Part 4 (1/2)

Many tined and my work misrepresented; but all such falsehood and persecution have turned out for ed my work

Whoever did escape it?

I was one summer in the pulpit of John Wesley, in London--a pulpit where he stood one day and said: ”I have been charged with all the crimes in the calendar except one--that of drunkenness,” and his wife arose in the audience and said: ”You know you were drunk last night”

I saw in a foreign journal a report of one of George Whitefield's sermons--a sero It seemed that the reporter stood to take the sermon, and his chief idea was to caricature it, and these are soe Whitefield After calling him by a nicknaoes on to say: ”Here the preacher clasps his chin on the pulpit cushi+on Here he elevates his voice Here he lowers his voice Holds his arhtful face Turns up the whites of his eyes Clasps his hands behind his hi

Holloas and juht to have been free froreathimself out for Christ's sake: and yet the learned Dr Johnson called hilories of heaven as no uninspired man ever preached about them, and it was said when he preached about heaven his face shone like an angel's, and yet good Christian John Foster writes of Robert Hall, saying: ”Robert Hall is a mere actor, and when he talks about heaven the smile on his face is the reflection of his own vanity” John Wesley stirred all England with reform, and yet he was caricatured by all the small wits of his day He was pictorialised, history says, on the board fences of London, and everywhere he was the target for the punsters; yet John Wesley stands to-day before all Christendohty I have preached a Gospel that is not only appropriate to the home circle, but is appropriate to Wall Street, to Broadway, to Fulton Street, to Montague Street, to Atlantic Street, to every street--not only a religion that is good for half past ten o'clock SundayThis was one of the considerations in my work as a preacher of the Gospel that extended its usefulness A practical religion is e all need In my previous work at Belleville, NJ, and in Syracuse, I had absorbed other considerations of necessity in the business of uniting the huh the Central Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn of which I was pastor was one of the largest buildings in that city then, it did not represent e pastorates that the Church ought to be a great home circle of fathers, e home circle where the brothers and sisters did not know each other, and where the parents were characterised by frigidity and heartlessness The Church roup--the pulpit the fireplace, the people all gathered around it I think we sometimes can tell the people to stay out by our church architecture People coo away never again to coreat hoion who had his fourth settlement His first two churches became extinct as a result of his ministry, the third church was hopelessly crippled, and the fourth was saved simply by the fact that he departed this life On the other hand, I have seen pastorates which continued year after year, all the ti, and I have heard of instances where the pastoral relation continued twenty years, thirty years, forty years, and all the time the confidence and the love were on the increase So it ith the pastorate of old Dr Spencer, so it ith the pastorate of old Dr Gardiner Spring, so it ith the pastorate of a great many of those old ministers of Jesus Christ, of whom the world was not worthy

I saw an opportunity to establish in Brooklyn just such a church as I had in my mind's eye--a Tabernacle, where all the people anted to hear the Gospel preached could coned, and successfully established the Brooklyn Tabernacle within a little over a year after preaching my first sermon in Brooklyn The church seated 3,500 people, and yet ere compelled to use the old church to take care of all our active Christian work besides

The first Brooklyn Tabernacle was, I believe, the most buoyant expression of ies and resources, and as the sacred walls grew up towards the skies, I prayed God that I roith it

Prayer always ency, no matter how difficult itof the first Brooklyn Tabernacle--prayer Prayer furnished the means as well as the faith that was behind theanised in Heaven to perpetuate the Gospel of Christ It was considered a great thing to have done, and many were the reasons whispered by the worldly and the envious and the orthodox, for its success Sonetisether, there netic man throws it over others as a hunter throws a lasso Soed with this influence, and have employed it for patriotism and Christianity and elevated purposes

It is always a surprise to a great majority of people how churches are built, how money for which the world has so many other uses can be obtained to build churches There are naest at once not only great wealth, but religion, generosity, philanthropy, such as Ae, Miss Wolfe, Mrs Williaood moral character can be accompanied by affluent circumstances

In the '70's and '80's in Brooklyn and in New York there were merchants who had prospered, but by Christian ion into everyday life I became accustomed, Sabbath after Sabbath, to stand before an audience of bargain-makers Men in all occupations--yet the vast ed froht in the store In ations across the breakfast table and the tea table were discussed questions of loss and gain ”What is the value of this? What is the value of that?” They would not think of giving soreater value for that which is of lesser value They would not think of selling that which cost ten dollars for five dollars If they had a property that orth 15,000, they would not sell it for 4,000 All were intelligent in

But these were not the sort of enerous investments for God's House There was one that sort, however, a my earliest remembrances, Arthur Tappen There were many differences of opinion about his politics, but no one who ever knew Arthur Tappen, and knew hi an earnest Christian Arthur Tappen was derided in his day because he established that syste of business men He started that entire system, was derided for it then; I knew his he invited to a room in the top of his storehouse in New York the clerks of his establishment He would ask them about their worldly interests and their spiritual interests, then giving out a hyood advice, asking them what church they attended on the Sabbath, what the text hether they had any especial troubles of their own

Arthur Tappen, I have never heard his eulogy pronounced I pronounce it now There were other e in the iron business, Moses H Grinnell in the shi+pping business, Peter Cooper in the glue business, and scores of ing and i an on June 25, 1869, the trustees of the church having signified and ordered repairs, alterations and i Sabbath services for four weeks I spent part offro trips I find that I can never rest over teeks More than that wearies me Of all the places I have ever known East Hampton is the best place for quiet and recuperation

I becah my brother-in-law, Rev SL

Mershon His first pastorate was at the Presbyterian Church in East Ha man, I preached some of my first serrae I used to visit my brother-in-law and his wife, my sister Mary

Later in life I established a summer home there myself I particularly recall one incident of this month's vacation that has affected s, New York, walking in the Park of that place, I foundthe question: ”I wonder if there is any special mission for me to execute in this world? If there is, reat desire to preach the Gospel through the secular printing-press I realised that the vast majority of people, even in Christian lands, never enter a church, and that it would be an opportunity of usefulness infinite if that door of publication were opened And so I recorded that prayer in a blank book, and offered the prayer day in and day out until the answer cah in a way different froh the misrepresentation and persecution of eneement of all ministers of the Gospel who are misrepresented, that if the h and continuous enough, there is nothing that so widens one's field of usefulness as hostile attack, if you are really doing the Lord's work The bigger the lie told about er the dee of serone on, until week by week, and for about twenty-three years, I have had the world for my audience as no o now to about twenty-five millions of people in all lands I mention this not in vain boast, but as a testimony to the fact that God answers prayer Would God I had better occupied the field and beensu, I requested an extension of my vacation time, in order to carry out a plan to visit the ”Old World” As the trustees of the church considered that the trip iven ”leave of absence from pastoral duties” for three months' duty from June 18, 1870

All that I could do had been done in the plans in constructing the new Tabernacle I could do nothing by staying at home

I have crossed the Atlantic so often that the recollections of this first trip to Europe are, at this writing, eneral I think the ht of the ocean theafter we sailed, the most instructive were the ruins of church and abbey and palaces I walked up and down the stairs of Holyrood Palace, once upon a time considered one of the wonders of the world, and I marvelled that so little was left of such a wonderful place Ruins should be rebuilt

The most spiritual ians in the old world