In Dr. Hopper's time the work of the church for seamen reached its
highest development, and that was due to Christian A. Borella. He was a
missionary of the American Seamen's Friend Society for twenty-one years,
stationed at the Sailors' Home in Cherry Street, and surely a man of
God. Borella never came to church or prayer-meeting alone: he always had
men in tow.
There was an upper room at the Sailors' Home that meant much to many
men, and there Borella did a work that resulted in great acquisitions to
the church. It is true that many "going down to the sea in ships" were
never heard of again, and years afterwards nearly 400 names of seamen
were at one time removed from the roll by the session. But again and
again word came from all parts of the earth and in many languages from
men that called the church blessed. It was only an exemplification of
the wide scope of Sea and Land when a generation later one of its
ministers chanced across one of these men in Western Australia.
A feature of the prayer-meeting in those days was the reading of these
seamen's letters, giving account of themselves to Borella. They always
stirred the man, who would add words of Christian admonition that lacked
nothing in definiteness.
He was the right hand of Dr. Hopper, re-wrote records and generally made
himself useful.
But in his olden days he became restless and as no mission board would
take a man of sixty-four years he went, after Dr. Hopper's death, to
Africa at his own expense. He soon attached himself to Bishop William
Taylor and with his master's certificate ran the missionary boat
_Anne Taylor_ on the Congo.
Bishop Taylor says of his end: "One Sunday morning we walked together to
a preaching service at Vivi top. Captain Borella was suddenly taken ill
and on my return there Monday morning was very low with fever. On August
12, 1891, he fell asleep in Jesus, and we buried him under a huge baobab
tree at Vivi top."
[Illustration: Christian A. Borella]
Physically he was stockily built, well knit and evidently a strong man,
always neat, but exceedingly plain in dress. He was born in Southern
Denmark, of Spanish ancestry. His modest fortune he had made in
California in '49, and his conversion was under Father Taylor when
Borella came under his influence in Boston. It was Father Taylor of whom
Walt Whitman said that he was "the one essentially perfect orator" he
had ever heard.
After several voyages Borella became "cold and a backslider," and an eye
disease nearly blinded him. "The Lord cured my blindness, physical and
spiritual, and I promist him then that I would serve him the rest of my
life," and he did it with the virility and sternness of an Old Testament
prophet.
Borella was succeeded by Captain William Dollar, a dear old saint, who
was stationed at the Sailors' Home for twelve years.
The church's work in these earlier days was simple enough,
prayer-meeting Thursdays, then Wednesdays, and temperance meeting under
McClellan and Campbell on Friday. But on Sunday, besides the two long
church services there was Sunday school, morning and afternoon, and
young people's meeting preceding the evening service.
When the sailing vessels were still along South Street, meetings were
held on ships as opportunity offered.
In 1882 the interior of the church was papered and painted by Elder B.
A. Carlan at a cost of less than $1,000. New cushions, carpets, etc.,
brought the total up to $1,564.
The one annual event was the Sunday school excursion, when all went on
board a barge, which was towed by a tug to a grove on the sound or on
the Hudson. Dancing was tabooed, but a "melodeon" was carted to the dock
and hymns were sung. The tickets were fifty cents for adults, but Sunday
school children were free. Robert S. Taylor, veteran secretary, was
chief ticket seller, not only on the dock that morning, but in Wall
Street for weeks before. The president of the Temperance Society once or
twice put in an excursion just ahead of that of the Sunday school, and
there was dancing. But this was generally disapproved.
Miss Fanny Crosby often came to the Primary in those days and many of
her hymns were first sung there. Mr. Blackwood, her attendant, married
Miss Devlin, the teacher of the class.
In those days Market and Henry Streets had many two-story and attic
houses and in almost every one of those about the church people lived
who went there.
Teachers whose names stand out about this time were: Hans Norsk, James
Brown, Thomas Miller, William Stevenson, Evan Price, James Smith,
William Gibson, Robert Pierce, Dr. Theodore A. Vanduzee, Jesse Povey,
Mrs. B. C. Lefler, Mrs. S. M. Nelson.
The excursions gave rise to a committee of young people who started to
provide amusements other than dancing: swings, songs, and so on. There
came also an "executive committee" that asked many questions, and Dr.
Hopper, in a courteous and kindly way answered them in full: that was
the first report made to the congregation. Till then the annual meeting
had consisted of reading the names of the subscribers who had
contributed by means of the monthly envelopes, and the amounts they
gave.
But Charles J. Lemaire could not understand why this excursion amusement
committee should not become a permanent organization with literary
purposes. Thus began the Lylian Association that for twenty years was
a mainstay of the church and in its days of dire necessity was a vital
factor. From it came the young men that in later years were trustees,
and it was the opening wedge that was to transform the whole church
work.
When two of the young men came to the trustees for permission for a
literary society to meet weekly, it was questioned whether anything but
religious meetings might be held in the building. But after serious
reflection the two were made personally responsible for good order,
provided always meetings were opened and closed with prayer.
In a day when the young people had no outlet whatever for their active
spirits the Lylian Association became a training school for the church.
The debates of that day will never be forgotten, notably when the
Lylians wrested the laurel wreath from the Goldeys at Clarendon Hall,
and that other one, when Dr. Hopper suddenly appeared at a meeting and
after an impromptu debate "showing every evidence of being well
prepared," as he said, some consciences were ill at ease.
Then there was the Gossip's Journal, provoking endless parliamentary
wrangles, and perhaps helping to develop later on an editor. Memorable
were the Young People's Conventions of 1886 and 1887, and Lylians will
never forget the patriot Kromm, Spoopendyke Shreve, the poet laureate
and a dozen others. The Fourth of July picnics at Pamrapo and Nyack are
happy memories for many.
Like the old Market Street stoop with its fancy iron posts and rails
the Lylian Association has seen its day, but it amply justified its
existence.
When one Monday evening Mr. Pinkham, the church treasurer, announced to
the Lylians the sudden death of Dr. Hopper, there was consternation and
adjournment.
Andrew Beattie, a theological student, had been called before this
as co-pastor. He was installed as pastor May 29, 1888, having been
persuaded to give up his intention of going to the foreign field. Mr.
Beattie lived down town, and his bachelor apartments on East Broadway
were a gathering place for the young men, many of whom were in his Sunday
school class. He with others worked out the system of quarterly written
examination and grading that since 1888 have been uninterruptedly in force
in the Sunday school, long before other schools thought of such things.
[Illustration: Andrew Beattie]
The school was flourishing with many young people as officers and
teachers, all the activities of the church being centered on its
nursery. The records were systematized, and articles in the church
papers printed on the system, electric bells were installed, fire
drills were inaugurated, discipline was rigid, visiting by teachers
and districts was carefully regulated, the library given attention.
Mr. Beattie returned to his first love, resigning after eight months
to go to the foreign mission field. After years of greatest usefulness
in Canton, China, his health necessitated his return. Dr. Beattie is
with his family in California, where he is in charge of a Presbyterian
orphanage.
[Illustration: Sunday School Room of Old 61]
V
[Illustration: Alex. W. Sproull]
Reverend Alexander W. Sproull followed Mr. Beattie on January 5, 1890,
serving for three years. He had been Synodical Missionary in Florida.
After leaving Sea and Land he was incapacitated for further active
service. He died December 13, 1912.
[Illustration: Col. Robert G. Shaw]
Another breach was made in the conservatism of the old church when
one of the young trustees proposed to let the New York Kindergarten
Association use the room rent free for a kindergarten, then new in the
neighborhood. The older, wiser heads were gravely shaken at this
remarkable innovation, but it came on March 31, 1892, and with it the
beloved Anna E. Crawford as teacher. The fairy godmother who maintained
it was Mrs. Francis G. Shaw, giving the kindergarten the name of her
son, Robert Gould Shaw. It was a happy combination this, and the little
boys became strong men in the memory of the young Colonel who gave his
life at Fort Wagner at the head of the First Colored Regiment. They
buried him disdainfully "with his niggers," but Robert Gould Shaw lived
again in the lives of little boys trained to sacrifice at Sea and Land.
Nor will the Colonel's sister be forgotten: Mrs. Charles Russell Lowell,
who gave her young husband in the same cause and thereafter lived a life
that merited William Rhinelander Stewart calling her "one of the most
useful and remarkable women of the Nineteenth Century." Her spirit of
service was renewed in the little girls of the Shaw Kindergarten. The
beautiful bas relief by St. Gaudens on Boston Common is less of a
memorial than the kindergarten in Henry Street.
Mrs. Shaw died December 29, 1902, having supported the kindergarten for
eleven years.
[Illustration: Shaw Memorial Kindergarten]
Another departure was an open air meeting establisht by Mr. Sproull,
gathering at the church door Sunday afternoons. First things are hard
things.
But a storm was brewing. Uptown churches needed money, their pastors
were influential in the denomination and it seemed to many good business
to dispose of the Market Street church.
So, on March 13, 1893, Presbytery ordered the church sold, declaring, to
comply with the Corning deed, that "missionary work in the church or in
that locality was no longer expedient." The church pointed out that 29
of the 57 churches in New York Presbytery had received less members
during the preceding year, 16 churches had fewer members, 14 churches
raised less money, and that 6 churches made a worse showing than Sea and
Land in every single item reported on. There were then only 4 Protestant
churches for 60,000 people. The battle was on, and the bitterness of the
Briggs trial had not yet subsided,--the same Briggs who as a young man
belonged to Market Street church.
Mr. Sproull's small salary allowance was discontinued and he was forced
to resign, July 1, 1893. Then came hard times, no friends, no minister,
no funds. But when the tale of bricks was doubled Moses came.
It was in the shape of a legacy from Borella. That saint on his death in
Africa had left his estate in America to the Church of the Sea and Land
and the American Seamen's Friend Society jointly. If Borella had lived
he could not have arranged it for a better time.
Meanwhile by an accident the press of the city gained the whole story
from the church's viewpoint, and thereafter all the news reports were
tinged favorably to the down-town church that insisted on living. There
were illustrated articles on the church's history, caustic editorial
comments, letters from correspondents, and everybody talked about the
church. The ash barrels and the church doors had bills posted on them
announcing that the Church of the Sea and Land would be sold at auction
on April 19, 1893. The property, however, was withdrawn when the best
offer was $15,000 short of what was expected. There was a lull.
In the spring of 1894 it became necessary to devise some means of
helping the New York Presbyterian Church on 127th Street, which was
buried by mortgages amounting to $118,000, about to be foreclosed.
Sea and Land was to furnish part of this and a mortgage was suggested.
The church trustees opposed this successfully, altho at first it was
supposed their consent was not required. Without the knowledge of the
church a sale was then again ordered January 18, 1895.
Preceding this, beginning October 1, 1894, the church had "affiliated"
with the Madison Square Presbyterian church. As Presbytery had formally
approved this the Madison Square church remonstrated vigorously thru Dr.
Parkhurst, but feeling that Presbytery's action could not be relied on
the Madison Square church withdrew at the expiration of its one year of
affiliation.
Committees of prominent clergymen visited the church and were "warmly"
welcomed. It was suggested that Sea and Land unite with other churches,
but it is a singular fact that, as when the Reformed church disbanded,
so now, not a single church is in existence that was then mentioned for
a refuge. A case in point is the Allen Street Presbyterian church. They
had sold their building near Grand Street and for a time worshipt in the
Market Street church. But in spite of earnest solicitation they erected
an unfortunate structure in an unfortunate location in Forsyth Street.
After a short existence there they united with the Fourteenth Street
church, and that church is no more!
Even the strong Madison Square church no longer preserves its identity.
Meanwhile work went on, at first in desultory fashion, two or three
times the young men had to conduct services. But thru it all Dr. A. F.
Schauffler, of the New York City Mission Society, was the church's
consistent friend. His order to the city missionaries at the church to
stay until the doors were shut was the one heartening feature of a time
when the officers ordered the blue church flag raised and "no one from
Sea and Land will ever take it down."
The Women's Branch always ably seconded these efforts under Mrs. Lucy S.
Bainbridge and later Miss Edith N. White.
[Illustration: Old Church Flag]
Instead of slowly dying out the work of the church gained momentum
from day to day: Lodging house meetings, Sunday afternoon teas, free
concerts, addresses by Gompers, McGlynn, Henry George, Parkhurst and
others, sermons "against thugs in politics," and so on.
A permanent accomplishment of the nine months' intense regime of
Alexander F. Irvine was the starting of _The Sea and Land Monthly_, the
first number of which appeared in October, 1893. With characteristic
impetuosity Mr. Irvine launched it, and it has been afloat for more than
a quarter century.
The _Monthly_ has been a great storehouse: not only did it give from
month to month the happenings at the church, but it brought to later
generations an appreciation of the goodly heritage of years that had
gone before.
The vital events in the congregation's history were recorded, but so was
the personal history of its people. The coming of little messengers to
the homes, their baptism, their reception into the church, their
marriage, their death. Then began another cycle like unto the first.
And the _Monthly_ kept alive the interest of many a Sea and Lander who
was adrift. It gave account of its stewardship to the friends of the
church who supported its work. Few churches ever publish with such detail
the annual reports as does Sea and Land.
Many are the kind words from near and far that have been said about the
_Sea and Land Monthly_.