The Kirk on Rutgers Farm

Of the sanctuary which, for one hundred years, has stood on the corner of Market and Henry Streets, the author, like many others who have put their lives into it, might well say:

"Thy saints take pleasure in her stones, Her very dust to them is dear."

The story of "The Kirk on Rutgers Farm" is one of pathetic interest. In its first half-century it sheltered a worshipping congregation of staid Knickerbocker type, which, tho blest with a ministry of extraordinary ability and spiritual power, succumbed to its unfriendly environment and perished.

In its second half-century it became the home of a flock of God, poor in this world's goods, but rich in faith, to whom the environment even when changing from bad to worse, was a challenge to faith and valiant service. Those of us who in our unwisdom said a generation ago that it ought to die judged after the outward appearance. Those who protested that it must not die, took counsel with the spirit that animated them, saw the invisible and against hope believed in hope.

Not the least impressive pages of this book are the pages which record the names of ministers and other toilers for Christ, who in this field of heroic achievement have lived to serve or have died in service.

The author has very skilfully concealed his personal connection with the history of which he might justly say: "Magna pars fui." But for his wise and winsome leadership the chronicle would have closed a quarter of a century ago.

By putting in form and preserving the memories which cluster about the Church of the Sea and Land, he is performing a real service to the Christian community and earning the gratitude of fellow-laborers to whom it has been a shrine of their heart's devotion.

George Alexander.

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Kirk on Rutgers Farm Frontispiece

Page Henry Rutgers 12 The Rutgers Mansion 15 Rutgers Tablet 17 Nathan Hale Statue 19 First Presidential Mansion 20 Tablet in Church Vestibule 22 Philip Milledoler 23 North Dutch Church 24 Isaac Ferris 28 Organ 29 Old Lecture Room Pulpit 30 Theodore L. Cuyler at Market Street 34 Theodore L. Cuyler later 35 Pew 41 Bell 46 Sailors' Home 50 52 Market Street 51 Hanson K. Corning 52 Edward Hopper 56 Communion Service 58 Christian A. Borella 61 Andrew Beattie 68 Old Sunday School Room 69 Alexander W. Sproull 71 Col. Robert G. Shaw 72 Kindergarten 73 Old Church Flag 78 John Hopkins Denison 81 Tower Study 82 52 Henry Street 83 Fresh Air Children 84 New Church Flag 87 John Denham 91 Old 61 Henry Street 94 New 61 Henry Street 95 Staten Island House when bought 96 Staten Island House renovated 97 Kitchen for Cooking Classes 99 Pulpit 104 Back of Pulpit 107

I

If there be one thing certain about New York it is that nothing remains unchanged. Not only do public works like the bridges change the face of things, but private activity effaces great structures to build up still greater ones. This march of progress is as relentless as a modern army, levelling all before it.

In other lands churches have been spared tho other buildings went down, but even these in New York have disappeared, whole districts being deliberately deserted because churches were no longer able to maintain themselves there financially. This is especially true of the great down-town section of Manhattan, the Old New York, in which only two churches remain that have stood unchanged for a century. Trinity church let old St. John's go, and sixty churches have disappeared in forty years on the lower East Side alone. We lose much when old landmarks go, when we can not make history more vivid for our children by pointing out where the great men of another day worshipt, men of a day when other public assemblies were rare, and the church was the center that radiated influence. The old building is of value because of the living beings associated with it that were the life of the community.