Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-12-23
TO ANOTHER FIELD.
Touching Letter Of Resignation From
the Rev. Howard B. Grose.
ORDINATION OF TWO CLERGYNEE.
Fatal Panic in the New CHARTERS Church
Barely Prevented.
INTERESTING RELIGIOUS NOTES

AT the close of his impressive Christmas
sermon in the Fourth Avenue Baptist
Church Yesterday morning, the pastor, Rev.
Howard B. Grose, read to the church and
congregation letter rendering his resigna-
tion. This had been, to q certain extent,
anticipated by all who had read in The
DISPATCH last week the article telling of
the call Mr.. Grose had received to the Presi-
dency of the University Of South Dakota,
made vacant by the recent suddeR-death of
his intimate friend, PROT Olson, who
perished in the Minneapolis Tribune dis
aster.
In his letter of resignation Mr.. Grose re-
viewed his Is months pleasant pastorate in
Pittsburg. told OF how hopefully he had
planned his future work in the same prom
ising field, referred to the harmony and hap
piness of his large flock, and said that under
ordinary circumstances he would have
deemed it impossible to even consider call
to vacate such pulpit and accept position
SO altogether different in both its require
ments and in its very character.
A CALL FROM A HIGHER SOURCE.
But the call had come with such unanim-
ity from trustees, faculty and students
who only knew of the close relationship and
kindred requirements of Prof Olson and
himself-and the impression was SO positive
that it was likewise call from the higher
source for him to take up and carry on the
great work that his dearest friend had SO,
nobly commenced, that the pastor felt he
simply must respond to the summons.
The pastoral duties would, Mr.. Grose
believed, be ably, earnestly and immedi-
ately taken up in the Fourth Avenue
Church, by his assistant, Rev. William
Ward West; and therefore he asked that
his own resignation take effect on the last
Sunday of the dying year, in order that he
might enter upon his new and responsible
position with the beginning of the winter
term, early in January.
At the close of the service, by the pastors
urgent request, there was a meeting of
church members to act Immediately upon
his resignation. Mr.. II. X. Porter, one
of the deacons, presided; and, upon motion
of DIR. King-the same good man who had,
Is months ago, moved to extend a unani-
nous call to Rev. 81. B. Grose at Yonkers-
the resignation was very reluctantly, yet
with entire unanimity, accepted; the ex-
pressed idea of the sorrowing mover being
that the church should thus present its be-
loved pastor, living Christmas gift, to the
great new University that had come to need
him most.
SOMETHING OF HIS LIFE.
Viewed with regard to its effect at this
end of the line, the resignation of Rev.
Howard B. Grose can only be looked upon
with deep regret. Avigorous intellectual and
spiritual guide, he will be greatly missed
from the most influential Baptist pulpit in
Western Pennsylvania. A graduate of
Rochester University, ne has many of the
stetling qualities Of DR.. NJ. B. Anderson,
the honored eG-President of that institution,
who was ever teaching young men that,
more than all things else, he desired them
to be prepared and determined to ''bring
things to pass"-and his good right hand
came down with a bang on the desk every
time DR.. Anderson said it.
What effect this calling in Of Assistant
Pastor West may have upon the newly
organized Linden Grove Baptist Church
which had been until only a fortnight ago
a chapel and branch of the Fourth Avenue
Church-remains to be seen.