INTERESTING PUBLIC SERVICE AT THE NEWARK ANNUAL CONFERENCE—FATHER BOEHM’S
CENTENNIAL SERMON.
Although Father Boehm had not quite completed his one hundredth year at
the time of the annual session of the Newark Conference, in the spring
of 1875, the members of the Conference earnestly desired to hear him
preach his centennial sermon. Accordingly a very interesting and unique
religious service was held in the Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church,
Jersey City, on Friday morning, April 2. At an early hour the church was
crowded to its utmost capacity, and hundreds of people vainly sought
admission within its walls. Among those present were Bishops Janes,
Ames, Bowman, Harris, and Wiley. A great number of preachers from other
neighboring Conferences were also present. After the regular order of
business of the Conference was finished, Bishop Bowman requested Bishop
Janes to preside at the centennial services.
The hymn commencing “A charge to keep I have” was sung, after which the
Rev. J. B. Wakeley, D.D., offered prayer.
OPENING ADDRESS OF BISHOP JANES.
Bishop Janes said:—
It has already been intimated in the prayer that this is an
unusual occasion. It is one of those occurrences where extremes
meet. We have been paying our tribute to the character and memory
of the youthful ministers who died in the service of the Church
and in the work of the pastorate. We expect to hear from the
oldest minister of our Church. I hope it may not be his final
message. I hope he may live to speak to us yet many times more
before he shall close his glorious career on earth. Nevertheless,
I presume none of us have ever heard a centennial sermon, and
none of us, in all probability, will ever hear another one. The
occasion, therefore, is novel, and I will add it is instructive
and impressive. I have seen the longest rivers, the highest
mountains, and the grandest cataracts of our wonderful country,
but in all that I have seen of the beauty and grandeur of nature,
I have never looked upon a physical object with so much interest
as I look upon this human form here this morning. A human
body so fearfully and wonderfully made, with so many and such
delicate connections, performing so many offices, subject to so
much exposure, to have been preserved for so many years in its
healthfulness and in all its beauty, is to me the most wonderful
physical object I have ever beheld. And then, it has been all
this while the tabernacle of a rational spirit, the instrument by
which that spirit has performed its wonderful works and secured
its wonderful results. Well may we say with the poet this morning:
“Strange that a harp of thousand strings
Should keep in tune so long.”
I have stood in the presence of kings and nobles, of scholars
and divines in other countries, but I never have felt in all
my experience such an interest and so profound a reverence as
I feel in the presence of revered and beloved father in God,
this aged servant of our Lord Jesus Christ. I revere him for
his personal worth, his strictly moral youth. Converted to
God in his early manhood, his life has been one of strict
consistency and of great purity from that time until the present.
It is forty-three years this month since I made his personal
acquaintance; and, having been intimate with him from that time
till now, I say in this presence I have never known a fellow-man
in whom there was so little moral infirmity even as in this our
father before us to-day. I venerate him for his associations. He
was associated with those names that are dearest to us in our
Church history—Asbury, Whatcoat, M’Kendree, Jesse Lee, Freeborn
Garrettson, and Nathan Bangs; names that we hold in the highest
regard; they were his associates. And then he has been associated
with a great multitude of godly men and women who have composed
our Church from that early period until now. What fellowships he
has enjoyed!
And I revere him for his works. He was in the early councils of
the Church. He helped to form the polity of our Church; he has
seen its wonderful workings until this hour, and he has really
witnessed the planting and growth of this branch of the Church
of our Lord Jesus Christ until this present time. His ministry
has been one of great excellence and of great usefulness, and
his example one of great power and of great benefit. We cannot
any of us look upon him but with the highest regard and with the
greatest reverence, and even with awe. Considering the length
of time when Enoch walked with God, which men then lived, and
the length of human life now, he has walked with God as long as
Enoch walked with God. And having been in these associations to
which I have referred, having been in this holy ministry all of
the nineteenth century—for I believe that is the fact—and having
been living all these years in fellowship with the divine and the
spiritual and the eternal, how sacred and grand and glorious is
his character. It will be an era in my history to hear from him
this morning, and I think it will be an incident in the life of
everyone here which they will carry with them in rememberance to
eternity. I pray that God may aid him in this effort, and that
God may sanctify this occasion to the religious profiting of
all of us who are permitted to enjoy it, both in the laity and
in the ministry. Before Father Boehm speaks to you, the pastor
of this Church will read the credentials that he has received,
giving the dates of his offices.
The Rev. John Atkinson read as follows:—
“To whom it may concern: This is to authorize Henry Boehm to
exercise the office of a preacher and travel Dorchester Circuit.
Thomas Ware. January 5, 1800.”
The document is excellently preserved.
“To whom it may concern: This is to authorize Henry Boehm to
exercise the office of exhorter in the Methodist Episcopal
Church. Given on the 16th of June, 1800, by Thomas Ware,
Presiding Elder.”
Brother Atkinson then spoke as follows:—
He was authorized to preach on the presiding elder’s own
authority, and sent to travel a circuit on January 5, 1800;
and after the case came before the Quarterly Conference, he
was licensed to exhort and travel the circuit. This [showing
the parchment] is his ordination parchment of deacon. It reads
a little differently from our parchments of to-day, though
very little. It is signed by Richard Whatcoat, and is dated at
Dock Creek, Del., May 4, 1803. This [showing the parchment]
is his parchment as elder, and reads thus: “Ordained elder by
Francis Asbury on the 5th day of May, in the year of our Lord
one thousand eight hundred and five. Done at the Philadelphia
Conference, held at Chestertown. FRANCIS ASBURY.”
I have been requested by Father Boehm to state that two weeks ago
he was very ill, and it was feared that he would not recover. I
was sent for in haste on that day to see him. I had great fears
that he would not be able to be here. God has raised him up, and
he is here to speak to us as he was requested to do at the last
session of our Conference.
The audience rose _en masse_ in token of respect to the venerable apostle
of Methodism, which added greatly to the impressiveness of the scene.
FATHER BOEHM’S SERMON.
The Rev. Henry Boehm then proceeded, amid profound silence, to speak as
follows:—
MY DEAR BRETHREN: I feel very dependent. I hope you will offer
me up in prayer before the Lord that he may graciously assist
me once more in proclaiming the precious truth. The passage of
Scripture to which I invite your attention you will find recorded
in Nahum, the first chapter and seventh verse: “The Lord is good,
a stronghold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that
trust in him.”
There is a little difference in the German in this text! The
beginning in the German reads, “Der Herr ist gietig,” the Lord
is munificent, freely distributing his blessings and goodness.
Now, then, to say that a person is munificent presupposes that he
is good, and goodness produces munificence. O what a wonderful
mercy-seat we have the privilege of approaching unto! The Lord
is munificent in distributing his blessings, in showering down
his goodness and mercy upon us. The Lord, then, is good. He
is good in his mercy. Benevolence, kindness, long suffering,
tender mercy, flow out through the mercy of God manifested to a
fallen world. Yes, brethren, but for the goodness of the Lord
where should we be? His goodness and mercy have spared us to the
present period, and we have the privilege now of approaching
to the mercy-seat in the name of Jesus Christ. The Lord is a
stronghold, a strong tower, a strong fortification. He that
entereth and dwelleth in this stronghold is safe in time of
trouble, in time of distress, in time of need. God is present
and ready to supply our wants. He is all-sufficient according
to our need. He knoweth them that trust in him. He owns them.
He acknowledges them to be his subjects, and to be influenced
by his Holy Spirit. Yes, brethren, the Lord knows them; he
dwells with them as such who trust in him, who walk in the light
of his countenance. O blessed be the name of the Lord that he
knows the heart and he looks upon the mind, the immortal mind!
If we sincerely look to him he owns and acknowledges us as his
own. He knoweth them that trust in him. Bless the Lord! O, the
goodness of God—his mercy and long suffering! I bless God for his
goodness that I realized in early life. Religion made my soul
happy then. It kept me from evil; it directed me in the path of
humble submission to the will of God, and it now in old age makes
me feel lively. It supports and comforts me, and when I look
forward to death I do not stop there. I look beyond it, and then
it is all light, all peace, and joy, and triumph. O, glory be to
God for his mercy and goodness in our privilege this day to meet
together for his worship, for his services, and for his praise!
Blessed be the name of the Lord! When I look at the changes—how
population has extended, how Methodism has followed up—I am
astonished. In 1809 I passed, with Bishop Asbury, through here
from Newark and crossed over to New York, and there was no town
here then at all—nothing but a ferry-house. What a change! Now
there are several thousand inhabitants, and the best of all is
the Lord is among the people, and many are happy in his salvation
and rejoice in his gracious presence. Blessed be the name of the
Lord! O what wonders hath God wrought! Newark was then a small
town. There were two rows of houses, I think, in Newark in 1809.
Now it has spread out into a large town. O may the Gospel go on
in its power and glory, that multitudes may bow to the scepter of
the Redeemer! and finally may we meet in heaven to rejoice in the
Lord for ever and ever! Amen.
The congregation united in singing,
“My latest sun is sinking fast.”
REMARKS OF BISHOP JANES.
DEAR FRIENDS: You will all of you remember the text, and the
sermon and the preacher. The text is one of the most sweet
and precious in the Holy Bible; the exposition of it has been
clear and forcible, though brief. To my mind the sermon has two
especial excellences: one is, it was preached, and not read! and
the other is that it was brief, and the preacher stopped when
he got done—a beautiful example to us in those two respects,
and I propose to profit by them. One of the most remarkable
things in the character and history of our Father Boehm is that
he has not reached his second childhood. He is just as manly as
he ever has been, in any period of his past history, and his
mental powers are preserved to him in their strength, in their
harmony, and in their adaptation to the office and work in which
he has spent his long and holy life. His physical strength is
lessened. The great probability is that we shall not have his
presence at a conference where most of us will be gathered again
in this world. He may attend other annual conferences with us,
but the most of this congregation, and probably some of these
ministers, will not be present; and it seems to us fitting that
he should now give us his benediction, and a few farewell words.
In 1832 Bishop M’Kendree came this side of the mountains for the
last time. He preached the sermon when I was ordained deacon.
Bishop Hedding ordained me, but he preached the sermon. He was
then quite as feeble as Brother Boehm is now. He went from the
Philadelphia Conference at Wilmington to the General Conference
which was held in Philadelphia. He assisted to some extent in the
services of that session. A little before its close, feeling his
infirmities and desiring to escape the excitement of the close of
the conference, he took occasion to bid the conference farewell.
He was assisted to the platform, where the bishops, secretaries,
and representatives of other conferences were sitting, and he
stood before them in all his patriarchal character, lifted up his
hands, and simply said to that General Conference of ministers,
“Little children, love one another,” bowed, and left the
platform, the conference rising as he retired, went to his home
in Nashville, and very soon died. Now if Father Boehm can say no
more words than those, let us have his benediction this morning.
FATHER BOEHM’S BENEDICTION.
Father Boehm responded thus:—
MY BELOVED BRETHREN: It is very probable this is the last time
I shall be with you at an annual conference. If it is, I hope
we shall meet up yonder when we go. I now take my leave of you,
and ask the Lord to bless you, and bless you abundantly. May
this year be a great year in the Newark Conference, as well as
throughout the land and throughout the world! The grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy
Ghost, be with you all ever more. Amen.
The patriarch spoke distinctly throughout, and was heard without
difficulty in all parts of the church.
ADDRESS OF DR. DEEMS.
Dr. Deems was introduced and spoke as follows:—
MR. PRESIDENT, FATHERS AND BRETHREN, AND MOTHERS AND SISTERS: I
have come over to Jersey City this morning on a little private
anniversary of my own. I am not a hundred years old by a good
deal, but I have always really expected and hoped for the last
twenty-five years of my ministry to preach on my one hundredth
birthday, and I intend, God willing, to do it yet. Fathers and
brethren, it is just thirty-five years ago when you were good
enough, without seeing me, to take me into this conference as a
preacher. It was a great peril, but you took the risks. I had
preached on a circuit in New Jersey one year before I ever saw
this conference. Then I saw this body thirty-four years ago in
the city of Newark, and saw it to love it. At that time your
Bishop Janes was Secretary of the American Bible Society; and
somehow he seemed to have been born a bishop, because, ever since
I knew any thing about him, he has been sending men all about
the world. He picked me up off the hills of Warren County, and
sent me down into North Carolina as Agent of the American Bible
Society; and I have never seen the Newark Conference since until
to-day.
“What troubles have we seen!
What conflicts have we pass’d!
Fightings without, and fears within,
Since we assembled last!
But out of all the Lord
Hath brought us by his love.”
It is a peculiarly happy circumstance that after these
thirty-five years of ministry, in which I have been called to so
many various positions in the Church of God, in the Methodist
Church and elsewhere in the general work of Christianity, that I
come back to meet your conference under the presidency of an old
college-mate, always beloved from the days of our youth until
now, beloved over the storm of war, beloved over the field of
blood; and it is a happy thing that now I can be presented to you
by Bishop Janes, who, having picked me up and sent me away, I
determined that day, God willing, to help to make bishop; I fell
to work among the southern delegations when they were going up
to the General Conference, and when they came back they turned
to me and said, “Well, we have made your friend bishop;” and
the accounts were square. Now we owe nothing to one another,
bishop, but to love one another, and now we will see who will
pray best, quickest, fastest, richest, and be like our Lord, who
is munificent. I thank God that I am a preacher of the Gospel of
the Son of God. I thank God that with my advancing years I do
love the work of preaching and of the pastorate. I do thank God
that every week, more and more, without distinction of sect or
nationality or other difference, I do more and more deeply love
all that call and profess themselves Christians. I have no right
to detain you, Mr. President, fathers, and brethren, any further
with remarks of my own. Father Boehm hath seemed to come to say,
“farewell.” I have come to say, Hail, brethren, hail! O, my
brethren, life is full of these hails and farewells; but, blessed
be God! every time there is a “farewell” spoken it is followed
by a “hail.” As soon as Father Boehm shall say, “Farewell,
farewell,” to all these bishops, old and young, on earth, how
quickly thereafter he will say, “All hail! all hail!” to the
blessed bishops that have gone before him into the skies! When I
started this morning I told my family why I was coming; and it
is a rare thing for me to leave my work. I started with a sense
of joyousness and pleasure, but while I have been sitting at the
foot of this pulpit I had a sense of awe and humiliation. Since
I saw you last, brethren, I have had great opportunities, I have
had great positions of usefulness; I have had troops of friends;
I have had all that heart in this world could wish; I have had a
perfect domestic circle; I have two children in heaven—one about
to enter the ministry and taken up above. I have four children
upon earth; they are all communicants of the Church of our Lord
Jesus Christ, and two Sundays ago one of them preached his first
sermon. I have had great opportunities, but as I sat to-day at
the foot of this pulpit I have felt so humiliated that I have
done so little for the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ. Brethren,
I have written much, I have spoken much, and I want to tell you
now that as I sat on this solemn occasion in which Father Boehm
was preaching this centenarian sermon that I have this morning
profoundly regretted all the time and all the talent that I have
spent in any department of literature, or science, or public life
which did not more and more qualify me to preach Jesus Christ and
him crucified. I count it loss, and, by God’s grace, no more of
my time shall be thus lost. We have but one work—to save souls;
and I have no doubt that the hundred years looks very short to
Father Boehm now. Brethren, the time is short, and we shall soon
be in eternity. God grant that all the atmosphere of our lives
may be so spent in his service that we shall finish our course
with joy, and this ministry which we have received of the Lord
Jesus. Then, whatever else will be unfinished, we shall have
made a rounded and triumphant life. I thank you for your great
kindness.
ADDRESS OF THE REV. DR. WAKELEY.
The Rev. J. B. Wakeley, D.D., was requested to address the conference,
and responded by saying:—
I indorse all that Bishop Janes said concerning our venerable
and venerated father. I honor every gray hair upon that head,
[turning to Father Boehm,] and believe one of the purest spirits
ever formed by the Almighty dwells in that body. I have spent
years with him: I am talking about what I know. I have known
his inner life; and while I have been sitting here I have been
thinking about that wonderful saying of the psalmist, blessing
the Lord for forgiving our iniquities, healing all our diseases,
keeping our eyes from tears and our feet from falling, satisfying
our mouth with good things, and renewing our youth like the
eagle’s. I heard an old lady say in love-feast one time, “I was
left a poor widow with seven children; I did not know what would
become of them or me either. God has been a husband to me and a
father to my fatherless children. They are all converted. Now
look at me. Time has shaken me by the hand; the strong man begins
to bow himself; those that look out of the windows are darkened;
the keepers of the house tremble; the grinders are ceasing
because they are few. I have an old, feeble body, but, glory to
God! I have a young soul.” Here, continued Dr. Wakeley, pointing
to Father Boehm, “is a young soul.” Well, now, then, just think,
just throw your mind back and remember you have heard a man
preach that was born before the Republic was born, when we were
colonies dependent on Great Britain, long before Washington was
inaugurated President, having lived under every President from
Washington down to Grant.
Here is a man who was born before the Methodist Episcopal Church
existed; here is a man who heard Robert Strawbridge preach at his
father’s house, who founded Methodism in Maryland, and was very
near contemporary with Philip Embury. He heard Benjamin Abbott,
that son of thunder, at his father’s house; and the people fell
like dead men around him when the old man was preaching, for he
always called for power when he preached. Well, just think that
he was with Bishop Whatcoat when he was dying, and in his last
days and hours ministered to his wants. Just think that he was
with Jesse Lee in 1816, the first historian of Methodism, closed
his eyes, and laid him quietly at rest. Think of his traveling
one hundred thousand miles on horseback to preach the glorious
Gospel of the blessed God. Think of his being five years the
traveling companion of Bishop Asbury. Think of his living to
see our Republic growing, till States have become as large as
empires, and conference after conference has multiplied until the
Atlantic speaks to the Pacific, and the Pacific answers back—deep
answers unto deep. He has seen Annual Conferences established
in India, in China, and in Germany, the land of Luther and the
Reformation. I want you to understand that Father Boehm is not
an old man who is disgusted with life, finding fault with the
present age and comparing it invidiously with the former. No;
he has kept up with the times; he reads the newspapers and
knows what is going on in the Church and what is going on in
the State. He has been a live man until this hour. I heard old
Uncle Billy Hibbard say, “I want you to understand that Billy
Hibbard don’t mean to die while he lives.” I assure you that you
have listened to-day to the most marvelous man in the Methodist
Episcopal Church, if not in the world’s history. O, think of a
hundred years past! There were no railroads, nor steamboats, nor
telegraphs, nor any thing of that kind when Father Boehm was a
boy. [Turning to the patriarch,] Did you cross in an old scow
from Jersey City to New York the first time?
FATHER BOEHM. Yes.
DR. WAKELEY. There were no horse-boats or ferry-boats then?
FATHER BOEHM. No.
DR. WAKELEY. Somebody, a colored man, I believe, used to come
down on the New York side and blow a horn, telling them that
the boat was going over. That is the way they traveled then. O,
how the world has moved since then! Where are those to whom he
preached in the different States? Where are the bishops that he
knew? O how many have passed on to the other side of the river
with whom our venerable father worshiped in the dwellings and
in the churches! I thought while I listened here to-day of that
beautiful sentiment of Charles Wesley, “God buries his workmen,
but carries on his work.” Voltaire said, “Christianity is in its
twilight.” He was correct, but he mistook the time of day. It
was not the twilight of the evening that precedes the darkness
of the night, but the twilight of the morning that precedes the
brilliancy of an eternal day. Father Boehm may die, but the work
will go on, and on, and on until the last son and daughter of
Adam hears the story of the manger, the garden, and the Cross.
I gave him a little advice fifteen years ago; I hope he has
profited by it. I said, “Father Boehm, make up your mind to live
to be a hundred years old.” He said he would try. “You might as
well do it,” said I. Well, now, then, here he is, born the eighth
of June, 1775. Think how the world has moved forward. A hundred
years past—a hundred years to come! Where will we be a hundred
years to come? Long before that our venerable father will be on
the other side of the river. O that his last song on earth may
be, “My heart and my flesh faileth, but God is the strength of
my heart and my portion forever!” He has given us his blessing,
and now we will give him our benediction. May the blessing of him
whose blessing maketh rich and addeth no sorrow rest upon him;
may God guide him a little longer by his counsel and afterward
receive him to glory! O, how many you will meet up yonder that
you knew here! A hundred years to come and all these bishops will
be with Asbury, M’Kendree, and George. A hundred years to come
and we will be walking with Jesus in white. A hundred years to
come and we will be listening to the song of redemption before
the throne. Good John Bunyan described the white-robed multitude,
and he says: “Which when I saw them, I wished myself among them.”
O, we shall soon be there, and I tell you it will be sweet to
meet at Jesus’ feet those we love! It is said that Charles
Wesley, when he met his old friends as we have met to-day, would
always give out those two verses of his:—
“There all the ship’s company meet,
Who sail’d with the Saviour beneath;
With shouting each other they greet,
And triumph o’er sorrow and death:
The voyage of life’s at an end;
The mortal affliction is past:
The age that in heaven they spend,
Forever and ever shall last.”
So may we meet where we can die no more. I want to get to that
world where they cannot die from disease, for nobody is sick;
where they cannot die from old age, for nobody grows old;
where they cannot die from care, for there are no care-worn
cheeks. “Neither can they die any more,” says Jesus. They are
under a divine restraint to live forever—immortal as Gabriel,
immortal as the “King eternal, immortal, invisible.” They are
equal to the angels of God in dignity, in purity, in felicity,
and in immortality. There I hope to meet you, old patriarch of
Methodism, and all these people who are here, where we can see
with our own eyes the King in his beauty, and we will crown him
Lord of all.
A BROTHER. “I want Brother Wakeley to advise Father Boehm to live
a little longer, to see the celebration of the birthday of the
nation.”
The meeting was brought to a close by Bishop Ames, who pronounced the
benediction.