend and brother, Mr. Harlan. Thus also 
 I became intimately acquainted with that most excellent 
 man, the Rev. Dr. De Witt, whom to know was to love ; 
 and thus were Dr. Vermilye and I brought together. 
 
 " I have observed him attentively for many years, and 
 have come to respect, to honour, to admire, and to hold him 
 in affectionate regard. He seems to me to fill the measure 
 of a good man ; a simple-hearted and sincere Christian, al- 
 ways deeply interested in his work ; ever courteous and re- 
 fined ; bright, cheerful, cordial, scholarly, able in speech, 
 adorning his conspicuous position. His interest in the lit- 
 tle orphan children has been constant and touching, as be- 
 came a faithful guardian of their interests. 
 
 " It gives me pleasure to think how often he has ex- 
 pressed his admiration for that branch of the church to 
 which I belong. Again and again have I seen him in my 
 parish church on Ascension Day ; indeed we used to look 
 for him there as a matter of course. You may, perhaps, re- 
 member what the good Doctor said at the Quarter-Millennial 
 Anniversary in 1878. He praised us highly ; but went on 
 to add, with a certain quiet humor, that, in his opinion, the 
 reason why the Episcopal Church is so flourishing and 
 prosperous, is this ; that it has absorbed so many of the 
 Dutch Reformed communion. Let me retort on my friend, 
 and add that, if we had known each other earlier, and if he had 
 been then in his present favorable disposition toward us, I 
 should have endeavoured to persuade him to follow a good 
 example and to reinforce and aid us still further in his own 
 person. 
 
 " But I do not grudge you this great ornament of your 
 
30 COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 body ; on the contrary, I congratulate you on the lustre 
 which he has cast on you, and on the honour which has 
 come to you from that admirable character, that spotless 
 name, and the record of half a century of true and laudable 
 service now happily complete. 
 
 " As for himself, I have only this to add. The time is 
 short, the hour cannot be far distant at which the earthly 
 tie must be broken, and he shall see man no more with the 
 inhabitants of the world. Let not this be called a falling of 
 the shadows, an oncoming of nocturnal stillness. Nay, but 
 these last days of the earthly life of our venerabie and be- 
 loved friend are the beginning of the dawn, the approach of 
 the day. For him it is the night which is far spent, the day 
 which is at hand. For him the skies are brightening with 
 the approach of the morning of the Kingdom of Heaven. 
 God bless him and keep him, and make him to be numbered 
 with the saints in glory everlasting ! And may we be 
 strengthened by his example, and, like him, be enabled to 
 stand firm in our lot to the end of the days and to finish 
 our course with joy. I remain, My dear Doctor, 
 
 " Very truly yours, 
 " Morgan Dix." 
 
 To this may be added a letter from the Right Reverend Henry C. 
 Potter, who, in Hke manner, had courteously and with a great 
 manifestation of interest, welcomed the invitation which was given 
 him to attend. 
 
 " Diocesan House, 29 Lafayette Place. 
 
 "New York, Oct. 28th, 1889. 
 
 •' My Dear Dr. Chambers : — When I wrote you last, I 
 saw no obstacle that I could not remove, to my presence 
 with you to-morrow evening. But an imperative engage- 
 ment, which I cannot postpone, takes me out of town, and 
 thus deprives me of what would have been a very great 
 pleasure. 
 
 " It is my honorable privilege to serve with Dr. Vermilye, 
 as his junior, in the joint Chaplaincy of the St. Nicholas 
 Society, and it has been my pride for many years to reckon 
 
FIFTY YEARS' SERVICE 31 
 
 him as among my most dear and honored friends, as he was 
 that of my venerable predecessor in the Episcopate of this 
 Diocese. I well remember when St. Thomas Church was 
 opened, seeing Dr. Vermilye advance to the Chancel rail to 
 receive the Holy Communion, and no one who recalls that 
 scene will forget the tender eagerness with which the late 
 Bishop of New York at once came forward to claim for him- 
 self the privilege of administering to his cherished and life- 
 long friend. My own friendship is thus a sacred inherit- 
 ance. All honor to him, " Clarum et venerabile nomen,'' 
 whom all who know and love him would delight to-night to 
 greet. In behalf of those of them who are absent I send 
 this message of grateful homage and regard. 
 
 " And I am dear Dr. Chambers, 
 
 " Very Faithfully yours, 
 
 " H. C. Potter." 
 
 The Chairman Continued — 
 
 We are fortunate to have the presence of him to whom Dr. Dix refers as 
 his "young friend and brother" the Rev. Richard D. Harlan, who 
 is now the minister of the First Presbyterian Church of New York, 
 the oldest of that honored name in this city ; and he will speak 
 to us on the present occasion. 
 
 FATHERS AND BRETHREN: 
 
 AS we are met together to offer our thanksgiving to the 
 Head of the Church for the fifty years' service which 
 this reverend father in God has been permitted to 
 give to one branch of the Catholic Church, and to bring our 
 heartfelt congratulations to him upon the advent of this 
 jubilee year, I think it is fitting that we should at the same 
 time be reminded of the great age of that historic church 
 of which he is so honored a minister. 
 
32 COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 I regret exceedingly that Dr, Dix is not present this 
 evening. Were he here, I know that he would join with 
 me, as the representatives of our respective denominations, 
 in admitting that, in comparison with the Reformed Church 
 on Manhattan Island, we Episcopalians and Presbyterians 
 are all of us schismatics. The facts are these : the sturdy 
 Dutch forefathers planted their first, this Collegiate Church, 
 within the town of New Amsterdam in the year of Our Lord 
 1628 ; old Trinity was not founded until sixty-six years after- 
 ward, in 1696, while the church of which I have the honor to 
 be the minister, is by eighty-three years the junior of the Col- 
 legiate Church, not being organized until 171 1. So that we 
 may as well frankly admit to you, our brethren of the Dutch 
 Church, that you are the Established Church of New York, 
 while Dr. Dix and I, together with all our colleagues of the 
 Presbyterian and Episcopal order, are dissenters. Therefore. 
 in bringing our congratulations to this reverend bishop of so 
 ancient a church, fairly hoary with age for our youthful re- 
 public, we feel (and I speak for Dr. Dix as well as myself), as if 
 we ought to offer some kind of an apology for this high-handed 
 act of what we Churchmen know as territorial schism. 
 However, I am sure that our reverend father will not ask 
 for such an apology ; for he knows well that there is room 
 and to spare, for all of us, each to do our own God-given 
 and peculiar work in this many sided population. If I may 
 be permitted to use a phrase which is no longer correct or 
 descriptive, I would say that we aim not to make Dutch- 
 men, nor Episcopalians, nor even Presbyterians, but to 
 make Christians, to enroll at our respective recruiting sta- 
 tions, volunteers for life-long service as soldiers of Jesus 
 Christ. In a spirit of generous emulation which does 
 not run into petty sectarian rivalry, in a spirit of mutual 
 and proper preference each for his own church, which does 
 not exalt or rather contract itself into exclusiveness, we 
 labor side by side in this great metropolis, which so throbs 
 with life and teems with problems. We feel the bondage 
 of the same sin ; we are heralds of the same glad tidings 
 of God's love to men ; we are children of the one common 
 
FIFTY YEARS' SERVICE 33 
 
 Father : we love and serve the one Great Redeemer ; we 
 cling to the same cross ; we point the weary feet of men to 
 the same Heavenly Father's house. I once heard an aged 
 saint say that we Christians are very much like the spokes 
 of a wheel, the nearer we get to the centre the nearer we 
 come to one another. And I think it is one of the jubilant 
 signs of the times, a sign which is most vividly recalled to 
 us on such an occasion as this, with its many catholic 
 features, to observe the way in which all who profess and 
 call themselves Christians are hastening toward the day 
 when we shall all live together in the unity of the Spirit, in 
 the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life. 
 
 And as I am on the edge of this burning question which 
 throbs at the heart of all Christendom, one fact occurs 
 to me which it gives me peculiar pleasure as a minister of 
 the Presbyterian order, to give utterance to, an incident 
 which I believe has not yet been noticed, and which for the 
 very reason that it has been forgotten or lost sight of as a 
 matter of no vital importance (and it certainly is not re- 
 membered with any unchristian or jealous feeling on the 
 part of the church that I represent), shows how low the 
 walls are between us and how we pass and re-pass without 
 friction. I refer to the fact that Dr. Vermilye was reared as 
 a Presbyterian and was first ordained as a minister of that 
 body ; but early in his career, finding that he could serve his 
 Divine Master better in the communion of the Reformed 
 Church, transferred his membership to you and was enrolled 
 as a minister of the Classis of Albany. As a matter of 
 history I understand that he is the oldest living licentiate 
 of the New York Presbytery. We reared and trained him for 
 you, and these fifty years of faithful service are a sufficient 
 proof of the soundness and efficient thoroughness of that 
 training. Therefore we Presbyterians claim a peculiar 
 right to participate in these ceremonies, and we take a 
 peculiar pleasure in bringing our congratulations upon this 
 auspicious semi-centennial occasion. 
 
 I need not refer at length to Dr. Vermilye's services in 
 the Board of Trustees of the Leake and Watts Orphan 
 
34 COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 House ; that has been already touched upon by my 
 colleague Dr. Dix. For three and a half years during my 
 ministry in New York, by reason of my official association 
 with the Senior Minister of the Collegiate Church in the 
 management of that beautiful charity, I have had the 
 privilege of knowing Dr. Vermilye personally ; and very 
 vivid to the memory will always be the picture of him as he 
 participated in the meetings of the Board or was an 
 interested spectator of the children's performances at the 
 annual commencements at the Orphan House — his face 
 beaming with placid benignity, writ in large fair characters 
 in every lineament of his countenance, his very presence a 
 benediction. May that presence remain with us and with 
 you, many years : and may the Lord lift up the light of His 
 countenance upon him, and give him His everlasting peace, 
 until that day when he shall be gathered as a full shock of 
 corn into the heavenly garner. 
 
 The Chairman then said : — Before we sing, as marked on the pro- 
 gramme, I will call the attention of the congregation to the beautiful 
 basket of flowers on my right hand, which comes from the trustees 
 and officers and children of the Leake, and Watts Orphan House, in 
 testimony of their respect and affection for one who has served them 
 so long and so faithfully. 
 
 The Magnificat in A. (J. Stainer) was then sung, after which the 
 Chairman said : I have the pleasure of introducing to the audience 
 Hon. Enoch L. Fancher, President of The American Bible Soci- 
 ety, who on this occasion will represent not only that great national 
 institution, of which he is the honored President, but that eminent 
 body of active and enterprising Christians known as the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church. 
 
 €^t (^iinse of t^i l^on* <Bnoc^ £♦ 
 
 I ESTEEM it a privilege to be present on this occasion 
 of joyful congratulation to a distinguished servant of 
 the Church, and to bring to him the felicitations of 
 the officers and managers of the American Bible Society. 
 
FIFTY YEARS SERVICE 
 
 35 
 
 We certainly must all believe that it is a high distinction 
 [to have attained the completion of such service as he has 
 [performed for the last fifty years. Now, v^eighted with 
 honor, surrounded by admiring friends, and blessed with the 
 memories of so long a service as fifty years, he certainly must 
 [look back upon his pathway with gratitude to God and 
 [with gladness of heart. He occupies a permanent place in 
 the high regard of his church and of this community. His 
 associate pastors and many other Christian ministers and 
 friends, friends in the laity as well, rejoice to honor him and 
 Ito proffer him their congratulations. Among those rejoic- 
 fing friends, the officers and managers of the American Bible 
 [Society are glad to appear. They do not forget that Dr. 
 jVermilye, before he was called to the sacred ministry, while 
 ret, I believe, a student of law, was a witness to the forma- 
 tion of the American Bible Society in one of the rooms of 
 the City Hall of this City. And since his consecration to 
 the sacred ministry he has been an efficient advocate of its 
 :ause ; for a long, long time, a member of its most important 
 'ommittee, on " Revision," during which time the labori- 
 )us work was performed of preparing a revised edition of 
 the sacred book ; and since that time he has rendered effi- 
 :ient aid to the Society in the deliberations of its Board of 
 [anagers. The records of eternity must be unrolled be- 
 fore it can be known how many, how very many, souls have 
 >een lighted by the wisdom of the Divine Word through 
 ie instrumentality of the honored guest of this evening, 
 bring from the American Bible Society its chaplet of ac- 
 mowledgment and honor, to place lovingly upon the brow 
 )f so distinguished a champion of its cause ; and it does 
 lot need the partiality of personal acquaintance to convey 
 lis wreath with the loftiest encomium for Dr. Vermilye's 
 irvices as a friend of every good cause in this City, and as a 
 iristian minister his history is perfectly familiar to all of 
 His associates of the Collegiate Church, and many 
 [Ihristian brethren both of the clergy and laity, proclaim his 
 iraise ; while the record of his fifty years' pastoral work in 
 
36 COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 one of the noblest church organizations in New York adds 
 lustre to his name. 
 
 What affectionate interests gather around the commem- 
 oration of this event ! A saintly minister, a faithful pastor, 
 a popular preacher, and sound theologian, of whose good- 
 ness and qualifications his lengthened service and his en- 
 deared relations to his church, to the Bible and other benev- 
 olent causes, testify, and who has been for so many years 
 recognized as a peer among that brilliant galaxy of Chris- 
 tian ministers of the Reformed Dutch Church of America, 
 receives to-night the acclamations and the plaudits of his 
 brethren and friends as he completes the half century of his 
 blessed work. It is certainly but the performance of a 
 proper, as well as a pleasant duty, to hail him as the suc- 
 cessful champion and to lift the acclaim, " Servant of God, 
 well done! " 
 
 Several of the temples in which he has ministered stand 
 as bulwarks strong, their spires pointing to the skies : but 
 they are not more conspicuous nor permanent than the un- 
 dying influence of the work of him whom we are met to 
 honor. 
 
 In our busy City, where human lives for a large part are 
 mingled with hopes disappointed and aims unattained, and 
 when the best endeavors are defeated by a thousand mischan- 
 ces, it seems more like a fancied fable than a real fact, that one 
 who while connected with a single church organization has 
 attained the " consummation so devoutly to be wished," as 
 a completion of a half century of efficient work, uninter- 
 rupted by any lapse or disappointment ; and in contem- 
 plating such success we must believe that some native force 
 of character, some peculiar cultivation of temperament, 
 some unusual physical and intellectual endowments, and 
 some singular impartation of divine grace have contributed 
 to the felicitous result. 
 
 And how is the coveted grandeur of mere wordly dis- 
 tinctions rebuked and brought into littleness as we con- 
 template such a useful and well-spent service of fifty years! 
 Such a long term of benevolent usefulness has a vibration 
 
FIFTY YEARS' SERVICE 
 
 37 
 
 beyond the limits of the church and congregations in 
 
 jich it was rendered, for its widening circles reach the 
 
 imunity at large and its influence does not terminate 
 
 its end ; it rolls on like a tide without an ebb. 
 [I would avoid any officious familiarity toward one of so 
 a position and high attainments as those of Dr. 
 lilye, and yet I am constrained for one moment to 
 to some incidents relating to his early appearance in 
 pulpits of the Collegiate Church. About the time that 
 iras called as an associate pastor of the Collegiate Church, 
 le to the City of New York and entered upon the study 
 le law. Being a stranger here, I inquired where I might 
 the great preachers, I was directed to a church, — the 
 th Dutch Church I think it was called, — situate on the 
 ler of Fulton and William Streets. And going there, I 
 sermons, several of them from those masters of pulpit 
 )ry and power, the Rev. Drs. Brownlee and DeWitt. 
 former preached some sermons in which he assailed 
 ; infidel literature of the time, with strong argument and 
 :tive : and the latter rolled along like a hero in his tri- 
 >hal chariot, an adept in theology and pulpit power, 
 of those great men were celebrities in their day and 
 well considered God-anointed kings of thought. And 
 I heard that an associate pastor had been called to the 
 it of the Collegiate Church, I formed an idea — a mis- 
 idea it was — that he would fall below the high standard 
 )pularity raised by his predecessors. But when I had 
 the new preacher, to whom so many young persons 
 at that time attracted, I saw that he held no second 
 in the estimation of his auditors nor in the power of his 
 ion as a colleague and peer among princes of the pulpit, 
 predecessors were a Paul in argument and a Cephas in 
 ;r, he seemed to be an Apollos of finished utterance, 
 every delicacy of speech and grace of harmony was 
 impressive by a voice of silver tone and a countenance 
 beamed like a benediction 
 
 lere hung against the upper ceiling high over the pul- 
 [an escutcheon with the device " Dando Conservat," 
 
38 COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 which to my youthful sense at first seemed very paradoxical, 
 for I thought how can one save by giving? The device, no 
 doubt, had reference to the benevolent donor of property to 
 the church ; and it seems to me it is quite appropriate to 
 borrow its sentiment for this occasion. 
 
 Here present with us is one who has for fifty years 
 given his time, his talents, his pastoral and benevolent labor, 
 and, so to speak, his all, for the advancement of the Bible 
 cause and of every other good cause, and for the further- 
 ance of the glorious gospel of the Blessed God. And must 
 we not say " conservat," " He saves " ? Saves the happy 
 memories of many useful years, the serene satisfaction of 
 labors well bestowed, the admiring appreciation of 
 cordial friends, and the blissful hope of future good, a hope 
 all intense and bright with the forevisions of the blessed 
 Land. No life has a grander history than that of such a 
 Christian minister: he has been teacher, consoler and bene- 
 factor. The excellency of dignity and the excellency of 
 honor pertain to him ; he has feared God and known no 
 other fear, and by precept and example has allured to 
 brighter worlds and leads the way. 
 
 Before I take my seat, as Dr. Chambers has said, I rep- 
 resent the Methodist Episcopal Church as well as the 
 American Bible Society, I desire to offer a word of criti- 
 cism on something that fell from the lips of our esteemed 
 friend, Mr. Harlan. The first Church that was organized in 
 this country was the Methodist Episcopal Church : and that 
 is the established church, if you must go back to the history 
 of organization to find a definition of that word. * 
 
 * The playful reference of Judge Fancher was to the fact that the other churches 
 mentioned had been organized in the Colonial period, whereas the M. E. Church had 
 its formal beginning just after the States became a nation. 
 
 He says : " It is not meant by this that other churches did not exist here — the 
 Dutch Church had a long antecedent existence. Stevens, Vol. i, p. 269, says in his 
 History: American Methodism ' virtually became independent at the breaking-out 
 of the ' (Revolutionary) ' war, and the Constitution which organized it into the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church was to be adopted in about one year after the treaty 
 of peace with Great Britain, and to precede the adoption of the Federal Consti-' 
 tution by about five years. The new church was to be the first religious body of 
 the country which should recognize in its organic law, by a solemn declaration of 
 
FIFTY YEARS SERVICE 39 
 
 The Chairman then said : Before announcing the last speaker, I wish to 
 relate an incident suggested by something that Judge Fancher has 
 remarked. About five and twenty years ago I was called to see a 
 man in middle life who was attacked with a mortal disease. He was 
 not a confessed disciple of Christ, and in conversation I remember 
 to have asked him if he had any doubts about the Christian religion 
 or any scruples respecting the divine origin of the Bible. The 
 answer was this : — " I had them once but on a certain occasion I 
 heard a sermon form Dr. Vermilye on the purity of the Bible, and I 
 have never had a doubt since." This sermon was one of a series 
 delivered by distinguished ministers of our City at the request of the 
 American Bible Society in commemoration of their Jubilee, which 
 occurred in 1866, and the testimony thus given is I think indubitable 
 and clear, to the convincing force and persuasiveness of the dis- 
 course then delivered. 
 
 We shall now be addressed by Dr. MERRILL E. Gates, the Presi- 
 dent of Rutgers College, who will come to us not only as represen- 
 ting that venerable literary institution of which he is the head, but 
 as speaking for the general interests of sound learning and a liberal 
 education, of which my venerable colleague was always an earnest 
 friend and advocate. 
 
 @ibte00 of {pUBxitnt (Baf^0+ 
 
 IT is with especial pleasure that I bring from Rutgers 
 College, where the life-tide of strong young manhood 
 flows full and deep, a message of congratulation to the 
 venerable scholar whose ripe, old age we honor to-night, 
 since 1849 ^ trustee of that College, and for some years now, 
 the senior member of its Board of Trustees. 
 
 I have often felt, my friends, and never more deeply than 
 to-night, that we need in our church-life a form of religious 
 festival for Christian old age, that shall be the counterpart 
 of the joyous christening we give our children. To com- 
 plete the connected view of our '* covenant theology," as 
 it works itself out in the history of a Christian life on the 
 earth, the Church needs some grateful recognition of the rip- 
 ened graces and consummated blessings of a serene Chris- 
 its Articles of Religion, the new Republic ; the first to pay hotaage, in the persons 
 of its chief representatives, its first bishops, to the Supreme Magistracy.' " 
 
40 COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 tian old age. And it might be well at times to make this 
 recognition as joyous and as public as is the christening. 
 Why should all public garnering of the rich lessons from a 
 long Christian life, be confined to those funeral occasions 
 when the perception of the blessings God has given in such 
 a life, is dimmed and chastened by the sense of bereave- 
 ment and loss? 
 
 The wealth of hopes that centre about the young life, as 
 it is brought into God's house for baptism, and by the par- 
 ents' faith has its infant feet set in the pathway of cove- 
 nanted mercies, are in part hopes for this temporal life, and 
 in part hopes that take hold on eternity. Often in God's 
 dealing with us, the young life is withdrawn into a higher 
 life, before these hopes for usefulness on earth have reached 
 fruition. With that rich prodigality of life that marks its 
 initial stages everywhere, many of the fairest spring blos- 
 soms fall before the fruit is set. 
 
 But when the life on this earth is rounded out to gener- 
 ous completion ; when the dangers that beset childhood, the 
 temptations that surround youth, the burdens that are laid 
 on mature manhood, and the storms and trials that beset the 
 way through all the allotted three score years and ten, are 
 passed, and safely and triumphantly passed ; when the ac- 
 tive years have been filled with usefulness, with broad 
 scholarly interests and practical Christian helpfulness ; when 
 the voyage of life has brought one to the serene, placid ex- 
 panse of an evening-lake, protected from storms, and lighted 
 up and glorified by the full beams from a western sky that 
 opens into Heaven ; when a Christian life thus blessed has 
 securely reached an anniversary as significant as is the one 
 we commemorate to-night, we do well to observe the day 
 with especial joy and Christian cheerfulness. And our 
 Dutch Church, always tenderly human-hearted in its recog- 
 nition of the individual life of the believer, starting in its 
 favorite catechism with the individual believer's " only com- 
 fort in life and death," and in its liturgy and in its doctrines 
 pulsing with the heart-beats of a human life touched by the 
 divine life of Christ, is led most naturally to come to God's 
 
FIFTY YEARS SERVICE 4I 
 
 house to-night, to render grateful recognition to a Father 
 Whose hand has guided, and Whose love has blessed this 
 long and honorable life. 
 
 It is a spirit too circumspect and over-fearful that 
 breathes in the shrewd warning " call no man happy until 
 death is passed." For Christians, children of a King Who 
 giveth grace and strength, there is a fuller confidence, a 
 more rationally hopeful view of life. While we reverently 
 acknowledge that all the strength and grace which upholds 
 men among temptations from within and without, is given 
 from God, yet we have such entire confidence in his prom- 
 ises that we dare believe that His grace will not fail one 
 who in youth accepted its " covenanted securities," who has 
 worked in its strength through many years, and who now 
 " leans upon the arm of his Beloved," as the vital forces of 
 the body fail, and leave the life of the soul more engross- 
 ingly real. Such an one as our venerated friend, we dare to 
 pronounce most happy, even before the last chapter of his 
 earthly life is written. For death cannot touch those treas- 
 ures of experience and faith that the aged Christian has laid 
 up, there where his heart is ! 
 
 And there is a precious experience of Christian faith 
 which we do well to cherish and rely upon, which reminds 
 us all, even in the careless years of youth and the hurrying 
 years of active burden-bearing in later life, that an Eternal 
 Omnipotent Energy is pledged to carry forward the work 
 of grace in every life that is " born of God, by faith in the 
 Lord Jesus Christ." Like the swell of the eternal sea-voice 
 in the night-silences to all dwellers on the shore, there rolls 
 in upon us again and again the assuring voice of Him whose 
 word cannot be broken, "This is the will of God, even your 
 sanctification." And what can defeat His holy will? 
 
 With full assurance, then, we call our friend most happy, 
 fiaxdptoz, blessed, whatever else life may have in store for 
 him. 
 
 The services were closed with the Doxology, after which a benediction 
 was pronounced by the Rev. Roderick Terry, D.D., Pastor of 
 the South Reformed Church. 
 
THE following appropriate and touching discourse, sug- 
 gested by the Commemorative Service, was delivered 
 by Doctor Coe in the Church at Fifth Avenue and 
 Forty-eighth Street, on Sunday morning, November lo, 
 1889, and is here appended by direction of the Consistory. 
 
©n (Btoxoing ©£&♦ 
 
 A SERMON BY THE REV. EDWARD B. COE. D.D. 
 
 It shall come to pass that at evening time there shall be light. — Zechariah 
 xiv., 7. 
 
 MANY of you were doubtless present at the service 
 which was held in this place a few evenings since, 
 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the installa- 
 tion of our beloved and honored senior Pastor. It was cer- 
 tainly fitting that an event so unusual as the accomplishment 
 of a pastorate of fifty years' duration in the service of the 
 same church and of a career of over sixty years in the min- 
 istry of the Gospel should receive this public and grateful 
 recognition. The service was, I think, worthy of the occasion. 
 It was a peculiar pleasure to us who worship here thus to 
 express our respect and afTection for the dear and venerable 
 man, whose benignant and beautiful presence we always 
 love to see among us. The words that were spoken by 
 those who represented other branches of the Church and 
 important institutions of religion and philanthropy were 
 a hearty and well merited tribute to one of so catholic a 
 spirit and of such wide and varied usefulness. And a still 
 more impressive and memorable tribute was paid to him 
 by the presence of so large and distinguished a company, 
 representing our own denomination and many others, 
 representing various institutions and organizations, and the 
 Christian public of this and other cities, uniting in a 
 demonstration of respect and esteem for one whose long 
 life has been spent in the service of God and of his fel- 
 low-men. It was a noble and in all respects a suitable 
 ovation to our honored Father and Friend. 
 
46 COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 It may have caught the attention of some of those who 
 were then present that the words which I have read as 
 the text for this morning were quoted in two of the ad- 
 dresses that were made on that occasion : " At evening 
 time there shall be light." They seem to be peculiarly 
 appropriate to a serene Christian old age, like that of 
 which we then had before us so striking and so charming 
 an example. And now it is of such an old age and the 
 way to attain it, that I want to speak this morning, and I 
 therefore recall again to your minds these ancient words 
 which are so beautifully descriptive of it. 
 
 It is true that in the connection in which they are found 
 they have nothing to do with old age. They form part of 
 a highly poetic and somewhat obscure prophecy of the final 
 deliverance and triumph of the Church of God. The time 
 will come, the prophet says, when the people of God shall 
 no longer be shut up in Jerusalem, but the Mount of Olives 
 shall be cleft in twain, half of it shall be removed toward 
 the north and half toward the south, and through it shall be 
 opened " a very great valley " by which they shall go forth 
 to the ends of the earth; two perpetual streams of living 
 water shall flow forth from the Holy City toward the east and 
 the west ; the whole land shall be leveled that the mountain 
 of the Lord's house may be exalted ; and the Lord shall be 
 king over all the earth. And the day when all this shall 
 come to pass shall be no ordinary day. " The light shall 
 not be with brightness and with gloom " — with the ordinary 
 succession of morning and evening ; but " the day shall be 
 one''^ — unique in the history of the world ; " which is known 
 unto the Lord," and to Him alone; "not day and not 
 night," but something different from either ; " and it shall 
 come to pass that at evening time," when in the usual 
 course of nature darkness should set in, " there shall be 
 light." In this ornate and splendid imagery the prophet 
 portrays the ultimate triumph of Messiah's Kingdom, for 
 which, like him, we still hope and wait. But this last trait 
 of his inspired description has been many times fulfilled in 
 the personal experience of God's people, as well as in the 
 
FIFTY YEARS SERVICE 47 
 
 history of the Church. It has been light at eventide. At 
 the moment when it seemed as if overwhelming disaster 
 was imminent, and the end of all things was near at hand, 
 there has suddenly come unexpected deliverance. So it was 
 with Abraham, when the altar was built, and the fire laid, 
 and the knife lifted to slay his son. Not till then did God 
 provide the lamb for a burnt-offering. So it was with his 
 descendants in the land of their oppression, deliverance 
 coming only when the utmost extremity of suffering had 
 been reached, so that the saying became a proverb, " When 
 the straw fails then comes Moses." So when the Lord 
 knew that Lazarus whom He loved was sick. He abode 
 still for two days in the place where He was and spent two 
 days more on the journey to Bethany, that by a transcen- 
 dent and conclusive display of His divine power He might 
 the more signally exhibit the glory of God. And so when 
 Peter lay in prison, and prayer was unceasingly made to 
 God for him, it was not till the night preceding the day 
 appointed for his execution that the iron gate opened before 
 him of its own accord, and he was given back to the Church 
 which so urgently needed him. And so it has been a thou- 
 sand times in the history of the Church and in the personal 
 lives of those who compose it. When hope has almost died 
 out, deliverance has come. When the enemies of the faith 
 have seemed about to triumph, they have been overthrown. 
 When some great calamity has been impending, it has been 
 averted. Prayer has been answered when it seemed as if 
 it could not be answered, and when the night was closing 
 in, in starless gloom, at evening time there has been light. 
 Man's extremity has been God's opportunity, and even if it 
 is not strictly true, either in the physical or in the spiritual 
 world, that the darkest hour is that which immediately 
 precedes the dawn, it is certainly true that it is often God's 
 way sorely to test the faith and patience of his people 
 before he interposes for their relief. And we may well 
 pause upon this fact long enough to gather up the lessons 
 of meek endurance and of unfaltering trust, which spring 
 directly from the prophet's words. It is never too late for 
 
48 COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 God to exhibit His pity and His power in answer to 
 prayer, and it is as easy for Him to cause the light to shine 
 out again from the gathering darkness, as it is to hold the 
 sun suspended on His word in the noonday sky. 
 
 But if this is the primary meaning of the passage, it re- 
 ceives no violence from that natural impulse which leads us 
 to apply it to what we so often call the evening of life 
 when the shadows lengthen along our path, and the hour 
 draws near when our hands must be folded and our eyes 
 closed for the last sleep. No man can tell, of course, how 
 long his life is to be, or when or how it is to end. It may 
 be like a day in June, when the sun lingers long above the 
 horizon and seems reluctant to disappear behind those gates 
 of amethyst and gold, which finally hide him from our 
 sight ; when a rich and mellow and tranquil light fills all 
 the air, and one can hardly tell when the invisible Hne is 
 crossed which divides day from night. And it may be like 
 a December day, which is gone almost before we realize 
 that it is here, when the sun is extinguished before it 
 reaches the meridian, or sets in cold and stormy clouds. 
 There may be no long and luminous twilight, but the night 
 comes sharply down before the work of the day is finished. 
 And then there are lives so brief that we cannot compare 
 them to a day at all, with its slow approach, its steady and 
 even march of hours, and its gradual and orderly close. 
 They are rather like a strain of exquisite music, or like the 
 flash of a bird's wing across the azure. They pass, and we 
 awake, and lo! it was a dream ! So what the length of our 
 life shall be we cannot tell. To some of us old age has 
 already come. We are forced to confess it. The keepers 
 of the house have already begun to tremble, and the strong 
 men to bow themselves ; the grinders have almost ceased 
 because they be few, and those that look out of the windows 
 are darkened ; the daughters of music have been brought 
 low, the almond tree is in blossom, and the grasshopper is a 
 burden, and desire has failed, and our long home (or rather 
 our eternal house) is not far off. By signs that cannot be 
 mistaken, old age has marked us for its own. There are 
 
FIFTY years' service 49 
 
 others, who feel themselves to be rapidly approaching that 
 last chapter of their earthly history; and others still who 
 are just opening the mysterious book of life, and who find 
 its pages throbbing with an intense and passionate interest. 
 How far God will suffer us to read on before He closes the 
 volume for us, it is impossible to say. But whether we 
 realize that we are actually growing old, or only know that 
 it is possible that we too may one day be aged men or 
 women, it is to all of us a matter of importance to consider 
 how we may grow old beautifully. 
 
 For such a thing there certainly is, as a beautiful old age. 
 The evening of life is sometimes the loveliest and most 
 blessed part of life — when the heat and flurry of youth is 
 over, when the strain and stress of middle life is past, and 
 like a ship that has made its voyage successfully, one drops 
 anchor at last in the safe and sheltered harbor. Then the 
 violence of passion is subdued, the burden of care and 
 responsibility and labor is left to others who are younger, 
 the eager striving for that which is beyond gives place 
 to the quiet enjoyment of that which is already gained, 
 the strained and care-worn look vanishes from the face, 
 which now shines with a soft and tranquil light, and the 
 voice which was once imperious and commanding is sub- 
 dued to sweeter tones of sympathy and love. The mind 
 and heart are both at peace — the one from its restless ques- 
 tionings and the other from its eager ambitions. The dis- 
 cipline of sorrow has borne its fruit in a temper of humble 
 and trustful submission to a higher will, and a broader and 
 deeper charity has come with its heavenly grace upon the 
 positive and vehement spirit. That is certainly a beautiful 
 old age, and there are none of us, probably, who have not 
 seen examples of it which have exerted a blessed and im- 
 perishable influence upon us. If they have passed from our 
 homes to the home above, the memory of them is among 
 our most precious possessions. If they still tarry with us, 
 we bless God for them, and pray that He will spare, as long 
 as may be, to us and to our children, their gentle and 
 gracious presence. 
 
50 COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 But such is not always the character of old age. One 
 sometimes grows narrower as he grows older — more stern, 
 exacting, uncharitable, selfish. The frank generosity of 
 youth is changed to a grasping and miserly temper. Mis- 
 fortune and disappointment embitter instead of chastening 
 the spirit. The decay of bodily vigor produces restlessness 
 and discontent. One is peevish and complaining and sus- 
 picious and jealous. The habit of command is not willingly 
 laid aside, though the judgment may have lost its earlier 
 vigor. There is not " light at eventide," but only a dull 
 and darkening sky. And such a wearing away of life is sad 
 to see. There are cases in which we cannot wonder at it. 
 The wonder is rather that it is not more frequent. It would 
 seem to be natural that long years of trial, and the knowl- 
 edge that all must soon be over, would depress the mind 
 and sour the temper and make old age a time of gloom. 
 And the fact that it is so often not that, but a time of 
 serenity and cheerfulness, of "sweetness and light," seems 
 to imply that there is a secret of growing old beautifully, 
 which is well worth our while to discover, if we can. 
 
 I think it is found, in the first place, in frankly accepting 
 old age when it comes. I freely grant that this is not easy. 
 It is hard to admit that one's work in the world is nearly 
 done. It is hard to resign to others the places of honor 
 and of influence that one has held for many years. It is 
 hard to accept authority where one has long been used to 
 the exercise of it, and to see younger men managing affairs 
 that we have long been accustomed to direct. It is not 
 pleasant to realize that the world can get along without us, 
 and that those whom we have perhaps trained to their work 
 are now more competent to carry it on than we are our- 
 selves. It is not easy to resign the admiration and defer- 
 ence which were shown to us when we were in the full 
 vigor of life, or agreeable to fancy that we can detect a cer- 
 tain element of toleration even in the respectful and affec- 
 tionate treatment which we still receive. And, of course, it 
 is not pleasant to feel the consciousness of failing powers 
 of body or mind, to see the beautiful bloom of youth fading 
 
FIFTY YEARS' SERVICE 51 
 
 from the face, and to discover that the body which has so 
 long been our servant no longer promptly obeys the still 
 vigorous will. There are some things connected with the 
 coming on of old age which no one can perceive without a 
 feeling of sadness. 
 
 But, on the other hand, it is of no use to deny any fact 
 — least of all, the fact that we are growing old. We cannot 
 alter or even conceal it, and it is worse than in vain to struggle 
 against it. There are few things sadder, because more un- 
 natural, than for one to try to keep up the illusion of youth, 
 when youth has long since been left behind — to pretend to 
 be standing on the hill-tops of life, when one is already far 
 down its western slope. The light that brightens the even- 
 ing time is not that of gaudy and sputtering tapers or even 
 that of the brilliant electric arc. Neither of these can be 
 for a moment mistaken for the soft radiance of the setting 
 sun. It only makes the closing years of life harder to bear 
 and robs them of their peculiar charm, to fight against the 
 order of nature or to murmur and fret because the tide of 
 time is bearing us on. One must, first of all, be on good 
 terms with old age, if he hopes to make it beautiful. 
 
 And then it is certainly a great mistake to suppose that 
 the work of life is done when one has grown old. Its nature 
 is changed, but it is not finished. The work of life is never 
 done till life itself is ended. It was only a few days since 
 that an aged man said to me — a man who, with his wife, is 
 not only far advanced in years, but has lately been passing 
 through an experience of great distress : " I sometimes 
 wonder why God spares us any longer." I replied, " I 
 know perfectly well why He spares you. There is no mys- 
 tery about that. The mystery is only in the suffering that 
 He has seen fit to send upon you. But He keeps you here 
 for the sake of the rest of us ; to give us an example of pa- 
 tience and cheerfulness and unwavering Christian faith." 
 And every one who knows him would, I am sure, have said 
 just the same thing. I often wish that those who feel that 
 their work is ended, because they are now able to do so little, 
 could only realize how much they are doing by simply 
 
52 COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 being what they are. What a glory and grace would pass 
 from our life if it were not for the benignant light which 
 shines upon it from their lovely and serene old age ! It is 
 even doubtful whether, in the time of their fullest vigor 
 and activity, they were able to do so much as they are now 
 doing for the Master and for their fellow-men. 
 
 And so of the honor and affection which old age excites 
 in all but the coarsest and most vulgar minds. It is not, of 
 course, precisely the same which manly strength and 
 womanly beauty were wont to command in earlier years. 
 But there is less of selfishness in it, and more of deep and 
 genuine homage. It may be confined to a narrower circle, 
 but it is none the less precious for that. The silent and 
 loving devotion of the young to the old, which adorns so 
 many Christian homes, is of far greater value than the ap- 
 plause of admiring assemblies or the crude stare of gaping 
 crowds. 
 
 There are thus, as I am sure you will all admit, some 
 compensations in growing old, and the point that I am urg- 
 ing is, that it is well for those of us w^ho have reached, or 
 are nearing, that period of life, to take the comfort of 
 thoughts like these ; to count up their gains instead of fret- 
 ting at their losses ; and not to make the limitations, of 
 which they are becoming conscious, harder to bear by 
 struggling against them. One secret of a beautiful old age 
 is the frank acceptance of it. 
 
 Another is found in that to which I have just alluded 
 — the considerate and honoring love of those among whom 
 it is spent. It is, of course, of no use to preach about 
 this to elderly people. They know more about it than I 
 can tell them. But it is worth while to remind those who 
 are young, from the little children upward, how largely 
 it depends on them to make bright and tranquil the even- 
 ing of life for those whose sun is near its setting. I 
 should not like to say that disrespect to the aged is a dis- 
 tinctive trait of American character, for that would be 
 drawing up a harsh indictment against an entire people. 
 But one can hardly deny that there is often shown by 
 
FIFTY YEARS' SERVICE 53 
 
 our jaunty and self-satisfied young men and young wo- 
 men a contemptuous disregard of the opinions, the comfort 
 and the rights of those who are old, which is a blot on 
 our manners and is deserving of instant and stern rebuke. 
 A more unmistakable sign of native coarseness and sel- 
 fishness can scarcely be conceived, and it disgraces forever 
 any one who displays it. And so, on the other hand, 
 hardly anything is more beautiful than the thoughtful and 
 affectionate courtesy and devotion which it is often in the 
 power of the young to show toward the aged. It has its 
 immediate reward in the grace which it adds to old age 
 itself, and it is sure to be among the things which it will 
 be most sweet to remember, when those to whom it has 
 been offered have passed away. That must be a sour and 
 crabbed nature which does not respond to it, as an aged 
 tree responds in every shimmering leaf to the warming 
 touch of the summer sun. If there are any of us to whom 
 it is still permitted to render such loving ministries to 
 those on whose heads God has set the silver crown of 
 years, let us never forget that the light which cheers the 
 evening of life is partly that which is reflected from the 
 loving hearts and faces of those on whom the morning sun 
 is shining still. 
 
 And yet it is not, after all, so much an outward as an 
 inward light which makes old age serene and beautiful. 
 And that must come in great measure through the medium 
 of memory. Old age lives, largely, in the past. Not 
 wholly in the past, if it is to retain its fresh and vigorous 
 life. One of the things which contribute most to this, is 
 to keep in touch (as the phrase now is) with the actual 
 on-going life of the world. If it is possible to cling too 
 long to the outward signs of youth, it is possible also to re- 
 tire too soon and too completely from all knowledge of and 
 all interest in the things in which one can no longer bear 
 an active part. This is the way to grow old with needless 
 rapidity and to bury one's self before one is dead. It is 
 charming to see in an aged person a living and animated 
 interest in that which is taking place around him and in 
 
54 COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 which Others are actively concerned. It shows a perennial 
 youthfulness of spirit, which is not to be confounded with 
 a fictitious youthfulness of manner or of dress. 
 
 But, after all, memory plays a large role in the life of one 
 who has come to old age. And hence it is that if any man's 
 old age — yours and mine, for example — is to be serene and 
 happy, he must be able to look back upon a life that has 
 been on the whole well spent. It is not necessary that it 
 should have been free from sorrow. Few long lives are so, 
 and it is not the memory of even great sorrows which 
 brings sadness and gloom into the evening of life. God 
 kindly permits the wounds of the heart to heal with time, 
 as He hides the gashes and fissures that His storms and 
 earthquakes make in the surface of the fields with a thick 
 and delicate net-work of grasses and flowers. Nor is it 
 necessary that one should be able to recall triumphant 
 successes and heroic exploits, though such memories un- 
 doubtedly gladden and glorify the declining days of one 
 who is able to look back upon them. But to feel that one's 
 life has been altogether a failure, that he has wasted his 
 strength, his time, his opportunity, that he has lived in a 
 wholly selfish and sordid way and has done little or nothing 
 for God or man — that is to sit down at eventide with the 
 light that is in him as darkness itself. There are many mo- 
 tives by which we are prompted to right and earnest living. 
 That which I now urge is one of the lowest. But it is at 
 least worth while to remember, that however it may be 
 with the world to come, there is prepared for many men a 
 judgment-day in the present world, and they themselves 
 are to act as judges. It is that period of life, when, having 
 finished their work, they look back upon it as memory 
 brings it before their view. And few things can be sadder 
 than to see, when it cannot be altered, that it has all been 
 in vain. If you want your last days to be beautiful, make 
 the present day beautiful. If you desire to be able to look 
 back over your life with any degree of satisfaction, do your 
 work well as you go along. Tears shed by and by will not 
 wash out failures made now. When you are old and gray- 
 
FIFTY YEARS' SERVICE 55 
 
 headed you cannot undo what you are doing now. A life 
 devoted to the service of God and to the service of your 
 fellow-men out of love to God, is the only kind of life which 
 you will rejoice to recall, when you stand among the evening 
 shadows. Not what you have gained or what you have 
 enjoyed, but what you have done or have not done will 
 make that hour bright or dark. 
 
 And yet in all this there would be little comfort for most 
 of us, if it were not for one other thing. Who of us has 
 lived, or is now living, such a life that he can look back upon 
 it with much satisfaction ? It may not be an absolute failure. 
 It may not be wholly selfish or worldly. We have honestly 
 desired, and honestly tried, to do our duty to God and to 
 our fellow-men. But how sadly we have come short 
 of our duty ! How little we have accomplished ! Might 
 we not almost as well have made no effort? Oh, that we 
 could live our lives over again ! There is little to cheer us, 
 little to brighten our eventide, in the memory of opportun- 
 ities neglected, of duties left undone, of privileges unused, 
 of a high ideal so miserably missed. That is surely a very 
 common feeling among even the best of men, as they look 
 backward over their earthly lives. And so I must add that 
 the evening of life will be full of self-reproach and bitter 
 humiliation, if one has no hope in the forgiving mercy and 
 grace of God. It will not perhaps seem to you a fanciful 
 figure, if I say that the light of memory is very much like 
 that of the electric point. It is very brilliant and very pene- 
 trating, but it is ill-diffused. It brings out certain objects with 
 startling distinctness, but it leaves others in profoundest 
 shadow. It has no warmth or glow whatever, and it dazzles 
 you at one moment and the next moment leaves you in dark- 
 ness. So it is with memory. Better, almost, no light at all than 
 its flashing and misleading ray ! No ; the light that fills the 
 evening of life with a soft and mellow glory is that sense 
 of God's love in the believing soul, which enables one to 
 recall even the failures and sins of the past without dismay, 
 in the assurance that they are covered by that infinite grace 
 which was manifested in Jesus Christ. There is nothing 
 
56 COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 else — no outward circumstance of love or of honor, no 
 memory of brave or heroic deeds — which can illumine the 
 soul, as it draws near the end of its mortal career, like 
 this tranquilizing and uplifting faith. Men may be calm 
 and cheerful without it, dismissing from their minds what- 
 ever disturbs their repose, and shutting their eyes to facts 
 which it is not agreeable to face ; but the peace which passes 
 the world's understanding, and which the world can neither 
 give nor take away, belongs only to one whose soul rests 
 upon the promises of God, who believes that his errors and 
 sins are forgiven him for the sake of Christ's sufferings and 
 death, and who knows himself to be safe in the strong arms 
 of that divine, redeeming love. If you want to know the 
 secret of the beautiful serenity which you have sometimes 
 seen on the face of the aged Christian, that is it. He knows 
 the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. 
 
 There is but one thing more ; what else can there be ex- 
 cept the expectation of the life to come? The earthly life 
 is still real and dear, but it is fading away, as the shores of 
 one's native land sink slowly out of sight as his ship forges 
 onward into the open sea. But one who knows himself to 
 be God's child, enfolded in the Father's love, is never out 
 of sight of land. He can discern before him a fairer country, 
 even an heavenly, which is not very far off, and to which 
 he is drawing nearer every day. It has been growing more 
 real to him year by year, as those whom he has loved have 
 gone thither before him, until on its silent and shining shore 
 there are many now who await his coming. Sometimes 
 it seems as if the beauty that is on his face were reflected 
 from that which our dimmer eyes cannot perceive ; as if 
 the light which brightens the close of his earthly day shone 
 on him out of the open and waiting heavens, whose golden 
 threshold his feet have almost touched. However it be, we 
 know that it is the vision of the city above which consoles 
 and inspires him as he moves onward toward it, and by and 
 by it will indeed be " light about him," when he passes out 
 of the earthly shadows into the immortal day. 
 
 My friends, I do not wish to exaggerate anything, but I 
 
FIFTY years' service 57 
 
 simply say that there is not now, and never has been, a 
 power on earth which could give to old age such a heav- 
 enly beauty as this, but the gospel of Christ. If you and 
 I accept it and live by it, it will matter very little where, 
 or when, or how we may end our days ; to us also the 
 words of the promise will be fulfilled, that "at evening 
 time there shall be light." May God grant it to us all ! 
 
58 COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 The Corporation in 1839. 
 
 ministers. 
 
 The Rev. JOHN Knox, D.D. 
 
 The Rev. WILLIAM Craig Brownlee, D.D. 
 
 The Rev. Thomas De Witt, D.D. 
 
 elders. deacons. 
 
 David Board, Theophilus Anthony, 
 
 Henry Havens, John I. Brower, 
 
 Cornelius Heyer, Thomas Graham, 
 
 William G. Jones, Charles J. Johnson, 
 
 John Neilson, James V. H. Lawrence, 
 
 Samuel Penny, Caleb F. Lindsley, 
 
 Isaac Sebring, James Meyers, 
 
 Cornelius R. Suydam, Adrian H. Muller, 
 
 Valentine Vandewater, James Phyfe, 
 
 Abraham Van Nest, John T. Rusher, 
 
 James Ward, James Simmons, 
 
 Noah Wetmore, Hiram H. Van Vliet. 
 
 officers. 
 
 Cornelius Bogert, Clerk. 
 Isaac Young, Treasurer, 
 
 Office, 192 Broadway. 
 
 Of the foregoing there are at present only two survivors, 
 Mr. James Simmons, now of Paterson New Jersey, and 
 Mr. James Meyers, now of Newburg, N. Y. 
 
FIFTY YEARS' SERVICE 
 
 59 
 
 The Corporation in 1889. 
 
 MINISTERS. 
 
 The Rev. Thomas E. Vermilye, D.D., LL.D. 
 The Rev. Talbot W. Chambers, D.D., LL.D. 
 The Rev. Edward B. Coe, D.D. 
 
 elders. 
 
 Henry VV. Bookstaver, 
 Robert Buck, 
 John S. Bussing, 
 Peter Donald, 
 John Graham, 
 Frederic R. Hutton, 
 Lewis Johnston, 
 Frederick T. Locke, 
 Ebenezer Monroe, 
 Ralph N. Perlee, 
 Henry Talmage, 
 Charles H. Woodruff, 
 
 deacons. 
 
 Gerard Beekman, 
 William L. Brower, 
 William C. Giffing, 
 William P. Glenney, 
 Francis T. Laimbeer, 
 Francis T. L. Lane, 
 Charles Stewart Phillips, 
 Charles A. Runk, 
 Charles H. Stitt, 
 Cummings H. Tucker, Jr., 
 Joseph Walker, Jr., 
 Frederick F. Woodward. 
 
 officers. 
 
 George S. Stitt, Clerk. 
 Theophilus a. BroUWER, Treasurer, 
 
 Office, 113 Fulton street. 
 
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