{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_55494/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_55494","id":"gutenberg_55494","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55494","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: History - American","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Chambers, John, 1797-1875"],"text":"WORKS OF WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS, D.D., L.H.D.\n\n\n                                JAPAN.\n\n   The Mikado's Empire; History to 1902 and Personal Experiences.\n     (Harpers.)\n\n   Matthew Calbraith Perry, a Typical American Naval Officer.\n     (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.)\n\n   Townsend Harris, First American Envoy in Japan. (Houghton,\n     Mifflin & Co.)\n\n   Verbeck of Japan; A Citizen of No Country. A Story of Foundation\n     Work Inaugurated by Guido Fridolin Verbeck. (Fleming H. Revell\n     Co.)\n\n   A Maker of the New Orient. Samuel Robbins Brown, Pioneer\n     Educator in China, America, and Japan. (Fleming H. Revell Co.)\n\n     Japan, in History, Folk-lore, and Art. (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.)\n\n   In the Mikado's Service. A Story of Two Battle Summers in China.\n     (W. A. Wilde Co.)\n\n   Corea, the Hermit Nation. Part I. Ancient, Medieval and Modern\n     History. Part II. Social Life, Literature, Art, Folk-lore,\n     Proverbs, Recent Events, etc. (Charles Scribner's Sons.)\n\n\n                               HOLLAND.\n\n   The American in Holland. Sentimental Rambles in the Eleven\n     Provinces of the Netherlands. (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.)\n\n   Brave Little Holland, and What She Taught Us. (Houghton, Mifflin\n     & Co.)\n\n   The Student's Motley, being \"The Rise of the Dutch Republic\",\n     by J. R. Motley, condensed to 690 pages in six parts. Part VII:\n     History of the Dutch Nation from 1584 to 1897. (Harpers.)\n\n   Young People's History of Holland. (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.)\n\n\n                          AMERICAN HISTORY.\n\n   The Romance of Discovery; A Thousand Years of Exploration and\n     the Unveiling of Continents. (W. A. Wilde Co.)\n\n   The Romance of American Colonization. How the Foundations of Our\n     History were Laid. (W. A. Wilde Co.)\n\n   The Romance of Conquest. The Story of American Expansion through\n     Arms and Diplomacy. (W. A. Wilde Co.)\n\n   The Pilgrims in their Three Homes: England, Holland, and\n     America. (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.)\n\n   America in the East. A Glance at our History, Prospects,\n     Problems, and Duties in the Pacific Ocean. (A. S. Barnes Co.)\n\n   The Pathfinders of the Revolution. A Story of the Great March\n     into the Wilderness and Lake Region of New York in 1779. (W. A.\n     Wilde Co.)\n\n   John Chambers, and His Ministry in Philadelphia. 1 vol. 8vo.\n     Pp. 172, with two portraits, index, etc. Price, one dollar,\n     postpaid. (Andrus & Church, Ithaca, N. Y.)\n\n   Sunny Memories of Three Pastorates, in (Schenectady, Boston, and\n     Ithaca), with a Selection of Sermons and Essays. 1 vol. Illust.\n     Price, $1. Ithaca, N. Y. (Andrus & Church.)\n\n\n                              BIBLICAL.\n\n   The Lily Among Thorns. A Study of the Biblical Drama Entitled,\n     \"The Song of Songs.\" (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.)\n\n\n\n\n                            JOHN CHAMBERS\n\n                SERVANT OF CHRIST AND MASTER OF HEARTS\n\n                                 AND\n\n                     HIS MINISTRY IN PHILADELPHIA\n\n\n  [Illustration: JOHN CHAMBERS.\n\n  About 1873.]\n\n\n\n\n                            JOHN CHAMBERS\n\n                SERVANT OF CHRIST AND MASTER OF HEARTS\n\n                                 AND\n\n                     HIS MINISTRY IN PHILADELPHIA\n\n                                  BY\n\n                REV. WM. ELLIOT GRIFFIS, D.D., L.H.D.\n\n   AUTHOR OF \"THE MIKADO'S EMPIRE\", \"BRAVE LITTLE HOLLAND\", \"COREA,\n           THE HERMIT NATION\", \"THE PILGRIMS IN THEIR THREE\n                   HOMES\", \"VERBECK OF JAPAN\", Etc.\n\n\n                            ITHACA, N. Y.\n                           ANDRUS & CHURCH\n                                 1903\n\n\n\n\n                           COPYRIGHT, 1903\n                                  BY\n                           ANDRUS & CHURCH\n                              (OCTOBER)\n\n\n                               PRESS OF\n                           ANDRUS & CHURCH\n                            ITHACA, N. Y.\n\n\n\n\n                    JOHN CHAMBERS'S FAVORITE PSALM\n\n\n                            PSALM CXXXIII\n\n    Behold how good and how pleasant it is\n        For brethren to dwell together in unity!\n\n    It is like the precious ointment upon the head,\n        That ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard:\n            That went down to the skirts of his garments:\n\n    As the dew of Hermon,\n        And as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion:\n    For there the Lord commanded the blessing,\n                    Even life forevermore.\n\n\n\n\n                                  TO\n\n                         ALL MY FELLOW ALUMNI\n\n                              MEMBERS OF\n\n                     THE FIRST INDEPENDENT CHURCH\n\n                           OF PHILADELPHIA\n\n                  WHO IN HALLOWED MEMORY OF THE PAST\n\n                                  OR\n\n                IN HOPE OF REUNION IN THE ETERNAL HOME\n\n                                GREET\n\n                 JOHN CHAMBERS AS THEIR FATHER IN GOD\n\n                     I DEDICATE THIS LITTLE BOOK\n\n\n\n\n                               PREFACE.\n\n\nJohn Chambers was one of the first among popular preachers of the\nnineteenth century in Philadelphia, and the pastor for fifty years of\none congregation.\n\nNot alone to delight those with vivid memories, who knew, loved and\nhonored John Chambers, have I undertaken this work of filial piety,\nbut to tell to young men of to-day the story of a consecrated,\nstrenuous, and successful life, the secret of which was self-conquest\nand strength in God.\n\nOne great purpose and benefit of biography is lost if it does not\nclearly reveal the growth of character, and, in the case of a\nbeautiful and successful life, a personality worthy of being held\nup as an example. It ought to show also self-conquest, ripening in\nwisdom, the philosophic mind that comes with years, and the maturing\nand sweetening influences of honored old age. It would be of little\nhelp to young men, struggling against their own besetting weaknesses\nto gain self-mastery and attainment to true Christian manhood, to\npicture only the John Chambers, as we knew him,--in the serene\nevening of life, when passions had cooled and reason reigned, and\nthe gray light of Heaven's morning had settled on his head. I have\ntried to show in the typical Irishman, the creature of heredity and\nthe passionate patriot, the aspiring Christian and the child of God,\neducated by unseen but potent influences, winning steadfast victory\nover sin and self, becoming king of men and master of hearts, leading\na host to triumph along the pathway to Heaven, able to do all things\nthrough Christ his helper.\n\nThe wonderful character and personality of John Chambers were not\nsudden creations. They were growths. He himself believed that\nwhile justification was instant, sanctification was gradual. He\nlaughed at the man who professed never to have made mistakes. He had\nalways patience with those who slipped and fell. He showed us how\nto neutralize the results of our missteps and gain new strength by\npainful and humiliating experiences.\n\nI return my hearty thanks to one and all of the friends, fellow alumni\nof the old First Independent Church of Philadelphia, who have aided\nme with reminiscences, asking pardon for omissions and indulgence for\npossible errors.\n\n                                                              W. E. G.\n\nIthaca, N. Y., July 20, 1903.\n\n\n\n\n                          TABLE OF CONTENTS\n\n\n    CHAPTER                                           PAGE\n\n        I. PHILADELPHIA. THE HISTORIC SITE               1\n\n       II. IRELAND. A BONNIE BAIRN                       7\n\n      III. OHIO. LIFE IN A LOG CABIN                    14\n\n       IV. MARYLAND. STUDENT DAYS IN BALTIMORE          19\n\n        V. NEWTOWN. REJECTED OF MEN                     25\n\n       VI. NEW ENGLAND. ORDINATION AT NEW HAVEN         34\n\n      VII. HOME AND CHURCH. LOVE AND WORK               42\n\n     VIII. THE WAR HORSE OF THE TEMPERANCE CAUSE        51\n\n       IX. THE MASTER OF HEARTS                         61\n\n        X. BOYHOOD'S MEMORIES OF THE OLD CHURCH         68\n\n       XI. THE MASTER OF ASSEMBLIES                     81\n\n      XII. TRUE YOKE-FELLOWS                            94\n\n     XIII. CHURCH LIFE. MINOR PERSONALITIES            105\n\n      XIV. THE CIVIL WAR                               111\n\n       XV. LIGHT AT EVENING TIME                       127\n\n      XVI. TRANSFER OF THE CHURCH TO THE PRESBYTERY    135\n\n     XVII. THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL AND FAREWELL            139\n\n    XVIII. THE CHILDREN OF THE MOTHER                  144\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER I.\n\n                   PHILADELPHIA. THE HISTORIC SITE.\n\n\nThrongs of people daily pass along two of Philadelphia's most imposing\nhighways. Broad Street spans the entire city from north to south.\nChestnut Street is the Quaker City's most brilliant thoroughfare,\nstretching between the Delaware and the Schuylkill. Those who traverse\neither may see the great twenty story building wherein is made and\npublished the _North American_, the oldest daily newspaper on the\ncontinent. Northward from Broad and Chestnut, rise the imposing\nmunicipal buildings, on the crest of whose mountain of stone and peak\nof metal is visible the bronze statue of William Penn, founder of the\nCity of Brotherly Love. Though this son of a Dutch mother was the\nbeginner of the City of Homes, yet there have been many other makers\nof Philadelphia.\n\nNot least among those who have builded the unseen but nobler city,\nand who have stamped their names indelibly upon human hearts and\nlives, even unto the third and fourth generation of its citizens, is\nJohn Chambers. During forty-eight years he was pastor of the First\nIndependent Church, whose second edifice stood from 1831 to 1899 on\nthe site of the twenty-storied \"sky-scraper\" at Broad and Sansom\nstreets.\n\nHappily, in the eternal fitness of things, history and sentiment\nwere not ignored in the uprearing of the mighty structure, whose\ncornice is not far from the clouds. In the two lower stories of the\nfa\u00e7ade is a happy reminder of the old brown stone church of pillared\nfront. Most felicitously does memory find here a sermon in stone and\na stimulus in architecture. Indeed, a former worshipper walking on\nthe other side of the street, who chanced to look no higher than the\nold familiar altitudes, might imagine that the house of prayer, with\nits Ionic columns, still stood to bless its worshippers. Even of the\nsame hue and tint as in childhood's days, eight columns of fluted\nbrown sandstone renew in verisimilitude the old architecture. Thus\nthe mighty edifice enshrines upon its front, in imperishable masonry,\nsuggestions, at least, of former history.\n\nTo be exact, whereas there were in old times six round fluted Ionic\ncolumns, resting on high square bases, supporting a simple but\nimposing pediment, there are to-day eight front columns supporting an\narchitrave, with two mightier upholding pillars within.\n\nAt first thought, men might be tempted to see in this colossal\nstructure, whose roof is so much nearer the sky a symbol of \"the\npower of the press,\" which is alleged to be more influential than the\npulpit. One political gentleman whom I knew well--even he who in 1893,\nraised the stars and stripes over Hawaii--affirmed in my hearing, that\n\"one newspaper was equal to three pulpits\". Yes, but that depends on\nwhich newspaper and which pulpit. It is certain that in the eyes of\nsome, printing machinery and type, and daily square miles of inked\npaper, for which whole forests have been destroyed, have more moral\npotency than worship, prayer, and preaching. Yet against this modern\nparable of the mustard seed become a tree, phenomenal and imposing,\nwe have happily also the Master's parable of the leaven, or of might\nunseen, of a kingdom coming \"without observation\". \"Things seen\",\neven when dazzling are not really as potent as those which transform\nthe life. It could add little or nothing to the reputation of John\nChambers, to put on paper with ink his words that kindled our souls.\nYet, \"did not our hearts burn within us\" when we heard? Can we forget\nthem? Was not his a life unto life? \"He being dead yet speaketh.\"\n\nSo then, whether standing in the shadow of the great edifice--typical\nof the soaring twentieth century--or setting foot on its roof\nhigh in air, many fathoms higher in the deeps of space than where\nonce we sat or stood, and thence gazing upon the sea of humanity\nbeneath, or over the great city set between the two silver streams,\nand ever fascinating and beautiful with boyhood's memories, let us\nstop to recall the past. Let us think of that busy and potent life\nof John Chambers (1797-1875), and of that First Independent Church\n(1825-1873), which, like a spiritual storage battery, still supplies\nthe power that pulses in many thousand souls. Man and edifice, though\nvanished from earth, give by their visible potencies or inspiring\nmemories, in churches and Sunday Schools, in hallowed homes and\nbeautiful careers of men and women, even to the fourth generation, the\nshining and convincing evidence of an earthly immortality, of life\nunto life. In the ever widening circles of eternity, that unspent\ninfluence will be felt.\n\nLet us now descend from the mountain to the plain. Until the first\nearly autumn of the twentieth century, one could see also on the east\nside of Thirteenth Street, north of Market and within a few feet of\nFilbert Street, a four-sided, plain gray stone or marble post, in\nwhich even a casual passer-by could detect a survival. It was an\nold-timer, battered, rubbed, and chipped. Evidently it had once been\na hitching post. Then, after sundry paintings and daubings, it had\nserved for various advertising purposes, setting forth the changing\nbusiness carried on in the dwelling place itself, in front of which it\nstood, or, in the cellar of the same. The Belgian block pavements, the\nflagstone sidewalks, the great Reading Railway Terminal, not far away,\nand the lofty business edifices of steel and stone, with a thousand\nmodern suggestions, all seem by their contrast to suggest antiquity in\nthat horse post, and possibly its descent from once more noble uses.\n\nWhen, however, to the evidence of eyesight, was added the play of\nmemory and imagination, then there rose upon the mind's vision the\nlittle brick church, the Church of the Vow, that stood directly\nopposite, where John Chambers, master of hearts and transformer of\nhuman lives, wrought and taught. Within its now vanished walls the\nsunny pastor, the shining ornament in social life, the soul-stirring\npreacher, the unquailing soldier, who fought evil in every form,\nprayed, preached, and labored with men. Here he communicated\nquickening impulses not yet spent, but ever urging on to vaster\nissues. Yes, there is where the old church stood.\n\nBut this old battered horse-post,--so close by the curb stone as to\nwear ever fresh marks of tar and grease from passing wagon wheel\nhubs--what has it to do with John Chambers and the First Independent\nChurch of Philadelphia, which is almost forgotten before a brood of\nlusty children and vigorous grandchildren that now train thousands in\nthe ways of holiness? Especially may we ask the question, since the\nchurch and the post were on opposite sides of the street, here a few\nfeet wide.\n\nWell, hereto hangs not only a tale, but literally, there hung a\nchain, with associations. Before the First Independent Church--that\nchurch which, according to scripture and reality, though not in\ncommon parlance, is not an edifice, but a company of believers--was\nformed, in 1825, there stood at Thirteenth and Filbert streets, a\ncomparatively new building. It had been reared in fulfilment of a vow\nmade during a storm on the Atlantic by a holy woman of prayer, whose\nlife was saved. Those who carried out her purpose were Irish refugees,\nseeking freedom in America. Being intense Sabbatarians, they would\nhave no sound of passing wheel or hoof on the Lord's Day, for theirs\nwas the age, also, of Delaware river cobble stones, and of iron\ntires. No pneumatic or sound deadening rubber-swathed wheels existed\nthen. Hence, to warn off all matutinal disturbers of the solemnity of\nworship, and evening passers on wheels, an iron chain was stretched\nacross the street, guarding either side, north or south, of the holy\nedifice. Thus, in quiet, the people within could worship God. The same\nrule held in other neighborhoods as in this congregation, and in front\nof the Presbyterian church edifice at Fourth and Arch, as the pictures\nshow, a similar stout iron chain was stretched. It was the rule in\nSabbath-keeping Philadelphia, according to the vigorous law of 1798.\n\nPhiladelphia was, early in the last century, a little place, of only\ntens of thousands, and so long as there were but few churches, the\nchains seemed appropriate. As the city grew, the problem for the\nfiremen, mail wagons, and ambulances increased. In time not a single\nstreet running north or south, even in case of a fire, was open to the\nfiremen, who were apt to make quick work in removing obstacles. A snow\nstorm of petitions, for and against the repeal of the Acts of 1798 and\nthe removal of the street chains, fell on the legislature and the law\nceased to be operative, March 15, 1830. The old stone posts remained\nand occasionally one may be recognized by the keen-eyed antiquarian in\ndear old Philadelphia.\n\nBoth the first and second edifices, in which John Chambers labored\nin the Gospel, have been levelled and their sites built upon. That\nold post, effective Sabbath guardian, has gone; the First Independent\nChurch, in edifice or organization, is no more. Nevertheless, its\nspirit lives. Like Huldah's home, our old church in its \"second\nquarter\" was a \"college,\" and, fellow alumni, we shall try to tell the\nstory of our Alma Mater, \"mother of us all,\" and sketch the life and\nwork of the great and good man, with whom the First Independent Church\nbegan, continued, and ended. Both church and pastor have become as\nleaven that transforms, and in leavening is itself transformed,--lost\nto form and view, while yet potent. \"The eagle's cry is heard even\nafter its form disappears behind the mountain,\" says the Chinese\nproverb.\n\nThe \"three measures of meal\" still abide. From them is still supplied\nthe bread of life to thousands. To change from metaphor to facts\nthat are as hard as stone, and as enduring as human character, there\nare, first in point of time, the Bethany Mission Sunday-school and\nthe Bethany Presbyterian Church; the John Chambers Memorial Church,\nan offshoot and outgrowth from the Bethany Church; the Presbyterian\nChurch at Rutledge, Pa.; the St. Paul's Presbyterian Church in West\nPhiladelphia; and the magnificent edifice and active congregation\nof the Chambers-Wylie Memorial Church on Broad below Pine Street,\nwhich enshrines the name not only of John Chambers, but of T. W. J.\nWylie--two noble preachers of the gospel, sons of thunder and also of\nconsolation.\n\nShall we attempt to measure influence, by even suggesting how three\nchurches, one Presbyterian, one Baptist, and one Lutheran grew up out\nof the early prayer meetings before 1840, sustained chiefly by John\nChambers' young men? Shall we hint at the missionary and educational\nimpulses given at \"the ends of the earth\" by missionaries, or of\nlives nourished or transformed in our home land by the forty or more\nministers of the gospel, who call John Chambers their father in God?\n\nNay, our dear under-shepherd himself, were he with us, would say, \"Not\nunto us O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy\nmercy and thy truth's sake.\"\n\n_Nisi Dominus Frustra._\n\n\n\n\n                             CHAPTER II.\n\n                       IRELAND. A BONNY BAIRN.\n\n\nMany a chairman, clerical or lay brother, in introducing John Chambers\nto an always delighted audience, referred to his \"big Irish heart,\"\nand indeed he had in him all the winning and fascinating elements\nwhich make the jolly Irishman. He was emotional, clear-brained, rich\nin personal magnetism, and in general a \"good fellow\". He had in him\nalso those traits which characterize the strong, clean, God-fearing\nand man-loving Puritan, whose career so often illustrates the highest\ntype of manhood. Of superb and commanding figure, six feet high,\nand the most imposing individual known in the Chambers clan, he had\nan open illuminated face, and eyes that penetrated one's inmost\nnature. He was skilled in the handshake or shoulder pat, that warmed\none's entire being into personal loyalty and were inspirations to\nfriendship for the man and his Master. His face made you believe in\nthe immortality of the soul. To these physical traits may be added an\nabsolutely fearless mien and a flashing eye, that made his enemies\nfear him, even when they most hated his ways and words. With leonine\ncountenance and majestic presence, was a tongue that beat the blarney\nstone, and yet was made, under God, a unerring instrument in winning\nsouls. Some one has written of \"The Pastor as Praiser\". John Chambers\nby praising a boy made him a hero. Often a word from him came as\nPaul's clarion call, \"Stand fast\".\n\nIn brief, John Chambers possessed in person, bearing, and\ncharacteristics, the noble heritages of that Scottish race which\nsettled in north Ireland, and which has shown itself, especially\nin America, one of the most distinctive of stocks, rich in mental\ninitiative and nervous energy, with power of manifold adaptation and\npersistency. In America the Scotch-Irish have certainly influenced,\nwith power second to that of no other strain or nationality, the\nmaking of the American republic.\n\nThe people of north Ireland were noted for their Calvinism, which\nin practice is only another word for an inextinguishable love of\nfreedom and democracy. Their faith fruited in free schools, popular\neducation, family worship, familiarity with the Bible, hatred of\npriest-craft, Romanism, and British cruelty and oppression. In their\nChristianity, some Jewish notions in survival were perhaps put on a\nlevel with the teachings of Jesus, and their passionate devotion to\nSabbath-keeping seemed sometimes to run into idolatry. They were not\nat all disinclined to controversy, and many of them were rather fond\nof a bit of a fight. Among the less sanctified, religion of a certain\nnarrow sort and the contents of the whiskey bottle were very much in\ndemand.\n\nNaturally the British government with its aristocracy and political\nchurch, its absentee-landlordism and its corrupt parliament--which in\nthe eighteenth century represented land rather than people--had much\ntrouble with this insular people of many virtues and some glaring\ndefects. The more oppressive measures of the first half and middle of\nthe eighteenth century sent tens of thousands of emigrants to America,\nwhere they settled, especially in New Hampshire, the Carolinas, and\nwestern Pennsylvania. Only too glad to take up arms against the\nBritish, they furnished from their ranks for the Continental army and\npatriot partisan bodies, probably a larger proportion of soldiers than\nthose of any other nationality among the colonists.[1] Many thousands\nof the \"Yankees\" of New England were Irishmen. In North Carolina\nthey were the Regulators whom \"Bloody Billy\" Tryon slaughtered. In\nSullivan's Expedition of 1779, one of the most important campaigns of\nthe Revolution, four of the five generals, and possibly a majority\nof the rank and file, were born in Ireland, or were of Irish stock.\nAt the banquet held in the forest, on the Chemung River on the site\nof Elmira, N. Y., on Saturday September 25, 1779, in the pavilion of\ngreenery, one of the thirteen toasts drunk was this,--\"May Ireland\nmerit a stripe in the American standard.\"[2]\n\n[Footnote 1: See Romance of American Colonization. Boston, 1898, p.\n272.]\n\n[Footnote 2: See the Pathfinders of the Revolution. Boston, 1900, p.\n296.]\n\nThe general dissatisfaction in Ireland, not only among the Catholics\nwho suffered from oppressive penal statutes, but also among the\nProtestants, broke out in 1798 into a rebellion fomented by the\nnumerous secret societies then in the island. To read this page of\nhistory brings us to the parentage and birth of John Chambers, who\nsprung not from \"illiterate\" folk, as some have ignorantly imagined,\nbut from intelligent and educated as well as patriotic parentage and\nancestry.\n\nWilliam Chambers, the father of our American John, was born in\n1768 of fairly well-to-do parents, and had a good education. One\nof his ancestors was an officer in the British navy. When about\ntwenty-seven years of age, he married a Miss Smythe, or Smith, who was\ntraditionally descended from Robert the Bruce, being one of a family\nwhich has furnished a long succession of Presbyterian ministers in\nScotland, Ireland, and the United States. Their first son and eldest\nchild, they named James. Their second son, John, is the subject\nof our biography. John Chambers was born on September 19, 1797 in\nStewartstown, Tyrone county, Ireland.\n\nThere are four towns of this name in the United States, settled\nprobably by Irishmen, and the original place in Ireland, in 1880,\ncontained 931 souls.\n\nWilliam Chambers was a hot-headed, impulsive man of great physical\nvigor, a superb horseman, and a leader in athletic sports. In early\nmanhood he was powerfully influenced in his political opinions and\naction by the ideas exploited in both the American and the French\nRevolutions. A fierce patriot, he became a follower of the famous Wolf\nTone, and in their ups and downs on the wheel of politics, both master\nand disciple found themselves in prison within a few days of each\nother. William Chambers by some means escaped, but was soon involved\nin trouble with the British authorities, and so engaged passage to\nAmerica.\n\nTheobald Wolf Tone (1763-1798), orator and advocate of the freedom of\nIreland, was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He wrote pamphlets\nexposing British misgovernment, joined Protestants and Catholics\nin political fraternity, and founded at Belfast the first Society\nof United Irishmen, which William Chambers promptly joined. It is\nbelieved that at this time the green flag of Ireland was adopted, by\nuniting the orange and the blue. It is certain that at this time,\ngreen became the national color, although an emerald green standard\nwas used in the sixteenth century.\n\nOne of these United Irishmen was Samuel Brown Wylie, who became the\ncelebrated pastor, preacher, and Doctor of Divinity in Philadelphia.\nHe left Ireland in 1797. In God's providence, exactly one century\nafterwards, the names of Chambers and Wylie were united in\nPhiladelphia in that of a memorial church.\n\nWolf Tone, as secretary of the Roman Catholic committee, had already\nentered into secret negotiations with France and had to fly to the\nUnited States in 1795. He was afterwards captured on one of the ships\nof the French squadron, which was to invade Ireland.\n\nThe French having occupied Holland, had had a great fleet built in the\nZuyder Zee to co-operate with the United Irishmen, but at the battle\nof Camperduin, off the coast of North Holland, October 11th, 1797, the\nBritish Admiral Duncan destroyed the French and Dutch fleet, and the\nhigh hopes of those who looked for Irish independence were dashed to\nthe ground. Hundreds of them fled.\n\nTried and sentenced to death, Wolf Tone committed suicide in his cell,\nNovember 19th, 1798. His son afterwards served in the armies of France\nand the United States and wrote the biography of his father. Ever\nsince 1797, the British navy has had a ship named \"Camperdown\".\n\nIn Scotland I have had the pleasure of visiting the Duncan estate near\nDundee, and in Holland of seeing Camperduin and its vicinity, both of\nland and water.\n\nThe defeat of the French fleet and the imprisonment, trial, and\nsentence of their leader, Wolf Tone, drove the United Irishmen into an\ninsurrection of despair. At the battle of Vinegar Hill, in May, 1798,\nthe revolt was crushed and the French general Humbert surrendered.\nForthwith the British constables began their hunt for each one and all\nof the United Irishmen to land them in prison.\n\nWilliam Chambers was, as we have seen, arrested and thrown into prison\nat Stewartstown. In some way he escaped and eluded those who were\nseeking him, until he made his way down to the ship, on which his\nfamily was leaving Ireland for America. Besides his wife with her\nlittle boys, James and John, the latter an infant of three months at\nthe breast, were other emigrants on board. In the hold, there was a\nstock of cabbages and down among these vegetables the refugee father\nhid himself. The British officers came on board and searched the ship\nfrom stem to stern to find their man, but his wife had encouraged him\nto get so deeply under the material for sauerkraut, and had covered\nhim up so well, that, unable to find him, they imagined he must have\nfled elsewhere. It was not until the ship was well out at sea that\nWilliam Chambers rose up from among the cabbages and made himself\nvisible. In later years, John Chambers visited the Stewartstown prison\nin which his father had been incarcerated.\n\nIn the slow ship they were knocked about on the wintry Atlantic during\na stormy voyage of fourteen weeks, but happily arrived in the Delaware\nBay, just when the buds were bursting, and the landscape of spring\ntime putting on its fresh mantle of green. After their sea weariness\nthe peach-orchards of Delaware must have looked as \"fair as a garden\nof the Lord.\"\n\nThe Mayflower, which in 1620 bore the Pilgrims to America, was bound\nfor the same beautiful region, then vaguely called \"Virginia\" but\nthese people in 1799 were pilgrims bound to the forests of Ohio, the\nfirst of the Pilgrim states beyond the Alleghenies.[3]\n\n[Footnote 3: See the Pilgrims in their Three Homes, Boston, 1898.]\n\nLanding at Newcastle, William Chambers and his little family soon\njoined a great party of emigrants who were turning their faces\nwestward. Ohio was then, except for the river valleys and old maize\nlands of the Indians, an almost unbroken forest. In those days, when\nthere was neither canal, railway nor trolley, such roads as existed,\ntraversed chiefly the long stretches of dark woods. They were made of\ncorduroy, or logs laid crosswise, with a surface covering of earth.\nVery few counties were as yet named or laid out in the Buckeye State,\nfor it was only five years after General Anthony Wayne's great victory\nat Maumee Rapids over the Indians, and many of the red men were still\nin the land. Frontier life was still very rough, both as respects\nmaterial comfort and the relations of the settlers with the Indians.\nThe second stage of territorial life was entered upon in this same\nyear, 1799, and the State Legislature had met for the first time in\nCincinnati.\n\nSlowly and painfully the caravan of home seekers made its way through\nPennsylvania over the great road through Harrisburg and the Juniata\nvalley, Hollidaysburg and Pittsburg, where Scotchmen and Irishmen were\nstill very numerous. Thence floating down the Ohio River, they reached\nthe first county on the western side, which was later named after\nThomas Jefferson, third president of the United States. The Irish\npioneer from Stewartstown helped to lay out the original townships of\nthe county, in which Warren Ridge was situated, often going ahead to\nblaze some trees along the future road. Later, in 1799, he settled\nat Smithfield, and ultimately at Mount Pleasant. It was to this last\nnamed place that the visits of John Chambers, notably in 1843 and\n1861, were made.\n\n\n\n\n                             CHAPTER III.\n\n                      OHIO. LIFE IN A LOG CABIN.\n\n\nThe little baby boy John's first American home was a log cabin and\nhis cradle was made of part of a hollowed-out tree trunk. When he\nbegan noticing things from the doorway, his eyes took in a great space\nfilled with a multitude of stumps, the dark and lonely forest, the new\nand strange fields of Indian corn, the tender green of spring, the\ngold of autumn, and the great white landscape of winter. When he was\nbut three years old, Ohio became a state.\n\nRemembering the witticism, so common a generation ago, that \"some men\nare born great, and some are born in Ohio\", we may believe that John\nChambers came very near a double inheritance, though failing in but\none share; for, to the end of his days, he boasted that he was by\nbirth an Irishman.\n\nAmong his earliest playthings were the \"buckeyes\", or horse-chestnuts,\nfrom the particular tree, so plentiful in the new land. As the Bible\nwas then, besides being in supreme honor as the Word of God, the one\nfamiliar volume, library, reference, and text-book, source of literary\nand intellectual recreation, John, as he learned to read, was as\nmuch delighted to find the _popular_ name of \"Ohio\" in the Bible, as\nAmerican tourists in Japan are, to hear the sound of this good State's\nname, in the Japanese for \"good morning\".[4]\n\n[Footnote 4: See I. Chronicles VI:5, about Bukki, the father of Uzzi.]\n\nIn after years, in the freshness of his metropolitan fame, John\nChambers visited several times his old home, the log cabin in which he\ngrew up. The house is now a weather-boarded dwelling place, but in the\nwooden walls is still to be seen the little hollow place or alcove,\nwhere were kept the decanters or glasses, containing cherry brandy\nand whiskey, which were so popular and in such general use in those\nearly days before teetotalism, or prohibition or no license was known.\nDuring the war of 1812, this house was used as a recruiting station\nfor volunteers, and here the young soldiers pledged their glass in\ntoken of their patriotism and comradeship. Against this phase of\nsocial life, the boy John set his face from the first.\n\nWilliam Chambers lived the life of a pioneer in the American forest.\nHe gained his bread by tilling the soil, and a little ready money by\nburning the timber and leaching the potash out of the ashes, and by\nother industries common to the forest. Indian cooking was soon learned\nand the food of the red man became popular. In fact there are very\nfew purely American dishes, which are not evolutions from the Indian\noriginals. Sugar was plentiful from the maple trees, but salt was very\ncostly and hard to get. By boring wells, brine was found from which\ngood salt could be made.\n\nLife on the frontier was necessarily rude in some points, especially\nin moral relations with the Indians. As pretty much all Irishmen\nare very fond of religion and whiskey and a bit of a fight, there\nwere often rough scenes. William Chambers was a strong character and\nhis hot temper was easily roused, but his wife, an equally strong\ncharacter, but with finer strength, was cool-headed and made a good\nbalance for her husband. She was a noted nurse and especially skillful\nin the sickroom. Hence she was often called upon for help by both\nfriends and strangers in time of pain and misfortune. Malaria and\nhomesickness were common woes. Devoutly pious, she trained up her\nchildren in the fear and love of God, and by them and even by later\ngenerations her memory is treasured.\n\nThe religion of these pioneers may have been narrow, but it was strong\nand deep. It was based on a first-hand knowledge of the English\nBible. Even in his early life, as I remember Mr. Chambers saying, he\nrevolted against bigotry and the kind of religion that was not rich in\nlove to one's neighbor. These were psalm-singers and not hymn-using\nChristians, but the Methodist preachers and Christians of other sorts\nthan Scotch-Irish Presbyterians were in the land. The boy John once\nheard an old gentleman say that he would as soon sit down to the\nLord's Supper with a horse-thief, as with a man who sang Dr. Watts'\nversion of the Psalms.\n\nLittle John also refused to touch liquor, for he saw the awful effects\nof its use, and grew to have a hatred of it. On one occasion, the\nlittle fellow rebuked a crowd of men, including his own father, for\ntheir drinking habits whereby the parent, William Chambers was greatly\naffected. \"The heart of the child three years old is in the heart of\nthe sage of sixty,\" as says the Japanese proverb, was true of John\nChambers, the metropolitan preacher, but it was in childhood that\nGod began to shape this bonnie bairn for a long life of usefulness.\nThe boy in the Ohio forests was a hearty hater of all bickering and\nsquabbling. He was often called upon to settle differences. He came to\nbe known among neighbors and friends as \"the little peacemaker.\" \"The\nchild is father to the man,\" and all his life John Chambers was mighty\nas a reconciler.\n\nJohn Chambers's boyhood was thus spent in the wilderness in continuous\nhard work, by which he toughened his thews and kept his cheeks rosy,\nrising into brave, pure, and clean manhood. He took his part in the\nhard work of the farm, even to clearing the forest. He knew what it\nwas to \"lift up axes against thick trees.\" With his other brothers\nand sisters, he enjoyed life to the full. Politically, in this\nJeffersonian era, his parents took the Democratic view of things,\nso that their offspring had the spirit of democracy in their veins.\nAll his life the intensely patriotic John followed the faith of his\nfather, and was, as he called himself, a Constitutional State-Rights\nDemocrat.\n\nHe was taught to read and write at home, but with that true\ninstinct for education, which is inborn with Calvinists and the\nScotch-Irishmen, his parents wished to have him better educated.\nThey sent him, therefore, when he was but fifteen years of age, to\nBaltimore, where lived some of their relatives. A journey over the\nmountains in the early nineteenth century was like a trip to the\nPhilippines in our days, but John gladly set out on horseback, with a\nparty, in the spring of 1813, to the city on the Patapsco.\n\nIt seems that he had no special purpose of remaining permanently\nthere, but Providence made his a stay of twelve years. After some\nexperience at school, he decided to learn the jeweler's trade. Thus\nwith business, and later with love, and then a call to the ministry,\nBaltimore was to be the city in which his mind was shaped, and which\nall his life was to him, socially, as magnet and star.\n\nPatriotism, too, had something to do with making the Monumental City\nhis home. It was war time, and the second struggle with Great Britain\nwas on. As a municipality, the young city, but sixteen years old, had\nalready become a famous place for the building of ships, the timber\nbeing floated down from the heart of New York state and from northern\nPennsylvania, along the old line of Sullivan's march of 1779, by\nway of the Susquehanna River. Immediately on the declaration of war\nby Congress, a swarm of privateers sailed out of the Patapsco and\nChesapeake to prey on Great Britain's commerce, especially in the West\nIndies. Hence the British government early decided that one of the\nfirst places to be occupied was Baltimore. The stalwart youth from\nOhio arrived in good time to hold a shovel and dig earth to throw up\nentrenchments, over which waved \"The Star-Spangled Banner\". He worked\nseveral days in the trenches. In September, 1814, the British forces\nmade their attack under Col. Ross, a veteran under Sir John Moore\nand Wellington. Their commander was killed and the assault given\nup. The next day Admiral Cockburn's fleet bombarded Fort McHenry in\nvain. The attack from ship by water was as ignominious a failure as\nwas the attempt by land. The happy result was the deliverance of the\ncity and the birth of America's national song, \"The Star-Spangled\nBanner\". Francis Scott Key, detained against his will on the deck\nof the British man-of-war Minden, was an indignant spectator of the\nbombardment, but in the morning of September 14th, saw his country's\nflag \"in full glory reflected ... on the stream\". In 1876 a bronze\nstatue to his memory was erected and Old Defenders' Day keeps alive\nthe stirring memories of September 11th, 1813.\n\n\n\n\n                             CHAPTER IV.\n\n                 MARYLAND. STUDENT DAYS IN BALTIMORE.\n\n\nSoon after coming to Baltimore John Chambers became a member of the\nAssociate Reformed Presbyterian Church, of which the Rev. John Mason\nDuncan was pastor. Under the preaching of this eminent prophet, the\nmind of the young man expanded. Indeed it was so shaped and moulded\nby Dr. Duncan, that we may consider him as the greatest of all John\nChambers' teachers, and his direct influence as greater than all\nsubsequent schools and teachings. \"My honored father in Christ\" was\nMr. Chambers' designation. Dr. Duncan saw in the young Ohio lad \"an\neloquent man and mighty in the scriptures\". He persuaded him to study\nfor the ministry, which John, soon after uniting with the church,\ndetermined to do.\n\nIn pursuance of his plan, the lad entered the Classical Academy of the\nRev. James Gray, D.D., formerly of Philadelphia, who had established\nin Baltimore one of the numerous first-class schools in the South,\nalmost every one of which was founded by people of Scotch-Irish\ndescent. When it came to the study of theology and practical training\nfor the pastorate, John Chambers followed the method which was then\nthe common one in America. Very few theological seminaries then\nexisted in the country. That at New Brunswick, N. J., probably the\noldest, was scarcely fifteen years of age; that at Princeton hardly\nover two years old. There were one or two in New England. For a young\nman having the ministry in view, it was the usual custom to study\nunder his own pastor, a method not without great benefits, especially\nin this instance, as Dr. Duncan was one of the most eloquent ministers\nin the country. John Chambers learned how to preach by preaching. He\nwas successful with human beings because he knew them so well. He\nwas a master of the scriptures \"in the original English\". Only those\nwho afterward sat for years under John Chambers' preaching so long as\nto be saturated with his ideas, to know the basic principles of his\nthought and the workings of his mind, and have also read and studied\nDr. Duncan's works, can realize how greatly the pupil was indebted to\nhis great master.\n\nIn fact it was John Mason Duncan who gave the keynote of the gospel\nmessage as to its form, and it was John Chambers who filled out\nthe strain. The theme was set in Baltimore, the variations given\nin Philadelphia. The pupil followed the master very closely in\npractical organization and discipline also. Dr. Duncan was suspicious\nof all creeds and confessions of faith when made instruments of\necclesiastical power. His trust in the people was sincere, profound,\nintense, and practical. In theology he ever laid stress on \"the\nmediatorial reign of Christ and his absolute ability and willingness\nto save all mankind\", which willingness it was his delight to\ndemonstrate from the Scriptures and \"to rescue the Gospel call from\nfalse philosophy\". Dr. Duncan was jealous, almost to hostility, of\ntheological seminaries, and also of the growing usurpations of power\nby synods. He dubbed America \"the land of synods\". He wrote at the\ntime when even the liberty of the presbyteries seemed endangered by\nthe centralizing power of the synods: \"To persevere in such a course\nis to raise up a class of men who, from the nature of the case, must\nbe destitute of sympathy with the people; who will rise above the\npeople as being their superiors and governors, and who will ultimately\ndistract and divide the church by their philosophic subtleties and\nliterary distinction\".\n\nVerily the writer of those words was a prophet.\n\nDr. Duncan's trust in the people was so great because, as he believed\nand taught, \"the Bible is addressed to the people\".\n\nAll of this John Chambers believed, carrying out, even to a fuller\nlogical conclusion, his teacher's doctrines.\n\nIn his book entitled \"An Essay on the Origin, Character and the\nTendency of Creeds and Confessions of Faith as Instruments of\nEcclesiastical Power\", Dr. Duncan showed in his first chapter that\n\"the intention of this essay, strictly political in character,\ninvolves the great question of human liberty to think, speak, to\nwrite, to act\". He delivered also a course of lectures on \"The General\nPrinciples in Moral Government\", as they are exhibited in the first\nthree chapters of Genesis, in which the same ideas are more fully\ncarried out.\n\nHere is one of his passages:\n\n\"Supposing then a minister--blameless, faithful, apt to teach,\nbelieving in the great truths now defined, _i.e._ 'the Word made\nflesh'--should come to preach, who has a right to prevent him, or to\nrefuse to recognize him as a true bishop and to stigmatize him as a\nheretic? The apostle John says he is of God, and any trial to which\nthe statute in question would subject him must result in the equivocal\nrecognition of that fact. Presbyteries, as they are now constructed,\nwill not and cannot admit such a man to ministerial and church\nfellowship without violating the principles of their party. They will\nnot and cannot ordain such a man without something more.... What\nmischief would the most extensive liberality produce?\"\n\nIn a biography of John Chambers we shall see the pertinence of this\nquotation when we come to the story of his ordination.\n\nThe instructor of young Chambers was the Rev. James Gray, D.D., who\npublished a book entitled \"The Mediatorial Reign of the Son of God,\nor the Absolute Ability and Willingness of Jesus Christ to Save all\nMankind, Demonstrated from the Scriptures--an Attempt to Rescue the\nGospel Call from False Philosophy\", in which the grandeur, glory and\nall-embracing nature of the divine call to salvation is set forth.\n\nThis Dr. Gray, born in Ireland on Christmas day, 1770, had come\nto America in 1797, two years before his pupil, John Chambers.\nProbably he had been one of the United Irishmen. After preaching\nat Washington, N. Y., he settled, in 1808, in Philadelphia, over\nthe Spruce Street Associate Reformed Church. In the Quaker City he\nbecame a very popular leader in many good things. He helped to found\nthe Philadelphia Bible Society and received the degree of Doctor of\nDivinity from the University of Pennsylvania. With Rev. S. B. Wylie\n(father of the Dr. Wylie, whose name is embalmed in the title of the\nChambers-Wylie Memorial Church), he opened a Classical Academy which\nbecame famous. After a few years he removed to Baltimore. Besides his\nstudy of theology and writing of the book on which his reputation\nrests--the Mediatorial Reign of the Son of God--(a favorite phrase\nof Mr. Chambers, even as the book was known by heart), he started a\ntheological review which lived but a year. He died at Gettysburg, Pa.,\nSeptember 20, 1824.\n\nIt will be easily seen that under such teachers as Duncan and Gray,\nmen of national repute, the Ohio boy received no mean training. On\nGarfield's theory, that a seat on a log, at the other end of which\nMark Hopkins was teacher, might outrank the most showy university and\napparatus, John Chambers was a college bred man. Under such direct,\nconstant and personal influence as the Ohio boy in Baltimore received,\nthe value of the quality of his education cannot be over estimated.\nIt is very certain that no number of brick or stone edifices on a\nuniversity campus, or profusion of apparatus in the laboratories, or\ncomforts and luxuries in the student's room of to-day, can take the\nplace of the personal influence of great teachers. Nor can these turn\nout men who excel in character and abilities the leaders of men in the\nUnited States of America in the early nineteenth century, among whom\nthe home-bred John Chambers was a characteristic specimen.\n\nYet, though favored with such acute, learned, and inspiring teachers,\nand kindled by fervor with ideas that made heat as well as light in\nhis soul, John Chambers' idea of the religion of Jesus was, that\nfirst of all it must be practical. There was no special division of\nit called \"applied Christianity.\" To him it was all application. How\nit could ever be printed in a catechism and exist apart from life, he\nrefused to see. He scorned professions of orthodoxy or of doctrine\nthat did not quickly and permanently bear fruit in holy living, and in\nservice for souls. With five or six other young men, he started prayer\nmeetings and evangelistic labors.\n\nWhen ready for examination for the ministry Mr. Chambers made his\nappearance before the Second Presbytery of Philadelphia, and in May,\n1824, received his license to preach the Gospel and to accept a call\nto the pastorate. This body of ministers and elders which licensed\nhim was dissolved in the autumn of 1824, and Mr. Chambers was then\nreceived as a licentiate under the care of the Presbytery of Baltimore.\n\nIt was about ten months after his first visit to Philadelphia to\nreceive license, that is in March, 1825, that Mr. Chambers was invited\nto preach in the Margaret Duncan (Associate Reformed) Church in\nPhiladelphia. The little brick edifice had been erected in compliance\nwith the will of, and as a gift from, the grandmother of Dr. John\nMason Duncan, and the latter as well as Mr. Chambers' preceptor, Dr.\nJames Mason Gray, had taken part in the dedicatory services in 1815.\n\nThe church itself at this time, 1825, was a struggling one. The\nedifice was in a poor and thinly inhabited part of the city. There was\nno fund for the support of the building, and the Associate Reformed\ndenomination in the United States was weak and poor, with a scarcity\nof ministers. Happily other Presbyterians gave assistance and supplied\nthe pulpit; otherwise, the building would have been often closed for\nlong periods at a time. The first regular pastor was the Rev. Thomas\nGilfillan McInnis, who was called to the service early in 1822. He\ndied on the 26th of August, 1824, and the flock was left shepherdless.\nThere was even better provision for the dead than for the living. On\nthe 7th of October, 1824, Robert A. Caldcleugh and wife presented to\nthe minister, elders, and fifty-two church members, a lot of ground,\non the South side of Race street between what was the \"Schuylkill\nThird\" and \"Schuylkill Fourth\" streets, now Nineteenth and Twentieth,\nfor a cemetery. This lot is eighteen feet six inches wide and one\nhundred and twenty-nine feet deep.\n\nThis was the situation, when Mr. Chambers was called, in March, 1825,\nto preach as a candidate. He came on from Baltimore and on two Sundays\nin April told the people of God's love in Christ Jesus. His sermons\nwere as a mighty stack of fuel, with the breath of the Lord on the\nfirst Sabbath kindling it, and the wind of the Holy Spirit on the\nsecond Lord's Day turning it into vehement flame. A triple fire of\nlove to God, of the people to the young pastor, and of his young heart\nto them began its glow, which paled not until after fifty years of\nbeacon glory it was quenched by death.\n\n    \"The flashes thereof are as flashes of fire\n        A very flame of Jehovah\n    Many waters cannot quench love,\n        Neither can floods drown it.\"\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER V.\n\n                      NEWTOWN. REJECTED OF MEN.\n\n\nSince out of the Margaret Duncan Church, or \"Church of the Vow\", have\ngrown, it is believed, at least ten other churches, and since the\ntradition of her ocean experiences has taken varied shapes and forms\nin its transmission, we shall give a narrative which is probably the\nmost in accordance with fact.\n\nMrs. Margaret Duncan, on the death of her husband, a prosperous\nmerchant of Philadelphia, determined to visit old friends in\nStewartstown, Tyrone County, Ireland, in which she had been born. She\ntook with her her little grandson, who was to become the famous Dr.\nJohn Mason Duncan. Returning across the ocean in the autumn of 1798,\nthe ship sailing from Belfast, Ireland, was loaded heavily with many\npassengers, most of them poor emigrants, but had little cargo in the\nhold. It is said that the captain had never crossed the Atlantic.\nThe compass was out of order, and with head winds and wet and foggy\nweather, the voyage was dangerously prolonged. The passengers were put\non short allowance and there was no water. It is even said that in\na severe storm the captain and crew deserted the vessel. The people\nsuffered from agonizing thirst. They even talked of drawing lots to\nsee who should be put to death and give his own flesh as food to the\nothers.\n\nMrs. Duncan was then a woman between seventy and eighty years of age.\nLate tradition says the lot was drawn and she drew it and expected to\nbe a victim. Mr. Chambers, though often referring to her experiences\non the sea, makes no mention of the lot or of this dire extremity.\nGoing into her cabin she gave herself to prayer, and vowed before God\nthat if He would avert the impending blow and in mercy save her life\nand the ship's company she would forever consecrate herself and all\nthat she had to His service; that she would erect a church edifice for\nthe congregation of the Associate Reformed people in Philadelphia with\nwhom she worshipped, and that she would give and educate her little\ngrandson for the Gospel ministry.\n\nNot long after this, rain fell, and the agonizing thirst of those\nin the ship was relieved. Soon the shout, \"sail ho\" was heard from\nthe man aloft. A vessel hove in sight and rescued them all. The ship\nentered the Delaware river and all reached Philadelphia in safety.\n\nTrue to her vows, Margaret Duncan educated her grandson John Mason\nDuncan to preach the good news of God. Dying Nov. 16th, 1802, she\nleft her money by will for the erection of a house of worship, which\nshe minutely described, specifying that it was to be of the Associate\nReformed communion. By various names, the \"Margaret Duncan Church,\" or\n\"The Vow Church,\" or \"Saint Margaret's Church,\" the brick edifice on\nThirteenth street near Filbert on the west side, stood until some time\nin the fifties. I can remember as a little boy going to see the debris\nof the ruins, the piled up old brick partially cleaned of mortar, the\ndust and the broken bits of lime, and the great hollow place where the\ncellar had been. In 1875, Mr. Chambers spoke of \"the little church\nwhere we worshipped so long.... It is a shame that the church was ever\ndestroyed. However it was torn down, and we have nothing more to do\nwith it\".\n\nHis was the language of affection. As matter of cold fact, the \"house\nwas of plain brick, without the least trace of ornament and for many\nyears was one of the gloomiest looking churches in the city. The\ndimensions were fifty by sixty feet.\" The edifice was opened for\nworship on the 26th of November, 1815. The dedication sermon was\npreached by the son of the vow, and the grandson of her who made it,\nRev. John Mason Duncan. As before stated, Rev. James Gray, D.D., then\nwith Dr. Wylie at the head of a classical school in Philadelphia, also\ntook part.\n\nHaving been called to be the pastor of this church, Mr. Chambers\nsurveyed his field to see what resources there were for sustaining\npermanent gospel work. He found no organized effort. There was no\nprayer-meeting, no Sunday School, not a man to lead in public prayer,\nand the three elders were all superannuated. The congregation was made\nup of humble people, poor, hard-working, industrious, with only here\nand there one among them who might be called rich; nor was there a\nfamily in which family worship was held. It was necessary therefore\nthat the young man from Baltimore, who did not know ten people in\nPhiladelphia when he first arrived, should borrow two devout men,\nPresbyterians, Wilfrid Hall and Hiram Ayres, to help him in meetings\nfor social prayer. He then made application to Mr. Hall for the use of\na room on Market street near what is now Seventeenth, in a district of\nvacant lots. Very few people were then living west of Broad street,\nand most of the streets now well known were not yet \"cut through\". He\nknew not whether any one would come to the meeting called for prayer,\nbut God gave him a gracious surprise. When he arrived near the hour,\n\"there was scarcely a spot for a human being to stand on\". There and\nthen began the Holy Spirit's workings which resulted in a whole family\nof Christian churches.\n\nThese prayer meetings were begun, according to due announcement,\non the fourth Sunday in May. Their good influences were seen in\nthe immediate enlargement of the church audience. By the beginning\nof July, there were four men ready to speak or lead in prayer. By\nAugust 1st, over forty persons, many of them young men and women, had\ndeclared their faith in Christ, and were ready for Christian work. Mr.\nChambers found a friend in Rev. Dr. Stiles Ely, a New England man, the\nprincipal founder of the Jefferson Medical College, and editor of _The\nPhiladelphian_. From 1801 he had been pastor of the old Pine street\nChurch, and was at that time moderator of the Presbyterian General\nAssembly. As Mr. Chambers was not yet ordained, Dr. Ely preached the\nsermon and administered the Lord's Supper, when the new converts were\nreceived.\n\nAs Dr. Chambers told the story in 1875, \"The next move was for a\nSabbath School, and the marvel was with what eagerness they took hold\nof it ... and carried it on with vigor, procured rooms and Sabbath\nSchool scholars and teachers and entered their names, and we went on\nand on from that very day after the institution of the prayer meeting,\nand the consequence was that we very soon felt that God was with us\".\n\nWhen the people of the Ninth Presbyterian, or Margaret Duncan Church\non Thirteenth street, met together to vote a call to John Chambers, it\nwas under the care of the First Presbytery of Philadelphia. Of course,\ntherefore, the call must be approved at the regular meeting of the\npresbytery, and only after the usual examination of the candidate.\nMr. Chambers came on from Baltimore, having accepted the call, and\nbegan his work as pastor and preacher-elect on the 9th day, or second\nSabbath, in May, 1825. The presbytery was to meet in October in its\nsemi-annual gathering. By a strange coincidence this was at Newtown,\nnear the Neshaminy stream, in Bucks county, Pa.--the field of the\nevangelical and revival labors of the ancestor of his betrothed, of\nwhom more anon. Was the young preacher's imagination busy with the\nscenes of a century before?\n\nThe glories of autumn made lovely the landscape of this affluent\nagricultural county lying along the bend of the Delaware, rich\nin fruit, in Pennsylvania Germans, in English Quakers, and in\nScotch-Irish people. Its name, that of Penn's county in England,\nis suggestive of the old world, and it is historically famous for\nbeing on the line of Washington's march to his great victory over\nthe Hessians at Trenton, and through it part of Sullivan's men had\nmoved for the chastisement of the Iroquois tribes at Newtown, near\nElmira, N. Y., in 1779. Yet the historical associations uppermost\nin the mind of the young licentiate must have been those with the\ngreat-grandfather of his betrothed, who in this very region and near\nthis very house of worship, had labored with Gilbert Tennant in the\ngospel.\n\nThe young minister's call and the letter announcing it, from the\nhands of the elders of the Ninth Church, Messrs. Ross, Hogg, and\nReed, in the name of the congregation, was handed in to the assembled\nauthorities. No doubt the document was on genuine honest rag paper,\nthe only kind then known, and on a letter sheet, folded and dovetailed\ntogether and closed with sealing wax or wafer, without an envelope,\ndirected on the outside and carried to him by stage coach. No doubt he\nhimself had to go to the office in Baltimore to get it. In compliance\nwith its request, the young licentiate's journey would be by stage\nthrough Elkton and Wilmington to Philadelphia. From Philadelphia to\nNewtown, twenty-seven miles northeast of Philadelphia, the route would\nprobably be up the well-known road crossing the Neshaminy Creek.\n\nThe young licentiate, accustomed to do his own thinking, appeared with\nclean papers from the Presbytery of Baltimore, and asked that he might\nbe taken under the care of the First Presbytery of Philadelphia, with\na view to ordination and installation as pastor of the Ninth Church.\nNevertheless, although he might be punctual and his papers clean,\nDame Rumor had arrived before him. Several of her thousand tongues\nhad declared, and even asseverated vehemently, that John Chambers was\nthat strange, curious, and ever-changing thing called a \"heretic.\"\nOften that undefined thing is a babe thrust into the cradle, while the\northodoxy of yesterday is turned out. A \"heretic,\" as Saint Paul was\nonce called, even as Jesus was before him, is very apt to be crucified\nto-day and glorified to-morrow. Indeed, \"heresy\" is almost as protean\nand as undefinable as \"orthodoxy\" itself. We shall see what kind of\na \"heretic\" John Chambers was. His life for fifty years revealed the\nreality.\n\nWithin that little company gathered at Newtown there was, in the\nlanguage of old times many a \"heresio-mastix\" or scourger of heresy,\nand a majority of the ministers present were already pre-determined\nto \"hereticate\" the young licentiate, who had already made the bounds\nof the little brick church on Thirteenth street too small to hold his\nhearers. Nevertheless our sympathies go out to all church bishops,\nwhose duty it is to show that sudden popularity is no proof of fitness\nor character.\n\nIt developed during the examination that the head and front of the\nyoung man's offending was his belief in the Bible as an all sufficient\nrule of faith and practice. In this position, he was confirmed by\nthe fact that the Westminster standards, the Confession of Faith,\nthe Larger and Shorter Catechisms, teach that the Bible is the only\ninfallible rule of faith and obedience. These all unite in declaring\nthat the Scriptures are \"given by inspiration of God to be the rule\nof faith and life\", \"the rule of worship\", the only rule of faith and\nobedience; which teach \"what man is to believe concerning God, and\nwhat duty God requires of man\", and form \"the rule given us of God to\ndirect us how we may glorify and enjoy Him.\"\n\nIn a word, to an independent thinker, loyal to the Bible as the word\nof God, as John Chambers was, the Westminster standards contain their\nown _reductio ad absurdum_ to any one who puts creed, catechism, or\nconfession above the Holy Scriptures, or who makes certain parts, or\neven a collection of parts, greater than the whole. Mr. Chambers,\nusing his own words, believed that nothing could exceed infallibility,\nand was therefore satisfied with the infallible rule of the\nScriptures. There was not then the freedom of faith, and the liberty\nof private interpretation of Holy Scripture and the Westminster\nsymbols that is now happily the rule in the Presbyterian churches. The\nfault, if fault it were, was not solely on the young man's part.\n\nThe eyes of the \"fathers and brethren\" were opened and the \"heretic\"\nstood revealed. One of the members, the Rev. Dr. Ely, then proposed\nthat the moderator should ask Mr. Chambers whether at the time of his\nlicensure he subscribed to the Confession of Faith. He answered that\nhe did not. When the second question was proposed, \"Are you prepared\nto do so now?\" he answered firmly, \"I am not\".\n\nA motion was then made by Dr. Ely that Mr. Chambers and his papers be\nreferred back to the Presbytery of Baltimore, and that the pulpit of\nthe Ninth Church be declared vacant. Rev. Messrs. Patterson and Hoff\nwere appointed a committee to perform the duty.\n\nOn Thursday evening of the same week, which was the regular evening\nfor the weekly lecture, the committee of the Presbytery, which had met\nat Newtown, appeared at the church.\n\nAlthough there were no telegraphs in those days, it was quickly\nknown in Philadelphia, and to all the people of the Ninth Church,\nthat Mr. Chambers, the man whom they had learned to love, had been\nrejected by the Presbytery. The preaching of the young minister had\nalready resulted, under God, in a deep and strong religious interest.\nConsequently there was a large attendance and not a little excitement\nin the little brick edifice, so much so, indeed, that some of the\ncongregation had quietly resolved to put the committee out in the\nstreet should they attempt to go into the pulpit.\n\nPunctuality with the young pastor had already settled into what proved\nto be a life-long habit. He was at the church in good season. Finding\nthe committee already there, he explained to the two men the situation\nand told them what the consequences would be if they attempted to\nfulfil their mission. Happily, however, both gentlemen being more\nconcerned with the coming of the kingdom of God than about obeying\nthe letter of their orders, did indeed go into the pulpit, but it was\nat the request of Mr. Chambers, who made them his firm friends for\nlife. When there they co-operated with him, assisting to conduct the\nservices, and not a word was said about the pulpit being vacant. Thus\nGod, through his servant, quieted the Irishmen, and then and there\nmagnified this man who had a genius for friendship and was an expert\npeacemaker; all of which was for the coming of the kingdom and the\ngood of souls.\n\nAs days passed by, the people of the congregation, realizing that if\nthey wanted to have a minister they would have to be an independent\nchurch, took prompt action. After due notice had been given, a\ncongregational meeting was held. By a vote of four to one the people\ndeclared themselves independent of all church courts, with only Christ\nas their Master. By another vote, equally large, they resolved to\nretain John Chambers as their minister.\n\nThe minority, led by Mr. Moses Reed, one of the elders, withdrew,\nand in a room on Race street organized themselves as the Ninth\nPresbyterian Church. In the law suit that followed, the seceders won\ntheir case. With the edifice, given up in 1830, went the possession of\nthe small burying ground on Race street, above Nineteenth, in which\nsleeps the dust of the Ross family and the father of the renowned\nsoldier's friend, Miss Anna Ross, whom defenders of the Union from\n1861 to 1865, and the survivors of the Grand Army remember so well. In\nthe writer's memory her name and face are not forgotten, for she was\nhis Sunday School teacher.\n\n\n\n\n                             CHAPTER VI.\n\n                NEW ENGLAND. ORDINATION AT NEW HAVEN.\n\n\nIn Nevins' Presbyterian Encyclopedia, which contains a brief sketch\nof the career of John Chambers and a wood-cut portrait of him in his\nprime, it is stated, that \"When Mr. Duncan about this time renounced\nthe jurisdiction of the Presbyterian Church into which the Associate\nReformed, with Dr. Mason and others had been merged, Dr. Chambers\nfollowed his example, from sympathy with his teacher\". Was the pupil's\n\"sympathy\" stronger than were the preacher's convictions?\n\nMeanwhile the young minister, then twenty-seven years old, returned\nto Baltimore to meet the Presbytery and seek ordination. Here again\nanother obstacle arose. The theologians on the Patapsco declared that\nMr. Chambers was no longer a licentiate under their care, and handed\nhim back his papers. Again was John Chambers preacher of the gospel\nrejected of men. Was ecclesiasticism good order in this case? Did the\ntrue cause of this rather rough treatment lie in this, that he had\nbeen a pupil of John Mason Duncan, the independent?\n\nWhat should the young man do? Disowned of presbyteries and looked at\nsuspiciously by the fathers and lords in the church, where should he\ngo? As he himself wrote on his fiftieth anniversary, May 9th, 1875:\n\n\"The prospect, therefore, was rather chilly. I had left my home\nof many years in the city of Baltimore, where I received all the\neducation that ever was bestowed upon me, and where I sat at the\nfeet of that Gamaliel, the Reverend John Mason Duncan, to whom under\nGod, I am indebted, entirely by His grace, for the position I occupy\nto-day. My heart had been much interested in religious matters for\ntwo or three years before I left Baltimore. There were five or six of\nus young men, as students of Mr. Duncan, and we had organized some\nmeetings through the city of Baltimore, and God was with us; and\nthe warm heart--if I had any warm heart at all--that I brought to\nPhiladelphia, was kindled at the altar of those dear young brethren.\nHow much we are indebted to God for young men! How much, my brethren,\nare the eldership, are you, am I, indebted to young men!\" Dr.\nChambers's last words in this paragraph are especially appropriate,\nbecause it is the tendency of most theologians and elderly men to\nteach that God _was_, not that he is. With young men, God's existence\nis more likely to be in the present tense.\n\nThe ecclesiastical orphan, thus cast fatherless and friendless\nupon the wide world, began to inquire whither he should go to seek\nordination. Happily there were other bodies of Christians and a\nliving church of Christ, besides the one which had withheld its\nblessing. Happily too, there were men in the Presbyterian Churches\nof Philadelphia, warm friends, who were able to direct him wisely,\none of them being the large-hearted scholar, James Patriot Wilson,\nD.D., pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, predecessor of Albert\nBarnes, and then fifty-six years old. The other was Rev. Thomas\nHarvey Skinner, D.D., pastor of the Fifth Presbyterian Church in\nLocust street, and who, twenty-six years afterwards, became the\nfamous professor in Union Theological Seminary of New York City.\nBoth of these men were in hearty sympathy with those views of truth\nafterwards called the \"New School\". These brethren with Dr. Duncan,\nadvised Mr. Chambers to go into Yankee land and there be ordained\nby Congregational clergymen. They gave him letters of introduction\nto the Rev. Nathaniel W. Taylor, the famous exponent of \"the new\ndivinity\" and then of the theological department of Yale College.\n\nIt was not Presbyterianism only that was at this era being rocked on\nthe waves of progress by the gales of the Spirit. About this time, or\nshortly afterwards, Connecticut Congregationalism was being excited\nand lifted out of torpor and routine by the breezy discussions of\n\"Taylorism\" and \"Tylerism\". The former expressed the views of Dr.\nNathaniel William Taylor, the successor of Moses Stuart, and then\nholding the Dwight professorship in the Theological Department of\nYale College. The young seminary opened in 1822 was therefore but\nthree years old when Mr. Chambers appeared to be ordained. Whatever\nmay be the true label we put upon Dr. N. W. Taylor, he was one of the\ngreatest of America's theologians when the appeal was being taken from\nCalvin to Christ. He taught a modification of Hopkinsism which many\nPresbyterians regarded as hostile to Calvinism and many New Englanders\nas \"unsound\". As Mr. Chambers had already done, Dr. Taylor repudiated\nthe words \"predestinate\" and \"decreed\" and used the word \"purposed\"\nconcerning God's desire to save men. Before he died, in 1858, he had\ntrained over seven hundred ministers. Ex-President Dwight, in his\nrecent book on Men and Memories of Yale, presents him felicitously in\nword and picture.\n\nAbout the time also of rising \"Taylorism\" the new methods of preaching\nand revival used by Rev. C. G. Finney, afterwards president of\nOberlin College, excited much alarm among the men of the old school.\nHow strange are the variations and how curious is the progress\nof orthodoxy! Most of the great revivalists of this country were\nnourished in the Congregational churches; and, from Finney to Moody,\nthey were at first looked upon with suspicion. Later they were\nwelcomed and lauded as the saviors of orthodoxy. Verily the \"earthen\nvessel\" is sometimes more in evidence than the \"heavenly treasure\".\n\nTo combat the views of Dr. Taylor, Dr. Bennett Tyler, ex-president of\nDartmouth College, and then pastor at Portland, Me., was hailed as the\nchampion by all the leading spirits among the \"conservatives\", though\nboth of these great teachers had modified the original Calvinism. Of\nDr. Tyler it has been well said that \"In forming his system he began\nnot with mind, but with the Bible, and he looked for no advances in\ntheology except such as come from a richer Christian experience\". Dr.\nTyler founded a theological institute at East Windsor, Conn., in 1834,\nso long and ably presided over by the cultured Philadelphian, Chester\nD. Hartranft, D.D., brother of Pennsylvania's soldier and governor.\n\nThe monuments of these controversies between \"Taylorism\" and\n\"Tylerism\", now forgotten, are seen in the superb theological\nseminaries of New Haven and Hartford, but the points of difference,\nas now discoverable only under the microscope of research, are of\nno practical importance. Hardly any one except the hair-splitting\nphilosophers can state them. They have been forgotten in the larger\nvision of advancing Christianity. So will it be with most of the\ncontroversies of to-day, especially those centering in the \"higher\ncriticism\".\n\nIt was to Dr. N. W. Taylor, that Mr. Chambers had letters, as well as\nto Dr. Leonard Bacon, afterwards the famous opponent of slavery, and\nauthor, in 1833 of the hymn,\n\n      \"O God beneath thy guiding hand\n      Our exiled fathers crossed the sea,\n    And when they trod the wintry strand\n      With prayer and psalm they worshipped thee.\"\n\nFor over twenty years Dr. Bacon was pastor of the First Congregational\nChurch in New Haven, one of the professors in Yale Divinity School,\nand the progenitor of a remarkably intellectual family. Until his\ndeath, the day before Christmas of 1881, he was a commanding figure in\nAmerican history. Of the council which ordained Mr. Chambers he was\nthe scribe. It will be seen at a glance that the ecclesiastical exile\nfrom Philadelphia and Baltimore was to stand before giants. If these\nmighty men of God could give him ordination, why need he mourn the\nloss of clerical favor nearer home?\n\nThus armed with letters of commendation, the young Irish-American\nproceeded to the City of Elms, in the opening week of December, 1825.\nIt was the first year of John Quincy Adams's administration, and the\nErie Canal had joined the waters of the great lakes with the Atlantic.\nIt was an era of mighty conquests over nature, and the heart of the\nyoung man who was thrilling with the spirit of the age and of the\nages, beat high with hope. He, too, wanted to do great things for God\nand help in making the world better. He sought out those addressed,\nand handed to them his letters. Two days afterwards, the Association\nof Congregational ministers of the Western District of New Haven\nCounty was called together by the Moderator, and eight ministers were\npresent in the assembly which was held in the Centre Church.\n\nOf the meeting, the following official record was copied out for the\nbiographer, at the request of Rev. Dr. T. T. Munger, author of The\nFreedom of Faith, and through the courtesy of Rev. Franklin Dexter,\nlibrarian of Yale University.\n\n\"At a Special Meeting of the Association of the Western District of\nNew Haven County, convened by letters from the Moderator and holden in\nNew Haven, December 7th, 1825.\n\nPresent--Messrs. S. W. Stebbins, J. Day, D.D., E. Scranton, S. Merwin,\nJ. Allen, E. T. Fitch and L. Bacon.\n\nMr. Stebbins was chosen Moderator, and Mr. Bacon, Scribe. The session\nwas opened with prayer.\n\nMr. John Chambers, a licentiate of the late second Presbytery of\nPhiladelphia, now dissolved, being introduced to the Association by\nMr. Merwin, requested to be ordained to the ministry of the Gospel,\nand producing proper testimonials of his standing as a member of\nthe church of Christ; of his regular license to preach the Gospel,\nand of his having passed through a period of probation, with proper\nacceptance, the Association, after examining him as to his belief\nin the doctrines of the Gospel, his experimental acquaintance with\nreligion, and his motives in desiring the work of the ministry,\n\n_Voted_ to proceed to his ordination this evening at half-past six\no'clock.\n\n_Voted_ that the parts be performed as follows: The introductory\nprayer to be offered by Mr. Scranton; the sermon to be preached by\nProfessor Fitch; the ordaining prayer to be offered by Mr. Merwin,\nduring which Messrs. Stebbins, Fitch and Merwin to impose hands; the\ncharge to be given by Mr. Stebbins; the right hand of fellowship by\nMr. Bacon; the concluding prayer to be offered by Mr. Allen. Adjourned\nto meet in the Centre Meeting-house at half-past six o'clock.\n\nMet according to adjournment. The ordination took place according to\nthe preceding votes.\n\nMr. Chambers, at his request, was admitted a member of the Association.\n\nThe minutes were read and accepted.\n\n    [TEST]       LEONARD BACON, Scribe.\"\n\nThe ordination sermon was duly preached in the evening by the Rev.\nProfessor Eleazer T. Fitch, D.D., Livingstone Professor of Divinity\nin Yale College, and then Mr. Chambers was ordained by the laying on\nof hands of the three appointed ministers of the Association.\n\nAccording to Congregational usage an Association of ministers does\nnot ordain to the ministry, but a Council does. The Association may\ntransform itself into a Council for the time being. In Connecticut\nthe Consociation, or standing council, performed this function. In\nany event, John Chambers was properly ordained to the Gospel ministry\naccording to due Congregational call, form, and precedent.\n\nFurthermore, by his own request, he became a member of the\nAssociation. This did not make him a \"Congregationalist\", but it\nshowed his hearty sympathy with the principles and ideas of his\nfellow members. For forty-eight years, his only ministerial standing\nand connection was in the Congregational body as an independent\nminister, though his church was governed according to Presbyterian\nform and usage. So strong and deep was his faith in the validity of\nnon-Episcopal and non-Presbyterian ordination that he showed it all\nhis life by his works. He ordained during the course of his ministry\nseveral young men to the work of the gospel. One of these impressive\nceremonies I myself witnessed, probably about 1859. After preaching a\nsermon and reading the papers or certificates of the candidate, Mr.\nChambers called his elders, those grand men of God, Burtis, Luther,\nSteinmetz, and Walton around him. Then upon the head of the kneeling\nyoung man he and they laid their hands, solemnly ordaining him to the\ngospel in true apostolic style.\n\nYears afterwards, in 1892, one of his own boys, even the biographer,\ndelivered the Dudleian lecture at Harvard University in Appleton\nChapel on \"The Validity of non-Episcopal Ordination\", or, more\nexactly, the validity of ordination by the congregation, according\nto the method of the primitive Christian Churches[5]. By a strange\ncoincidence, it was on the same night, Dec. 7, on which Mr. Chambers\nwas ordained, and thus the sixty-seventh anniversary of his ordination.\n\n[Footnote 5: See the Bibliotheca Sacra, for October, 1893.]\n\nMr. Chambers left New Haven the next morning, Dec. 8th, 1825. The\nelms were leafless, but his heart was happy and his face radiant\nwith joy. Coming back to minister to his constantly increasing\nflock, he baptized on the first Sunday in January, 1826, several new\ncommunicants and administered for the first time the memorial supper\nof Jesus. It was a day long to be remembered, for between seventy and\neighty souls were on this occasion added to the church, and the young\npastor, in the joy of his initial service, baptized the first child\nthat ever received the dedicating waters from his hands, John Chambers\nArrison, the first of a mighty host.\n\nIn 1875, the white-haired pastor who had welcomed 3,585 members into\nhis church, said: \"Thus it seemed that the tide of God's favor was\ntaken at the flood, and it has brought us to where we are to-day\".\n\n\n\n\n                             CHAPTER VII.\n\n                   HOME AND CHURCH. LOVE AND WORK.\n\n\nLet us now look into John Chambers's inner life,--of the heart as\nwell as the intellect. We have seen how the vigorous and lusty twig\nwhich grew up in the classical academy of Baltimore began to bend\naway from certain statements and formul\u00e6 in the Westminster symbols,\n_as then interpreted to him_, which gave the afterwards robust and\nwidespreading tree a tremendous inclination. \"As a man thinketh in his\nheart, so is he.\" John Chambers's convictions shaped his message and\ncolored all his preaching. There were probably reasons, other than\nthose merely intellectual, for the young man's tremendous antipathy\nto the idea that the fullness of the Christian life and the message\nof Jesus could be compressed into the mathematical statements made at\nWestminster during the days of the British Commonwealth.\n\nWhen I was a student at Rutgers College, New Brunswick, New Jersey,\nfrom 1865 to 1869, I was asked, as an incoming freshman, by the\npresident, Rev. William H. Campbell, D.D., LL.D., concerning my\nreligious training. I told him how much I owed to John Chambers in\nPhiladelphia. A bland light overspread the full expanse of that face,\nso seamed with thought and studious toil and which nothing but warm\naffection could call handsome. Indeed, it seemed as though every\nwrinkle was smoothed out, as a prairie-like smile suffused its whole\narea. Then, laughing heartily, he said, \"Well, I can remember when\nhe had orthodoxy taught him with the sole of a slipper.\" Evidently\nthen, according to the accepted and supposedly wholesome custom of the\ntimes, the future preacher received at intervals what was expected\nto be a physical aid to faith, though in reality the result was the\nreverse of what was expected. Whether the slipper was applied to the\nlad before or after intellectual defection, its use induced reaction.\nWhether, as is probable, the correction by leather came from the\nemployer to whom the apprentice was bound, or from the schoolmaster is\nnot known. The boy would not accept Westminsterism whole, certainly\nnot as then interpreted.\n\nAbove all, this young Irish-American lad had a big, warm heart. As\nhe read the Scriptures for himself he was early filled with that\nidea, which afterwards he infused into the lives of thousands,\nthat the gospel is a glorious message to the individual, that the\nChristian life is a Way, as well as a belief, that there are elements\nin religious life and experience which do not submit to exact\ndefinitions, and that the mercy of God is the largest factor of the\nDivine life toward wrong-doing man. In this the time of his youth,\nas well as all through his life, he felt deeply rather than thought\ncoolly. Whether we must ascribe most or all of the results to the\ntowering personality of his teacher, John Mason Duncan, and of his\nlong continued training at a most susceptible age under so forceful\na master, certainly, whatever our philosophy of the known facts may\nbe, he was filled with an antipathy to creeds. In a time and climate\nof theological severity, and amid the rancor of controversy, he was,\namong his clerical brethren who set higher value than he did, upon\n\"the form of sound words\" or logical formulas, verily a pilgrim and\nstranger upon the earth. He rejoiced to see by faith the day we live\nin, even the work of the General Assembly, and of the Synods and\nPresbyteries of 1903.\n\nEver hoping and praying for the day to come when the creeds,\nespecially of the Presbyterian body of churches, in which he had\nbeen educated, would be revised, he lived and \"died in faith, not\nhaving received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them\nfrom afar\". The change of theological climate, the revision of the\nWestminster symbols and the simplification of theology into which we,\nin this twentieth century have come, even the work of the General\nAssembly, that met in New York in 1902, and in Los Angeles in 1903,\nwas what he in hope long ago looked for. He believed in expressing\nforms of faith in the language of living men, not of dead ones, for he\never taught not only that God was, but that He is.\n\nTo recapitulate, John Chambers left the classical academy in 1818,\nafter five years' instruction. He remained seven years longer in\nBaltimore, active in church life and work. During this time, he was\noccupied also in business, thus earning his livelihood, for he had\nlearned the trade of a jeweler. During these years, his life was made\nrich and joyous by one who had crossed his path, and who was to be to\nhim his beloved wife, Miss Helen McHenry. She was the first of three\nnoble specimens of womanhood who were to light his household fire,\nirradiate his home, double and share his joys and sorrows. How often\nand how tenderly did \"our pastor\" refer to \"the partner of his life\",\nthe beloved \"companion of his bosom!\" What a refining power, what a\npotent influence, stimulating to marital purity and mutual \"love that\nlightens all distress\", was his steadfast example. It was his frequent\nfelicitous use of passages from the Song of Songs, that so impressed\none boy's mind that, despite his vow, registered in college, never\nto write a \"commentary\", he composed and published \"The Lily Among\nThorns\".[6]\n\n[Footnote 6: The Lily Among Thorns. A Study of the Biblical Drama\nentitled The Song of Songs. Boston, 1889.]\n\nLet us look at the heredity of his affianced. As early as 1735,\nFrancis McHenry, an ordained minister of the Presbyterian church came\nfrom Ireland to America and was associated with Gilbert Tennant in the\nDeep Run, or Neshaminy, churches in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and\nalso in the beginnings of the Log College, which by direct evolution\nbecame the great Princeton University.\n\nHis grandson was Francis Dean McHenry, a shipping merchant of\nBaltimore, whose daughter Helen was born in September, 1805, when the\nboy in Ohio was nearly seven years old. When he met her in Baltimore,\nhe had the lover's \"three T's\" or elements of success--propinquity,\nopportunity, and importunity. Those who knew John Chambers in later\nlife will not marvel why he won her, rather might they wonder how\nany maiden could resist the urgency of the warm-hearted and handsome\nyouth, who was the largest and handsomest of the Chambers family. As\nmatter of fact, she made capitulation in due time and was led to the\naltar.\n\nIt was but a very short time after John Chambers had reached the first\nstadium in his successful career and was an ordained minister, that\nthe marriage took place in Baltimore, March 14th, 1826.\n\nThe young preacher brought his bride to Philadelphia and enjoyed just\nthree years and six months of wedded happiness with the companion of\nhis youth. Those who remember Mrs. Chambers speak of her beauty and\nanimation, and of her whole-hearted sympathy with her husband's work,\nbut her life was destined to be brief. The first child born of the\nunion was John Mason Duncan Chambers, whom the happy father joyfully\nnamed after his spiritual father, under whom his soul life had opened\nand ripened in Baltimore. His second child, a daughter, Helen Frances\nChambers, now Mrs. James Hackett, living at Pomfret Centre, Conn.,\nstill survives him.\n\nJohn Mason Duncan Chambers, born March 15, 1827, married Miss Emma\nWard of Winchester, Virginia, in October, 1851. He died November,\n1857, leaving three children, of whom Helen McHenry is the only\nsurvivor. She is married to Mr. George Lothrop Bradley, of Pomfret\nCentre, Conn., and Washington, D. C.\n\nHelen Frances Chambers, born April 25, 1829, was married July 17,\n1849, to Mr. James Hackett, of Baltimore. Their one surviving child,\nHelen McHenry Hackett, married George F. Miles. With Mrs. Hackett,\nthese two grandchildren are the only descendants of John Chambers.\n\nThe pastor, elect and ordained, brought his bride to Philadelphia\nand took a house on Thirteenth street, below Walnut, and there began\nhis home. Being on the same street as his church, he had not been\nmany months at work before scores of people living on Thirteenth,\nor streets parallel and crossing it, were attracted to become\nworshippers with him as their pastor. As one lady, still lovely in\nher eighty years of life, tells the story from girlhood's memories,\nthe \"Chamberites\", as they were at first called, were every Sunday\nmorning seen to be moving with their faces set northward toward \"the\nChurch of the Vow\"; and the preacher, being from the first the soul of\npromptness, \"led the procession\".\n\nBetween Thirteenth and Broad streets and Walnut and Locust, had grown\nup \"the Village\", where for lack of accommodation in the church\nedifice, the Sunday School was established. On Sabbath afternoons, the\nwhole school adjourned bodily to the church, walking up Thirteenth\nstreet to Filbert.\n\nYet even with a growing Sunday School and enlarging church membership,\nthe way of the young pastor was far from smooth, and the First\nIndependent Church of Philadelphia was in no danger of being\nsmothered with kindness. Almost as a matter of course, an industrious\narmy of prophets arose to foretell failure to a church founded on\nthe Bible alone. Rather, instead of \"prophets\", we should say a\nbusy host of fortune-tellers, since the Hebrew and Biblical word,\nprophet, does not mean predicter, but the utterer of truth. The little\necclesiastical infant, rather foundling, needed much warmth of prayer\nand devotion, certainly during its first decade. With shakings of the\nhead and emphatic use of the hands in dreadful warning of calamity,\nthe Philadelphia variety of soothsayers declared that in two or three\nyears, the First Independent Church would go to pieces. Both laymen\nand ministers were loud in declaring that such a church, without a\n\"creed,\" (though the Bible is a very library of creeds), could not\nthrive or live. The idea of success in rearing a church, with the\nHoly Scriptures only as a rule of faith and practice, was scoffed at.\nIn our day, it does indeed seem strange that Protestant ministers\nshould so talk, but experience, the great teacher, showed \"the divine\nsufficiency of the Bible as a rule of faith and practice, and ... also\na bond of union holding together a large and flourishing congregation\nin Christian love and harmony\". So wrote John Chambers in 1859.\n\nHowever, \"liberal\", or, rather scriptural, in his theological\nopinions, the young minister was, since especially he cared nothing\nfor any man's boasted \"predestination\" or \"election\" to eternal life,\nunless that same man showed the fruits of faith in holy living, he\nwas anything but liberal in his ideas of morals, or as related to\namusements, or the keeping of the Christian day of rest. We shall see\nthis clearly when we note how he dealt with one of his theatre-going\nelders.\n\nIn his fortieth anniversary sermon, May 14th, 1865, which was printed,\nMr. Chambers referred to this experience, stating that during the\ntwo-score years of his ministry no word of disagreement, or of an\nunpleasant character with his fellow-presbyters, had ever been spoken,\nwith the exception that we are about to describe, and which, in order\nto make a perfectly correct record, Mr. Chambers himself would not\nomit.\n\nShortly after administering his first communion, the young pastor\nfound that \"one of the original elders was in the habit of attending\ntheatrical amusements and of taking his children with him\". What\nresulted from this discovery is given in his own words:\n\n\"This conduct was so directly in opposition to what were then my\nconvictions of what was right, and which opinion I still hold--so\ndirectly in the face of the teachings of the Bible, that I could not\nremain silent under it, but at once sought Mr. ----, in order that we\nmight have a mutual explanation of our views. Upon my putting the\nquestion to him, as to whether he thought his course was a proper\none--whether it was the love of Christ which induced him to frequent\nsuch places, and if in so doing he was bringing up his children in\nthe nurture and admonition of the Lord by making them his companions\non such occasions, I found that he was obstinate in his determination\nto adhere to his own course of action. I referred him to Second\nCorinthians, sixth chapter, fourteenth to eighteenth verse, and then\ntold him that I could not and would not serve with him in the Session;\nthat either he or I must resign, and proposed that it should be left\nto the vote of the Church. If the Church advocated or permitted\nindulgence in theatrical amusements, if it was considered a means of\ngrace and the proper school in which children were to be trained up\nfor God, there was but one path for me to pursue--to dissolve my\nconnection with them at once. If on the contrary they sustained me in\nmy views, Mr. ---- must resign. He was unwilling to submit the matter\nto the vote of the congregation, knowing only too well that their\nstandard of piety was a high one, and that his conduct would meet with\ntheir severe displeasure. Consequently he resigned his office of elder\nin the spring of 1826, and from that day to this neither elder nor lay\nmember has advocated visits to the theatre as the way to heaven, and I\nam sure with the Bible as their rule of life, never will\".\n\n  [Illustration: JOHN CHAMBERS. About 1856.]\n\nIt soon became very evident that the young minister and his people\nwere Separatists of a strict sort. They believed in being \"in the\nworld\", but not \"of the world\". The passages in Corinthians which had\nbeen quoted, \"Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate\",\nwas one on which the pastor preached many times in the course of his\nministry. His insistence was from the first that Christian people\nought to find their enjoyment in religion and be visibly different\nfrom those who had no scruples against cards, dancing, gaming, or the\ntheatre.\n\nWas not John Chambers right? He had a just fear of the real influence\nof these methods of killing time. Furthermore, those who can remember\nthe Chestnut street, of even as late as the sixties, need not wonder\nat his earnest and pointed preaching--for every sermon-bullet of John\nChambers hit the target, and usually the bull's eye. In language not\nto be mistaken and often with tears, he called upon young men and\nwomen to rise upon higher levels into a more spiritual life than\nwas then common. A realistic description of the vice, that openly\nflaunted itself on Philadelphia's gayest street, would not here be in\ngood taste, or be relished if given; but it was something horrible.\nWhether the world, on the whole, is getting better or worse, it is\nquite certain that the houses of ill-fame, the midnight street-walkers\nand the pictures once visible in public places and in the saloons,\ninexpressibly obscene as they were, are not found at the present time,\nor if so, are much more concealed, for they have at least been driven\nto cover. It seemed to be the idea of the young minister that he ought\nto know what was going on in the world, and to teach his people to\nknow, while yet choosing the pure, and avoiding the impure. He was\nliberal enough in his attitude to his brethren of other names, always\nworking with them in practical religion.\n\nSome of the years of his first marriage were spent on Arch street,\nnear 13th street. In later years he lived on Walnut above Broad on\nthe south side. From about the time of \"the war\" and until his death,\nhe dwelt at the corner of 12th and Girard street north of Chestnut.\nThus his whole pastoral life was spent in the very heart of the city,\nseeing things as they were, and with his eyes open to the manner in\nwhich the people amused themselves.\n\n\n\n\n                            CHAPTER VIII.\n\n               \"THE WAR HORSE OF THE TEMPERANCE CAUSE.\"\n\n\nA large number, and probably a majority of the large congregation\nwhich soon gathered around John Chambers, were people from Scotland or\nScottish-Ireland, and, like most of this sturdy race, were very fond\nof both religion and whiskey. The customs of society in the thirties\nmade the social glass very frequent. The chief decoration of the\nsideboard was usually a decanter and glasses. Even a funeral was not\nconsidered complete in all its appointments, unless there was plenty\nof liquor drunk before the corpse was taken out of the house, much\nmore being consumed when the company came back.\n\nFrom the very first, the young pastor took a firm stand against\nindulgence in any intoxicating liquor, and spoke his mind most freely,\nin favor not only of temperance but also of total abstinence. He\ndetermined to use his oratorical talents in arousing public sentiment\nagainst the drinking habits of his day, and he presided over the first\npublic temperance meeting held in Philadelphia. He went further.\nHe gave notice from his pulpit that he should enter no house where\nliquors were provided, not even to hold services over the dead.\n\nThis announcement made a tremendous sensation, and no doubt some\nthought that the foundations of society were endangered. Soon after\nthis ultimatum, the pastor repaired to a house to conduct services\nover the dead, and found that liquors were being served. Instantly\ngoing out doors, he remained standing in a drenching rain, refusing to\nofficiate, until the corpse had been brought to him.\n\nThroughout his long ministry, he continued this work, seeking by\nsermons, addresses, prayers, the taking of pledges, the assistance of\nreformed inebriates, the training of young men, and by every other\nlawful means to promote temperance and total abstinence. Not always\nabstemious in his language, he made bitter enemies among the liquor\ndealers, but although of superb physical frame and excellent muscular\npower he used no physical force or carnal methods of defence, with\npossibly one exception. Once a publican seized him by the collar, as\nhe was walking along the street, and swore vociferously at him. Pretty\nsoon he had abused his victim so exhaustively, that he was himself out\nof breath. At the end of this verbal discharge, Mr. Chambers who had\nlistened quietly, lifted his hat, thanked him, said \"good morning,\"\nand went his way. In 1849 he was introduced to an audience as \"the\nwar-horse of the temperance cause.\" Ever after this he was known as\n\"the war-horse.\" One elder left his church on this liquor issue.\n\nIt began to look as if an independent church (which is very far from\nbeing a Congregational Church) was, as some had predicted, \"anything\nthat John Chambers chose to make it.\" Certainly under the dominating\npersonality of so bold and yet so tender a soldier of Christ, the\nchurch quickly rose to be one of the most aggressive in the city of\nPenn.\n\nAfter ten or fifteen years of service, when his congregation had\nincreased and lads and lassies were multiplied, he organized in 1840\nthe Youth's Temperance Society. It was made up of young people. Once\na month or every two months, alternating with the Missionary Society,\nthe afternoon Sunday School service took the form of a temperance\nmeeting; at which, besides prayer and singing, addresses were made\nby speakers, either from the congregation or without. There were\nalso occasionally recitations, but the crowning event of the year,\nfor which preparations were made often weeks in advance, was the\nanniversary. This was held on the evening of Washington's Birthday,\nFebruary 22d, either in the church edifice or at Concert Hall on\nChestnut Street, which is now occupied by the Public Library.\n\nExquisitely lovely in memory rises the scene, when after duly\ncommitting to memory and practicing, cutting down to the right length\nand repeatedly rehearsing the speeches, the dialogues and the musical\nparts, the boys and the girls, in a glow of excitement, gathered in\nthe rooms below the stage. The little maidens in their best clothes\nand most bewitching adornments in hair and dress and slippers, seemed\nto me most radiantly lovely. The boys who were to be speakers had\non their coats a rosette of quilled ribbon, in the center of which\nwas a tinsel star, from which gushed forth a cataract of red, white,\nand blue satin pendants or streamers. How gay and happy we all were!\nHow heaven-like it all appeared! Except for the thumping of one's\nheart under his ribs, it seemed positive rapture to hear one's\nname announced by the superintendent, Aaron H. Burtis--that superb\nre-incarnation, as we thought, of George Washington. To make one's bow\nbefore a thousand human beings, to speak his piece with high pulse\nand magnetic thrills, were delights that filled a few triumphant\nmoments. Stirring are the memories of the genial pastor, ever ready to\ncheer the boys, the portly form of Robert Luther, the happy faces of\nJohn Yard, Francis Newland, Daniel Steinmetz and Rudolph S. Walton,\nand the younger but constantly efficient Robert H. Hinckley, Jr. The\nYouth's Temperance Society flourished until the close of Mr. Chambers'\nministry. Although all of the lads trained under John Chambers did\nnot as they grew up, become Prohibitionists, yet a small army of\ngood citizens, earnest in temperance reform, owe their strength of\nconviction to their noble pastor.\n\nIn this temperance work as in his preaching, and his attacks on evil\nof any sort John Chambers was as bold as a lion. He spent much time\nand travelled to many places in order to take part in temperance\nmeetings and encourage the workers. In Neil Dow's reminiscences,\npage 416, is an account of a great temperance meeting in New York on\nFebruary 19th, 1852, at which the Philadelphia pastor was present. Dr.\nCrowell tells of another held at Chester, Pa. Dr. A. A. Willetts and\nDr. Theodore Cuyler were often with the \"War Horse\" in his campaigns.\n\nOn one occasion when a barkeeper repeatedly sold liquor to one who\nwas near and dear to the pastor and already a victim to physical\ndecay and disease, induced by his drinking habits, Mr. Chambers went\ninto the saloon, stated the exact case to the barkeeper and warned\nhim not to sell any more liquor to the patient. Escaping from his\nnurse, the wretched man entered the saloon, again procured liquor\nand became decidedly worse. Finding what had been done, Mr. Chambers\nwent to the barkeeper in fiery anger and said: \"Didn't I warn you not\nto sell liquor to ----?\" Then seizing him by his shoulders, he gave\nthe publican a vigorous shaking, and again warned him, threatening a\nsevere penalty. The barkeeper was so mightily impressed, that he is\nsaid to have sold no more to the patient.\n\nDuring all these early years, Mr. Chambers kept his young men busy in\nactive evangelical work, especially in the holding of neighborhood\nprayer meetings on what were then the outskirts of the city. In 1875,\nRev. J. J. Baker, pastor of a Baptist Church at Navesink, N. J.,\ntestified at the jubilee meeting to the intense activity of the young\nmen of the church, with which he had united in 1829. Four whom he\nnamed, Summers, Burnham, Hunterson, and Town entered the ministry.\nHe told of the zeal and activity of elders Hibbert and Arrison. \"The\nyoung men of that time were interested in two prayer meetings, one\nheld in the 'old frame,' as it was called--a barn down town, out of\nwhich effort grew 'The Cedar Street Presbyterian Church.' The other\nprayer meeting was held in 'The Girard School House,' out of which\ngrew two churches, one Lutheran and one Baptist.\"\n\nJohn Chambers was also a rigid Sabbatarian, and in this, it was\nnot difficult to find an enthusiastic following, for main in\nhis congregation, who remembered the strictness and severity of\nsabbath-keeping in the old countries, warmly seconded his efforts to\ntrain the young people after their ideas of how the Lord's day should\nbe kept in America. Doubtless in the majority of the thousands of this\nIsrael, the usual custom was to have baths, washings, the polishing\nof boots, and the preparation of outer clothing done on Saturday; but\na still grander triumph was won by the new pastor and a precedent set\nfor fifty years to come. Sunday funerals had been the rule, even to\noccasional disgusting excesses, both in prolonging the preservation by\n\"icing\" the corpse, and in the intemperate feasting and drinking after\nthe return of the \"mourners\"--often a very mixed company.\n\nJohn Chambers saw the folly and the wickedness of unnecessary Sunday\nfunerals. He exposed their true inwardness and refused to attend\nthem. This, of course, angered some of his people, and a few left the\nchurch. But how could they stay away? Out of love to Christ and for\nthe good of the working man and of horses, John Chambers had acted.\nHis motives were pure. He went after his offended brethren and won\nthem back. So the peacemaker, true child of God, led his flock--so\nwell indeed that \"his boys\", when pastors, had to do the same thing.\nThey couldn't help it. History repeated itself. It was first firmness\nin the pulpit, then offense, next fair scripture argument and personal\nappeal, followed by reconciliation, with the result that God and His\nSabbath were honored. It was God's pathetic appeal with Jonah over\nagain--\"and also much cattle.\" Even a horse should rest on Sunday. The\nfullness of energy could thus be given to divine worship and to the\ncomplete enjoyment of a day, so different from all the other six days.\n\nThe Sabbath, as I remember it in church and home, was a rubric on our\nweek's page. The normal family in the Chambers church, of which ours\nwas one, were all ready at home on Sunday morning so as to be punctual\nat church. After a good breakfast, including the traditional \"Dutch\ncake and coffee\" for the elders and grownups, and plenty of the same\nsweet and nourishing food, saving the Mocha, for the young folks,\nwe started off from home so as to be at Sunday school a few minutes\nbefore nine o'clock. The session lasted until quarter past ten, which\ngave ample time for the breaking up and dismissing of the classes, the\nsocial greetings of friends, and a comfortable interval for getting\ninto the larger auditorium above, where service began punctually at\n10:30.\n\nThe Sunday school had been started as a novelty in the days of the old\nThirteenth Street Church by the pastor shortly after his coming to\nPhiladelphia. Although I do not remember that he ever taught a class\nhimself, or ever heard of his doing so, yet there was one feature\nof his connection with and interest in the Sunday School which has\nbeen to me and to many an inspiration for life. Not long after the\npreliminary devotional exercises were over, our handsome leader, of\nstately port and mien, appeared on the scene. Going to each class he\nshook hands heartily with each and every teacher, and often saluted,\nor in some way noticed, the children of the class, speaking a pleasant\nword, or inquiring after sister or brother, parent or relative. Often\nto their delight he called the pupils by their first names, for he\nwas able to do this. Both teachers and scholars would look for the\nappearing of this grand man as regularly as they awaited the sunlight.\nThe pastor kept ever in vital touch with the Sunday School, generally\nremaining until near the time for his engagement upstairs. Thus he\ninaugurated a custom which was life-long and inspiring, and which many\nanother active pastor has followed in true apostolical succession.\n\nWould my readers wish to have a specimen of John Chambers's preaching\neven in his early days? To do this by presenting simply ink and paper\nis not to reveal \"thoughts that breathe and words that burn\". It\nis simply to point to a pressed flower, bleached of its tints and\nwith all its perfume exhaled, for the sermon was the man himself.\nNevertheless, a faded and time-stained pamphlet of fifteen pages,\nentitled \"Sermon by the Rev. Mr. John Chambers, delivered at the\nPresbyterian Church in Thirteenth Street, Philadelphia, on the evening\nof December 2, 1827\", when Universalism was then new and in the air,\nfrom these words, \"Ye shall not surely die\", gives some idea of the\ngeneral style and quality of the young preacher. The discourse was\n\"taken in shorthand by M. T. C. Gould, Stenographer\".\n\nLet us in imagination take our seat in the little brick church among\nhis audience and listen to the discourse. Even the stenographer, owing\nto the crowd, was, as he says, in \"a very unfavorable position for\nhearing.\" But who could not hear such a voice?\n\nThe sermon is a vigorous setting forth of religion in the genuine\nold-fashioned style, in a torrent of emotional and not particularly\nlogical oratory. It is an assault upon the notions of those \"who would\npersuade you that the idea of future punishment is only the visionary\ndream of fanatics\". The especial reference is to \"those emissaries who\nare so industriously engaged in seeking to destroy the souls of men:\nthey are laboring by all the ingenuity of the arch fiend himself, who\nfirst presented the forbidden fruit under such bewitching charms\".\n\nThe new pastor believes that this system \"leads to the destruction\nof all morality and religion\". By him the Eden narrative is read\nas a literal fact. The young orator quotes from Montesquieu, Lord\nBolingbroke (though the reporter could not catch either the point or\nthe words) and Hume, by which he would prove that \"this system leads\nto the destruction of civil society and civil government\". Warming to\nhis theme, he declares that \"all vice is the immediate offspring of\nthe dogmas of Universalism.... The doctrine of universal salvation\nleads to all the vices and abominations under heaven\". Reference is\nmade to the fact that \"New York tells a mournful tale in consequence\nof this doctrine\"--the allusion being to a recent duel between a\ncitizen of New York and a citizen of Philadelphia. The preacher even\ndeclares that \"a man holding such sentiments should never be entrusted\nwith any civil office\".[7]\n\n[Footnote 7: Was this the duel of Midshipman Hunter and the brilliant\nyoung Philadelphia lawyer, Miller, the latter losing his life and the\nformer becoming the famous \"Alvarado\" Hunter told of in the life of\nCommodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, (Boston, 1887) p. 239?]\n\nAgainst the background of \"fire and brimstone and an horrible tempest\nupon the wicked and ungodly\" he pressed the invitation to come to \"the\nRedeeming Saviour, the Divine Saviour, the Glorified Saviour\". The\neloquent preacher closes his discourse, which is from beginning to end\ndirected to the conscience, with a good, warm, direct appeal to his\nhearers for personal decision.\n\nEnough of proof is here given that from the first, even to the last\nyear, if not the latest moment of his life, John Chambers never lost\nsight of the needy, sinful, human soul, and that he always closed\nwith a tender and affectionate personal appeal. Men might be as\nsteel against his logic, but their hearts melted under his winning\nimportunity.\n\nOne great landmark in John Chambers's life was his visit to Europe\nin 1830. His excessive labors and long-continued use of his voice in\npublic discourse compelled him to cease both preaching and pastoral\nwork. As he said in 1875:\n\n\"In the year 1830 I lost my voice so that I could not have been heard\ntwenty paces from where I am now if you had given me the world. My\nphysician ordered me away and I was gone fourteen months. When the\nannouncement was made to my brethren that I had to go they instantly\nmade arrangements. They put into my purse twenty-five hundred dollars,\nand into the hand of my dear friend and brother, Rev. Dr. Ludlow, the\nfather of Judge Ludlow, one thousand dollars to preach on the Sabbath\nfor one year, making thirty-five hundred dollars down at once. It was\na noble and generous act on their part\".\n\nSuch generosity was as surprising to the young pastor as it was\ncreditable to the people themselves. To see the great ocean and\nthe Old World at a time of the fullness of his manly vigor and\nprofessional success, travelling in a first-class steamer, compelled\ncontrast with his first crossing of the ocean as a helpless baby and\nwith a father who was an exile and political refugee. In England he\nwas so fortunate as to see the royal maiden who had just been in 1830\nmade heiress presumptive to the Crown on the accession of William IV.\nPossibly it was at this time that he made the acquaintance of Richard\nVaux, then secretary of the American legation, whom I remember well in\nhis later life as a prominent Democratic politician and mayor of the\ncity of Philadelphia. With his long, flowing, curled hair,--pronounced\ndress and astonishing necktie, Mr. Vaux was a picturesque figure in\nthe Quaker City. He often boasted of having danced with the lady who\nbecame Queen Victoria, though this was before she assumed the crown\non June 28th, 1838. While in Scotland Mr. Chambers visited the Free\nMason's lodges and enjoyed the mysteries of the Scottish rite. In\nIreland he visited his native place, Stewartstown, the house in which\nhe was born, and the prison in which his father had been incarcerated\nand from which he escaped. He was absent in all fourteen months, and\ncame back refreshed in body and enlarged in mind.\n\nIn physical righteousness John Chambers stood before his boys and\nyoung men as an inspiring exemplar. He neither \"drank, chewed, smoked,\nor swore.\" For fifty years he put to confusion those who preached the\nnecessity or justified the use of alcohol or tobacco. Over six feet\nhigh, in superb health and vigor, always invitingly clean in person,\nhe reinforced every day the teaching of good fathers and mothers who\nstrove to lead their sons to noble manhood.\n\n\n\n\n                             CHAPTER IX.\n\n                        THE MASTER OF HEARTS.\n\n\nIn John Chambers, sanctified common sense was combined with spiritual\nfervor. As a young pastor, he had right ideas about finance and the\nhonest support of a church. Money was needed for the salaries and\nexpenses of keeping the edifice comfortable and in repair. Before the\nfirst year had passed by, it was evident to the \"Chamberites\", that\na new building would be necessary, even if the law suit had gone in\ntheir favor. The voices of the croakers and prophets of evil, at first\nloud and thunderous, had sunk to the \"peep and mutter\" stage and were\nrapidly approaching silence.\n\nIn a new field, larger financial resources would be necessary, but\nfrom the first, only manly, honorable, and truly scriptural methods of\nproviding revenue were employed. Never in all the history of the First\nIndependent Church was there a fair or supper to which admittance\nwas charged. Those methods of raising money, too often associated\nwith religious societies, to the scandal of faith, the equipment\nof the jester, and the furnishing of the ungodly with excuse for\nself-righteousness, were tabooed by Mr. Chambers. He believed both\nthat the laborer was worthy of his hire, and that men ought to pay\nfor their religious privileges. He was so successful in this policy\nthat within six years, having paid all debts, his people in the spring\nof 1830 bought at Broad and George (now Sansom) streets, that lot of\nland for four hundred dollars, which afterwards was sold for over\nfour hundred thousand dollars. The land and house of worship, the\nsubsequent enlargement and repairs, as well as the running expenses\nof the church, so long as it was independent, were paid for by\nsubscriptions. \"We have never in our lives,\" said John Chambers in\n1875, \"gone abroad for means to help us.\"\n\nThe region west of Broad street was then \"out in the country\". Green\nfields, or vacant lots, stretched to the Schuylkill River. At Broad\nand Market were the Water Works. When afterwards these were removed\nand the pumps and reservoir were established at Fairmount, four small\nparks, with their trees and green sward, made one of the city's\nbreathing spaces. Even then Broad Street was considered the western\nboundary of the city of Philadelphia.\n\nBright and happy was that February morning of 1830 when the young\npastor, with many of his flock around him, took his place on the green\nsward at Broad and Sansom streets. With his long hair brushed into\nlively motion by the matin breezes, he poured out a prayer to Heaven\nfor the blessing of the triune God. \"Like all Irishmen, John Chambers\nknew how to handle the spade\", and handle it well he did on that day\nwhen he turned up the first spadeful of earth. After the diggers\ncame the masons, who built honestly a solid foundation, and then the\ncorner-stone laying in March, 1830, and finally the dedication in\nJune, 1831. Dr. John Mason Duncan preached first in the new house in\nthe morning and the sermon was royally long. One little boy, now an\nhonored pastor of eighty, remembers that it ended at half-past one!\nAlas, that Saint Paul's faults, like that at Troas, should be more\nimitated by us preachers than his virtues! In the afternoon Rev. James\nArbuckle preached. \"The house was crowded to excess all day.\"\n\nHow one family, and indeed a group of families allied by blood or\nmarriage, came to be life-long supporters of and worshippers in the\nFirst Independent Church, we must now tell. We shall speak of one\nmember named Mary.\n\nIt was in 1832, the winter in which the famous English actress, Fannie\nKemball, sister of Mrs. Sartoris (whose grandson, in our day, married\nNellie, the daughter of General Grant) was starring in Philadelphia in\nthe old Chestnut street theatre, on the South side of Philadelphia's\nmost fashionable street, above Sixth. Mary had spent a winter of great\ngaiety, revelling in the joys of the dance, the theatre and every sort\nof worldly amusement--much to the grief of her mother, a woman of\nunaffected piety, who was praying that her daughter might look less at\nthings perishing and more at the eternal.\n\nYet no message from the Unseen, sent through a human preacher, had\nyet reached the ears of Mary's inner being. It was while the anxious\nmother was most earnestly praying, that Mary was invited by a maiden\nfriend, whom she had met at a picnic and with whom she had formed\na warm friendship, to visit her and go to hear the new minister on\nThirteenth street. Mary came, and saw, and heard, and was conquered.\nAt the first sermon she hung spell-bound on the lips of the emotional\nand electrifying young orator, who during all his ministrations had\nalso that peculiar unction, without which, preaching, however logical\nand learned, avails little.\n\nOn coming home, after the service in the new church on Broad street,\nMary told her mother that she would never go to the theatre again; she\nhad heard the grandest speaker that she had ever looked upon in her\nlife; who outshone every actor she had ever seen, and whose message\nhad more charms for her than the theatre itself. Soon after this Mr.\nChambers with his wife made his first pastoral call at Mary's home.\n\nAbout this time, late in the winter and toward the spring, there was\na revivalist assisting Mr. Chambers, who to eloquence and magnetic\npower, added the power of the draughtsman. He was an artist in words\nand with the chalk also. He drew a cross on the blackboard, and\nwithout the element of color, but with the aid of music moved the\nemotions mightily. He called upon the congregation, led by sweet\nvoices, to sing, \"Alas! And Did My Saviour Bleed\". His appeals, tender\nand powerful, were responded to. Many were brought \"under conviction\"\nand declared themselves from that time followers of Jesus Christ. On\nthe day that Mary united with the church, one hundred persons were\nreceived at the communion table and into membership.\n\nThis is one sample picture of many of dissolving views of souls in\nMr. Chambers's ever enlarging congregation. His ministry was from the\nfirst one of direct appeal. It was emotional, the personal element\nbeing powerful always, but there was no leaving of the converts\nto themselves or to neglect. Behind and above the Celtic fire and\nenthusiasm of John Chambers, was the life of the Spirit moving them\nthrough him. The converts were looked after. They were personally\nwarned, exhorted, instructed, and taught. During this first year, yes,\nduring fifty years, John Chambers seemed an incarnation of Paul's\nscripture: \"Whom we preach, warning every man and teaching every man\nthat we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus\". No extra or\nspecial meetings were held in these early years, and none that we can\nrecall in the later days, but the regular services were steadily \"the\noccasions of converting power.\"\n\nI have intimated that the secret of the great preacher's power cannot\nbe discovered by mere logical analysis. One might as well try to\nexplain John Chambers's influence over human hearts and lives by\nhis printed words alone or through mere description, as to attempt\nto show, by a simple knowledge of the properties of lead alone, the\nastounding effects of a Krag army rifle. The venerable Dr. Henry Clay\nTrumbull, veteran editor of the Sunday School Times, writes under date\nof June 11, 1903:\n\n\"An orator's or a preacher's power sometimes depends largely on his\nintensity of utterance or of manner. He can actually throw himself\ninto his hearers so that they will, for the time, think or feel as\nhe does, even beyond the meaning of his words. Thus it was said of\nWhitefield as a preacher that he could move an audience to tears by\nsaying the word 'Mesopotamia'. One who has felt the power of some\npreachers can understand the force of that statement.\n\n\"Rev. John Chambers was a man of power in this line beyond any other\nof the preachers I have heard in my more than seventy years. I\nsometimes came from Hartford to Philadelphia to hear him in his church\non Broad street. His voice would ring out with such intensity, and his\nwords would so thrill through every nerve of my being that it seemed\nto me that a more than human being was making an appeal. On more than\none occasion I have taken out my pencil to note such an utterance\nwhich had seemed to be inspired, but there was actually nothing to\nwrite down. No period could give the ring or the thrill. It was simply\nGeorge Whitefield saying 'Mesopotamia'. It was an element of John\nChambers's power. But I love to tell of that power\".\n\nThe communion seasons were from the first occasions of the\nmanifestation of spiritual power. Often the minister himself would be\nalmost overcome by his own feelings, or, perhaps we should say, by the\nvividness of his vision of the crucified Lover of our souls. Often in\nsuch a case it was his habit, during a pause in the rush of feeling\nto sit down upon his chair, throw his head back and completely cover\nhis face with his handkerchief, his hands resting upon the arms of\nhis chair until his tears and the storm of emotion had swept by. These\nover, he emerged as the embodiment of quiet grace, dignity, and calm\nstrength, the master of the assembly.\n\nAfter the darkening of his home through the removal from it by death\nof his wife, Mr. Chambers, left with two little children, found\nconsolation in even profounder consecration to the work of leading\nsouls into the Way. His own spiritual life was deepened and his\nsympathies with suffering humanity widened by his own sorrows. He had\nalways a message for those, who like himself, knew the weight of known\ngriefs or secretly borne crosses. In later years he was to lose his\nonly son. My own recollections of the young physician, whom my pastor\nalways so tenderly referred to as \"my son Duncan\", are of a handsome\nand promising man, whose life was all too short. I remember how keen\nand warm were the sympathies of great congregations, during the time\nwhen the father's heart was wrung with grief, as the telegrams and\nletters told of the ravages of disease and the approaching end.\n\nThe biographer never saw the first Mrs. Chambers, who is described\nby those who knew her as very lovely in person and manner, but her\nchildren and the other \"partners in life\"--his favorite phrase--are\nwell remembered.\n\nThe second marriage of Mr. Chambers was on September 30th, 1834, to\nMartha, the widow of Silas E. Weir, a merchant of Philadelphia and the\ndaughter of Alexander Henry, a merchant in Philadelphia, and aunt to\nMayor Alexander Henry.\n\nMy impressions of Martha Chambers extend from the month of March,\n1855, until a short time before her death, on Friday, March 16, 1860.\nI have dim remembrances of my being a very little boy, when an august\nlady, who wore her hair in bands low down on her cheeks, as the\nfashion then was, with a very sweet smile, spoke kindly to me in the\nBroad street Church. I recall how every Sunday morning and afternoon,\nthe stately man of God with his \"companion in life\", a lady of equally\nimposing appearance with himself moved up the middle aisle and, if I\nam not mistaken, often arm in arm, until reaching the space opposite\nthe pew. Then the pastor would with his left hand, open the door.\nAfter ceremoniously seeing his consort well inside, he would shut the\npew door and then move briskly forward and up the pulpit steps to the\nsofa.\n\nThus happy in his home life, rich in sweet domestic influences having\never a true \"help meet for him\", John Chambers, during most of his\nmature life, was helped not only of God but by woman's finer strength.\nHe was the master of hearts also in his home, having Browning's\n\"two soul sides\". Martha Chambers once told my mother that she\nenvied even the washerwoman that washed her husband's clothes. In\nPhiladelphia to-day there are many daughters and grand-daughters that\ndo excellently, and they have \"Martha Chambers\" in their name.\n\nOf each one of three noble specimens of womanhood, in their\nappropriate time and sphere, it could be said,\n\n\"Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders\nof the land\".\n\n\n\n\n                              CHAPTER X.\n\n                         BOYHOOD'S MEMORIES.\n\n\nMy earliest remembrances of the first church edifice on Broad\nstreet, except the grand pulpit and a general glory of galleries and\nchandeliers, are rather dim. The auditorium seemed to be a vast and\nawful place, where a little boy would not like to be left alone in\nthe twilight or the darkness. Nevertheless all my daylight memories\nof it are of the most genial sort. The great middle aisle, so\nwell-fitted for a marriage or wedding parade, but which afterwards,\nwhen as a preacher, from the marble memorial pulpit, I looked down\ninto its sheer length and emptiness, I considered as a tunnel of\nwaste space, was carpeted red. The enamel-white pew-doors, with white\nporcelain number plates, bright red pew facings and cushions, and\nthe lines of black silk hats of the gentlemen, laid just outside the\npew doors, made a morning picture in which color was not lacking. In\nthe afternoons, the aisles, occupied by eager hearers, were crowded\nwith settees and chairs, so the silk hats of pew owners had to be\nkept, literally, indoors. On week nights I was often a witness of\nthe ceremonies, in which several of the twenty-five hundred or\nmore couples which were yoked in wedlock by John Chambers during\nhis pastorate, received the nuptial benediction, and the bride the\npastor's kiss.\n\nAt the orient end of the aisle, before the enlargement of 1853, rose\nthe great mahogany pulpit, which swelled out in its capacious center\nand then rounded out with a still more generous curve at either end,\nfrom which rose two short pillars, as imposing to my youthful mind\nas those of Hercules. I remember how much I wondered, my infantile\nintellect being confused, when my father pointed out the \"pillars\" on\nthe Spanish silver dollars, that two things so different, coin marks\nand pulpit ornaments should be called by the same name. On the top of\nthese pillars at first was a globe lamp filled with oil, though in the\nmarch of progress, wick and chimney gave way to gas burners. Even to\nthis day, my mental associations of the \"lamps\", in the parable of the\nten virgins, are those of my boyhood's days in Chambers Church. Great\ncrimson velvet curtains hung from near the ceilings, and shining brass\nbands on the carpet of the pulpit stairs are also in my recollection.\n\nMy next impression of the dear old house of worship was in 1853, when\nnot quite ten years old, and living on Girard avenue, in the northern\npart of the city, I was taken \"down town\" to the sacred edifice when\nit was undergoing a process of enlargement and change. The fashions\nof 1831 were to give way to those of 1853. There was another great\ncurtain, this time not of velvet, but, if I remember right, of coarse\ncanvas, which separated from, but also allowed a partial view into a\nspace in which masons, plasterers and carpenters were at that time\nmore familiar than were sitters and worshippers.\n\nIn the twenty-one years of its history, the large building erected\nin 1831 had become too strait. By resolution of the annual meeting\nin April, 1853, the old pulpit had been taken away, the eastern wall\nknocked out, and the whole edifice changed in appearance by making an\noriental extension of fifteen feet, while in front, on Broad street,\nthe portico, with its imposing platforms, pillars and pediment were\nadded. During the interim, when homeless, the congregation worshipped\nin Concert Hall, on Chestnut street. When I saw again the old church\nhome, simplicity had given away to luxury. It was like the exchange\nfrom Ben Franklin's two-penny earthen porringer and pewter spoon for\nchina and silver.\n\nThe enlargement at both ends gave fifty-four additional pews in the\naudience chamber and more abundant space in the new Sunday School\nroom, which, though a basement, was well lighted through plenty of\nwindows on three sides. There was also a large \"infant school\" room,\nor primary department, over which my mother presided for several\nyears, besides the large committee room, afterwards used for meetings\nof the Session, and also as a Bible class conducted during many years\nby Mr. Rudolph S. Walton. These rooms fronted on Sansom Street. On the\nnorth side, lighted from the alley, _straatje_, or little street, as\nthe Dutch would say, were the library rooms.\n\nIn a word, the building had been modernized, with improved furnaces\nand gas lighting apparatus, new carpets, new cushions and large\ngalleries, etc., so that when again I saw the edifice some months\nlater it seemed not only a new and more gorgeous house of worship,\nwith the glory as of the second temple, but everything was so shining\nand and clean, that it struck me as being an unusual sin to do what\nthe small boy is so tempted to do,--to scratch the varnish on the pew\nbacks. It is true that the very brightness of that varnish challenged\nthe average urchin to see if he had not about him a pin, or the nib\nof a broken steel pen, to make his initials visible, or possibly\nsome music. No carpet, or terry, or pew cushions ever seen on earth\nbefore, as I imagined, could be of a richer red, and beside the\nwhite enamelled front of the pulpit platform, nothing ever appeared\nwhiter or glossier. The pulpit itself was carved in foliations,\nall as glistening white as if, though in reality wood, it were\npolished marble. In later years this altar-like pulpit gave way to a\nsquare structure of more massive dimensions, Doric in outline and\nsimplicity, that extended across the whole space between the columns.\n\nThat end of the sacred edifice to which our eyes first turned\nand longest dwelt, seemed to have passed through a veritable\ntransfiguration. My boyish fancy, struck by the biblical phrase,\nsuggested its shining whiteness as having been blanched by \"fuller's\nearth\"--to me an entirely unknown and mystic substance. As for the\nred velvet, on which the big Bible lay open, nothing before or since\nseemed to have richer gloss or texture, or more strikingly huge\ntassels. Two fluted white marble Ionic columns rose from the pulpit\nfloor space to the ceiling. Back against the wall, instead of the old\nsofa, ten or twelve feet long, of veneered mahogany, with cushions\ncovered with horse hair cloth, was a modern and more jauntily carved\narticle of half the old length and apparently less comfortable. But\nwhat has comfort to say, as against fashion? Hanging beside the sofa,\nagainst the wall, on a white porcelain knob, was the very large oval\nfan of crow feathers, which, while to the ungodly it represented a\nrather narrow handled ace of spades, was then the thoroughly orthodox\nornament of a pulpit, with which the preacher was expected to cool his\nbrow without chilling his zeal on hot days in summer. Indeed there\nwere some very hot days, when, glued to the overheated cushion, the\nsmall boy envied \"the freedom of irreligion of the flies.\" As to the\nphysical activity of the pastor, while preaching it was very vigorous,\nbut it was too graceful to approach closely the reputed ideal of\nAbraham Lincoln, who liked to have a parson discourse \"as if he were\nfighting bees\". Nevertheless the fan, at restful moments, when he\nwas seated, came into requisition as often as did the historic white\nhandkerchief in time of oratorical action.\n\nTo the right and left of the pulpit were two high windows, with panes\nof colored glass. Rather long and narrow, each consisted of two\nupright sashes or divisions, like casements, which could be easily\nopened in summer for ventilation. So much color, even to frivolity in\nthe eyes of some, looked positively gay and suggested modern luxury\nmore than ancestral simplicity.\n\nAbove the level of the floor and middle aisle was a large platform\ntwo steps high and probably six or eight feet wide, on which was\nmarshalled the range of chairs for the pastor and his elders, who had\nample room on it, even with the communion table set about the middle\nof the stage. At either end of this platform was a line of pews, five\nor six in number, at right angles with the eastern wall and entered\nfrom the west. In later years, these gave way to a screen of white\npainted wood and ground glass, covering stairways into the lower\nroom. As for the ceiling, it was truly imposing in its great central\ncountersunk rotunda and depressed squares, which showed how grandly\nthe architect had treated this portion of the edifice.\n\nThe cost of the improvements was nearly fifteen thousand dollars,\nbut the number of pews became 242 and the capacity, including the\ngalleries, had increased so as to seat fifteen hundred persons.\nNevertheless, for many years, it was not uncommon, as I clearly\nremember, to pack together under the one roof twenty-five hundred\nauditors. This was done by sitting and standing, by stowing away the\nchildren upon laps and down on hassocks, filling the aisles with\nseats, having rows of human wall flowers blooming upright all along\nthe gallery, aisles, passage ways, and steps, and by cramming the\nvestibule, which was often completely occupied by settees or with a\nstanding crowd. Happily no fire broke out or panic ensued during these\ndangerous jams. After the benediction the trustees, church officers,\nand boys and men were only too glad to volunteer as ushers, sextons,\nor laborers. \"Amen, Jacob, carry out the benches\", was less a jest\nthan a reality which we boys liked. Give a boy some muscular as well\nas spiritual occupation and he can stand the long services.\n\nThe most impressive scenes in the regular church services were those\nof the last Sundays in March, June, September, and December, when the\nmemorial supper of the Lord, as instituted by Him, was enjoyed. This\ncelebration of Holy Communion was an intensely dramatic as well as a\nmoving scene. Indeed, sometimes, on the highly wrought imagination,\nand under the melting appeals of the man who saw, felt, and lived the\ntruth, it was powerfully remindful of the ultimate division between\nthe sheep and the goats. All the lower part of the church was reserved\nfor and occupied by the communicants. In addition, as I remember\nseeing more than once, the aisles were thronged even to the pulpit\nstairs. Of the thirteen hundred and more members the overwhelming\nmajority was likely to be present at communion seasons. The gallery\nwas reserved and usually filled, yes, often packed, with the\n\"sinners\", to whom, in the course of the services, with streaming eyes\nand imploring hands, John Chambers would make intensely personal and\nmoving appeals, which, perhaps in hundreds of cases, wrought decision.\nTo this day \"the galleries\" in any edifice have to me a suggestion of\nimpenitence about them. Nevertheless how, and particularly why, as I\nread, the king was \"held captive in the galleries\" (Song vii., 5), was\nutterly beyond my boyish comprehension.\n\nOne of these seasons, which marked my own first participation in the\nsacrament, I well remember, being but fourteen years old, the number\nuniting at this time being about forty-four. We made two lines along\nthe pew fronts on either side of the aisle.\n\nAnother famous occasion was that of June, 1858, in the time of the\ngreat revival which swept over the land, and especially Philadelphia.\nOf seventy new members added, twenty-seven were baptized by the\npastor. Of the seventy, sixty-seven were received on first confession\nof faith after examination and three by letter.\n\nA writer in the _Christian Observer_ of Philadelphia describing the\nscene, remarks: \"The pastor administered the ordinance of baptism.\nThe charges he gave them severally, as he baptized them into the\nname of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, were various,\nscriptural, appropriate--words of hallowed counsel, touching the great\nend of life--are never to be forgotten. As the seventy stood before\nthat immense audience, professing their faith in Christ, their ever\nliving, reigning Saviour, and as the pastor addressed them and the\nlarge assembly of communicants in words of life and truth, in which\nall seemed to feel a living interest, the scene was solemn, grand, and\nglorious. We were ready to exclaim: 'This is none other but the house\nof God and this is the gate of Heaven'. The distribution of the bread\nand the wine to the thousand or twelve hundred communicants occupied\nnearly an hour. The church was then briefly addressed by Dr. Converse\nand again by the pastor. All were reminded that as members of the\nchurch they were not their own; they had been bought with a price;\nredeemed not with silver and gold, but with the precious blood of\nChrist\".\n\nOn his fiftieth anniversary, Dr. Chambers said: \"The ordinance of the\nLord's Supper has been administered every quarter of a year for the\nlast fifty years, and there has been but one communion during the\nwhole time when there were not additions, and that was one of the\nquarters when I was in Europe. We have never received at any single\ntime fewer than seven, and no more at one time than one hundred and\ntwenty to the communion. I state these facts that you see how good God\nhas been to us, and how great our debt is.\"\n\nI am very frank to say that, as a small boy, the moment of dismission\nfrom the church service, after three hours indoors, was a very happy\none, and the event usually awaited with pleasure as the crowning\ncircumstance of the function. Truth compels me to state that my\nfacility and celerity in covering the distance along the north side\naisle, between the pew door and the vestibule, was something that\noften amazed my elders. Our pew was third from the front, but I\nreached the doorway, not wholly out of breath, nor usually mixed up\nin the crowd. I always did have an admiration for Elijah who could\noutrun Ahab's chariot and horses. The truth also compels me to add\nthat my idea of happiness, at 12 M., was to join that amazingly large\n\"curbstone committee\" of boys and men, often three or four deep, which\ngathered on the edge of the pavement, among and in front of the \"tree\nboxes\"--for Broad Street was lined with trees then--in order to see\nthe thousand or more people come out of the vestibule and down two\nsets of steps to the pavement. This was the time when, in my eyes,\nyoung girls were the prettiest,--even more than they have ever been\nsince, and nearly everything in the world was usually bright and\nglorious, even though I had many boyish sorrows unknown to the world.\nI must be self-righteous to confess that often it chanced, that while\nI had been genuinely \"at church\" and inside of it, not a few of the\n\"curbstone committee\" were young men (with some older ones) who had\nnot been in church at all, but had come to escort the pretty girls\nhome, or to meet their friends; though of course the great majority\naround the \"tree boxes\" had been listeners, if not worshippers\nwithin. Usually on the large stone platform, between the entrance\ndoor and the columns, the pleasant friendly interviews and final\nhandshakes with pastor and parishioners and friends in general, took\nplace.\n\nIt was about half past twelve when we arrived home, on Twentieth\nstreet four doors south of Chestnut. Father, mother and seven\nchildren, the normal family, and often with guests, enjoyed, after\ndue thanks to God, the bountiful fare, and the one hour of the week\nwhen the head of the house was present at the mid-day meal. Then\nabout 1:40 P.M., we were off again to Sunday School which opened at\ntwo o'clock, and which once a month took the form of a Temperance or\na Missionary meeting. At times, besides the appropriate singing and\nspecial addresses, often from the Master's envoys abroad, but home on\na furlough, we had the missionary news from all parts of the world\nread to us. I remember particularly the presence and words of two\nChristian Indians from Kansas. One speaker, among many, whom I well\nremember hearing, was Rev. Wilder, the founder of the Week of Prayer.\nAmong other enterprises, in which my boyish energies were enlisted,\nwas that of securing contributions in money for the equivalent of\none or more bricks in the American Sunday School Union building on\nChestnut Street. Another was the financing of two and a half shares\nin the missionary ship _Morning Star_. I remember how the pastor\nthrilled us with the news of the Reed treaty of 1858, saying \"China\nis open to the gospel\". The Yedo embassy of 1861, giving me my first\nsight of men from the Mikado's empire--and especially as I saw \"Tommy\"\nand others at short range on Chestnut street--powerfully impressed my\nimagination. I little knew at the time that I should be an educational\npioneer in the then distant archipelago.[8]\n\n[Footnote 8: See The Mikado's Empire, Townsend Harris, Life of\nCommodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, Japan in History, Folk-lore and\nArt, The Religions of Japan, etc.]\n\nThe afternoon Sunday School over, the preaching and worship in the\nauditorium above usually attracted a much larger crowd than in the\nmorning. Often I have seen every available space in the aisles,\nstairways, vestibule and pulpit platform taken up.\n\nThe afternoon exit to the small boy was even more interesting than in\nthe morning, for the pavement and \"church parade\" show was greater.\nHence, also, for purposes other than of strict devotion the said\nsmall boy usually took his seat in the gallery, near the head of the\nstairs. The benediction over, he was promptly on the side walk to see\nthe largest number of pretty girls, and other people more or less\ninteresting.\n\nAt home, from half past five until seven o'clock was a happy time,\nsitting on father's knee, while he told us stories of his voyages\nto Manila or Africa, or Holland, or of his travels on different\ncontinents, and among many kinds of people. As we grew older the\ninteresting library book, and the bright chat and pleasure round the\nsupper table made the time fly until 7:10 or 7:15, when we started\nfor the prayer meeting, which, year after year, was as I remember it,\nheld in the lower room. It was attended by from four hundred to seven\nhundred people, frequently every seat being occupied, with settees\ndown the aisles to hold those who could not get in the cushioned pews.\n\nThe old, long and imposing mahogany pulpit from the old church\nauditorium, but without its stairways, had been set into the lecture\nroom of the new and enlarged building. While the leader of the prayer\nmeeting occupied the space up and inside, Dr. Chambers sat below and\nin front on a large chair, immediately outside the pulpit, his head\nbeing just under the crimson velvet cushion on which the Bible rested.\nThe front row of seats, as I remember, was usually filled by a dozen\nor so, more or less, of devoted women, who probably, next after God\nand as His most trusted representative on earth, worshipped their\npastor. To the left, or eastward on the first seat, sat Mr. Newland,\nthe choir master, who started the tunes.\n\nThe storage battery of power was in the half-dozen or so pews running\nnorth and south over in the northeast corner, at right angles to the\ngeneral line of seats. Crowded with twenty to forty out of the nearly\none hundred men in the church, young and old, who could and would take\npart in the prayer meeting, they formed a reserve force of which any\npastor might be proud. Those not sitting in these special pews were\nusually ranged somewhere near that famous corner, though occasionally,\nfor best effect, they chose seats more generally distributed\nthroughout the audience. Men like Burtis, Steinmetz, Smith and Walton,\nas I remember, were always clear, strong, edifying, speaking out of\nfullness as well as conviction. Some of their prayers will never be\nforgotten. As the alabaster cruse of memory breaks from time to time\ninto recollection, the sweet aroma fills all the house of the soul.\n\nAmong those in this citadel and stronghold of these delightful\nmeetings who used most warmly to pray was an Irish brother, who once\npetitioned most fervently that upon the pastor might descend \"the\nfullness of the godhead bodily\". There were exaggerations in the old\nchurch, but they were usually on the right side.\n\nBliss, Wanamaker, Seldomridge and other young men, as I see them in my\nmind's eye, often sat on the western side.\n\nAlmost invariably in times of spiritual interest, which was, as\nit seems to me, pretty frequent, constant and general, and almost\ncertainly so in the midwinter, the pastor, toward the end of the hour\nwould retire into the committee room--not then called \"inquiry room\".\nThose who wished to meet him, or rather could not resist his appealing\ninvitations, would rise from their places and reach their waiting and\npraying leader. This they did by passing westward, either through the\nsouthern or the northern door and rooms leading out from the prayer\nmeeting room. After traversing some yards of a space, short and direct\non the south side, longer and more diagonal on the north side, \"the\ntrembling sinner in whose breast a thousand thoughts revolve\", reached\nthe friend of their souls. Sometimes, indeed, Mr. Chambers had no one\nto meet him, but usually there were from two to twenty persons with\nwhom he had a word and perhaps a prayer. In that room hundreds of\ndecisions were made which affected souls for eternity. I shall never\nforget my journey thither and the warm words that welcomed, warned,\nand secured decision. That night the hymn was \"O, to grace how great\na debtor\". Nor could I, even if I would, let slip into oblivion the\nmeeting of the Session a few evenings later in the same room. The\ndecision of the boy to \"turn to the right and go straight ahead\",\nseemed too sudden for one elder, and he spoke against immediate\nreception and advised postponement. So quick a change from mischief to\nseriousness seemed suspicious, if not dangerous.\n\nGod bless Rudolph S. Walton, transparent in his honesty as Japanese\ncrystal! How often we laughed over it afterwards--his brief mistrust\nof me--as \"holding forth the word of life\" we cheered each other on in\nthe Christian Way.\n\nAlthough the Sabbaths were thus filled up and strictly kept, no days\nseemed more sunny and joyous. The weeknight services were the lecture\non Wednesday evening and prayer meeting on Friday. Often the first\nservice took the form of a big social Bible class, when in the\nSocratic way, by question and answer, we learned more of God and of\nHis wonderful Word.\n\n\"All this work was made easy by the inspiration of our pastor....\nNo one could continue long a member of this church without finding\nsomething to do.\"\n\nNor was this all. Besides \"the untiring industry, the earnest manner\nand the burning eloquence\" of the pastor, he made us all as one\nfamily, by his own fine manners and his training of us in sociability.\nWe had to be hospitable and act towards the unknown stranger, in each\ncase, as if we might possibly entertain an angel unawares. I remember\nonce seeing, about 1856, I think, a slender, bashful young man come\nto our Sunday School. He carried his lunch in his pocket, so as to\nattend both sessions, and church also, for between 12 and 2, there was\nnot time to walk to and back from his home far distant in the south\nend of the city, somewhere near \"the Neck.\" My mother spoke to him\nand invited him to our house to dinner. I learned to know well, to\nhonor and to love the young man, looking up to him for inspiration and\ncheer. He became one of John Chambers's \"three big W's.\" He is now one\nof Philadelphia's merchant princes, a maker of the new Quaker city, a\ntireless worker for God and man.\n\n\n\n\n                             CHAPTER XI.\n\n                      THE MASTER OF ASSEMBLIES.\n\n\nThough active in the multifarious duties of the pastorate and along\nmany lines of activity and reform in a large city, always foremost,\nboth on the firing line, or in the charge, in that unending battle\nagainst evil, John Chambers made the pulpit his first thought. He\ndid this in his own way and according to his own methods. He rarely\nif ever wrote out his sermons. After due preliminary study and\nrenewing of his strength by waiting, in prayer, upon God, he entered\nthe pulpit. He depended largely upon being in first class physical\ncondition, upon the inspiration of the moment, gaining much by\ninduction from his audience and the circumstances, while trusting\nheartily in the presence and blessing of the Holy Spirit, upon whom he\ncontinually waited.\n\nJohn Chambers believed in thorough public announcement. A true herald,\nhe first made sure of calling together the assembly. By this he\nsometimes set as much store, as he did upon the proclamation of the\nmessage itself. On himself he laid the responsibility of his hearers'\nattention. In the main, his preaching was of the character expressed\nby the New Testament Greek word _kerusso_ (proclaim), as well as by\nthe word _evangelizo_.\n\nJohn Chambers was the first minister in Philadelphia to advertize\nthe subjects of his sermons as well as the hour and place of their\ndelivery. He thus initiated for their publishers a line of profitable\nrevenue. In the _Public Ledger_, especially, one may, by looking over\nthe files, see the range and timeliness of his discourses. The topics\nwere \"sensational\", in the best meaning of that term.\n\nBeing himself \"of infinite wit\", the pastor had an eye and a feeling\nfor the humor of some of the situations which he created by his pulpit\nadvertising. As a matter of course and of human nature, around so\nsuperb a beacon, many bats and strange birds flitted. Parasites and\nhangers-on, as well as men and women who wished to exploit themselves\nfinancially and for their own glory, and rise into notoriety on his\nfame, sometimes pestered him. For example, on seeing in the Saturday\nmorning's _Public Ledger_, that the theme of the popular preacher\nin the First Independent Church was to be \"On the importance of a\nman's having his life insured\", one youth resolved to make gain of\ngodliness. Mr. Chambers, while in his study, a front room in his house\nat Twelfth and Girard streets, which opened into the hall near the\nfront door, was surprised to have ushered in upon him a young man\nwith a small arm load of insurance literature and advertisements.\nThe visitor strove to prove that a certain insurance company of\nPhiladelphia was the best in the world. Having expected to get Mr.\nChambers to recommend from the pulpit this particular corporation, he\nwent away sorrowful, for he had had great expectations. Nevertheless\nfrom the tact, worldly wisdom, persistence and importunity of even\nthe average life insurance agent, what lazy Christian cannot learn a\nlesson?\n\nMr. Chambers always knew of the great preachers, not only in\nPhiladelphia, but in other cities. Although, very properly, he never\nrecommended his members to attend on the ministry of others, he did\nwarmly urge his nephew, Milner, when visiting Philadelphia, to go and\nhear Philips Brooks, and he himself went with him to listen to Dr.\nTalmage.\n\nWhen the grand rector of Holy Trinity called on me in Boston, as he\ndid more than once (for he, too, loved Japan), and saw hanging on\nthe wall of my study a certain portrait of his Philadelphia neighbor\nand friend, he cried out: \"What a Grand old Roman! Did you know John\nChambers?\" Then he burst forth into hearty panegyric of the old \"war\nhorse\", and seemed delighted that I was one of his boys. Later on,\nwhen our people in the Shawmut Church helped a native missionary to\nJapan and several Japanese lads from the U. S. White Squadron, then in\nBoston harbor, were present, Dr. Phillips Brooks spoke to my people.\n\nAfter my address in the Chambers-Wylie Memorial Church on the\n\"Historical Night\", December 11, 1901, I gave my people in Ithaca an\naccount of the great Philadelphia pastor. The brief notice of John\nChambers in the Cyclopedia of Temperance and Prohibition (New York,\n1890), is also from the biographer.\n\nIt is only fair history to set down that in sermon preparation the\npastor and his pen were not always closely acquainted with each other.\nNo two men were more different in this respect than Albert Barnes\nand John Chambers. Much as they loved and admired each other, their\nhabits were very unlike. The former spent from five o'clock until nine\nevery morning of his life in his study searching the oracles of God in\nlanguages old and new. It was his habit to throw down his pen in the\nmiddle of a sentence, or even a word, on the clock stroke. The popular\npreacher made light of spending too much time in the study and urged\nmore personal work with men. More than once Mr. Chambers passed his\njoke with the scholar.\n\nYet to-day Albert Barnes is still teaching the Gospel through his\ncommentaries, in many tongues and countries, almost \"all nations\",\nafter having educated a whole generation of American ministers and\nSunday School teachers. On the other hand John Chambers still\npreaches in the lives of his disciples, in the church edifices which\nthey have reared, in the congregations they have gathered, and in ever\nexpanding circles of unseen but potent influence.\n\nAs a boy, when Albert Barnes, aged and venerable, almost blind through\nhis long-continued labors which had so tried his eyes, met me on the\nstreet and asked me some question as to the place and person of the\nfuneral of a friend mutually dear, I remember with what reverence I\nlooked up to the great scholar and the fearless champion of spiritual\nfreedom. I realized even then the shade of difference in feeling from\nthat which I nourished toward my grand pastor. Nevertheless, God needs\nboth kinds of servants. The suggestions of Socrates, as to writing\nboth on the skins of animals and on the tablets of the human heart,\nare in point here.\n\nThe comparison made between Albert Barnes and John Chambers is much\nlike that in the modern story of \"Verbeck of Japan\" and of Samuel R.\nBrown, \"A Maker of the New Orient\", perhaps, also, as the parable of\nthe leaven in each case.\n\nThese were the days of the infidel's Bible as well as the saints' Word\nof God, the era of King James's Version and of the old crude theories\nof verbal inspiration. It was on such theories and on such alone, that\nsuch unlearned men, meretricious platform speakers, and ephemeral\nsecularists, as Joseph Barker, Robert Ingersoll, and Charles Bradlaugh\ncould thrive. The climates, both of popular and orthodox theology and\nof infidelity, were somewhat different from the cosmic influences of\nto-day. The arguments of unfaith were, for the most part at least, the\nold common, shallow, and blatant ones. The theological parasites and\nbacilli were as harmful, and in God's providence as useful, then as\nnow, but I think popular orthodoxy and the average pulpit furnished\nmuch of the food for the obnoxious microbes, and even made congenial\n\"cultures\" for the peculiar varieties existing then.\n\nThe unbeliever fed his mind and starved his soul on the arguments of\nMr. Paine,--not the Thomas Paine of the American War of Independence,\nwhen he sounded the trumpet for freedom, but the Thomas Paine of the\nFrench Revolution, who, long after his stirring appeals to American\npatriotism, wrote the Age of Reason. In view of the fact that the\nlittle thoroughfare in old New York, named in his honor, Reason\nStreet, has long since become corrupted into Raisin street, (wherein\nwe read a parable) Mr. Paine's arguments seem jejune enough. For Paine\nthe patriot and public servant, all Americans should have the highest\nrespect. I remember that my English grand-father, Captain John L.\nGriffis, of the Mariner's Society of Philadelphia which usually met\nin historic Carpenters' Hall, received his certificate of membership\nfrom Thomas Paine, the secretary. He had then no taint of theological\nrancor associated with his name, which clericals, who are not\nnecessarily better Christians than laymen, are too apt to shorten to\n\"Tom\".\n\nThere was a society of biblical critics and amateur theologians,\ncommonly called infidels or even \"atheists\", who gathered under the\nname of the Sunday Institute. These worthies met together on the\nLord's Day in a hall in Sixth street above Race, and frequently\ndiscussed the themes and sermons of Mr. Chambers, sometimes, as\nit seemed, in a blasphemous as well as irreverent style. Like Mr.\nChambers, they advertised their subjects in the Public Ledger. I\nremember one of them, seeing I was a \"Chamberite\", pointed out to me\nthe \"discrepancies\" of the Bible, such as apologists on the one hand\nwere in those days continually trying to \"explain\", while the sceptic\non the other enlarged them under his microscope. This old scorner\ncalled my attention to the fact that \"artillery\" (I Samuel XX: 40)\nwas mentioned in the Bible as belonging to those early days. Hence it\ncould not be inspired of God! He prophesied that Christianity as a\ndelusion would soon pass away, and he recommended me to read Volney's\n\"Ruins\". How tired such men must be waiting for the religion of Jesus\nto die! Alas, for them, the corpse always fails to be ready!\n\nMany a time have I seen in the church gallery a Voltairean looking old\ngentleman, who took notes and seemed to be immensely tickled at some\nof the denunciations of himself and his fellows by the pulpit orator.\nDr. Chambers was rather free in handling the English Philosopher,\nwhom he usually spoke of as \"Tom Paine\" thereby making at least one\nboy determined that, if ever he became a minister, he would give, if\npossible, even the devil his due and speak of doubting Thomas with his\nfull name.\n\nThe _Sunday Despatch_ was the first newspaper in Philadelphia to\npractice seven days' journalism, thereby shocking the feelings of\nthose who could conscientiously read a Monday morning paper printed\nduring Sunday hours. Of course the preacher fulminated against this\ninnovation. It is a curious commentary on the change in public\nsentiment and practice, that on the spot in which Sunday journalism\nwas so often and perhaps righteously denounced, there is published the\npopular newspaper which knows no Sabbath in its issues.\n\nThe days either of the destructive higher criticism of consecrated\ncritical scholarship had not yet come to this side of the Atlantic,\nnor had the grand work been done by Dr. Charles A. Briggs, the\npioneer, and the host of consecrated biblical scholars after him,\nwhich has cut the ground from under the feet of Ingersollism.\nPractically unanimous in brushing away the cobwebs of scholasticism\nand tradition, these consecrated men have helped, by God's blessing,\nto make the Bible the Heavenly Father's book as fresh as if written\nyesterday. They have driven infidelity out of its old strongholds and\ncompelled doubt and unbelief to find new excuses and fortifications.\n\nIn the wars of the Lord the pastor liked nothing better than\nopposition and obstacles, especially such as could be overcome by\nspiritual weapons. With the inheritance of his fighting ancestors\nhe had the true Irishman's instinct for the martial fray; only his\ninheritances were turned to a nobler use and grandly were they\nconsecrated. His preaching was just of the sort to equip his average\nhearer against the insidious attacks of unbelief, the freezing effects\nof conventionalism, and the paralysis of sinful pleasure. Many a\nmighty blow was delivered against the literature that undermined faith\nand morals. I need not speak of the obscene books and papers which had\nnot then met their Comstock. Against such soul-destroying devices and\ntheir makers, John Chambers was as an unchained lion.\n\nI remember how Renan's Life of Jesus carried captive many a weak\nintellect. Though manifestly few men of discernment would be likely to\nmisunderstand its animus, some were mistaken as to its true import.\nOne lady who gave me a copy, said as she handed it to me, \"Will, this\nis a beautiful life of Christ. I hope it will lead you to Jesus\". I\nneed hardly say that in my work of leading men to the Master and into\ntruth, I have never recommended this shallow romance, medicated with\na \"religious\" purpose, which turns historic reality into cunningly\ndevised fables. Against such insidious trash, even under so grand a\ntitle, and the writings which were the vehicles of sensuality more\nor less veiled, the great pastor guided his flock into purity and\nstrength of life.\n\nPerhaps the best idea of the general scope and tenor of the stated\npreaching of John Chambers in his prime, and the general method of his\npresentation of truth, may be gained by collating from the advertising\ncolumns of the _Public Ledger_, his announcements made on Saturdays,\nsay, from April 3rd, 1858, until the breaking out of the Civil War.\nOnly the afternoon subject was announced. The pastor's idea was that\nin the morning edification, thorough expository preaching and pastoral\ncounsels to his own flock should be the rule, while the second service\nmight serve for stimulus, appeal to the public conscience, and the\ndiscussion of a wider range of subjects. Usually the text was given\nwith the topic.\n\nBehold here a selection of topics from the _Ledger_ announcements.\nI could greatly increase the list from my own diary, but a few will\nsuffice as specimens:\n\nIs the religious movement of the day, of God? Acts V.: 33, 34.\n\nTwo sermons were especially for the benefit of those likely to be\ninfluenced by the Sunday Institute:\n\n1. Infidels. The malignant deception of infidels against Christianity.\n\n2. Christianity. Opposition to Christianity has always been malignant\nand unreasonable. Matthew XXVII: 19, 20.\n\nThis was the year of the spiritual refreshing following, as great\nrevivals in America generally do, a financial panic--that of 1857.\n\nRevival. How God's people must work that the revival cease not.\n\nPrevious to the war, John Chambers was exceedingly popular with most\nof the public bodies of men, especially with the volunteer firemen.\n\nSermon to firemen. By request of the Y. M. C. A. in National Hall,\nSunday Evening, May 22nd.\n\nLike all of God's true children in Christ Jesus, John Chambers longed\nfor the unity of the church, and, as I think, did far more by his\nspirit and life for its accomplishment than most of those who talk\nmuch on this subject.\n\nQuery. Can the world be converted until the Church is united?\n\nThree famous June sermons were on the Divinity of Christ.\n\nA champion of lay preaching and evangelism, he treated the question:\nIs religious teaching to be confined to the ministry?\n\nAre the objections made to persons letting their religious wants be\npublicly known Scriptural?\n\nIn 1859, beginning with October, we find the following:\n\nBy request, a sermon on II Peter: II, 20. Annihilation. The doctrine\nthat gives great encouragement for the wicked to live in sin.\n\nHow the Apostolic Church lived and acted and the results which\nfollowed. Acts II, 41-47.\n\nPrayer. Whom God will hear when they pray.\n\nWhy are men so bitterly opposed to the religion of the Bible?\n\nEarly in the year 1861, when the clouds of impending civil war were\nlowering to blackness, some of the sermon themes reveal the situation.\nOne can easily \"read between the lines\".\n\nRobbery. Will a man rob God?\n\nLiberty of Speech.\n\nReligion. The incompatibility between Religion as taught in the Bible\nand the lives of professed Christians.\n\nPrejudice. The effects of prejudice on the interests of Christianity.\n\nCivil War. Is there anything in the commission given by Christ to\nministers that justifies them in encouraging civil war?\n\nIn March a notable course was given on the rearing of children.\n\nThe proper training of children.\n\nHow are children to be trained?\n\nBy whom and for what are children to be trained?\n\nIf children are properly trained will they depart therefrom when old?\n\nHow are the young men and lads who congregate about dram shops, street\ncorners, engine houses, etc., etc., to be saved?\n\nNot a little of his morning preaching was, as we have said, in the\nline of expository discourse. This, from a coldly critical point of\nview, could not be called scholarly, and was rather repetitious, but\nit was thoroughly practical and characteristic, and the love which the\noverwhelming majority of the people bore to their pastor made every\nword tell, so that defects were largely forgotten. He had certain\npet words which he rather overworked, and, to say the least, some\nmannerisms. His method was to quote frequently from the scriptures,\nand, in his later days, with many a page turned down at the corners\nof the big pulpit Bible. We can see him yet, as with one hand on his\neye glasses and nose near the page, he quickly found the various\ntexts desired to support his arguments. Mr. Chambers, as Mr. Moody\nwould put it, was a master of \"the original English\" of King James's\nVersion of the Scriptures. Occasionally he slipped on a word, the\ndouble p's seeming especially to bother him at times. His particular\n_b\u00eate noire_ was the tenet of the limited atonement, and if there was\nanything he loved to pound at, it was this. What he gloried in was\nthe proclaiming and strengthening, with proof texts, of the doctrine\nof the universal atonement, such as I John, ii., 2. In one instance,\nafter the word \"propitiation\" had on his, for once recalcitrant\ntongue, reached no further than the first syllable, the full word came\nout as \"appropriation\", which was not so far from the idea of the\napostle after all.\n\nHe was especially impressive in the reading of hymns, and he was so,\nbecause as it seemed to us, he felt so deeply the sentiment expressed\nin the words. Memory will never allow us to forget his frequent\nrendering of \"Oh to grace how great a debtor!\" His favorite term for\nhis Best Beloved was \"Our Lord and Master,\" but whatever name he used,\none always knew that our pastor was in close and daily touch with Him\nand that was the secret of his godly life and his power for good.\nOther hymns, \"There is a holy city\", \"My days are gliding swiftly by\"\n(to the tune \"Shining Shore\") and some that are rarely heard now,\nwere also favorites. There is proof to the memory that \"history is a\nresurrection.\"\n\nJohn Chambers was not only a natural orator and master in the pulpit,\nbut he also made an admirable presiding officer. This was not only on\naccount of his superb and commanding figure, his leonine countenance\nand his eagle eye, but also because of his ability to understand an\naudience and take in all the possibilities. He knew just at what\nmoment to test its powers. His glance seemed to be an individual\nrecognition of every face. It was not until he was well into the\nfifties that he ever used spectacles or eye-glasses, and even when\nhis brows were frosty he was able, by employing the best oculists and\nthe right lenses, to see apparently everything and everybody in the\nhouse. Many a time he turned what threatened to be a total failure of\na meeting into a brilliant success. By some witty remark, a thrilling\nannouncement, a touch of blarney--of which he was always easy master,\nor a dramatic action accompanying some winsome invitation, he made\nhimself master of the assembly. By original and ingenious methods of\nsilencing, shortening, or politely extinguishing bores, \"platform\nburglars\" or a long-winded or unskilful speaker, he saved the day, or\nrather the night. He was always the refresher of weary audiences.\n\nI remember when a certain one of a delegation on some really worthy\ncharitable enterprise, after addressing an audience not specially\ninterested in the matter presented to them, made the remark (in\nconclusion) that \"thus far what they had received had not paid their\ntravelling expenses\". This roused the big heart of John Chambers,\nand when that was warmed Christians had to look out for their\npocket-books. Striding forward from the sofa, he cried out: \"Why,\nbrethren, this will never do! Let the trustees come right up and empty\nout the baskets\" [a collection had already been taken] \"and go round\nagain\". A burning plea of but two or three minutes for the cause\nfollowed from his lips. Then the previous contribution was tumbled out\nof the boxes on the carpet, and a new and magnificent offering was\nmade, which happily proved a superb precedent, so that the delegation\nwent back happy.\n\nAs to the personal appearance of the preacher, let us recall that\nin my childhood the stock and rolling collar were in fashion. The\nformer made of black satin was stiffened and made to spring on the\nneck with wire. Some of the old leathern stocks were still visible\namong elderly men, many of whom still wore also the flap-front\nbreeches and were unable to approve of the newer style. Usually this\nouter conservatism of dress, was the index of inner conservatism of\nopinions, theological or otherwise. Dr. Chambers made slight change\nin the cut of his clothes as he grew older, yet somehow seemed always,\nas to his outer garb, a man of his age. It was the era also of gold\nheaded canes and of watch fob pockets in men's trousers, outside\nof which hung the watch chain or ribbon, with gold buckle or seal,\nwhich, by an Americanism, is called the fob itself. Most ministers,\nand among them Mr. Chambers, wore in the pulpit, a dress coat and a\nlow cut vest showing considerable expanse of white shirt bosom, which\nthen had pleats an inch or so in width. The watch and \"fob\" were taken\nout at the opening of the sermon, laid on the cushion and invariably\nput back just before the sermon ended, a sign which we small boys of\ncourse welcomed. As a rule, it was coarse manners to snap a hunting\ncase watch in John Chambers's presence, for rarely did the pastor pass\nthe bound of appointed time, for he believed that punctuality was\nrighteousness. He kept within limits and his moderation was known to\nall men.\n\nI do not remember that our pastor carried a gold headed cane, though\nI think he possessed one or two. His boots were always immaculate\nand shining. Standing up in black and white, a commanding figure,\nwith ruddy, or rather roseate face, and stroking his hand through his\nmagnificent hair, which in later years he wore behind his ears, the\nform and mien of John Chambers are imperishable pictures in memory.\nIn hot weather it was his custom, on going home in the morning, to\nchange his underclothing, from socks to collar, throughout. Though on\noppressively hot days one might occasionally, after a service, see him\nwith a wilted collar, yet year in and year out, the impression derived\nwas of a physical personality as sweet as that attributed to Alexander\nthe Great, whose close acquaintance with water, in its cuticular\napplication, was held up to us youngsters as a delectable example.\n\n\n\n\n                             CHAPTER XII.\n\n                          TRUE YOKE-FELLOWS.\n\n\nOne secret of the success of John Chambers lay in the power which he\nhad under God of attracting good men, capable and faithful men as\nhelpers, and inspiring them with loyalty to himself. They followed\nhim as he followed Christ. Though independent in action, his was the\nco-operative type of mind which was grandly shown in the continuous\nand faithful toil necessary for the growth and life of a church.\n\nThe government of the First Independent Church was Presbyterian in\ncast and form. Indeed it is very doubtful whether a Congregational\nChurch, strictly so called, could have been carried on by the people\nof such intensely Presbyterian training and inheritance as most of his\npeople were. The congregation held a business meeting once a year and\nthe trustees, elected by the pew holders, took charge of the property,\nthe edifice, and the finances. The elders were elected for life by the\nvote of the membership. There were no deacons. \"All the elders added\nto the eldership since 1825 have been active praying men\" said our\npastor, in 1875.\n\nOf the first elders I have no remembrance, though I think Matthew\nArrison and Thomas Hibbert, ordained to the eldership in 1827, were,\nthough aged men, in active service when I was a little child. I have\ndim remembrances of these two veterans, and certainly from very\nearly days their names in our home were household words, so that I\nassociate them with the aroma of things happy and lovely. At the name\nof Robert Buist, a dignified looking gentleman as I remember him,\nand who married the sister of Mr. Chambers, there rise up visions\nof seeds, bulbs, flowers, and gardens, for he kept, on Chestnut, or\nMarket Street, a seed warehouse; and I am bound to say (for we tried\nthem in our gardens), that his seeds would grow. In 1852, he removed\nfrom the city and resigned his eldership. In 1857, two years after I\nentered the Sunday School, the Session consisted of Robert Luther,\nAaron H. Burtis, John Yard, Jr., Francis Newland, Daniel Steinmetz,\nand Rudolph S. Walton. After the death of Mr. Burtis, Joseph B.\nSheppard was elected to fill his place. I remember the election, on\nWednesday evening, December 19th, 1860, and that I voted for the\nsuccessful candidate, who had been nominated by Mr. Chambers. After\nthe resignation of four elders in 1861, Richard Smallbrook, Thomas\nP. Dill, Alexander Brown and Edward H. Lawyer filled the places\nleft vacant. Of Messrs. Broome, Brown, and Smallbrook, I have no\nclear remembrance, being, after 1861, only a visitor, though a very\ninterested one, at the old home church.\n\nRobert Luther was for forty-three years elder. He was a mason and\nbuilder with both bricks and men. My mind's photograph of him shows\na very portly man, weighty in both body and mind. My awe of his\nperson was tempered by a knowledge of his perpetual kindness. As\nmaster builder of the edifice on Broad Street, he \"wrought with sad\nsincerity\" equal to him who \"groined the aisles of Christian Rome\"\nand, like him, \"builded better than he knew\". His son, Rev. Robert\nMaurice Luther is the well known Baptist pastor, missionary to Burmah,\nand professor of theology. He is proud, like myself, to call himself\nan alumnus of the First Independent Church, and has cheered me in this\nwork of portraying our under-shepherd who led us to the Bishop of our\nsouls.\n\nJohn Yard, Jr., was much smaller in figure and of quiet dignity.\nJoseph B. Sheppard, always very neatly dressed, I associated with\nmanly repose, fine language, and a most attractive store on Chestnut\nstreet, where beautiful lustrous Irish linens were sold. Somehow in\nmy childish memories, there are blended with Mr. Sheppard's name and\npersonality, memories of those elegant tea parties, made elegant, I\nmean, by the sparkling wit and grace of the guests who gathered in my\nfather's home, and over which my mother presided with such ease. I can\ntruly boast that our modest dwelling was often irradiated by those we\nwere able to attract to it. At one of these occasions, on April 30,\n1855, \"The Young Ladies' Association\" presented their \"Directress\",\nat the hands of the pastor, with a handsome copy of \"The Republican\nCourt\"--a book which tells much of Philadelphia society in the days\nof President Washington, and of those men and women of national\nfame, whom not a few of the very elderly persons in our congregation\nremembered. As a little boy, I always enjoyed the permission accorded\nme of coming in, after the best part of the supper was over, and\nlistening to the conversation of the gentlemen and ladies, who seemed\nto me like so many princes and princesses, and from whose intellectual\nconversation, I am sure I often profited.\n\nMy mother taught during many years, a large Bible class of young\nladies, which met in the Sunday School room at the right of the\npulpit, between that and the northwest door. It afterwards grew so\nlarge that teacher and pupils had to occupy a separate room. Looking\nalong the perspective of years I can think of no faces more lovely or\ncountenances more animated; no dresses prettier and no hats smarter\nthan those of these young maidens of marriageable age or near it. To\nsee them and their teacher when the pastor came around for his morning\ngreeting and handshake with the \"Directress\" was a sight worthy of a\npainter.\n\nI fear that my readers will charge me with putting undue emphasis upon\nthe material loveliness of what I saw and felt, but then we were all\ntaught by the grand man to be happy. He used to insist that God wanted\nus to enjoy everything, and for the good reason that He had made all\nthings richly for us to enjoy. He believed in love and marriage, and\nin happiness as a thing to be pursued and cultivated. He taught also\nthat the richest, deepest, most constant enjoyment was most certainly\nfound in a holy Christian life, and that a fruitful human career\nredounded to God's glory. The blessings of the 128th Psalm were often\ninsisted on. He said, when fifty years a pastor: \"I have married 2,329\ncouples. I was not responsible for their future happiness, but I\nbelieve and trust that in the main they have all been happy. If they\nwere not happy the fault is their own. There is no reason why men and\nwomen cannot be happy when they ought to be\".\n\nConcerning pre-eminence among the elders, I feel sure that none\nwill charge me with partiality when I record my impressions that\nin physical presence, in dignity and polish of manner, and in\nspirituality, Aaron H. Burtis led them all. He seemed a veritable\nre-incarnation of George Washington, though possibly with more\npersonal magnetism and easy familiarity than even the Father of his\nCountry is credited with. In any company his was a marked form, while\nin the gatherings for social worship his words, whether addressed to\nthe Heavenly Father in adoration or to the people in exhortation, or\nin opening the treasury of the Scriptures, which he knew so well how\nto do with point and grace, were always acceptable.\n\nFrancis Newland was long the Asaph of the house of God, and lover not\nonly of music but of all good things, tolerant and charitable, patient\nwith the silliness of the young, a noble father and friend, a most\nwinsome saint, having many lines of conviction diverging from those\nof the pastor, liberal in his thinking, yet ever loving and beloved\nby John Chambers. I may truly say that he gave out stimulating and\npurifying influences like a mountain. I saw him last on earth when\nin Boston he visited his daughter and the Shawmut Congregational\nChurch, of which I was pastor. I remember that the sermon was on\nElisha and the Shunammite woman's son. He was then nearly blind. Yet,\nvery curiously, he had on his retina a single spot still sensitive,\nby which, holding the dial of his watch in a certain position, he\ncould read the time of day. In the case of Messrs. Luther, Burtis, and\nNewland I felt that they were such good men largely because they had\nsuch good wives.\n\nOf all the elders, Daniel Steinmetz seemed to me most steadily worth\nhearing in the prayer and missionary meeting. Steinmetz always had\nideas. He was a Bible student and knew how to present a thought with\nadmirable clearness and close practical adaptation to every day\nlife. He was an intense, ardent patriot, and a useful man in both\nprivate and public life. He was one of that noble stock of cultured\nPennsylvania Germans that has so enriched our national inheritance.\n\nRudolph Schiller Walton was for many years my Sunday School teacher to\nwhom I owe a debt of gratitude, though when I grew up and could think\nfor myself and read the Bible in the original tongues and draw upon\nthe resources of scholarship, I frankly disagreed with him upon some\nquestions of church policy and the attitude of Christians toward that\ncritical scholarship which produced under Luther and Calvin one great\nReformation, and is yet to produce, by God's blessing and purpose, a\nstill greater one. Foreseeing easily in the early eighties what many\nPresbyterian laymen could not then see, that before many years the\nsubstance of the truth, as held in cumulative unanimity by scholars,\nwould be accepted by the Presbyterian Church as it has been in these\nyears 1902 and 1903, I could afford to wait until we should see eye\nto eye. I knew him first as a teacher of a large class of unusually\nwriggly and often badly behaved boys. They were such real boys that I,\nwith a touch of Pharasaism, believed them to be much worse, in every\nway, than those who made up our class, which, for a time, was taught\nby Mr. Charles Painter, a bookbinder.\n\nWhen Mr. Walton in 1860, took his class out of the main school room\ninto the separate southwest corner room, I entered as one of his\nscholars.\n\nIn the afternoons we went through Old Testament history getting pretty\nwell through the period covered by the Book of Kings and Chronicles.\nTo this hour these parts of Holy Scripture are as vivid to me as\nDurer's pictures, because of Rudolph S. Walton's teaching. We studied\nthe Bible itself, and not lesson helps. One reason to-day why there\nis such a gulf between the Sunday School and the pulpit, and why the\naverage scholar and even teacher is so apt to be scared at the \"higher\ncriticism\"--even if indeed he knows what it is--is because he is fed,\nnot on the Divine Word itself, but on those dilutions of it, and those\nplates of hash called lesson helps. Instead of the pure milk and meat\nof the Gospel, even the teachers stuff themselves with pre-digested\nfood and machine-prepared aliment of all sorts.\n\nFor years while Mr. Walton lived, I often dropped in at Wanamaker's\nGrand Depot at Thirteenth and Market (1876-1896), when in\nPhiladelphia, and always enjoyed his pleasant welcome and a handshake.\nHe sold hats for a living, but his calling was to serve Christ. If\never a man loved his fellow men and wanted to do them good, it was\nRudolph S. Walton. As a benefactor, dispenser of cheer and sunshine,\nhelper of all good causes, and a citizen of renown, his name will\nlive. He died in 1902, at the age of seventy-four, leaving his fortune\nto help his fellow men.\n\nMr. Thomas P. Dill was hard of hearing, but his spiritual hearing\nwas like that of Samuel or Paul. He was very tender hearted, ever\nfaithful and true, making every talent that he possessed, whether one\nor more, tell to the glory of his Master. He seemed never to weary in\nfollowing me up, cheering and encouraging me, expressing his personal\nappreciation, and joining also with me in sounding the praises of \"our\npastor\" and the dear old church. Whether I went to college at New\nBrunswick, or came back from Japan to live in New York, or preached\nthe Gospel at Schenectady or in Boston, \"Brother Dill\", who was a\ncommercial traveller, always sought me out to bring sunshine and\ndelightful chatty news from the old bee-hive in Philadelphia.\n\nEdward S. Lawyer was a man of God and the loving servant of his\nfellow church members, and I recall his sunshiny presence. He seemed\nalways so buoyant in spirit, so young in his feelings, so active in\nhis sympathies, that it was long before I could think of him as an\n\"elder\". Of him I have the pleasantest associations. Besides passing\nthe money box in making the usual collections on Sundays, he was\nalways active, nimble, and ready to help his pastor. As the years\nincreased, he seemed to grow in divine grace and in all winning human\ngraces.\n\nOf John C. Hunter, modesty forbids me to speak at length, as he was\nmy uncle, having married Miss Sarah Clark, who in the thirties had\naccompanied Mr. and Mrs. Chambers on their visit to Ohio, establishing\na union Sunday School at Mount Pleasant, the first in the place. With\nhis wife, Mr. Hunter became deeply interested in Chambers Church. A\nman of wealth and generous in his gifts, besides being very devout\nand of simple and unaffected piety, he was a valuable addition to the\nboard of elders and among the trustees. The son of John C. Hunter,\nnamed after the senior elder, Aaron Burtis, entered the Episcopal\nministry, and is now, as he has been for years, the efficient\nprincipal of St. Augustine's School, at Raleigh, N. C., the director\nand manager of this industrial and religious settlement which is doing\nso much to elevate the negroes.\n\nOf Fred. J. Buck (one of that great family that came from Bucksport,\nMe., one of whom I knew as a professor of Sanscrit and another as the\nUnited States Minister to Japan) I have also pleasant recollections,\nas of a family physician, and of a friendship extending through many\nyears, as well as of fraternal participation in the life of the\nchurch. He was a cultivated gentleman and an able physician, as well\nas helpful elder.\n\nOf Robert H. Hinckley, Jr., who I believe at this writing is the only\nsurviving presbyter of the college of elders, I have memories going\nback to the time when we were both boys in the Sunday School, where\nhe was noted always for his punctuality, activity, and willingness to\nserve. Of the depth and tenacity of his friendships, of his varied\nabilities, of his untiring service as a practical worker in the\nMaster's vineyard, of his wisdom in council, propriety forbids me to\nspeak in other than very general terms. After a friendship of fifty\nyears, we both agree, as fellow alumni of Chambers Church, in our high\nestimate of the great preacher.\n\nOther remembered friends and brethren were Mr. Purdy, Mr. Biles,\nand others of whom I cannot say my recollection is very clear. Many\nexcellent brethren have come and gone since the time of my active\nconnection with the church, so I am unable to do them justice. Mr.\nand Mrs. Biles had a most interesting family of sons and daughters,\nwho were ever faithful workers in the church. Most of them I had the\nhonor of knowing, and one of them, Charles, was a warm friend. Their\ndaughters still follow the Master in unwearying service. Another\nfriend and man of force in the prayer-meeting was William Smith, whose\nsister is one of the good city missionaries of my native city. To this\nday, I remember many of his clear and earnest words.\n\nOn the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary or jubilee of the pastor,\nin 1875, the two great white columns were festooned with greenery, and\nabove the pulpit desk rose a great arch of flowers and foliage with\npotted plants at the base. Behind the open Bible was the pastor, the\nveteran and leader, his hair a veritable crown of glory as he stood\nunder the arch, which was itself surmounted with a crown of fragrant\nflowers. On the platform sat in the historic chair, (which is still\npreserved in the Chambers-Wylie Memorial,) Francis Newland, the senior\nelder and on his right hand in order, seven of the church officers,\nand on his left the same number, making fifteen in all. The elders\nwere Messrs. Newland, Hunter, Buck, Dill, Lawyer, and Hinckley. The\ntrustees, (not naming those who were also elders) who served within\nmy recollection were George I. Young, George F. Nagle, Charles Yard,\nJohn M. Snyder, Samuel Campbell, Harrison Purdy, James Evans, John T.\nBeatty, Henry Myers, Isaac Bruce, Joseph T. Biles, Charles D. Supplee,\nEliashib Tracy, William S. Williams, Charles D. Marrott, Augustus\nSomers, George Allen, Edwin West, J. B. Johnson, Henry Leslie, etc.\n\nIn his semi-centennial anniversary sermon Dr. Chambers said \"We have\nsent out from our church between thirty and forty young men who are in\nthe ministry, two of whom are in the pulpit with me this morning.... A\nnumber of them have paid the debt of nature and gone home, after they\nrenounced the cross to have a crown\". It was during this memorable\nweek that under arch and crown of greenery and between wreathed\ncolumns, standing behind the pulpit, while his elders and trustees--a\nnoble band of helpers--sat or stood on the platform beneath, that the\nlast photograph of John Chambers was taken.\n\nHappily for the present writer and for future historians the Session\nof the Church, through their committee, Francis Newland and Robert\nH. Hinckley, Jr., secured a record of the sermon and \"Commemorative\nServices\" and published a neat volume of one hundred and three pages,\nwhich issued from the _Inquirer_ press and was presented to the\npastor's friends as a keepsake.\n\nDr. Chambers' third wife Matilda, who survived him, was the widow of\nDr. Stewart, and a daughter of Peter Ellmaker. She had been reared\nin the Episcopal Church. One of her sayings, told in confidence to a\nfriend who has told it to me, was that she admired the ritual forms\nof \"the church,\" in which she had been reared, but had known many\necclesiastical dignitaries, who became smaller as she knew more of\nthem as men. It came rather as a surprise to her that in a church\nwhere so little store was set on outward forms, human character tended\nto enlarge. As for her husband, his true greatness steadily grew\nupon her mind as well as affections. It was through her influence\nthat the degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred on him by the\nJefferson Medical College of Philadelphia. For a number of years, the\nmost attractive courses of sermons were those to medical students.\nFrequently as many as twelve hundred students, by actual count, were\npresent on these occasions.\n\nYet no appraisal of the value of the services rendered by the comrades\nand helpers of \"the pastor\" could possibly be complete, without a\nwarm, hearty and sincere tribute to the noble women of the First\nIndependent and the Chambers Presbyterian Church. It is for me to\nmake reference only. Justice in detail I cannot do. Without their\nzeal, devotion and tireless consecration, there would have been no\nsuch church as that which became the mighty mother of many children\nin God. To-day the majority of them have \"fallen asleep\". A few still\nremain on earth with us, in vigor of body and mind, some with the\nwhite light of Heaven's morning on their hair. They are \"only waiting\"\nthe call of Him who has \"forgotten to forget\" them, or their unselfish\nservice of love. In His Name they toiled. In His Name they still serve\nby waiting. \"Faint, yet pursuing\", a handful even yet follow the\nUndiscouraged One, in active service for souls.\n\nOf the old mother church it could ever be said:\n\n    \"The Lord giveth the word.\n    The women that publish the tidings are a great host.\"\n\nDoes the reader complain that this chapter is already too long? Yet\nmust I not omit the pastor's assistant \"at the other end\"--William\nWeaver. I cannot tell how long or in how many edifices, old or new, he\nserved as sexton, but \"I knew him well and every truant knew.\" He had\nstricter notions on the subject of behavior at any and all times than\nsome of us boys had, and his discipline occasionally was according to\nseventeenth century spirit and methods. I cannot say that we boys made\nhis life a burden or shortened it untimely, for he lived to a good\nold age. Honored be his name and green his memory, for he believed\nin plenty of light, fresh air, comfort, cleanliness and order--the\nprimitive articles of a sexton's creed, and he honored his Master and\nthe house of God by his faithfulness.[9]\n\n[Footnote 9: See a fuller and more detailed account in the chapter\nentitled \"Some Sextons I Have Known\" in the forthcoming volume, \"Sunny\nMemories of Three Pastorates\". Ithaca, 1903.]\n\n\n\n\n                             CHAPTER XIII.\n\n                  CHURCH LIFE. MINOR PERSONALITIES.\n\n\nThese were the days, also, \"before the war\", when expansion was the\nlaw of woman's apparel. The hoop skirt had reached its maximum of\nperiphery. Many colors were mingled on the same dress. The ladies wore\n\"shoot-the-moon\" bonnets, with small sized flower gardens stuffed\ninside the brim, between face and frame, and the ribbons necessary\nfor adornment and fastening ran into yard lengths. Besides ribbon\non the top of the head gear, there must be great bows on either\nside of the chin. Many a time I remember seeing the choir singers\nuntie their bonnet strings when they would praise God with the voice\nand understanding; or, to be more scientific, they unlatched the\nhook and eye, which really did the business of fastening, the bows\nbeing for ornament rather than utility, reminding one of Gothic\narchitecture made of timber in lieu of stone. It was a grand thing,\nat least one boy thought, to go to a morning or noon wedding within a\nprivate house, where at 10 A.M. the windows were shut tight and the\ngas lighted. The girls were all in voluminous circles of flounced\nsilks. Their bonnets spread out on the bed of the dressing room were\nveritable parterres, with ribbons half a foot wide and a yard long.\n\nInside the house of God the fripperies of fashion were as rampant then\nas now. In one stylish family, albeit, according to common rumor of\nhumble origin, whose pew was near ours, but further to the east, there\nwas the father, who was a dandy in his dress. He always sat during the\nsermon and those parts of the service not calling for a bowed head\nor the grasping of a hymn book, holding his ridiculous little cane,\nwhich had for its handle a lady's foot carved in ivory. Her toes were\nalways in his mouth, and the diligence with which he sucked that\ncane impressed a certain boy, who passes over further description, of\noiled and perfumed ringlets, amazing necktie or diamond-studded cravat\nand other vanities of life. I never frankly accepted the statement of\nEcclesiastes, until I saw this gentleman's cane and neck gear. It must\nbe confessed that the amount of time sometimes spent by young men on\ntheir neckties, then often three or four inches wide and made to stick\nout so that the ends were continuous with the shoulders, is a secret\nnot to be told to the present generation lest we corrupt the youth.\n\nBut the psychical moment to the small boy was when the very stylish\ndaughter of the family aforesaid with her sublunar bonnet, her\ngorgeous mantilla, her mighty collar of lace and resplendent brooch\nsailed up the aisle, sending many a black silk hat spinning on its\nrichochetting way before her. When about two fathom's distance from\nthe pew door, which stood at right angles to the long aisle, she\nwould seize a handful of the various concentric steel circles of her\ndress, and slightly tilting the metal bands would sail into her pew\nwith as little collision against the wooden sides as possible. Within\na busy period, of possibly less than five minutes, she was able to\naccommodate her crinoline to the dimensions allowed and get her spirit\nin tune with the sacredness of the hour and place.\n\nNevertheless when in later days, sorrow came to that same daughter,\nnow bereaved and fatherless, she rose by divine grace into a very\ntransfiguration of character, through sisterly and filial devotion.\n\nLife is too short to tell of all the oddities and curious situations\ninto which the hoop skirt led its wearer, and one must read Edward\nEverett Hale's amusing story of \"The Skeleton in the Closet\",\nto see what dire mischief these inventions of the evil one were\ncapable of wreaking, even when discarded. They did indeed seem to be\nindestructible.\n\nWhat glistening starry eyes, what dewy and rosy cheeks, what lovely\nfaces dwelt inside of those bonnets! Even to-day in life's dusty\npathway, sweet influences like the breath of a May morning come back\nwith the happy memories of Sabbath days, that were as \"the bridal\nof the earth and sky\", with the trees in white blossoms standing as\nbridesmaids. In memory's glow the returning vision of youth make what\nthe Deuteronomist calls \"the days of heaven upon earth\". It was in\nthat wonderful training school on Broad street, that so many lovely\nmaidens were taught how, by divine grace, to be noble wives and\nmothers, and useful women and workers for the coming of the kingdom of\nheaven, and from which so many alumni went forth, young men to preach\nthe good news of God. On the missionary field, or at home, in bustling\ncities, or in quiet country charges, many there are who to-day amid\nmonotony and toil, refresh their spirits at the fountains of memory,\ntaking inspiration from the past and its great personality, thanking\nGod and taking courage.\n\n    \"The traveller owns the grateful sense\n    Of sweetness near, he knows not whence,\n    And pausing takes with forehead bare\n    The benediction of the air.\"\n\nThey were not all sunny days for \"the pastor\", but rather many a\n\"dark and cloudy day\", for not all of the seed of the sower fell into\ngood and honest hearts. Too many trusted in themselves and falling,\nwallowed in the mire. One favorite text and a very sincere utterance\nof both the Christ's first John and one of his latest disciples so\nnamed, was this: \"I have no greater joy than to hear that my children\nwalk in truth\". When, on the contrary, his quondam church members\ndishonored their Lord, then \"the pastor's\" heart was wrung--alas, too\noften--with anguish.\n\nAmong memory's dissolving views is one of a young man who had been\nbrought into the church and for a time gave promise of manly piety\nand a fruitful Christian career, but, falling into habits of worldly\npleasure he seemed to lose in girth of soul as he became larger in\nbody. He once boasted to me of his finely developed muscle, ascribing\nhis physical enlargement and, as he thought, improvement to \"good\nliquor and good women,\" saying it without a blush, and in such a\nstatement horribly abusing the English language as I knew and felt it.\nWhen the war broke out he became captain in a regiment which was made\nup chiefly of Roman Catholic Irish soldiers from Philadelphia, men as\ndevout in one way as they were reckless in another. In leading them\nto the charge in their first battle, he noticed not only how their\nfaces turned pale as the spirit conquered the flesh, but also how each\nman crossed himself, and how, as he described it, the advance of his\ncompany into the thick of the fight could be traced by the packs of\ncards which they threw away. They did not wish to lose their lives,\nbut they relished even less the idea of being found dead with these\ninstruments of pleasure and of evil in their knapsacks. The handsome\nyoung captain, after going to moral wreck, was mortally wounded in\nbattle. When his body was brought home and laid in Laurel Hill, I\nremember the impressive final words of his saddened and disappointed\npastor as he committed \"to the care of the Resurrection and the Life\"\nthe relics of a once noble form:\n\n    \"Alas! there are wrecks on humanity's sea\n    More awful than any on ocean can be\".\n\nYet the preacher's burning denunciations of sin and his praise of\nholiness helped us all to keep step with the Infinite and hold to the\nright path. Whether in formal discourse or in the reading of a hymn he\nlost no opportunity to make sinners and false professors uncomfortable\nand to cheer well doers.\n\nRev. James Crowell, D.D., writes, in 1902:\n\n\"I remember going in to hear Rev. Dr. Chambers one Sabbath afternoon,\nand being much struck with a remark that he made while reading a hymn.\nIt was characteristic of the plain, straightforward way in which he\nwould sometimes rebuke what he thought was wrong among the people. He\nwas reading the hymn\n\n    'My soul, be on thy guard\n      Ten thousand foes arise,'\n\nand when he came to the last verse, beginning,\n\n    'Fight on, my soul, till death\n      Shall bring thee to thy God,'\n\nhe suddenly laid down the hymn-book and said, 'Bring whom? Bring that\ncruel rum-seller, who sells damnation to his fellow men for the sake\nof paltry gain? Bring that lazy lounging Christian who was at church\nthis morning, but is now taking a nap in bed, at home, instead of\nbeing in the house of God? No!'\"\n\n\"Dr. Chambers was very active and prominent in connection with the\nNoon-day prayer meeting in the old Sansom Street Baptist Church,\nat the corner of Ninth and Sansom. He attended that meeting with\nundeviating punctuality, always insisted upon the exercises beginning\nexactly upon the hour, and upon a strict adherence to the rule which\nrequired prayers and remarks to be limited to three minutes. He was an\ninspiration in that meeting, and by his spirit and his eloquent voice\nadded much to its enthusiasm and success.\n\n\"I remember when I was a little boy attending school at the West\nChester Academy, an announcement was made at one time that a great\ntemperance meeting was to be held in Everhart's Grove, a little piece\nof woods about half a mile from the end of the town. The meeting\nwas held on Saturday afternoon, and going down, with a few of my\nschoolmates to attend the meeting, upon reaching the outskirts of the\ntown, when yet more than a quarter of a mile distant from the place\nof meeting in the woods, I heard Dr. Chambers' clarion voice most\ndistinctly, as he was engaged in speaking.\n\n\"He was for many years a leader in aggressive movements in the\ntemperance cause, and by his faithfulness in denouncing those who were\nengaged in the traffic he did much to promote the interests of that\ngreat reform. He was also exceedingly faithful as a pastor in looking\nafter the absentees from worship. It was said that he could always\nmark those who were absent from the House of God on the Sabbath, and\nthat his rule was on Monday to look them up and ascertain the reason\nof their absence. He was an earnest and faithful and aggressive worker\nin the cause of his Master, and by his eloquence and fervor succeeded\nin retaining his hold upon the large congregation that worshipped in\nthe old church at the corner of Broad and Sansom streets\".\n\nI can add to Dr. Crowell's testimony my own as to Mr. Chambers's\ninspiring presence at the Union prayer meetings in the Sansom Street\nBaptist Church for I attended many of them. Once when the hymn \"Oh for\na thousand tongues to sing\" had been finished he rose up and told us\nin a few burning words that we need not pray for \"a thousand tongues\",\nbut that one tongue was enough, if each used his aright. His knowledge\nof the presence or absence of his parishioners was nearly infallible.\nOnce when a very useful lady member had been absent during several\nweeks at \"revival\" meetings in another church, her pastor said to her\nof her absence: \"It was like pouring melted lead down my back\". Mr.\nChambers did not believe in extra meetings, but in live ones all the\ntime.\n\n\n\n\n                            CHAPTER XIV.\n\n                            THE CIVIL WAR.\n\n\nThe great Civil War, which divided the nation and the states, families\nand households, struck the First Independent Church like a hurricane.\nIn a sense, the Scripture was fulfilled as to the smiting of the\nshepherd and the scattering of the flock. The result was to be a\ndistinct lessening of John Chambers's influence upon the city of\nPhiladelphia, at least, and his relegation to a comparatively limited\nsphere of influence. One of his alumni writes: \"If he had been in\nsympathy with the North in the Civil War, I believe he would have\nattained a national reputation. As events turned out, his Southern\naffiliations and sympathy displaced him somewhat from his niche of\npeculiar influence in Philadelphia, and relegated him to a work of\nlessening circumference\". The biographer would gladly pass over the\nwhole subject, but true history requires that a just statement of the\nfacts should be given. Whatever be the judgment, all acknowledge that\nJohn Chambers acted with a good conscience. _Deo Vindice._\n\nDespite his passionate love of liberty and his democratic sympathies,\nhe had imbibed in Baltimore and held in Pennsylvania the general ideas\nof the South concerning slavery. This \"institution\" was considered as\northodoxy itself. It was defended from the pulpit and set forth as\ndivinely ordained. Mr. Chambers sincerely believed that the black man\nmust ever be \"a servant of servants unto his brethren\". His passionate\nappeals to the supremacy of the Constitution as against the \"higher\nlaw\", and his hearty profession of admiration for the law-abiding\ncitizen were all on the side of upholding and protecting slavery as an\nAmerican \"institution\" to be sacredly safe-guarded. Just before the\nwar, when calling at our home and finding the book \"Uncle Tom's Cabin\"\nlying upon the sofa and bearing evidences of being well perused, he\ncondemned the reading of such a \"vile\" work in no measured terms.\n\nBy nature a sincere man of peace and in practical life a consummate\npeacemaker, our pastor professed great abhorrence of war.\nNevertheless, these denunciations of slaughter and his oft-expressed\nhorror of \"brethren imbruing their hands in each other's blood\", were\ndiscounted in the minds of those who knew his bitter denunciations of\nall things British and monarchial, and remembered his keen interest\nin the Mexican war. Some hostile critic of our national policy with\nMexico, on seeing the Philadelphia recruits marching away to serve\nunder General Scott, called them \"dough faces\". Mr. Chambers heard of\nthis and, on the contrary, praising warmly the bold soldier boys of\n1846 said that \"if the body of the man who had called such soldiers\n'dough faces' were made into bread, there wouldn't be a dog in\nPhiladelphia that would eat a pound of it\".\n\nThe slow coming events cast long and great shadows which rapidly\nshortened as the year 1861 drew near. The situation was critical\nand the political sky was fast gathering blackness. In politics\nJohn Chambers was a strong Democrat, sympathizing strongly with the\npresident, James Buchanan, \"Pennsylvania's favorite son\", with whom he\nwas personally acquainted, as well as with his niece, Harriet Lane, of\nwhose decease I read in July, 1903. He spent several summers with the\npresident at Bedford Springs, was often a guest at Wheatland, and at\nWashington was known at the White House, and once, at least, opened\nthe House of Representatives with prayer.\n\nIt is certain that our pastor suffered greatly in his mind over the\nthought of a disruption of the Union. Thanksgiving day was the\nelect season at which preachers discussed political themes, and Dr.\nChambers's sermon of November 24, 1859, was printed in a pamphlet.\n\nI remember the occasion as if it were yesterday. His rendering of the\neighth chapter of Deuteronomy was with such impressive power that to\nthis day I feel as if no other chapter ought to be read on similar\noccasions. He also read the second chapter of First Timothy, after\nwhich he offered his fervent prayer. As I peruse again the printed\ndiscourse I can hear his ringing voice and see the superb and graceful\ngestures. This was his opening sentence:\n\n\"I have announced to you my purpose to relieve my heart of a burden\nthat has long oppressed me. As an American citizen, an American\nminister of the Gospel, I love this Bible; and the God of the Bible.\nMy country, its constitution, and its laws, I love. As a man of peace\nI have a heart for the nation.... I love it as a unit. I am ready to\nlive by it as a unit; and am ready to put the blood of my heart fresh\nupon its altar rather than see it anything else than a unit\". He then\nwent on to dwell on the worth of the Union to ourselves and the world\nof mankind, and upon the jealousy which European nations, especially\nthe monarchies, and more particularly England, had of us. Their hope\nof \"triumphing over this Western continent was by triumphing over us\".\n\nHe then dwelt upon the importance, solemnity and value of an oath,\ndeclaring that one of the most alarming signs of the times was the\nutter indifference to the value of an oath.\n\n\"Now, for example, the Constitution most positively and absolutely,\nin the plainest and most unmistakable manner provides that a fugitive\nfrom labor escaping from one state to another shall be delivered up.\nThis is the Constitution. I am not to-day touching slavery right or\nwrong. I am looking as a practical man at things as they are.\" Every\ncitizen who winks at its evasion, \"if he aids or abets the fugitive in\nhis flight, he is before heaven a perjured man and the waters of the\nocean could not wash out the stain.\"\n\nThe fugitive slave law had been often resisted in Philadelphia, as I\nremember well. In the same city, the first anti-slavery society had\nbeen formed, and within its present limits the first ecclesiastical\nprotest ever raised against slavery was signed in the Mennonite\nmeeting house in Germantown, where in summer I sometimes worshipped.\nThe agitation of the abolitionists, and the burning down of\nPennsylvania Hall were all matters of fresh memory to adult listeners\nin 1859.\n\n\"I now take up that question of questions--can this Union be\nperpetuated? I answer 'yes'. Take the Bible for our rule and guide.\nLet it be the sheet anchor of our hope.... No tempest that crowned\nheads or despotic sceptres can invoke will ever throw our ship upon\nthe lee shore or put out the light of this American Union\".\n\nAfter a fling, by the way, at the divine right of kings, \"a right\nwhich God gave in his wrath\", he quoted the legend of Franklin's\ncalling for prayer in the constitutional convention, noted the\nincident of Jesus and the tribute to C\u00e6sar, and then dwelt on the\nnecessity of the adopted citizen, especially, keeping his oath. He\nintimated that those immigrants who did not like our constitution\n\"had better pack up and go home.... The constitution and laws of this\ncountry are our C\u00e6sar and on us rests the solemn duty of obedience\".\nHe then passed to the duties of husbands and wives, of children to\ntheir parents, and to the duty of training the youth to speak with\nrespect of rulers and laws. His final exhortation was to the sacred\nobligation to obey the constitution and the laws. He pointed out the\ndanger of the dissolution of the Union, showing that the peril was\ngreat \"unless our pulpits cease their clamor against the constitution\nand the laws\". Ministers must not urge \"the higher law (as they call\nit) of instinct, but preach God's revealed word, and cease, too, from\ndeclaring from the altar that it is better to put into a man's hand a\nrifle, a death weapon, rather than a mother's Bible\". He urged that\nwe cease the agitation and abuse, that arrays state against state,\nand that sectionalism be abandoned. The conclusion was made with\ntremendous effect. \"If I were on the banks of the Potomac, standing by\nthat vault at Mount Vernon, I would say it over the sacred dust of the\nimmortal Washington, the man that would labor or would wish for the\ndissolution of the American Union, let him be \"anathema, maranatha\".\n\nBut neither rhetoric, nor eloquence, nor professions of loyalty to\nthe constitution could prevent secession, or that firing of the shot\non Sumter which unified the North. The news of this overt act of\nhostility at once sharply divided the congregation, and a number of\nthe very best men and women in the church, some of them Mr. Chambers's\noldest and warmest supporters, withdrew into other churches, mostly\nPresbyterian, or united themselves with the Central Congregational\nChurch, where they and their children and grandchildren form a notable\nelement in that honored church. Others, like Anna Ross, the soldiers'\nfriend, became actively identified with patriotic measures. The loss\nto the First Independent church was a rich gain to other churches.\nFour out of six of his elders, Daniel Steinmetz, Joseph B. Sheppard,\nRudolph S. Walton, and John Yard, Jr., among his ablest laymen,\nwithdrew into Presbyterian churches to help build them up with their\ntalents, generosity, and consecration, or initiated new enterprises.\nOthers, though they did not take away their letters of membership,\nnever again or rarely, worshipped in the church edifice. Probably the\nnumber thus lost to the congregation ran into the hundreds, but the\nbreak was because of conscience and conviction.\n\nNevertheless God was glorified and Christ honored even in farewells.\nThe partings were in friendship. These were not personal quarrels,\nand the relations between man and man for Christ's sake were always\nmaintained. John Chambers's own testimony on this point is clear.\nIn 1875 he said \"We did not dispute. They treated me and they have\nalways treated me with the greatest respect and they were among our\nmost useful men ... and we have been on the terms of the most perfect\nfriendship since.... We did not have any trouble with each other--we\nparted in peace.\"\n\nThe most striking manifestation of the sentiment hostile to the pastor\nwas shown by some of the trustees, yet in a way not approved of by the\ncongregation. There was possibly some ground for the apprehension felt\nby the trustees, as one of them told me, that Southern sympathizers\nmight get control of the property of the \"copperhead church.\"\nTherefore, a flagstaff was erected on the roof and the stars and\nstripes were unfurled, and for some months waved in the breeze from\nmorning till sunset. I was passing down Chestnut street that very\nmorning, just as the flag was run up and a few gentlemen standing on\nthe tin roof gave three cheers. It was a surprise and not wholly a\npleasant one to me. This procedure hurt Mr. Chambers's feelings, but\nhe said little about it. Not a few others, including the biographer,\nthought that peculiar kind of patriotism was, in its manifestation,\nentirely unwarranted. At the next election, the trustees most\nprominent in the flag pole business were quietly dropped. The\nexcitement about the \"copperhead church\" died away, and the pole was\ntaken down and disposed of, the flag ever remaining in honor.\n\nOn the other hand Mr. Chambers did some things which his friends\ndeemed highly unwise. On one occasion, it is said, he paraded publicly\nwith the Keystone Club, a prominent political organization, which had\nbeen influential in the nomination of James Buchanan. None of the\nyoung men of his church who enlisted in the Union army received any\nencouragement from their pastor, who was never known in his public\nprayers to pray for the success of the national cause in arms, though\nalways petitioning the throne of grace in behalf of the Union of the\nStates. One after another and sometimes groups of young patriots\ntogether would put on the national uniform, shoulder their muskets and\nmarch off to battle, quite frequently never to return again. On one\noccasion, being called on for public prayer in the large Wednesday\nnight meeting, though but eighteen years of age (Mr. Chambers always\nencouraged his young men to pray publicly) I petitioned the Father of\nus all, as was my daily custom privately, and as some of the others\nof us did occasionally in public, for the success of the Union arms\nin the field, and the defeat of the slave-holder's rebellion, and\nthat \"their covenant with death might be annulled and their agreement\nwith hell not stand\". I meant of course slavery and slavery only, but\nperhaps particular offence was taken by the pastor, because William\nLloyd Garrison had in these words characterized the Constitution of\nthe United States. Mr. Chambers was visibly displeased and afterwards\nreferred to the prayer in terms of rebuke.\n\nIt was in the first year of the war, on Sunday, May 5, that either\na company or a regiment, or portion of one--my diary says \"part of\nthe Scott Legion and the National Guard\" came to our church to\nworship before going to the front. I do not know just how or why the\ninvitation was sent or accepted. Probably it was to draw out the exact\nsentiment of John Chambers. In any event the patriots ready to die for\ntheir country received no direct encouragement (except to maintain the\nconstitution and laws of the country), but rather, as we all thought,\ndiscouragement, when the pastor told them he could not encourage them\nto go forth to shed their brother's blood.\n\nWhen Robert Lee, with his Confederate veterans, invaded Pennsylvania,\nand was statesman as well as general enough to give battle on northern\nsoil at Gettysburg, Philadelphia was in a white heat of excitement.\nCaptain Griffiths, one of the handsomest men in the congregation,\nwhose pew was directly in front of ours, received his death wound in\nthis battle.\n\nIn June, 1863, I was in Baltimore visiting at my uncle's and trying\nto recuperate after an attack of chills and fever, resulting from\nspending a summer on the other side of the Delaware. (I am now\nthoroughly persuaded, by the way, of the efficiency of mosquito's\nas carriers of malarial poison). I had recovered, but on hearing\nthat Lee's army had marched towards Pennsylvania, my native state, I\nimmediately resolved to go home and enlist in the army. Riding into\nthe city and through the barricades guarded by Union soldiers, I\ntook the train for Philadelphia, reaching my house on late Saturday\nnight. Early Monday morning I enlisted in Company H of the Merchants'\nRegiment, 44th Pennsylvania Militia. Within a day or two I received\nuniform and arms and was on my way to Camp Curtin at Harrisburg, ready\nto march to the fords of the Potomac. Before leaving I called to see\nmy former minister, John Chambers, to tell him what I was about to do,\nhoping to receive his blessing. As yet Vicksburg seemed impregnable,\nand apparently Lee was to march victoriously through Pennsylvania. Mr.\nChambers argued against the possibility of putting down the rebellion,\nand descanted upon the impregnability of the terrific fortifications\nat Vicksburg, which were able, as he thought, to bid defiance to any\nforce that could be brought against them.\n\nOur interview was ended by the entrance of his friend the Rev.\nDr. William Swan Plumer, a handsome man of magnificent bearing,\nwhose white beard swept his breast and whom I had more than once\nheard preach. He was a voluminous and popular writer, who had held\npastorates in Richmond, Baltimore, and Allegheney City, Pa. From\nthe close of the war until 1880 he was professor in the theological\nseminary at Columbia, S. C. Before I had been a day in Camp Curtin at\nHarrisburg, Lee was driven back from Gettysburg, and our war-governor\nhimself in the camp announced to us the fall of Vicksburg. Years\nafterward in Ithaca, I wrote ex-governor Curtin a sympathizing letter\non the death of his daughter, Mrs. William H. Sage, of our little\ncity. He replied in a long letter full of appreciation and memories of\n1861-'65.\n\nNo memorial tablet was ever put up in the Chambers's church to the\nmemory of the young men from the congregation who gave their lives to\ntheir country.\n\nIt is perhaps on the whole better to dwell lightly upon the record of\nJohn Chambers during the war, partly because it is a blessed thing\nto know how to forget. Even the battlefields \"nature has long since\nhealed and reconciled to herself in the sweet oblivion of flowers\".\nWe have now a united country, the ulcer of slavery is a thing of long\nago, and some things are seen more clearly. Possibly brethren of John\nChambers who publicly refused to shake hands with him have since\nbeen sorry. It is also quite certain that in the days of heat and\nbitterness, Mr. Chambers was held responsible for some things which\nmembers of his family, or relatives, said or did, and not himself.\nAfterwards, when charged with holding certain sentiments, or appealed\nto to vindicate his reputation, he refused, as he said \"to hide\nhimself behind a woman\". He was too much of a man to say \"women did\nit\".\n\nMrs. Martha Chambers, his second wife, had died in March, 1860.\nDuring the war or most of it, he was a widower. Within this period,\nhis daughter-in-law, a Virginia lady, the wife of Duncan Chambers,\npresided over his household. Our pastor's nephew, Duncan Chambers\nMilner (now pastor at Joliet, Ill.) a soldier in the Union army,\nwas wounded, and spent some time during his convalescence in his\nuncle's home, afterwards entering upon the work of the United States\nChristian Commission. He bears witness how his uncle, with rock-like\nconvictions, strove, in spite of the obloquy of enemies and the\ncoldness of friends, to be patriot, pastor, and Christian, bearing all\nthings, hoping all things, enduring all things, in a trying time, when\npolitical slander was busy, going on with his work as usual.\n\nIn all the separations and differences between the great pastor and\nsome members of his flock, there was no personal bitterness or angry\nword. It was only on questions of national policy that they differed.\nTheir brotherly regard remained the same, and God was glorified. This\ncertainly was true. John Chambers, the hero quailed not before threats\nof being hanged at the lamp post. He went about his duties as usual.\nLike most men whose lives are threatened, our pastor died quietly in\nhis bed.\n\nRev. Thomas DeWitt Talmage came to Philadelphia during the war, in\n1862, and at once attracted much attention and great crowds to the\nchurch edifice on Seventh Street above Brown. I was one of the number\nwho was drawn under his influence, and, from patriotic and personal\nreasons, I took my letter away from the First Independent Church to\nunite with the Second Reformed (Dutch) Church, of which Dr. Talmage\nwas pastor. I met him in camp when he was a chaplain of the Coal\nRegiment, raised in Philadelphia during Lee's invasion. No one could\never doubt Talmage's loyalty to the Federal cause. In the darkest days\nof the war, when it seemed as though the slave owners' rebellion would\nsucceed he uttered a fervent prayer for the Union, winding up with the\npetition, \"Blast the Southern Confederacy\". These were the days when\non each Sunday, one went to the house of God, expecting to see a new\nwidow in black and freshly made orphans in the congregation.\n\nI saw Mr. Talmage first and heard him speak on the platform in Concert\nHall, where also sat John Chambers. I remember how he sent some old\nladies home to hunt for \"the sixth chapter of the book of Nicodemus\".\nMr. Talmage quickly found out who were the popular preachers of\nPhiladelphia--Phillips Brooks, Herrick Johnson, A. A. Willetts, John\nChambers, and others. He was so struck with Dr. Chambers's position of\ninfluence that he made investigation into his methods and hired a man\nto look over the files of the _Public Ledger_ to make a list of the\nsubjects on which he had preached in previous years. All this was very\ninteresting to Mr. Chambers when told him by his nephew, to whom the\nfacts were communicated by Mr. Talmage himself.\n\nFamous visitors to the church and preachers in the pulpit of the First\nIndependent Church made variety. Some of these sermons heard I can\nnever forget, such as that by the Rev. Dr. Schenck, who set forth\nthe example of Caleb, \"faithful found among the faithless, faithful\nonly he\". The Rev. Henry Grattan Guinness impressed me more with his\nfluency than his ideas. Dr. Daniel March, whose Night Scenes of the\nBible I read with delight, and who replied so spiritedly to Hepworth\nDixon's foolish charges, I met again in Boston, after his tour around\nthe world in the late eighties, and from him I have lately heard in\npraise of his old theological friend. Dr. Plumer gave us good biblical\nsermons. So did Dr. Leyburn. Dr. Neill, a Methodist, always pleased\nand fed us. Professor W. G. Fisher, ever popular, and author of many\nwell-known tunes, was also frequently seen by us.\n\nI have felt free to mention the faults, failings, and defects of the\nman we all loved so well, partly because he himself instilled early in\nus the love of absolute truth, and because his career is in itself a\nmighty lesson to all young men. It is a story that shows self-conquest\nand mastery of difficulties, for John Chambers was ever rising on\nstepping stones of his dead self to higher things. Out of his own\nfaults, by God's grace, he made a ladder by which he mounted up to\nGod. It is because his strength was made perfect in weakness that his\nlife speaks even yet so powerfully. Though he has been dead much more\nthan a quarter of a century, his influence is to-day like wave on wave\nof ever widening circles, and the force of his life is reproduced in\nscores of other human lives in all parts of the earth.\n\nEven in intellectual edification he \"builded better than he knew\".\nWhen the \"higher criticism\" came, with its imaginary terrors, as of\nhoof, horn, and teeth, I for one, felt able to tame, manage, and use\nit as a faithful beast of burden, both for the history of Japan and\nof Israel, largely because John Chambers used to say to me: \"Will,\nstudy the Bible, and don't be afraid of what you find there\". Where\nsome see only the chestnut burr, I have found food and sweetness. \"Out\nof the eater has come forth meat, and out of the strong, sweetness,\"\nlargely because of the atmosphere which John Chambers suffused around\nmy youthful head.\n\nMr. Chambers's fortieth anniversary sermon on May 14, 1865, was\npublished in a neat pamphlet, with a sketch of the history of the\nchurch. He was then in his sixty-eighth year and in vigorous health.\nAbout eight or ten of his original parishioners out of the seventy-one\nwho, in April, 1825, had voted to call him to be their pastor, still\nsurvived. Despite the subtraction of removals, dismissals and deaths\nthe church rolls showed an active membership of twelve hundred. The\nchurch edifice, on a lot seventy-six by one hundred feet, had cost,\nfor building and enlargement, about fifty thousand dollars, all raised\nby direct subscription. About three thousand persons had been received\ninto membership, nine-tenths on confession of faith. Other statistics\nare interesting--2,509 funerals, 6,247 sermons, 2,400 funeral\naddresses, 3,000 addresses on missionary, temperance and Sunday School\nsubjects, and about 28,000 pastoral calls. In forty years, excepting\nhis absence in Europe, he had been out of the pulpit for ill health\nonly three times. In the foulness of strength and prosperity the\nspirit of this discourse is best set forth as he expressed it, \"Oh, to\ngrace how great a debtor\" and \"Hitherto the Lord hath helped us.\"\n\nThe salary of our pastor, at first very modest, had been increased to\n$1,500, then to $2,500, and for a few later years, he received $4,000.\nIt was about this time, 1865, that the gentlemen of the congregation\npresented him with a tea set of silver.\n\nAlmost as a matter of course, John Chambers was often approached by\npastorless church committees seeking a popular and efficient leader;\nbut never, for one moment, did he encourage the thought of leaving\nhis people for another field. Nevertheless the gossips sometimes\nimagined otherwise. Concerning one particular instance, which was the\noccasion of a witty and very remarkable sermon, my fellow-alumnus,\nRev. Dr. Robert Maurice Luther, writes me, under date of July 16, 1903:\n\n\"As a preacher, Dr. Chambers was, by voice and personal presence most\nattractive. His voice was indescribably rich, full and sonorous. He\nwas frequently charged with taking lessons from celebrated actors.\nThis he indignantly and most emphatically denied, frequently in my\nhearing. On the other hand, I more than once heard an actor of some\nprominence, afterward a teacher of elocution, assert that he was in\nthe habit of attending the First Independent Church, for the purpose\nof getting hints on the management of his voice, from Dr. Chambers's\nmethod.\n\nOne sermon, much criticised, I remember distinctly, to-day. It must\nhave been delivered about the year 1856. The occasion was a persistent\nreport, widely circulated, that Dr. Chambers was about to accept a\ncall to a more largely remunerated pastorate in Baltimore. The theme\nwas \"The Immortality of the Scandal Monger.\" The text was, \"It is\nreported among the heathen, and Gashmu saith it.\" Neh., vi, 6. The\npastor said that Gashmu had never been heard of before, and did not\nappear again, yet he was immortal.\n\nI. How an unknown man may become immortal.\n\nDoes any one of you say that the work of the Lord offers no\ncompensation in the way of personal fame? He is correct in the main.\nDo your work as faithfully as you may, and the probability is that you\nwill die, and the world will give your memory not a second thought.\nMen will forget where you are buried. The newspapers will not stop\ntheir presses long enough to record the fact of your death unless\nthey are paid for it. Wicked men will say, There, we told you so! That\nfoolish fellow who made himself, and all good fellows miserable by his\nreligion is dead at last. He caught a cold going to prayer-meeting,\nand he is gone, religion and all. The world will not greatly concern\nitself about you, or your memory. But just invent a new lie about one\nof God's saints. It may be as improbable as this one which Gashmu\ninvented, that the Jews were about to rebel, and at once you take your\nposition among the famous men. Your name will go down to posterity, as\none whom the world will not willingly forget. Unborn generations will\nread your name, and believe the lie which you invented.\n\nII. How should the Christian man meet scandal?\n\nIn the way in which Nehemiah met it. He said nothing to refute the\nscandal. He kept right along, doing the work of the Lord. He knew that\nany attempt to answer the charge would only give advantage to the\nenemy. If a dog barks at you in the street, it is bad policy to turn\nround and bark back at him. The dog is always a better barker than you\nare. If you lower yourself to his level, you must not complain if he\nbeats you at his own game. Keep on doing the Lord's work. They sent\nfor Nehemiah to come down and have an interview with them at one of\nthe villages of the plain of Ono, but he replied \"O no! I am doing a\ngreat work: I cannot come down.\" Imitate Nehemiah. You may not have\nthe immortality of Gashmu, but that is an immortality of infamy.\nBetter be remembered by God, than by His enemies.\n\nThe effect of this sermon was immense and immediate. The daily press\ntook it up, and made frequent and pungent comments, but the sharp wit\nof the good preacher had forestalled all criticism.\n\nThere were many special sermons, about election time, and in civil\ncrises, which were equally bright and witty. It was not by these that\nthe reputation of the good man was made, however. None who heard, can\never forget his sermons for the young. As a rather dull boy of nine,\nor ten, I listened as if he were talking directly to me. Hearing once\na pretentious young man, criticising Dr. Chambers, and saying that he\nwas not an intellectual preacher, my wonder was what \"intellectual\"\nmeant: and I was greatly helped by my mother, who told me that the\nyoung man did not know enough to be able to understand our pastor.\nAfter all these years, I am inclined to think that my mother was\nentirely right. His sermons for the culture of the Christian Life,\nI have never heard equalled. He anticipated everything in this line\nwhich Drummond afterward wrote.\n\nAfter fifty years, his form, his face, his voice, are all as vividly\npresent as they were in my childhood, and I am sure that the spiritual\nlessons of his life, survive just as strongly in the hearts of\nhundreds of us boys of the old First Independent Church.\n\nJohn Chambers was much more than a preacher. His pastoral work,\nand his intimate personal knowledge of each member of his large\ncongregation, were as remarkable as his pulpit utterances. Thursday\nwas his day for coming to our house, and it seems to me now, that he\ncame every Thursday, but that is, of course, impossible. However,\nwe children always expected to see him on Thursday, and usually at\ndinner. I well remember the homelike frankness with which he would\nexpress his appreciation of some of the dishes which my mother, who\nwas a notable, and old-time housewife, would have prepared for him.\nI remember even more distinctly how it seemed to me that he knew\neverything that went on at our school and the events of our little\ncosmos. He seemed to be as much interested in them as we boys\nwere. He seemed to know everything that we did. The only time in my\nboyhood that I went to Welch's circus, down Walnut street, I became\ndisgusted with some coarse jokes of the clown, and went out before the\nperformance was over. I ran down the stairway from the dress circle,\nout of the door, and plump into the arms of Dr. Chambers! Did he scold\nme? Not much. He simply said in that voice of his, the tones of which\nwere like an organ, \"My boy! You in that place! Come now, you did not\nlike it, did you? I should not think that you would care for such\nthings. I should think your telescope would show you finer sights than\nanything you would see there.\"\n\nHow did he know that I had a telescope, and that I had made it myself,\nand that I used to be up on the roof of our old home all night, only\ncreeping into bed just in time to avoid being caught? I never told\nhim. I went no more to the circus.\n\nIn our church life it was the same. On the Sunday on which I united\nwith the church, there were seventy-two who were received; yet this\ngreat man found time to say to the boy of fifteen, as we left the\nchurch, that he would expect me to take part, preferably by engaging\nin prayer, in the Sunday night prayer service, a fortnight from that\nday.\"\n\n\n\n\n                             CHAPTER XV.\n\n                        LIGHT AT EVENING TIME.\n\n\nIn the seven or eight decades of work for the Master by John Chambers\nand his alumni, besides those who have finished their work on earth\nand whose names I do not remember, not having known them, or known\nthem but slightly, there are others, preachers of the Gospel, probably\ntwenty or more, still in active career. It is interesting to look down\nthe list of those who are, with the writer, fellow alumni of the First\nIndependent Church, and to see also in what varied paths of service\nthey follow the Master. In the list of eighteen Christian ministers\nknown to the writer, six are Presbyterian, two are Methodists, three\nBaptists, two Congregationalists, and three Episcopal. The first\nof those attracted to the gospel ministry by the pastor was Thomas\nIrvine, who died about 1827 or 1828. The second was the Rev. Charles\nBrown, who united with the church October 1, 1826, and was ordained\nJune 30, 1833. Thus began, in true apostolical succession, a line of\nprophets of the good word of God.\n\nIt was one of the unanswerable proofs of the genuineness of John\nChambers's Christianity, that he taught the religion of Jesus as\nsomething more than a set of opinions, or even of convictions. He\nshowed us all how to agree to disagree, to be friends, and keep \"the\nunity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace\", even when we could not see\neye to eye. He cared very little what denomination \"his boys\" entered\nas preachers of the Gospel. What he rejoiced in was their bearing\nwitness to Christ. Intense as he was, in his ethical earnestness and\nin the reality of religion, tenacious of his own ideas as is ivy to\nthe wall, he accorded the same liberty of conscience and action\nto others that he allowed himself. In this, our leader was large\nminded as well as big hearted. I am inclined to think that his real\ngenerosity of mind and breadth of theological sympathy were greater\nthan those of many laymen, whose mental view and habits have long been\nfixed. For an absolutely judicial opinion on this subject, I should\ntrust the men in the pulpit rather than those in the pew. If this view\nseems a novelty, let us turn to the Rev. Dr. Edgar Levy, the venerable\npastor of the Berean Baptist church of West Philadelphia. Now over\nfour score, he united with the church about 1835. He said at the\nsemi-centennial or jubilee of May, 1875:\n\n\"Dr. Chambers has always been the counsellor and friend of young men.\nWhat pastor ever had the power of drawing around him, to the same\nextent, the young men of our city? Eternity alone will disclose the\narmy of young men who have lighted their torches at this altar, and\nwho have gone forth to enlighten and save a dying world.\n\n\"Many of these young men have entered other denominations; but our\npastor never seemed otherwise than glad that they had found fields of\nusefulness in other directions. His only concern seemed to be that\nthey might be true men, useful men, faithful to God and to duty. And\nhere, I cannot refrain from an allusion to my own change of church\nrelations, as illustrative of his generosity. When I felt called upon\nto leave this home of my youth and unite with another people who bear\na different name, I called on him to tell him of my purpose. And while\nhe could not accept of my views, I shall never forget with what a\nlargeness of heart he took my hand in both of his, and bade me go and\npreach the everlasting Gospel to perishing men.\"\n\nOur great teacher was a man of continuous spiritual growth, in his old\nage ripening in the wisdom that helped and in the faith that makes\nfaithful. Some things were seen by himself more clearly when God had\ngiven him the perspective of experience. This was so notable, that it\nexcited the surprise of those who remembered only the former fiery\ndays. He became less impetuous and abusive of his enemies. One alumnus\nwrites, \"A few years before his death, I asked him (Dr. Chambers)\nwhy he had fallen away from his strenuous and frequent utterances in\nbehalf of total abstinence. He replied that experience had taught him\nthat to make a man 'every whit whole' was almost as easy as to save\nhim from a single evil habit, or to correct a single fault, and that\nhe had come to feel that the utterance of a complete gospel was more\nnecessary than preaching temperance. I think that this showed Mr.\nChambers to be a less narrow-minded man than he had sometimes appeared\nto be\".\n\nHis nephew writes: \"After I graduated at college in 1866, I went to\nthe Union Theological Seminary and visited him a number of times. I\nwas not quite clear about entering the Presbyterian ministry. He urged\nme to do so and told me confidentially the plans to get his own church\ninto the Presbytery before his death. When I asked him how he could\nadvise me to subscribe to the Westminster Confession when he could not\ndo it himself, he said: \"My son, I can swallow some things now I could\nnot forty years ago\"!\n\nIn a word, John Chambers saw as clearly as Whittier:\n\n    \"The letter fails and systems fall,\n      And every symbol wanes;\n    The Spirit overbrooding all\n      Eternal Love remains.\"\n\nWith prophetic eye he perceived also that \"the individualism of the\nmiddle of the nineteenth century\" was soon to belong to the past, and\nthat unity and co-operation were to prevail over competition and\nindependency. Yet to suppose John Chambers was ever a sectarian would\nbe to misjudge him wholly. His very life breathed out the prayer:\n\n    \"O Lord and Master of us all!\n      Whate'er our name or sign,\n    We own thy sway, we hear thy call,\n      We test our lives by thine.\"\n\nDuring the last decade of his life Dr. Chambers withdrew somewhat from\npublic speaking outside of his own pulpit. About four years before\nhis death came a stroke of paralysis which somewhat weakened him.\nHis physician was the celebrated specialist and author who, like Dr.\nOliver Wendell Holmes, has enriched both science and literature. Dr.\nS. Weir Mitchell. The patient was particularly touched by the tender\nsolicitude of his Quaker friends, whose meeting house on Twelfth\nstreet was just across from his home. On recovery he sent out to his\nhost of enquiring friends a circular containing his thanks in print as\nfollows:\n\n\nA CARD FROM THE REV. JOHN CHAMBERS.\n\n   \"For many days my mind has been exercised how I could in the\n   most Christian and modest way reach the eye and ear of a very\n   large number of friends whose solicitude for my restoration to\n   health and continued life has been so marked. I have concluded\n   that a simple card, sent out through the press, from an honest\n   heart, would be acceptable to all.\n\n   First, then, I owe a debt of undying gratitude to the Ministers\n   of the Prince of Peace, who came like doves to the windows of\n   my tabernacle with the inquiry late and early: 'How is he; any\n   change for the better?'\n\n   Again my gratitude is due to a large number of God's Israel, who\n   called again and again without any other object than to know\n   whether the light was beginning to burn brighter in the house of\n   sorrow. How Christian-like was this!\n\n   Then, again, I wish to acknowledge, as best I can, my debt of\n   gratitude to that large class of my fellow-citizens, beginning\n   with the learned jurist and reaching down to the humblest man of\n   toil. In this enumeration I take more than ordinary pleasure in\n   including a large number of the Society of Friends, especially\n   the members of the Twelfth Street Meeting. While memory lasts\n   those fond inquiries of old and young will not be forgotten.\n   Kind words never die. As to my own beloved people I may say of\n   them, as Jesus said of the faithful woman: 'They have done what\n   they could'. There has been nothing left undone to relieve the\n   anxiety of a pastor's heart.\n\n   The Press, too, has been most kind and generous, for which I\n   thank them. Nor can I pass unnoticed the eminent services of my\n   physician, S. Weir Mitchell, M.D., whose skill and devotion,\n   under God, have brought me into a state of convalescence.\n\n   Glorious Christianity! How unlike all other systems of religion.\n\n    JOHN CHAMBERS.\n\n    Philadelphia, March 28, 1871.\"\n\nOn reaching his seventy-sixth year, in 1874, the young people of the\ncongregation planned a delightful surprise, of which he thus told,\nat the semi-centennial of his pastorate: \"They converted these two\nfigures '7--6' into gold dollars, and they presented me the '76'\nbeautifully made up of gold dollars, containing one hundred and eleven\nin all.\"\n\n\"The glory of young men is their strength\" and hope. It would hardly\nbe fair to expect an old man of seventy-two, who had borne the heat\nand burden of the day, and was already broken in health and by many\nsorrows, to feel as hopeful and buoyant concerning things at the end\nof the earth as a young man not yet thirty. Yet none more than himself\nfelt humiliated and took rebukes gladly, when he realized that he had\nnot honored his Master by as large a measure of faith as he ought to\nhave done.\n\nLate in 1870, just before leaving for Japan, to which country I had\nbeen invited by the lord of Echizen, to organize the education of\nthe lads of his province according to Occidental principles and in\nmodern methods,[10] I called on my old pastor to receive his blessing\nand take farewell. Always hearty in his welcome and kindly in his\ninterest, I felt that his faith was not as strong concerning the\neducational and missionary conquest of the Far East, as his preaching\nand long-continued interest had led me to expect. As with the war for\nfreedom and national life, so in the war for the Everlasting Kingdom,\nit seemed to me he took a too local view of a great subject. I was\ngenuinely surprised that, instead of heartily cheering me, he seemed\nto discourage me. He spoke gloomily of the vast masses of untouched\nheathenism and said that anything I could do was only as a drop in the\nbucket.\n\n[Footnote 10: See Verbeck of Japan, Chapter XI.]\n\nNevertheless, by the grace of God, I intended to make that drop tell,\nand I felt that what man could not do, God would. I entered the\nJapan, in which no native Christian dared then to make confession of\nhis faith, in which no more converts to Reformed Christianity than\ncould be enumerated on the fingers of one hand were known, and in\nwhich descendants of the Roman Catholics of the early seventeenth\ncentury were still in the crypts, undiscovered yet, even by the French\nmissionaries then on the soil. At that time, 1870, feudalism with\nits medi\u00e6val ideals was the rule of society. A half dozen government\nschools on Western principles, and only one or two of missionary\norigin, were in their infancy. I went out to live four years in the\nEast, one of them as a lone exile in Fukui. This was the Japan which\nVerbeck, Brown, and Hepburn by Christian teaching and healing, which\nSatow, Aston, and Chamberlin through scholarship, and which Kido,\nOkubo, and Iwakura by political action were reconstructing, and where\nall the fascinations and horrors of the pagan world were rampant. No\nlife insurance company in America would then insure my life, except at\na heavy premium.\n\nWhen I came back home in 1874, and in the still grandly attended\nFriday night meeting spoke to Dr. Chambers' people, I told them\nof Christian churches with nearly a thousand members enrolled, of\nChristian schools and hospitals, and of a new Japan. I called the\nattention of the now venerable pastor to this fresh illustration\nof the truth he had so often proclaimed, how much greater God was\nthan our feeble faith, and how superbly the kingdom of heaven was\nmarching on. After the benediction, a hearty right hand shaken and\nleft shoulder patted in the ancient style, with words of glowing\nfriendship, made for my soul a picture set in diamonds of delight--the\nlast of the great man that has framed itself in my memory.\n\n\n\n\n                             CHAPTER XVI.\n\n              TRANSFER OF THE CHURCH TO THE PRESBYTERY.\n\n\nFor forty-eight years the congregation to which John Chambers\nministered had formed an Independent Church. The time had now come\nwhen the same company of Christian believers, which had been the Ninth\nPresbyterian Church, was to enter upon the third stage of its history,\nand become the Chambers Presbyterian Church.\n\nOn the 9th of May, 1825, Mr. Chambers had received his call. Amid\nall vicissitudes, the removing to a new neighborhood, the building\nfirst, and then the enlarging, of the church edifice, the terrible\nstorm of the Civil War, and the removal of a large number of his\npeople elsewhere, nothing had seriously interfered with his work\nor threatened its stability or continuance, but in 1874 the pastor\nbegan to think seriously about the future of his flock. The whole\ntrend of population in all three directions, north, south, and\nwest was away from Broad and Sansom, while business was steadily\nencroaching upon the neighborhood once wholly occupied by homes. John\nChambers had overstepped the limits of three score years and ten. A\nstroke of paralysis was nature's first warning that the best days\nof his strength were over. The time seemed now to have come when an\nindependent church, of the type which had for nearly half a century\ndemonstrated its power to live and grow, was no longer needed. It was\nnot self-conceit, but dire necessity that compelled John Chambers to\nreflect and to ask the question whether, after the removal of his own\npersonality and the snapping by death of the ties which bound three\ngenerations to him in love and loyalty, the church could exist as\nan independent body. Long he pondered the matter. He breathed his\nthoughts at first to no one, not even to his wife, but looked to God\nfor light. He waited for the vision. While he was musing, the fire\nburned. He has himself told the story:\n\n\"For a whole year I did not even say to the beloved companion of\nmy bosom what my object was, what I was thinking about, but I was\ncasting around to know what was to become of this house. I thought\nof that little house down at the eastern end of Girard street, where\nthe venerable and godly Samuel Wylie, D.D., lived and preached Jesus\nChrist, and I remembered the degradation which afterward fell upon\nit. I remembered the beautiful church on Seventh street, below Arch,\nwhere our honored friend, Dr. Beadle, preached, and I remembered that\nit was converted into a place for negro minstrels. I recollected the\nhouse where my once remarkable and eloquent and noble friend, Thomas\nH. Stockton, preached Christ Jesus, and how it was desecrated from the\nservice of Almighty God to the service of the devil, and I said one\nmorning, as I sat upon the summit of a hill away off yonder in the\nstate of New York, just as the sun was going down, and I looked out\nupon that beautiful country: 'God helping me, when I go home I will\ntell my brethren the conclusion I have reached after a whole year's\nstudy and thought and prayer.' That conclusion that I had come to\nwas that we would go into the Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia,\nwe would change our charter, and we would put this church in such a\nchartered position that we should never lose it, but it should stand\nfirm and fixed upon the immutable principles of the Lord God, firmly\nconsecrated to the holiness of the atonement and the blood of the\nsaints. We did it. We went into the Presbyterian Church. Those men of\nGod threw their arms around us, almost with shouts of hallelujah, in\nthe room just back of our house. The Presbytery met us and welcomed\nus, and I had the satisfaction of seeing this church taken into\nfellowship with that denomination where they are to-day, and where I\ntrust the church will ever abide and prosper under God's blessing.\nI say devoutly that we did not lose our membership by the change. I\nbelieve there were two communicants who took some offense. One of\nthem, poor fellow, has gone to Heaven, I believe, but there were but\nthose two who left us, and I am as certain as I can be that if that\ndear brother had lived, they would have, both husband and wife, been\nwith us now\".\n\nIt is very certain that the step was a wise one. It is still more\ncertain that had such a transfer taken place before, or during the\nwar, there would have been a much larger procession of members into\nthe Congregational Church, wherein scores of \"Chamberites\" could from\nthe opening of the war be counted. Deeply indoctrinated in primitive\nand apostolic ideas, they who remained with the pastor until 1874\nwould, if the change had been made twenty years earlier, have gone\nlike those who in 1861 went out from the First Independent Church,\nlargely because of their ideas as to Union and secession, and entered\nthe Central Congregational Church.\n\nThe Presbytery \"dealt very leniently\", as a Doctor of Divinity told me\nin 1903, \"with the old 'War Horse'\".\n\nDr. Herrick Johnson tells us that when, at the Presbytery's\ninvitation, John Chambers gave his reminiscences of fifty years'\nservice for God in Philadelphia, the address was a revelation and\ninspiration and a benediction. We insert here his letter to Dr.\nChambers's nephew:\n\n                                       1070 North Halsted Street,    }\n                                            CHICAGO, Jan. 1st, 1903. }\n\n    _Dear Dr. Milner_:\n\n   My personal knowledge of the Rev. John Chambers is limited to\n   the later years of his life. During my Phila. pastorate, he\n   held a unique and conspicuous place in the city, as pastor of\n   an independent Presbyterian Church, Presbyterian in its form of\n   Government, yet independent of ecclesiastical authority.\n\n   He grew some great men in that period. He was the sturdy\n   champion of some great causes. His intense and stalwart\n   contention for civic and social righteousness could always be\n   counted on. The rush and force and downright abandon with which\n   he flung himself against every form of evil made him a leader of\n   men and a winner of victories.\n\n   He was as bold as a lion, and had the heart of a child. His\n   emotions were not born blind, and therefore, while intense, were\n   under curb and bit. His preaching was often \"the quiescence\n   of turbulence\". He himself might well be characterized \"a\n   phlegmatic fanatic\". His talk before our ministers' meeting\n   one day, after he had returned to the Presbyterian fold, and\n   when he had been invited to give us some reminiscences of his\n   fifty years service for God in Philadelphia, was a revelation,\n   an inspiration and a benediction. We felt there was but one\n   John Chambers, whom God had sent into this world, marked 'not\n   transferable' and 'good for this trip only'\".\n\n                                                   HERRICK JOHNSON.\n\nIt was soon after this event, that he received the title of Doctor of\nDivinity, and henceforth we called him \"Doctor Chambers\".\n\nA Congregational minister, one of the alumni of John Chambers\nIndependent Church writes:\n\n\"I think he must have been pained when he turned his church over to\nthe Presbyterians. Yet here was practical wisdom. At his death there\nwas no longer room for an independent church in Philadelphia of the\ntype of the church which he had founded. He did not lack practical\nwisdom.\"\n\n\n\n\n                            CHAPTER XVII.\n\n                  THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL AND FAREWELL.\n\n\nWhen, like Ruth leaving her native land to dwell with Naomi--mother\nin love, as well as in law--John Chambers plighted his troth to the\nchurch that became orphan for his sake; he made Ruth's words his own,\nand in his heart said to his people: \"The Lord do so to me and more\nalso, if aught but death part thee and me.\"\n\nFor fifty years his one congregation was his first and only love. Deaf\nto all calls--and they were many--his one answer to his people was\nRuth's to Naomi, and to those seeking him, the Shunammite's, \"I dwell\namong mine own people.\" \"How often have I heard him say,\" said Dr.\nLevy in 1875, \"that though you could give him only a crust of bread\nand a cup of cold water, he would continue to be your pastor.\" Love\nbegets love, and \"unfailing confidence, tender sympathy and ardent\nlove ... made this union enduring and fruitful of everything sweet and\nprecious\".\n\nIt was in the year 1875 that, after long preparation, the pastor's\nsemi-centennial anniversary was celebrated. We here reproduce the\nprogramme as printed:\n\n                   1825                       1875\n\n                        COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES\n                                ON THE\n                     SEMI-CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY\n                           OF PASTORATE OF\n                       REV. JOHN CHAMBERS, D.D.\n                        OVER ONE CONGREGATION\n\n                        MAY 9TH TO 14TH, 1875\n\n   Sabbath Day, May 9th, 10\u00bd A.M.--Anniversary Sermon--Rev. John\n     Chambers, D.D.\n\n   Service 4 P.M., Sermon, Rev. T. J. Sheppard, D.D.\n\n   Service 7\u00bd P.M., Sermon, Rev. Wm. Blackwood, D.D.\n\n   Monday Evening, May 10th, Services 7\u00bd.--Reminiscences of Early\n     Days--Short addresses by Rev. Edgar Levy, D.D., Rev. Joseph\n     Baker, Rev. John Bliss, Rev. Thomas J. Brown, and Rev. R. G. S.\n     McNeille, who were formerly members of the church.\n\n   Tuesday Evening, May 11th, 1875.--Sabbath School Jubilee. Half\n     past seven o'clock--Singing and Addresses. Half past eight\n     o'clock--Refreshments for Scholars of Sabbath School.\n\n   Wednesday Evening, May 12th at 7 o'clock. Social Re-union with\n     a Festival, for Members of the Church and Congregation, at\n     Horticultural Hall.\n\n   Thursday Evening, May 13th, 7\u00bd o'clock. General Praise and\n     Thanksgiving meeting--participated in by Ministers of different\n     denominations.\n\n   Friday Evening, May 14th, 8 o'clock. The Congregational Prayer\n     Meeting, in the body of the church.\n\nIn a sermon marked by the usual graces of delivery, Dr. Chambers, as\nhe was then, recounted in a touching manner the wonderful goodness of\nGod enjoyed during a half century. He was surrounded by his church\nofficers and congregation and his young alumni in the ministry. His\nold friend, Rev. Dr. T. J. Sheppard, with singular grace and power,\npreached from the fitting text: \"He shall be like a tree planted by\nthe rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his\nleaf also shall not wither\". Monday evening was devoted to epistolary\ncommunications or addresses by pastors who had formerly been members\nof the church, such as the Rev. Charles Brown, Rev. Dr. Levy, Rev.\nJoseph J. Baker, Rev. William J. Paxson, Rev. John C. Bliss, Rev. S.\nP. Kelley, and Rev. R. G. S. McNeille. Tuesday evening was for the\nparticipation of the Sunday School children in the jubilee service.\nOn Wednesday evening the social reunion at Horticultural Hall took\nplace, when besides the singing, led by Prof. William G. Fisher, and\nappropriate words from Rev. Dr. Eva and Rev. William R. Stockton,\nFrancis Newland, the life-long friend and elder of the church,\npresented in the name of the people a golden tribute in the form of\none thousand dollars. One of his young men, John Wanamaker, on the\neve of his departure for Europe, had the day before sent his pastor a\nfive hundred dollar bill on the United States Treasury. The audience,\nnumbering a thousand, after promenading and shaking hands with their\nbeloved minister, partook of refreshments, each lady receiving a\nhandsome memorial bouquet. On Thursday evening there was another feast\nof reason and flow of soul in the greetings by pastors of neighboring\nchurches. Rev. George Dana Boardman was in the chair, and Rev. Dr.\nBreed, Rev. Dr. Newton, Dr. Hatfield, and William R. Stockton showed\nby word and look their love and fellowship. Dr. Breed, in the course\nof his address, read the following original lines:\n\n    A stranger boy from Erin came--\n    He made our land his chosen home.\n    He heard the Master's gracious call,\n    He seized the banner, climbed the wall,\n    He blew the trumpet, drew the sword,\n    He fired the shot, he preached the word\n    By grace divine, thro' toils and tears,\n    With ardent hopes, defying fears,\n    In holy scorn of scoffs and jeers\n    He's held the fort for fifty years!\n    And if the God whom we adore,\n    But grant what thousand hearts implore,\n    He'll hold it yet for many more!\n                Amen and amen!\n\nThe time honored Friday evening prayer meeting was held this week on\nMay 14 in the upper auditorium and Rev. Dr. Plumer of Columbia, S.\nC., and Rev. Charles Brown of Philadelphia made addresses.\n\nIt was at the \"golden jubilee\", as we have shown, that Dr. Chambers\nhaving on other occasions recounted the gifts of his people to their\npastor--the furnishing of his house, the table set of silver, the\nexpense money for a trip to Europe, the carpeting of his house, study\nand parlors by the ladies, the young people's birthday offering of\n$111 in gold pieces was treated to a fresh surprise, the \"golden\ntoken\"--one thousand dollars. In the grand old pastor's speech in\nresponse to his unexpected golden shower, he made it clear \"what\nradiance it throws around this old man's evening of life\".\n\nEntering upon his seventy-eighth year, Dr. Chambers still kept up his\nabundant labors, though it was manifest, especially after the funerals\nof old and beloved parishioners and the great drain on his sympathies,\nthat his powers were failing fast. In the month of August, 1875,\nhe had an attack of paralysis of the bladder, which induced severe\ninflammation of the kidneys, resulting in blood poisoning, from which\nhe died in his home, at Girard and Twelfth streets, after an illness\nof several weeks, at 11.15 P. M., September 22, 1875. It was on\nCommunion Sunday, the last of the month, that asleep in God his mortal\nremains awaited their burial. His body was brought to the church, and\nthence from the spot where he had, a few weeks before, celebrated his\ngolden anniversary. The last words uttered by him and set to music\nwere sung by the quartet as the remains of John Chambers were taken\nfrom the church:\n\n    \"Farewell, farewell, farewell,\n    We meet no more on this side of Heaven.\n    Our parting scene is o'er,\n    Our last fond look is given.\n    Farewell, farewell, farewell.\"\n\nI have copied these words as kindly contributed by one of the original\nquartet, Mr. A. Gunning.\n\nDr. Chambers died September 22, 1875, four months after his fiftieth\nanniversary. His successors in the pastorate have been Rev. Henry C.\nWestwood, D.D., 1876-1878; Rev. J. M. B. Otts, D.D., 1879-'83; Rev.\nThomas A. Hoyt, D.D., 1884-1902. On this very day, June 30, as I\nfinish revision of the manuscript to hand to the printer, July 1st,\n1903, I read of his decease yesterday.\n\nThe executor of the estate of John Chambers, Robert H. Hinckley, Jr.,\nattended to the settlement of the earthly affairs of his teacher and\nfriend, including the distribution among his grandchildren of the\npieces in the set of silver presented by the congregation in 1865.\n\nIn the central part of Laurel Hill Cemetery, in a small lot just off\nthe main driveway, with four granite posts to mark the corners, is the\nvery modest monument made of three blocks of granite, set one upon\nanother, the whole indicative of solidity, strength and symmetry. The\ntop piece is uninscribed. On the center piece one reads:\n\n                          REV. JOHN CHAMBERS\n\n       \"FOR FIFTY YEARS PASTOR OF CHAMBERS PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH,\n\n                Dec. 19, 1797.      Sept. 22nd, 1875.\"\n\n                 (On the ground block is inscribed,)\n\n\"They that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars forever\n                              and ever.\"\n\n         (On the other side, on same block with the name is:)\n\n                \"I am the resurrection and the life.\"\n\n                         \"MATILDA P. CHAMBERS\n\n                      Wife of Rev. John Chambers\n\n                         Died March 4, 1877.\"\n\n\n\n\n                            CHAPTER XVIII.\n\n                     THE CHILDREN OF THE MOTHER.\n\n\nJohn Chambers used to boast of his three big W's--Walton, Wanamaker,\nand Whitaker. The two first-named are known to most of my readers. The\nthird, who made a vow to give to the Lord all he had or made over the\namount of sixty thousand dollars, was a generous helper of the pastor.\n\nThe first great offshoot from the mother church on Broad Street is the\nBethany Presbyterian Church, in which Messrs. Wanamaker and Walton,\nwere generously interested and unceasingly active.\n\nIn 1875 Mr. Chambers said, \"Connected with our movements as a\nchurch, no single event in our history exceeds in point of grandeur\nor importance Bethany mission, ... A very few, some thirty, of the\nyoung workers of our church headed by that remarkable young man, John\nWanamaker, left us and after there being a selection made in the\nsouthwestern part of the city, they started a Sabbath School in the\nworking room of a little Irish shoemaker, with some ten little ragged\nchildren to begin with, and in the course of a very few weeks they\nhad to take all the room in the little Irishman's home, pretty much,\nand then they had not enough. A tent was erected that would contain\nsome four or five hundred, and then the congregation agreed that there\nshould be a house put up, and a one-story house was put up that would\ncontain some five or six hundred\".\n\nIt seems almost like a fairy tale when one contrasts the condition of\nthings in the Bethany neighborhood, as I first saw it in 1855, and as\nit is now. After our family had moved from Girard Avenue to the house\non 20th street four doors below Chestnut on the east side, my mother\ntook me one day to enter the public school situated, I believe,\nat 22nd and Shippen. Just as we turned the corner at Twentieth and\nPine Street, I looked across to the southwest. For many hundred of\nacres, there was an expanse of vacant lots occupied here and there\nwith squatters' cabins, goose pastures and roaming cows, the streets\nnot being yet \"cut through\". Still in the days of the volunteer\nfire company, with all its lawlessness and also of abundance, yes,\nsuperabundance, of liquor saloons, it seemed one of the least\npromising portions of the city. Now, it is densely built up with\nelegant homes and is the center of wealth, comfort, and culture.\n\nI remember well, too, when the first band of workers went out from\nthe mother church and on the 14th of February, 1858, in two second\nstory rooms of the house at No. 2135 South Street, began a Sunday\nSchool, with twenty-seven scholars and two teachers, the seating\ncapacity being eked out, if I remember rightly, with rough scantling\nbrought up out of the cellar and laid upon bricks. Long before hot\nweather, the rooms, halls, and stairway were crowded, so on the 18th\nof July a tent was set up on the North side of South street. After a\nsummer under canvas, the corner stone for a chapel was laid on the\n18th of October, Dr. Chambers with his brethren, Leyburn, Brainerd,\nand McLeod making addresses. The chapel which measured 40 by 60 feet\nwas dedicated on January 27th, 1859, and on January 4th, 1862, Rev.\nAugustus Blauvelt began his labors as city missionary, becoming after\na year a missionary to China. I remember him as preaching a remarkable\nsermon on the kingdom of Satan. He died in April, 1900.\n\nThe growth of Bethany was continuous and surprising. I remember how\nthose most interested conversed with each other about the name of the\nchild now fully born and ready for its clothing and christening. The\nwalks and talks and experiences by the way, in going from the old home\nto the new enterprise, called up the words of the Scripture: \"He led\nthem out as far as Bethany and lifted up his hands and blessed them\".\nSo the name of Bethany was decided upon.\n\nOn September 25, 1865, the enterprise was organized into a\nPresbyterian Church under the care of the Presbytery of Philadelphia,\nOld School. The lot at the southeast corner of Twenty-second and\nBainbridge streets, 112 by 138\u00bd feet, was purchased, and on February\n13, 1870, the new and commodious edifice was dedicated.\n\nTo-day, with its large eldership, boards of trustees and deacons, its\ndoormen and tithemen, its leaders of Christian bands, its college\nestablished in 1881--the first of its kind in Philadelphia, and of\nwhich for many years its vice-president, Rudolph S. Walton, was chief\nfriend and benefactor, Bethany is a center of blessing to thousands.\nOf the Deaconesses' Home, the Men's Friendly Inn, and other details of\nthe great work we have not space to speak. At his decease in November,\n1900, Mr. Walton left about $200,000 for the erection of a new college\nbuilding.\n\nNo sooner was Bethany Church grown to adult life than it began to\nsend forth colonies. The Bethany Mission was its first namesake. By\nthis time, in the twentieth century, the boy that I once knew as no\nricher or poorer than the average, had become one of Philadelphia's\nprincely merchants, with hand ever open for gifts and help. A lot at\nthe northeast corner of Twenty-eighth and Morris streets, measuring\n114 by 136 feet, was secured. It was far away from any human dwelling,\nbut it was in the direction of growth. The skilled fishers of men let\ndown the net just where they knew the fishes would be in shoals--a\nmethod and policy following out that of their great teacher, Jesus\nChrist, and of their earthly exemplar, John Chambers. On this lot Mr.\nJohn Wanamaker and Mrs. Wanamaker (at whose wedding I remember being\npresent, as a boy), in gratitude to God for the wonderful preservation\nfrom fire of the great Wanamaker store, have erected, since the\nstreets were opened, a superb edifice with all modern equipments and\nfurnishing. This, at the present time, serves as a church and Sunday\nSchool and for social gatherings. The main church edifice is to be\nerected later on the southern portion of the still unoccupied lot.\n\nHow gratifying this was to the Presbytery of Philadelphia is seen in\nthe records given below. From the minutes of October 30, 1901, we make\nextracts of the\n\n\n    PROCEEDINGS OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE PRESBYTERY OF PHILADELPHIA.\n\nMr. Robert H. Hinckley presented the following preamble and resolution:\n\n\"As a member of the special committee who reported June 1, 1899 (see\nfolio 228) on the proposed location of a church at 28th and Morris\nStreets, I desire to report that in accordance with the permission\ntherein granted, Mr. John Wanamaker has erected and dedicated to the\nmemory of the late Rev. John Chambers a church building on the North\nEast corner of 28th and Morris Sts., which affords ample space for a\ncongregation of fifteen hundred worshippers, also for a large Sabbath\nschool and several large rooms suitable for reading rooms and for the\ngeneral purposes of an institutional church. The ground and building\ncost Mr. Wanamaker over eighty thousand dollars, all of which has been\npaid and the building was dedicated during the third week of October,\nfree of debt, as The John Chambers Memorial Church. I suggest,\ntherefore, that we recommend to Presbytery the following Resolution:\n\n_Resolved_, That a special Committee of three members of this\nPresbytery be appointed to wait on Mr. John Wanamaker and extend to\nhim the thanks and appreciation of the Presbytery for his princely\nliberality and his magnificent recognition of the work and services of\none of our most devoted ministers who has long since been called to\nhis reward\".\n\nThis was unanimously agreed to and the Committee appointed.\n\nIn the above record, the name of Robert H. Hinckley is that of\nthe surviving elder of the Chambers Presbyterian Church and still\nan indefatigable worker in Christ's name. On Saturday afternoon\nearly in May, 1901, in the presence of a large gathering of Bethany\nChurch people and about five hundred children, ground was broken\nat Twenty-eighth and Morris streets. Besides addresses from John\nWanamaker, Rev. Messrs. Wm. Patterson, John Thompson, George Van\nDeurs, and the laymen Edwin Adams, Robert Boyd, and R. M. Coyle, there\nwere prayer and singing.\n\nI visited this as yet unbuilt portion of the city on Friday, Jan.\n23rd, 1903, which, besides being the 324th anniversary of the Union of\nUtrecht, our great national precedent for federal government and the\ndate of the dinner of the Holland Society of Philadelphia, was for me\na veritable John Chambers day.\n\nStarting from Thirteenth and Filbert, the site of the old Church of\nthe Vow, and moving through the City Hall buildings and Wanamaker's\nGrand Depot and big store, I came to Broad and Sansom, where in 1830,\ntowards the setting sun, there were but unoccupied lots, or only a\nfew scanty buildings. Further down Broad Street, near Spruce, I\npassed, having already studied the interior of, the new and imposing\nstructure, the Chambers-Wylie Memorial Church. Thence southwestwardly,\nI walked to Bethany Presbyterian Church which, when started, was\namid brickyards, vacant lots, and with a great area of the open\ncountry stretching to the southwest. I then boarded a Gray's Ferry\ncar and rode past the United States Arsenal and into a region where\nthe streets had only very recently been cut through, and were but\npartially paved or curbed.\n\nI found the Church of the Love of God, the John Chambers Memorial\nChurch, standing alone in its glory. No human dwellings were nearer\nthan a quarter of a mile, though houses of worship could be discerned\nrising out of the fringe of dwellings. But this pioneering, \"preparing\nin the desert a highway for our God\", was exactly what the First\nIndependent Church people and the Bethany Mission colony of 1858,\nhad done before. It was simply planting the standard for the hosts\nto follow. What grand faith to go ahead of population and to be\nliterally a forerunner of the gospel! Outwardly the edifice, built of\na combination of light brick, Scotch granite, and terra cotta, seemed\nbut little \"like a church\", yet only, as it were, to impress upon\nthe mind the absurdity of ever calling an edifice--a thing built by\nmasons and carpenters--a \"church\", which is a company of human souls\ncalled to do God's will. Yet for such uses, and for such a company,\nand intended to be helpful to the education and training of the young\nin social holiness and for the worship of God, what could be better?\nIn the basement was a gymnasium, with generous facilities for physical\nexercise, and that which is next to godliness. There were also a\ngreat entertainment room, a kitchen, tea room, and apartments for the\njanitor and his family. Upstairs, on the first or main floor was the\ngreat Sunday School room proper, divisible, by movable partitions\nand curtains, into class rooms and able to hold in unity about twelve\nhundred people. Offices, reading rooms, places for mothers' meetings,\nand, oh blessed modern addition--fulfilling at least one pastor's\ndreams--rooms, where invalids or mothers with small children might\ncome, see the minister but not be seen by the congregation, stay as\nlong as they could and leave, whenever they wished, through a side\ndoor without disturbing any one. Kindergarten rooms and also those for\nthe junior classes completed this \"modern instance\" of consecrated\ncommon sense expressed in a building.\n\nAfter the courteous janitor had shown me about, I went up on the roof,\nwhence projects many feet in the air a rotating star with electric\nlights showing at night, the red, white, and blue in alternation,\nwhile east and west along the ridge pole rises in large letters,\nelectrically illuminated at night, the \"Church of the Love of\nGod\"--though the corporate name of the completed enterprise is to be\nthe John Chambers Memorial Church. On the roof also is a great bell\ncast at the McChane foundry, in Baltimore. This is the gift of Miss\nKate Wentz, who, with her aunt Miss Cousty, were as I remember, among\nthe most faithful worshippers during many years in the old church. Its\nsilvery tones made the air quiver with melody first on Christmas Eve.\nFacing the south and the sunny hours is a superb stained-glass window,\nwith the medallion portrait of the great pastor, as he looked in his\nprime, when his hair was just beginning to turn gray.\n\nThus, in a southwesterly line, through the city of Philadelphia, from\nnear the spot where to-day stands the great Reading Terminal, has\nissued a chain of sweet influences, which, like those of the Pleiades,\ncannot be bound.\n\nThe dedicatory services of the John Chambers Memorial Church, erected\nas a thanksgiving offering to the praise and glory of God, and in\nmemory of the life and good works of his servant, the Rev. John\nChambers, were held during the week beginning October 19, 1902, on\nentering the new house of the Lord. The published pamphlet, which is\nrichly illustrated with portraits and pictures of the church edifices,\nis a valuable souvenir of both old times and new.\n\nYet this is not all. On June 9, 1898, some of the Christian workers\nof Bethany Church began services in a tent in West Philadelphia,\nnear Baltimore avenue and Fiftieth street, and out of that beginning\nhas grown Saint Paul's Presbyterian Church, which flourishes with\nhigh promise. Its edifice was dedicated March 24, 1901. Here again\nthe great pastor is commemorated by a superb memorial window which\nsheathes the light and color that set forth most gloriously the Good\nShepherd. It has been reared to the memory of John Chambers by Mrs.\nJohn Hunter, the widow of Mr. John C. Hunter, so long the faithful\nelder in the old Broad Street Church.\n\nThe basement of Saint Paul's Church, furnished and fitted up by the\nBrotherhood of Andrew and Philip, is named Walton Hall and contains a\nmarble tablet in memory of Rudolph S. Walton, which reads as follows:\n\n                       IN LOVING REMEMBRANCE OF\n\n                          RUDOLPH S. WALTON.\n\n           A wise counsellor. A loving friend. A just man.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n              Unto the life beyond--November 10th, 1900.\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\n   \"For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is\n   able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that\n   day.\"\n\n                                                   --II TIMOTHY, i:12.\n\nStill further at Rutledge, Delaware county, Pa., is another Chambers\nMemorial Church, established and carried on chiefly by young men\nand women who are alumni of the First Independent Church and of the\nChambers Presbyterian Church. It has been liberally assisted by the\ntrustees of the Chambers-Wylie Church and contains stained glass\nmemorial windows in honor of the pastor and also of the elders of the\nold Broad Street Church.\n\nIn the handsomely printed and illustrated pamphlet, entitled\n\"Dedication Souvenir of the Chambers-Wylie Memorial Presbyterian\nChurch\", prepared by Rev. Thomas A. Hoyt, D.D., pastor emeritus, and\npublished for the Building Committee in 1901, one will find much\ninteresting information concerning the two churches merged into one\nand still occupying a home in the commodious edifice on Broad street,\nbelow Spruce.\n\nAfter due conference the two congregations executed formal articles\nof agreement May 27, 1897, and their action was ratified by the\nPresbytery. For a short time they both become one, worshipped in the\nedifice of the Chambers Church, and when that was sold and torn down,\nthe old Epiphany Church building at Fifteenth and Chestnut streets\n(wherein so long Dr. Richard Newton, a favorite writer of children's\nbooks, ministered), then owned by Mr. John Wanamaker, was made use of.\nFrom this temporary abiding place the united congregation moved into\ntheir new and splendid temple, enjoying the first dedicatory services\non the Sabbath day, December 8, 1901, and continuing them during the\nfive succeeding evenings.\n\n  [Illustration: THE CHAMBERS-WYLIE MEMORIAL CHURCH.]\n\nThe principal dates and items of financial interest are as follows: Of\nthe sum of $412,500 received from the sale of the property at Broad\nand Sansom Streets, the sum of $200,000 was set aside as a perpetual\nendowment for the use of the Chambers-Wylie Church, and $60,000\nwere applied to extinguish the mortgage debt. The sum of $6,000 was\ngiven to the Rutledge Presbyterian Church.\n\nOn December 26th, 1899, the congregation instructed the Board of\nTrustees to proceed with the erection of a new church edifice,\naccording to an estimate submitted by J. E. & A. L. Pennock, the\ncost of same to be $101,000 and in April, 1900, the erection of the\nbuilding was begun. On August 8th, 1900, the corner stone was laid\nand on the first Sunday of December, 1901, the Church building was\nformally dedicated, the Rev. Thomas A. Hoyt, D.D., preaching in the\nmorning, and Rev. Henry C. Minton, D.D., in the evening.\n\nThe entire cost of the church building was $103,915.66. The cost of\nOrgan, $10,000; Cost of Pews, $3,260; Pulpit Furniture, $600; Stained\nGlass, $1,500; Heating System, $2,400; Carpets, $3,457.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWithin two years after preaching the dedication sermon, the pastor\nemeritus fell asleep in God, and funeral services were held in the new\nedifice.\n\nThe Board of Trustees of the Chambers-Wylie Memorial Church met in\nthe pastor's study, at noon on the same day, and passed the following\nresolution:\n\n\"The Rev. Thomas A. Hoyt, D.D., our Pastor Emeritus and for seventeen\nyears our pastor, whose death occurred in Bryn Mawr on Monday, June\n29th, was beloved by us all and by the church we represent. He came\nto us in 1883 and by his untiring devotion to the interests of this\nchurch and his skill in carrying into effect the union of the two\nchurches now one in this present organization has made possible our\npresent prosperity and position of influence.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNow, during the pastorate of Rev. E. Trumbull Lee, with a few of the\nold \"Chamberites\" and many new followers of the Master the work goes\non. God bless and prosper them one and all.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for\nthy mercy, and for thy truth's sake.\"\n\n\n\n\n    \"Clasp, Angel of the backward look\n      And folded wings of ashen gray,\n      And voice of echoes far away,\n    The brazen covers of thy book;\n    The weird palimpsest old and vast,\n    Wherein thou hid'st the spectral past;\n    Where, closely mingling, pale and glow\n    The characters of joy and woe;\n    The monographs of outlived years,\n    Or smile-illumed or dim with tears,\n      Green hills of life that slope to death,\n    And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees\n    Shade off to mournful cypresses\n      With the white amaranths underneath.\n\n    Even while I look I can but heed\n      The restless sands' incessant fall,\n    Importunate hours that hours succeed,\n    Each clamorous with its own sharp need,\n      And duty keeping pace with all.\n\n    Shut down and clasp the heavy lids;\n    I hear again the voice that bids\n    The dreamer leave his dream midway\n    For larger hopes and graver fears;\n    Life greatens in these later years\n    The century's aloe flowers to-day!\"\n\n\n\n\n                                INDEX.\n\n\n    Actors and acting, 63, 124.\n\n    Adams, Mr. Edwin, 147.\n\n    Allen, Mr. George, 102.\n\n    Amusements, 48-50, 127.\n\n    Anecdotes, 16, 25, 42, 54, 110.\n\n    Arrison, John Chambers, 41.\n\n    Arrison, Mr. Matthew, 55, 94.\n\n    Ayres, Mr. Hiram, 27.\n\n\n    Bacon, Rev. Leonard, 37, 38.\n\n    Baker, Rev. J. J., 140.\n\n    Baltimore, 17, 18, 118, 124.\n\n    Barnes, Rev. Albert, 35, 83, 84.\n\n    Beatty, Mr. J. T., 103.\n\n    Bethany Church, 6, 145, 146.\n\n    Biles, Mr. J. T., 101, 102.\n\n    Blauvelt, Rev. Augustus, 145.\n\n    Bliss, Rev. Dr. John, 78, 140.\n\n    Boardman, Rev. Dr. George Dana, 141.\n\n    Breed, Rev. Dr., 141.\n\n    Briggs, Dr. Charles A., 86, 87.\n\n    British, 17, 18.\n\n    Broad Street Church, 68-80, 152.\n\n    Brooks, Rev. Phillips, 82, 83.\n\n    Brotherhood of Andrew and Philip, 151.\n\n    Brown, Rev. Charles, 127.\n\n    Bruce, Mr. I., 102.\n\n    Buchanan, Pres. James, 112, 117.\n\n    Buck, Dr. F. J., 101.\n\n    Bucks county, 29.\n\n    Burial lot, 24, 33.\n\n    Burtis, Aaron H., 53, 97.\n\n\n    Campbell, Mr. S., 102.\n\n    Campbell, President W. H., 42.\n\n    Camperduin, 11.\n\n    Chains across streets, 3-5.\n\n    Chambers, John, advertising sermons, 81;\n      ancestry, 9;\n      in Baltimore, 17-23;\n      birth, 9;\n      boyhood, 14-17;\n      Broad Street Church, 61, 62;\n      call, 28-33;\n      calls, 124;\n      children, 45;\n      clothes, 92, 93;\n      communion, 73;\n      drinking customs, 14-16, 51;\n      Doctor of Divinity, 103;\n      education, 19-23;\n      emotions, 65;\n      Europe visited, 59;\n      fiftieth jubilee anniversary, 102;\n      finances, 61, 123;\n      first communion and baptism, 41;\n      fortieth anniversary, 123;\n      funerals, 55;\n      grandchildren, 46;\n      growth in character, 122;\n      health, 123;\n      heretic, 30;\n      hymn reading, 91, 109;\n      illness, 130, 131;\n      infancy, 11;\n      jubilee anniversary, 102;\n      last words, 142;\n      licensed, 23;\n      marriage, 44, 66;\n      marrying couples, 97;\n      memorial churches, 147-153;\n      ordaining of ministers, 40;\n      ordination at New Haven, 38-41;\n      pastor, 110, 126;\n      peacemaker, 16, chapter xiii;\n      personal appearance, 7;\n      physique, 7, 60;\n      platform, 91, 92;\n      politics, 17, 63, 64;\n      prayer meetings, 77-79, 110;\n      preaching, 99, 100;\n      Presbytery, 30, 31;\n      pulpit manner, 90, 91;\n      punctuality, 32;\n      residences, 50;\n      rejected of Presbytery, 31, 34;\n      Sabbath, 55, 56;\n      salary, 123;\n      sermonizing, 81;\n      sermons printed, 57, 113;\n      sermon subjects, 88-90;\n      sorrows, 107-108;\n      Sunday School, 46, 96;\n      teachers, 19-23;\n      temperance, 15;\n      theatre, 48-50;\n      theology, 20, 23, 43, 47;\n      tomb, 145;\n      visits Ohio, 14;\n      voice, 124;\n      wit, 123-125;\n      wartime, 112-120.\n\n    Chambers, J. M. Duncan, 45, 46, 66, 120.\n\n    Chambers, Martha, 66, 67, 120.\n\n    Chambers, Matilda, 103, 143.\n\n    Chambers, William, 9-15.\n\n    Chambers-Wylie Memorial Church, 6, 83, 152, 153.\n\n    China, 76.\n\n    Church of the Love of God, 147-150.\n\n    Church on 13th Street, 4, 5, 25, 26.\n\n    Church on Broad Street, 60-62.\n\n    Church government, 94.\n\n    Concert Hall, 69.\n\n    Congregational Church, 52, 115, 137.\n\n    Congregational council, 40.\n\n    Coyle, Mr. R. M., 147.\n\n    Crowell, Rev. James 109.\n\n    Curtin, Governor, 119.\n\n    Cuyler, Rev. T., 55.\n\n    Cyclopedia of Temperance, 83.\n\n\n    Dexter, Rev. Franklin, 38.\n\n    Dill, Mr. T. P., 100.\n\n    Drummond, Professor, 126.\n\n    Dudleian lecture, 40.\n\n    Duelling, 58.\n\n    Duncan Margaret, 25, 26.\n\n    Duncan, Rev. John Mason, 19-21, 27, 34.\n\n\n    Elders, 40, 53.\n\n    Ely, Rev. Dr. Stiles, 28, 31.\n\n    Evans, Mr. J., 102.\n\n\n    Fashions, 92, 93, 105.\n\n    Fisher, Prof. W. G., 122, 141.\n\n    Flag on church, 116.\n\n    Friends, Society of, 131.\n\n    Fugitive Slave Law, 114.\n\n    Funerals, 51, 55.\n\n\n    Garrison, Wm. Lloyd, 117.\n\n    Gashmu, 124.\n\n    General Assembly, 44.\n\n    Gettysburg, 118.\n\n    Gray, Rev. James, 19, 21, 22, 27.\n\n    Griffis, Capt. John L., 85.\n\n    Griffiths, Captain, 118.\n\n\n    Hackett, Mr. James, 46.\n\n    Hale, Edward Everett, 106.\n\n    Hall, Wilfrid, 27.\n\n    Hartranft, Rev. P. D., 37.\n\n    Hatfield, Rev. Dr. 141.\n\n    Hibbert, Mr. Thomas, 55, 94.\n\n    Higher Criticism, 37, 99, 122.\n\n    Hinckley, Mr. R. H., 53, 101, 147.\n\n    Hoyt, Rev. Dr. Thomas A., 152, 153.\n\n    Huldah, 4.\n\n    Hunter, Rev. A. B., 101.\n\n    Hunter, Mr. John C., 100, 151.\n\n    Hymns, 16, 109, 110.\n\n\n    Ireland, 8, 10.\n\n    Irvine, Rev. Thomas, 127.\n\n\n    Japan, 16, 76, 130.\n\n    Johnson, Rev. Dr. Herrick, 137, 138.\n\n    Johnson, Mr. J. B., 102.\n\n\n    Kelley, Rev. Samuel P., 140.\n\n\n    Lawyer, Mr. E. S., 100.\n\n    Ledger, Public, 81, 82, 85, 88, 121.\n\n    Lee, Rev. Dr. E. Trumbull, 153.\n\n    Leslie, Mr. Henry, 102.\n\n    Levy, Rev. Edgar, 129.\n\n    Leyburn, Rev. Dr., 122, 145.\n\n    Luther, Robert, 40, 53, 95.\n\n    Luther, Rev. Robert Maurice, 95, 124-127.\n\n\n    McHenry family, 44, 45.\n\n    McLeod, Rev. Dr., 145.\n\n    McNeille, Rev. R. G. S., 140.\n\n    March, Rev. Daniel, 122.\n\n    Marrott, Mr. C. D., 102.\n\n    Mary, 63.\n\n    Milner, Rev. Dr. Duncan C., 120, 137.\n\n    Minton, Rev. Henry C., 153.\n\n    Mitchell, Dr. S. Weir, 130, 131.\n\n    Money raising, 61.\n\n    Moody, Mr., 90.\n\n    Mount Pleasant, 13, 100.\n\n    Munger, Rev. T. T., 38.\n\n    Myers, Mr. Henry, 102.\n\n\n    Nagle, Mr. G. F., 102.\n\n    Neill, Rev., 122.\n\n    Newland, Francis, 97, 98, 141.\n\n    Newton, Rev. Dr. Richard, 152.\n\n    Newton, Pa., 28.\n\n    North American building, 1-3.\n\n\n    Ohio, 12-16.\n\n    Otts, Rev. J. M. B., 143.\n\n\n    Paine, Thomas, 85, 86.\n\n    Painter, Mr. Charles, 99.\n\n    Patterson, Rev. Wm., 147.\n\n    Penn, Wm., 1.\n\n    Pennock, architects, 153.\n\n    Philadelphia in old time, 5, 24, 49.\n\n    Plumer, Rev. Wm., 119, 122, 141.\n\n    Post with chain, 3, 4.\n\n    Prayer meetings, 27, 54, 55, 141.\n\n    Presbyterian encyclopedia, 34.\n\n    Presbytery of Baltimore, 34.\n\n    Presbytery of Philadelphia, 23, 28.\n\n    Princeton, 19.\n\n    Pulpit, 70, 71.\n\n    Pulpit, power of, 2.\n\n    Purdy, Mr. Harrison, 101, 102.\n\n\n    Reed, Mr. Moses, 33.\n\n    Renan's Life of Jesus, 87.\n\n    Revivalists, 36, 63.\n\n    Ross, Miss Anna, 33, 113.\n\n    Rutledge Church, 6, 152.\n\n\n    Sabbath-keeping, 3, 4, 55-57.\n\n    Sacraments, 73, 74.\n\n    St. Paul's Pres. Church, 151.\n\n    Schenck, Rev. Dr., 121.\n\n    Scotch-Irish, 8.\n\n    Scott Legion, 117.\n\n    Scott's soldiers, 112.\n\n    Scripture references, 5.\n\n    Sexton, 104.\n\n    Sheppard, Joseph B., 95, 96, 113.\n\n    Sheppard, Rev. T. J., 140.\n\n    Skinner, Rev. Harvey, 35.\n\n    Smith, Mr. William, 102.\n\n    Snyder, Mr. J. M., 102.\n\n    Socrates, 84.\n\n    Somers, Mr. A., 102.\n\n    Song of Songs, 24, 44.\n\n    Steinmetz, Daniel, 98, 113.\n\n    Stewartstown, 9, 12.\n\n    Stockton, Rev. William R., 141.\n\n    St. Paul's Pres. Church, 6.\n\n    Sullivan's Expedition of 1779, 9, 17.\n\n    Sunday Despatch, 86.\n\n    Sunday School, 46, 56, 140.\n\n    Supplee, Mr. C. D., 102.\n\n    Synods, 20.\n\n\n    Talmage, Rev. T. D., 82, 120, 121.\n\n    Taylor, Rev. N. W., 36.\n\n    Temperance, 51-54.\n\n    Theological Seminaries, 19.\n\n    Theology, 20-22.\n\n    Thirteenth Street, 35, 46.\n\n    Thirteenth Street Church, 23, 24.\n\n    Thompson, Rev. Dr. John, 148.\n\n    Tone, T. Wolf, 10.\n\n    Tracy, Mr. E., 102.\n\n    Trumbull, Dr. Henry Clay, 65.\n\n    Tyler, Rev. Bennett, 37.\n\n\n    Union Theological Seminary, 129.\n\n    United Irishmen, 10, 11, 22.\n\n    Universalism, 58.\n\n\n    Van Deurs, Dr. George, 147.\n\n    Vaux, Richard, 60.\n\n    Vicksburg, 119.\n\n    Village, The, 46.\n\n\n    Walton, Rudolph S., 70, 79, 98, 99, 113, 146, 151.\n\n    Wanamaker, John, 78, 80, 147, 148.\n\n    War, Civil, Chapter XIII.\n\n    War, Mexican, 112.\n\n    War of 1812, 17.\n\n    Washington's Birthday, 53.\n\n    Weaver, Mr. William, 104.\n\n    Weddings, 105.\n\n    Wentz, Miss K., 150.\n\n    West, Mr. Edwin, 102.\n\n    Westminster symbols, 30, 31, 42, 130.\n\n    Westwood, Rev. Dr. Henry C., 143.\n\n    Whitaker, Mr., 144.\n\n    Whitefield, 65.\n\n    Whittier quoted, 107, 155.\n\n    Wilder, Rev., 76.\n\n    Willetts, Rev. Dr. A. A., 54.\n\n    Williams, Mr. W. S., 102.\n\n    Wilson, Rev. James P., 35.\n\n    Women of First Independent Church, 104.\n\n    Wylie, Rev. S. B., 10, 22.\n\n\n    Yard, Mr. John, 95, 113.\n\n    Young, Mr. G. I., 102.\n\n    Young Ladies' Association, 96.\n\n    Youths' Temperance Society, 53.\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's Notes:\n\n 1. Obvious printer's and spelling mistakes have been corrected.\n\n 2. Page 18: The name Thomas Scott Key has been replaced by the correct\n    name of Francis Scott Key.\n\n 3. Italics are shown as _text_.\n\n 4. Hyphens have been left in the words \"to-day\" and \"to-morrow\", as in\n    the original.","title":"John Chambers, Servant of Christ and Master of Hearts, and His Ministry in Philadelphia","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":48833}