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A Highly Religious Man with Strong Presbyterian Beliefs
by Rev. David T. Myers

We might more readily suggest any number of men and ministers of whom this title might describe.  But when it is known that this description was given to a man, indeed a minister, by the name of Richard Denton in the early sixteen  hundreds residing in Long Island, New York, most, if not all of our readers might reply with at statement like “I never  heard of  him.”  And yet, he established the first Presbyterian church in the colonies.

Richard Denton was born in 1603 in Yorkshire, England.  Educated at Cambridge in 1623, he ministered in Halifax, England for some years in the parish of Owran.  Emigrating to Connecticut, he worked first with the famous preacher Cotton Mather.  The latter said of him that “Rev. Denton was a highly religious man with strong Presbyterian views.  He was a small man with only one eye, but in the pulpit he could sway a congregation like he was nine feet tall.”

When religious controversies, like which church government the  congregations should follow, threatened to disrupt the Connecticut group, Denton and a group of families moved to what is now Hempstead, Long Island, New York.  He settled there in a large Dutch colony.  Because there were some English settlers also there, that was enough for a congregation to be organized.

Back in those early days, his salary came from every inhabitant of the area.  In fact, you could be fined for not attending worship, and that fine was aggravated each week to a higher level for succeeding absences.  The church he began, today called Christ Presbyterian Church, was so successful with Rev. Denton in its pulpit, that Dutch people began to attend it as well.

On August 5, 1657, a letter was written by two Dutch settlers to the Classis of Amsterdam, saying: “At Hempstead, about seven leagues from here, there lives some Independents.  There are also many of our church, and some Presbyterians.  They have a Presbyterian preacher, Richard Denton, a pious, godly and learned man, who is in agreement with our church in everything.  The Independents of this place listen attentively to  his sermons; but when he began to baptize the children of (Dutch) parents who were not members of the church, they rushed out of the church.”

As time went on, the salary of Rev. Denton began to be collected sporadically by the citizens.  As a result, he planned to go back to England.  After all, he did have a large family of seven children. And it was said that his wife was sickly in constitution.  Another letter was written two months later on October 22 in which the same two writers stated, “Mr. Richard Denton, who is sound in faith, of a friendly disposition, and beloved by all, cannot be induced to remain, although we have earnestly tried to do this in various ways.”  They were not successful, and he returned to England.  He died in 1662.

Words to live by: The date of the presence of Presbyterians boggles our minds and hearts.  Since that time, countless servants of the gospel have labored in difficult fields where money has been tight.  The New Testament more than once urges the members in the pews to share all good things, including remuneration, with those who teach them the Word.

Nothing spectacular in word
by Rev. David T. Myers

We might not have even noticed William Floyd in history had he not been in place and time a signer of the Declaration of Independence.  He was like countless others in the early history of our nation.  From a family which had emigrated from the old country,  this time from Wales, William Floyd was born in Brookhaven, Long Island in 1734.  Despite the prominence of the parents, he received no academic education outside the home, and only the barest of education in the home.  The eldest son with seven younger brothers and sisters, at age 20, he found himself as the owner of the estate of  his parents when both of them died within two months of each other.

Not interested in political matters up to the time of the American Revolution, he busied himself in military matters, even reaching that rank of Major General in the New York militia.  But when the issues of separation from England were brought to the fore in the mid seventeen hundreds, he entered the political fray.  His fellow Long Islanders sent him as their representative as a delegate to the Continental  Congress in 1774.  Indeed, with the exception of one year when the State of New York needed his presence in state government, William Floyd represented his constituents at succeeding congresses until 1783.

Now, it is true, there were no passionate speeches which have been handed down to us in the mighty decisions of Congress with his name attached to it.  But he was the first of New York representatives who signed his name and sacred honor to the Declaration of Independence.  For that, we should recognize him.

Certainly the British troops recognized him as a true American, and what he had done in Philadelphia.  Occupying New York City during the revolution, the troops drove  his family into exile for seven years to Connecticut.  They then treated  his fine estate as a barracks for their soldiers and animals.  He was one of the signers who almost was bankrupted by their excesses.  After that war was over, he was still being recognized by his friends by being sent as a delegate to the First United States Congress in 1789 – 1791.

During this whole time, he was a faithful member of the South Haven Presbyterian Church in New York.  In 1802, he helped to incorporate it, even named officers.  He in turn, along with another gentleman, examined and chose four trustees, among them his son.  He helped out in the next couple of years to examine those interested in joining the church membership rolls.

He moved eventually to western New York to begin again, with a new wife since his first wife  had died.   At the ripe old age of eighty-seven years, he died on August 4, 1821.  He is buried in the Presbyterian cemetery.

Words to Live By: Some Christians are not known for their extrovert personalities, but simply do God’s will quietly and faithfully.  Many believers might not even know of their presence in their congregations or organizations, but they are there nonetheless.  They are the stalwarts of the congregation, and happy is the church where they are found.  Search them out.  Get to know them.  Encourage them by your words.  And thank God for their existence.  They keep your church going in the work of the Lord.

Seeing My Father’s world
by Rev. David T. Myers

He never even heard the hymn which he wrote, sung by a choir or congregation. He never heard it as an instrumental musical piece. That is because he wrote it as a poem in 1901 and it wasn’t published until 1916, set to music for the Presbyterian songbook for Children. But more than children have made it a favorite of theirs.

Maltbie Davenport Babcock was born on August 3, 1858 in Syracuse, New York of wealthy and prominent parents. With an amiable personality and an outstanding mind, he soon began to make the proverbial waves at the University of Syracuse. An outstanding athlete combined with a skill in music caused him to be chosen to be the director of the University orchestra. He could have been anything in life, but he chose the ministry, and specifically the Presbyterian ministry.

Studying at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York, and graduating in 1882, he was ordained and became the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church. It was there that the words of this poem and eventually the hymn of “This is My Father’s World” came into being. It was said that he loved to walk in the morning and see the beauty of God’s creation. In fact, he would say to anyone he met that “I am going out to see my Father’s world.”

His next place of ministry took place in Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, Maryland. There, he had such an impact among the students of nearby Johns Hopkins University, that the educational institution set up a special room on campus so he could minister to the student body.  He had a unique manner of presenting spiritual truths in new and fresh ways.

With the death of Henry Van Dyke at the Brick Presbyterian Church in New York, Rev. Babcock went to New York City for  his third charge.  It was there that they sent him, after a time of labor, to the Holy Land. In the midst of that trip, he suddenly died on May 18, 1901. His wife Katherine waited until 1916 before she published his poems. This one on His Father’s Word was set to music by Franklin L. Sheppard in 1915. It originally had sixteen verses, but he chose only three verses, which are found in the red Trinity hymnal on page 111. In the blue Trinity hymnal, it is found on page 109.  We need to reflect often on God’s creation.  Or by Pastor Babcock it, this is our Father’s world.

Words to Live By: Found on the flyleaf of Pastor’s Babcock’s Bible is the following quote.  It says, “Committed myself again with Christian brothers to unreserved docility and devotion before my Master.”  Whether this was at a conference or even a small group of Christians, we don’t know.  But Maltbie Babcock’s life was committed to Christ during his three pastorates. To him, “though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the Ruler yet.”  With that as his comfort, he could and did go forward to serve His heavenly Father.

God’s Providence in the Church.
by Rev. Henry A. Boardman, pastor of Philadelphia’s Tenth Presbyterian Church, from 1833 until his retirement in 1876.

            The Church has lived on through all changes, not without feeling them. It is the only earthly witness which has seen these vicissitudes from the beginning; for it is older by two thousand years than even the Jew, who antedates by more than half that period any existing nation. It has been a spectator of the convulsions which have so often sported with the European nations, and dissolved and re-constructed them as children play with their nursery-blocks. It saw the Northern hordes devastate Rome. It saw the rise of Antichrist, and the blood-stained career of Mahomet. It saw the Holy City burned up, and the chosen nation dispersed over the earth. It stood by the cross in mute anguish when its Lord was crucified. It looked on in adoring wonder when Media and Assyria dissolved in smoke. It shared the seventy years’ captivity, and long before that, the bondage in Egypt, and the wanderings in the desert. It dwelt with the patriarchs in their tents. The ark bore it in safety over the waters of the flood. It saw the confusion of tongues in Babel. It received into its bosom Enoch and Seth, and their pious contemporaries, and bore witness to the faith of the proto-martyr Abel. What a record is this to be made of any existing Institution! And yet it is literally true of the Church. Nay, it is but a small part of the truth. It were remarkable that any Institution should survive in a world like this for six thousand years. This is seen in the fact that no other Institution has survived for half that time. But the peculiarity of this case, is, that between the Institution thus distinguished, and the world, there is a radical and permanent antagonism. Had all nations and governments, however differing among themselves, united in cherishing and protecting it, the preservation of the Church had been less remarkable—though even then, it would have been a more extraordinary event than almost any other which history records. But the Church could look for no such indulgence. It was the wickedness of the world which gave occasion for its establishment. It was founded as a witness for God and His truth, to testify against the world continually, that the works thereof were evil. This it has never ceased to do. It has done it, just in proportion to its own faith and purity, in all lands, and under all circumstances.

            It used no violence. Its only weapons were light and love—truth and holiness.

            Yet neither the wisdom and excellence of its requirements, nor the moderation with which they were enforced, could save the Church from persecution. But God has its interests in view in all the dispensations of His Providence.

            It was an ancient promise concerning Zion—“No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper: and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn.” Most signally has this pledge been redeemed: and the redemption of it has involved the fulfillment of a correlative prediction against the hostile nations: “For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool; but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to generation.” So has the event proved: the nations have been consumed as by the moth, but the gates of hell have never prevailed against the Church.

            Trials and afflictions may still await it; but the end is sure. Christ will yet come to present it to Himself, a glorious Church, and all who have faithfully served Him, or faithfully suffered for Him, will then rise and reign with Him forever.

“Tell me about them big arms!” 

Cornelius Washington Grafton was born on December 21, 1846 and died on this day, August 1st, in 1934. Trained for the ministry at Columbia Theological Seminary, Rev. Grafton was for forty-three years the pastor of the Union Church Presbyterian Church in rural Mississippi. Most of our resources on this memorable pastor are not at hand, and so we will glance over further details of his life, but the transcript of a little booklet he wrote on his years of ministry is available and it presents some interesting insights into rural ministry before the advent of the automobile. In the following portion of that booklet, Rev. Grafton gives an overview of his work as a pastor in a rural setting:—

PASTORAL WORK AT UNION CHURCH FOR FORTY-THREE YEARS.

The pastoral work has been very laborious. Including Bensalem, the sister church, our congregation stretches over twenty miles in legnth and about the same in breadth, 400 square miles. Around the church the people are more thickly settled, and they can always come to church and Sunday School. And a good deal of the pastoral work can be done by walking around from house to house. But in the outlying sections of the congregation this has been impossible. Some of our members rarely ever get to church and they cannot have the benefit of the Sunday School and the prayer service. And when the preacher goes to see them, it’s a long, hard day’s work; if the roads happen to be bad, especially hard. Some of the trips the country preacher has taken, make one tired to think about. Three fine horses and two or three buggies have been worn out in the service and I am now looking around for the horse that will probably last till sunset comes.

(Since the above was written for the General Assembly, the school boys and girls of the Union Church High School, of which I was principal for ten years, as will be explained further on, united and bought for their teacher, a Ford touring car. At out summer communion occasion this year, a bright young lawyer from a neighboring town, one of our former schoolboys, made a touching address to the congregation, presenting the car as an expression of their tender regard.)

A visit to quite a number of our families cannot be made oftener than once a year, but a pastoral visit in the country means more than it does in the cities and towns. In the big cities, I suppose, the preacher spends his mornings in the study and walks out in the afternoon and calls on his flock and goes to see four or five and sometimes just leaves a card. But not so in the country. You send word beforehand that you are coming such and such a day, and when that day comes, rain or shine, you start early in the morning. You get to the house by and by and find them all looking for you, and they come out to the gate to meet you. Your horse is put away and fed; after a little while, if it is summer time, they cut the big melon or bring out the peaches and figs. By and by the bell rings in the dining room and lo, dinner is ready.

Solomon says, “Put a knife to thy throat when thou sittest at the table of kings.” He says again, “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.” But in these old country homes you have the ox and love too, besides the clean herbs of the field. If you ever felt like eating in all your life, now is your chance. But be sure you don’t eat too much. Many ridiculous stories we could tell of persons who forgot Solomon’s injunction. Two hours after dinner comes the ice cream, and again you minister to the outward man, for they have sent for this occasion out to the railroad for ice.

At last the Bible is brought out and now preacher, here again is your chance. You may not see some of these people again in twelve months. Give meat to parents, and pure milk of the Word for the little ones. Speak tenderly and earnestly and then in prayer remember all three generations that are here present, father and son and son’s sons and daughters. Sow seed for eternity.

The preacher naturally forms a line of habits. The first Saturday evening in January he goes to the Baker home, the first of February to the Buie home; Saturday before communion occasion to the Currie home, and so on and on throughout the year. Changes occur in the program of course, for death comes and homes are broken up. These long pastoral rides are formidable indeed. To wit: to ride 20 miles on horseback or in a buggy to see one of your people and back again the same day, twenty-five miles to see another family and back again the next day; and this is repeated again and again. Journeys of 15 miles a day are too numerous to mention.

One recompense though, is the pure air and the bright sunshine, and the beautiful woods and the flowing streams and the long trip with your boy or your girl. While laborious, some of these pastoral trips have been inexpressibly sweet and carry memories that can never die.

A missionary in distant China sits down in his home with his little boys and tells them of the long trips he used to take with his father in Mississippi, and how he talked of Bismarck and Napoleon and made the miles seem short as he drew pictures of the future. And the girl now grown to womanhood, can never forget the long rides to the railroad, the dinner by the roadside, the deep creeks and scary-looking bogs, the outpourings of girlish confidence and the warm-hearted friends met on the way.

Another recompense is in carrying the gospel personally to men. “Tell me about them big arms!” This was the language of a dying Scotchman as the pastor entered the room. The old man had heard the preacher talk sometime before about the God of Jeshurun, and underneath the everlasting arms, and like a babe in early childhood, he now felt the need of the strong arms.

Words to Live By:
Our Lord and Savior does indeed have big arms, and He is able to save to the uttermost all those who trust and cling to Him for salvation. This glorious truth is the same whether proclaimed in the city or the country. All men and women are at heart the same wherever they are. In all ages and times and settings, we are desperate sinners, dead to all that is holy and good and in need of One who will make us alive unto God, redeeming us from our sin and restoring us to eternal fellowship with the God who made us.   So much attention is given to taking the Gospel to the cities. Pray the Lord would raise up those who would faithfully go to the towns, villages and countryside with the life-giving message of salvation in Jesus Christ our Lord.

The booklet, A Forty-Three Year Pastorate, by C.W. Grafton, is available from the Log College Press. Click here to view details

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