Evening Star Newspaper, February 9, 1930, Page 98

THE SHNI)..\YvST/\R, WASHINGTON, D. C, FEBRUARY 9, 1930. Where Abraham Lincoln Went to Church T is inevitable that Washington should become more and more the treasure city of the political inheritance of the leaders of our American life. The leadership of the Nation centers here and here you will find the documents, letters and papers which go to make that political inheritance with which they have enriched the Nation and immortalized their names. Whatever you may desire to know about national leaders of the past one finds here. It is but natural that it should be so because it is the Capital of the Nation. But one thing we have forgotten. In the gathering of the political inheritances of the leaders of the past which interpret their leader- ship and usefulness we are in danger of for- getting the religious aspects of their lives which in all instances lie at the foundation of all po- litical greatness. Just as Washington interprets the political genius of national leadership, so also it holds the intimate experiences of their religious life. The churches which have grown up in Washington with the establishment of this city hold, therefore, imperishable mem- ories of the religious convictions of the leaders of the past. The longer the existence of the church the more crowded it is apt to be with these clements of the religious life of the great men who led the Nation in the past. Among any small group of such churches there stands inevitably this church, which I now have the honor of serving, as a great shrine to the faith of our fathers, THE New York Avenue Presbyterian Church has a continued history that runs back more than a century and a quarter. Its history wellnigh parallels the history of the Capital City. It was founded in 1803, when hunters shot quail near the Capitol and when horses dragged coaches hub-deep in clay over the nearly impassable road of Pennsylvania avenue. It was the first Protestant church in Washing- ton. It began when the r=public was an experi- ment and when the area of the United States extended but little beyond the Coast Line. States. It was organized during the Jefferson administration, when a group of Scotch-Irish Americans who had fought in the Revolution came to Washington with the planting of the Government here. ¥ . The first meetings of the church were held In the Treasury Building and the first minister of the church was the sainted Dr. James Laurie, who was for many years a clerk in the Treasury Department, because the salary he received from the few people who worshiped in his church was quite inadequate. After a few years, with funds which he had secured from donors as far north as Boston and as far south as Savannah, he built the first little brick church, subsequently called Willard Hall, which was actually the first place for Protes- tant worship in this city. Since that time, and some 50 years later, the church property was removed to its present location, on New York avenue, H and Thirteenth streets, where it stands to the very present. There are many items of unusual significance about this church. While its history runs back 127 years, it has had only seven ministers. I am the seventh and began my ministry here but a few years back. . Then, too, it is a matter of historic interest that in this church there was held the farewell service to Gen. Lafayette on the occasion of his departure from the coun- try at the close of his last visit. It was from the pulpit of this historic echurch that John' Quincy Adams, then President of the United States, delivered the farewell address. Then, too, it is interesting to recall that the wife of the first minister of the church was the cousin of Sir Walter Scott, who presented to her at the occasion of her wedding the manuscript of one of his novels. On the very ground where this first Protestant church of Washington stobd the present New Willard Hotel now stands. HIS church has often been called “The Presidents’ Church” because more Presi- dents have atfended it than any other place of worship in the city. It was here that John Quincy Adams was a regular attendant. ‘Then, too, it became the place of worship of Andrew Jackson, Willlam Henry Harrison, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson. President Millard Fillmore was a very frequent worshiper here, as were also Grover Cleveland and Theodore Roosevelt. Before his presidency Benjamin Harrison was a regular attendant upon its services. It was said of President Pierce that he rarely missed a public worship and he always went twice every Sunday to church. With Mrs. Pierce, he entertained the Sunday school of the church as his official guests at the White House. And the greatest of them all, Abraham Lincoln, attended this church during all his years of service in the Capital. We bless God that all of our Presi- dents have been devout men with keen faith, men who were conscious of the presence of God in the affairs of the Nation; and in the last analysis only such men can be Presidents. Many Vice Presidents also worshiped here regularly and many Supreme Court Justices, members of cabinet and leaders in the affairs of State. One of the first men's Bible classes organized in the city was that one led and taught by Justice Harlan, of the Supreme Court and elder in this church. At the occasion of the centennial celebration of this church, in 1903, Theodore Roosevelt, then President of the United States, standing in the Lincoln pew, brought a word of greeting to the fellowship of the church and delivered one of those stirring addresses on the place of the Christian church in the life of the Nation. Many men prominent in the affairs of state and the Nation have and continue to worship here. Vice President Dawes and his family were regular attendants upon the services of this church. Their two children attended Sunday school. Several members of the President’s offi- cial family, members of the diplomatic corps and of Congress are included in the numbers who worship here in this historic church. A re- During All His Years of Service at the Capital President Lincoln Worshiped at the Historic New York Avenue Pres- bytertan Church, Where the Pew He Occupied Has Become a Shrine Within a Shrine. A night view of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. BY REV. JOSEPH R. SIZOO, Pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, cent Ambassador from Pra’\ce, M. Daeschner, the only Protestant Ambassador Franc: has ever sent to America, worshiped with his family in this church. ONE of the very impressive moments in the history of this church occurred some Sum- mers ago when the great commoner, William Jennings Bryan, lay dead in the church. When his body was brought into the church thou- sands of people were waiting in line for an op- portunity to view him in his flag-draped casket. That procession never ended night or day from Wednesday until Friday. From the pulpit of the church there was spoken to his be- reaved family and innumerable friends words of comfort and words of praise which he so richly deserved. Mr. Bryan had something to do with my entrance into the Christian min- istry; he always worshiped in this church whenever he was in Washington; and it was singularly appropriate that he should be carried from it to his final resting place in Arlington. This church has become significant in the history of the Presbyterian Church at large because it was here that the General Assembly met before which came the famous Briggs trial. It was in this church that the committee on revision of the confession of faith of the Pres- byterian Church held its meeting, and in 1899 it was in this church that the General Council of the Reformed Churches throughout the world holding the Presbyterian system of government was organized. . But while there are many historical associ- ations which bind this church to the life of the Nation, surely foremost of them all is the fact that it was here that Abraham Lincoln wor- shiped while he was President of our country. We are very proud of the Lincoln pew, which has been preserved until the very present, mak- ing it a shrine within a shrine. A minister of the church once said of this pew: “I had rather sit in that pew, if it were made of mud or dirt, than in one of beaten gold; it will be a mecca for our Presbyterians, and an influence of patriotism for our children and children's children.” * One day a rather distinguished American writer attended service here and was granted the privilege of sitting in the Lincoln pew. It moved him profoundly; indeed, a person must have a heart of stone not to be touched by that privilege. Going to his home after that service, he wrote this epic on the Lincoln pew: Within the historic church both eye and soul Perceived it. "Twas the pew where Lincoln sat— The only Lincoln God hath given to men— Olden among the modern seats of prayer, Dark like the ‘sixties, place and past akin. All else has changed, but this remains the same, A sanctuary in a sanctuary. Where Lincoln prayed! What passion had. his soul— Mixt faith and anguish melting into prayer Upon the burning altar of God's fane, A nation’s altar even as his own! Where Lincoln prayed! Such worship- ers as he Make thin ranks down the ages. Would’s$ " thou know His spirit suppliant? Then must thou feel War's flery baptism, taste hate’s bitter cup, Spend similar sweat of blood vicarious And sound like cry, “If it be possible!™ From stricken heart, in new Gethsemane. Who saw him there are gone, as he is gone; The pew remains, with what God gave him there, And all the: world through him. So let it be— One of the people’s shrines. ABRAHAM LINCOLN had a very strange a but impressive eustom when attending the church services. It was always his habit when the so-called “pastoral prayer” was offered to stand up. As the sainted Dr. Phineas D. Gurley, minister of the church at that time, prayed Lincoln felt that he came in the very presence of God and therefore felt moved to stand. It must have been an impressive sight (and there are some today who still remember it) to see the President of the United States and Senator Bradey, who also maintained that custom, stand in reverence and with bowed heads while the minister sought the divine guidance upon the Nation in those darkest of days, which we pray by the providence of God may never return. When the days of the Civil War were upon us and hospital accommodations failed to care for the wounded soldiers, word went out from the Army hearquarters‘fn Washington that all the churches in Washington were to be turned over to the Army for hospital purposss. The following Sunday morning Dr. Gurley made the announcement from the pulpit that that church would be closed indefinitely for that reason. Lincoln was in attendance upon the church at the time and appeared greatly sur- prised. As soon as the minister had finished the announcement he arose in the pew saying, “This church shall not be closed. We need it too much. I shall countermand the order.” And yet now and then some one will say and write that Lincoln had no use for and was little concerned with the church. We have a room on the first floor of the church of which we are very proud because it was to this room that Lincoln came to attend the midweek prayer service. It is a small room adjoining the main lecture room where the services were held. But, lest some one make use of them for political purposes, Lincoln sat in the small adjoining room with the door partially ajar, so that he could hear these peo= ple pray to God and commit the issues of the war to the Almighty. It was not until” the close of his life that this fact became known at all. Only the minister of the church and the secret seryice men were acquainted ‘wilh that fact, but one day when two young men desired to know who these strangers were leav= ing the little room at the close of the prayer meeting they traced Lincoln by the large foot- prints made in the fresh-fallen snow to the White House. When these same young men told Dr. Gurley that they had made the dis- covery he asked them upon the pledgé of hanor not to make it known and they kept their word. One of these two young men later became an elder in this church. What a message and a heritage that, to all the people of the land! The room where Lincoln prayed! ‘If he ‘had ' need of it ‘'who shall dare refuse its prattice? IN the Spring of 1928, when this church was celebrating the 125th anniversary of its un- broken ministry in this city, the family of Robert Todd Lincoln presented to this church a memorial gift in memory of Abraham Lincoln. The memorial gift is the Lincoln Memorial Tower with chimes. The tower is of the Sir Christopher Wren design, while the chimes: were made by a firm which traces back its enterprise to the family of Nancy Hanks, the mother of Abraham Lincoln, whose people were among the first makers of bells in the United. . States. There is a romance playing around that simple fact. Each night the spire of the tower is illuminated and from far and wide men can see this glorious pinnacle of light shinning in the darkness above the canyonlike tops of the city’s sky-line, shining as a light in darkness, truly symbolic of the spirit of Line coln, whose lif> led the Nation out of the dark-, ness into the light. There is a very interesting asids which in- volves the two sons of Lincoln in a memorable incident in the life of this church. Lincoln made the discovery that his two boys were not coming to the Sunday school very regularly and it annoyed him. He asked them where they did attend Sunday school and they made the reply that they preferred to attend the Sunday school of the Fourth Church of this city. They said to the President it was more fun to go there. When the President asked his boys what they meant by that statement they replied: “It is much more fun to attend church there, because we like to hear the pew doors slam when the minister prays for the President of the United States and many of the congregation with Southern convictions leave the church.in anger.” When Lincoln died, the minister of this church, Dr. Gurley, was with him, kneeling in prayer. Would that we might have that prayer preserved for us. How strange his life! No one ever went from a cradle so humble to a grave so illuse trious. The Almighty takes pleasure in using the lowliest for the highest. The least promis- ing are given names above all other names. Those who have accomplished most for mane kind have been born in humblest homes. It was so with Lincoln. It was so with Moses—and Jesus. It will be so through the ages. You cannot explain Lincoln. He is beyond ‘defining. He was not the product of his age, his home, his inheritance or his environment. He was God’s man of destiny. He willed thas birth, it is true. In times of crises the ree sources of men shrivel and the resources of God always unfold. Have heart. There is always a Lincoln for every crisis. God rules and all will be well. Lincoln is not dead. His soul goes marching on. In this new day, with its new deliverances - from injustice, tyranny, intolerance and inhu- manity, the spirit of the martyred liberator stilt lives. Hallelujah! I bless God for Abrahamy ' Lincoln and that I am counted worthy to minis- ter in that church where stands his pew, & ‘shrine within a shrine, hallowed by his hours of worship.