Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1892-04-14
N SMOOTH wArERs AT LAST

smooth waters. Arrangements have been
made by which our financial difficulties
are now fully and satisfactorily adjusted.
Our income will exceed our outgo, and
Brooklyn Tabernacle will be yours and be-
long to you and your children after you,
and anything you see contrary to this you
may put down to the confirmed habit
which some people have got of misrepre-
senting this church, and they cannot stop.
When came to Brooklyn | came to a
small church and big indebtedness. We
have now this, the largest Protestant
church in America, and financially as
congregation we are worth, over and be-
yond all Indebtedness, considerably more
than sl5O,0OO.
Ihave preached here twenty-three years,
and expect, if my life and health are con-
tinued, to preach here twenty-three years
longer, although we will all do well to re-
member that our breath is in our nostrils,
and any hour we may be called to give an
account of our stewardship. All we ask
for the future is that you do your best,
contributing all you can to the support of
our institutions. Our best days are yet to
come; our greatest revivals of religion, and
our mightiest outpourings of the Holy
Ghost. We have got through the Red sea
and stand today on the other bank clapping
the cymbals of victory.
Do you wonder that last Sabbath asked
you in the midst of the service to rise and
sing with jubilant voice the long meter
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.
Yes, twenty-three years have passed since
/ came to live in Brooklyn, and they have
been to me eventful years. 1t was pros
trated church to which came, church SO
fiat down it could drop no farther. Through
controversies which it would be useless to
rehearse it was well nigh extinct, and for a
long while it had been without pastor.
But nineteen members could be mustered
to sign a call for my coming.
As a committee was putting that cali
before me in an upper room in my house
in Philadelphia, there were two other COM
mittees on similar errands from other
churches in other rooms, whom my wife
was entertaining and keeping apart from
unhappy collision. The auditorium of the
Brooklyn church to which l came defied
all the laws of acoustics; the church had a
steeple that was the derision of the town,
and high box pulpit which shut in the
preacher as though he were dangerous to
be let loose, OF it acted as a barricade that
was unnecessary to keep back the people,
for they were so few that minister of
ordinary muscle could have kept back all
who were there.
My first Sabbath in Brooklyn was sad
day, for ! did not realize how far the
church was down until then, and on the
evening of that day my own brother,
through whose pocket entered the minis
try, died. and the tidings of his decease
reached me at o'clock in the evening,
and was to preach at half past7. But from
that day the blessing of God was on US, and
in three months we began the enlarge
ment of the building. Before the close of
that year wo resolved to construct the
first Tabernacle. 1t was to be temporary
structure, and therefore we called it a
Tabernacle instead of Temple. What
should be the style of architecture was the
immediate question. had always thought
that the amphitheatrical shape would be
appropriate for church.
Two distinguished architects were en-
ployed, and after much lowering over de-
signs they announced to US that such q
building was impossible for religious pur-
poses, rs it would not be churchly, and
would subject themselves and us to ruin
GUS criticism; in other words, they were
not ready for revolution in church archi-
lecture. Utterly disheartened as to my
fou IN etx-Ia of, A. :.
trustees, Build anything you please, and
Imust be satisfied" But one morning a
young architect appeared at my house and
asked if we had yet selected a plan for our
church. ] said, "No, and what we want
we cannot get" "What style of building
do you want?" he asked And taking out
lead pencil and letter envelope from
my pocket, in less than minute by few
curved lines 1 indicated in the rough
what we wanted. But" / said, "old
architects tell us it can't be done, and
there is no use in your trying" He said:
II can do it. How long can have to make
out the plans?" said, This evening at
8 o'clock everything is to be decided"
TWO CHURCHES AND NO MONEY.
At s o'clock of that evening the
architect presented his plans, and the bids
of builder and mason were presented, and
in five minutes after the plans were pre-
sented they were unanimously adopted.
So that would not be in the way of the
trustees during the work went to Europe,
and when l got back the church was well
nigh done. But here came in staggering
hindrance. We expected to pay for the
new church by the sale of the old building.
The old one had been sold, but just at the
time we must have the money the pur-
chasers backed out and we had two
churches and no money.
By the help of God and the indomitable
and unparalleled energy of our trustees
(here and there one of them present today,
but the most in better world), we got the
building ready for conservation, and on
Sept. %, 1870, morning and evening dedi-
catory services were held, and in the after
noon the children, with sweet and multi
tudinous voices, consecrated the place to
God Twenty thousand dollars were raised
that day to pay a floating debt In the
morning old Dr. Stephen H. Tying, the
glory of the Episcopal church and the
Chrysostom Of the American pulpit,
preached sermon which fingered in it's
gracious effects as long as the building
stood. He read enough out of the Episco-
pal prayer book to keep himself from being
reprimanded by his bishop for preaching at
a non-Episcopal service; and we, although
belonging to another denomination, re-
sponded with heartiness, as though we
were used to the liturgy, Good Lord, de-
liver usl"
During the short time we occupied that
building we had a constant downpour of
religious awakening. Hosannai Ten mil
lion years in heaven will have no power to
dim my memory Of the glorious times we
had in that first Tabernacle, which, because
Of it's invasion of the usual style of church
architecture, was called by some "Tal-
mage's Hippodrome," by others, "Church
of the Holy Circus" and by other mirth-
full nomenclature. But it was building
perfect for acoustics, and stood long enough