FROM

THE

MILLENNIAL HARBINGER.

SERIES III.

VOL. IV.	B E T H A N Y, AUGUST, 1847.	NO. VIII.

      My dear Clarinda--SINCE I finished my last letter to you, we have had quite a strong wind and a rough sea. During the last 24 hours [433] we have sailed 250 miles eastwardly. We are now about 450 miles from Cape Clear, on the southern extremity of Ireland. The sea is so rough and the squalls so frequent, and our ship, though carrying more than 1000 tons burthen, rolls so severely that I have tied my chair to our dining table while I write this letter, to keep me from being flung across the cabin. Having promised a few more remarks on incidents in New York, I proceed to redeem my pledge,

      New York seems destined long to remain Queen of American cities, and to be the great emporium and mart of American commerce. Her fine rivers, her commodious harbors, her proximity to the ocean, her easy egress to the European world, her improved and greatly improvable intercommunication with the great lakes of America, her own state resources, her easy intercourse with all the Atlantic cities, together with the energy and enterprize of her citizens, give her a position above all comparison the most favorable for commercial superiority over all that might presume to rival her in that supremacy which she now possesses.

      I never visit this city without being forcibly impressed with the rapidity of her growth and the more than equally rapid increase of her population. She is already, including her environs, bordering on four hundred thousand souls. The consequence of increasing wealth and population is a corresponding increase of luxury and vice. What Cowper said of London in his day may be said of New York in our day, by any one possessed of Cowper's views of mankind. I cannot exactly quote the passage, but you can help me. After speaking of the English metropolis as chequered with men of all climes and of all crimes, the poet proceeds--

      To the enlightened Christian philanthropist this city presents a grand theatre of Christian action and enterprize. If when Paul saw Athens wholly enslaved to idolatry, his spirit was moved within him, methinks could he now visit New York, under the present dispensation of his gospel, so enslaved to Mammon, to all that is in the world--"the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life"--his soul would languish within him, while he would exclaim, "Whither has fled the spirit of my gospel! Alas! the days foretold [434] are come! when multitudes would have the form of godliness, yet deny the power of it." Most men can have no peace with themselves unless they assume some form of religion; but that form assumed, and then the great majority can go almost all lengths in conformity to the world in the intricating and soul-destroying pursuits of the bewitching delusions of wealth and grandeur.

      There are many churches in New York, many parties, many creeds, and of course many spirits have gone forth into the world. Amongst these, no doubt, many Christians; but these absorbed as they are in their influence by the great multitude that have the form without the power, have comparatively little or no direct influence on those living "without God and without hope in the world." It is possible, under the pride, competition, and rivalry of contending parties, to display much zeal and to make large contributions for building up partizan institutions, whether in the form of houses of worship, of a regular ministry, or of missionary exertions; and yet have little taste and less love for the true gospel, the true ordinances, and the true piety of the true church of Jesus Christ. Hence multitudes delude themselves and others in the sacrifices which they allege they are making for Christ; when they are only offering them at the shrine of their own selfishness and pride. To illustrate this I must tell you of a visit I made to Trinity church the other day.

      Passing along Broadway, and seeing the truly elegant and splendid steeple of Trinity Church, "like a tall bully," lifting itself up 236 feet from the ground, challenging the eye of every one that passeth by, to compute how much more heavenly in his aspirations he who worships under such a lofty steeple, than he who worships in a house whose only steeple is a chimney to bear its smoke away. Feeling disposed to look into this sanctuary, and there to apply my standard of appreciation, on ascertaining that the church was daily opened at 9 o'clock A. M., and at 3 o'clock P. M., according to the Jewish hours of daily prayer, I resolved to visit it at some consecrated hour.

      A little before the hour brother Henshall and myself entered the church-yard, and slowly walked round this truly splendid and magnificent Gothic pile, surveying its bulwarks, and marking well its towers. This hallowed fane, in Jewish style, stands East and West along the Broadway, and just at the head of Wall street--a truly apposite location, at the top of the richest street, and on the West side of the longest and most crowded Broadway on the American continent. Was it according to prophecy, or was it accident? You sages tell!

      We enter at the East end, and passing under its towering and [435] splendidly conceived steeple, directly under its immense organ, filling one end of the edifice, we pass into the grand central aisle. On either side two grand ranges of pews, besides two side ranges within its superbly grand arches, numerous as its windows. Its principal aisles have a row of open seats for plebeians who may presume to enter. I aim not to speak in architectural style in the midst of the great Atlantic, of the superb massive arches, the Gothic windows, the "long drawn aisles and fretted vaults" through which their "pealing anthems swell the note of praise," which beautify and adorn this truly classic and splendid edifice. But we cannot pass without a compliment, the magnificent window which fills the Western end, where stood the Shechinah in Solomon's Temple.

      This immense window, which in Gothic magnificence occupies the centre of the West end, rising some thirty feet high, and of such spacious dimensions as to admit in full size, with all the honors crowded thick upon them, seven of the most sublime personages in holy writ. In the midst of this rank of spiritual dignities stands the Lord Messiah himself, looking up the centre of the church. On his right hand stands "Saint Peter" with the keys of the unseen world at his girdle, and on his left hand stands the Apostle John. Outside of these two, on the left. Luke and Paul; the latter with his crosier and his parchments; while outside of Peter, on the right, are Mark and Matthew. As books are read from left to right, they stand Matthew, Mark, Peter, Jesus Christ, John, Luke, and Paul; the four Evangelists, the two chief Apostles, and the Lord himself facing the congregation. All the windows of the church are stained with different colors, to exclude objects from without from intruding upon the worshippers within. This window is superbly colored so as to set off in all worldly grandeur these great personages, decorated as they are in garments baptized in fonts of gold, and rubies, and jasper, and topaz, and emerald, encircled with halos of unearthly glory and beauty. James, the brother of John, alone is wanting to remind you of the "mount of transfiguration," and to contrast it with the imaginative glories of the window of desecration. In the mount the humbled Messiah put on the glories of heaven; but in this window of humiliation the gloried Redeemer and his attendants are made to assume the attire and costume of "men in the flesh" according to uncultivated taste of an unregenerated artist.

      I cannot, indeed, do justice to this group, having glanced at them but a few minutes; and this, too, at a considerable distance. The window, indeed, is such a brilliant affair of purple, and scarlet, and pink, and saffron, and violet, and azure, and green, as to dazzle the [436] imagination, and so to confound the understanding as rather to obscure the designs and notions of the artists in garnishing and decorating these august images.

      Before and beneath this splendid window, and around the chancel, you might find an antique chair for each of the twelve Apostles; but all the eloquence of the bishop of New York could induce but one of the original twelve to sit in any of them.

      Outside of this consecrated spot, on the extended wings of an eagle and left of "Saint Matthew" upon the floor of the church, stand a desk, and a Bible and a minister, to perform the morning and the evening service six days in every week. Opposite to this desk, on the right, ascending in a circular stairway round a splendid column, the Parson places himself--in a round tub-like pulpit, about eight feet from the earth; from which he reads to the people his sabbatical sermonic essays, done up in the most polite and fashionable style.

      With such pictures before the eye, and such displays of earthly grandeur and carnality around, I could not imagine how any one spiritually minded--an admirer and a true worshipper of Him that was born in a stable and died upon a cross--could feel himself happy and at home, amidst such idle and unmeaning pageantry. For my own part, I must say, that I would feel myself infinitely more at home on the Lord's day in some humble edifice, in some private oratory, in some glen, or mountain, or forest--in some upper room--any where on earth, or sea, than on my knees upon a velvet cushion, in such a temple, and amid such worshippers as would, or could, delight in such secular associations.

      But I have not yet dismissed this splendid Cathedral. According to my calculation of its seated area, and with all its accommodations, it will not comfortably seat more than one thousand persons--possibly twelve hundred might be squeezed into it. For the accommodation of this number, besides the ground on which it stands, there have been expended the enormous sum of three hundred and eighty-six thousand dollars for the building alone. Nor is this cathedral called Trinity (Trinity!) built of marble, but of red iron colored sand-stone, translated from Connecticut.¹ True, indeed, this color gives it an air of high antiquity, and being of one color within and without, one might imagine that, although only consecrated a few mouths since, it had already borne the storms of a thousand winters. Indeed, the whole affair is regarded as so elegant in design, and so [437] exquisite in execution, that, I learn, a volume larger than the New Testament is advertised as containing a description of it. I have not, indeed, seen it; but I certainly saw the advertisement. On the whole, it is regarded as both a splendid and pious offering of the church episcopal, and a model for all the elite (not elect!) saints who have command of the real quid pro quo, or who may have $386,000 "in trust" for the Lord.

      To worship acceptably in this superb structure requires great preparation of the body--acceptably to the audience I mean! The worthy members of this church must have on more than a wedding garment when they appear before the aristocracy of New York. They must dress a-la-mode Victoria. Their graces of apparel are above all plebeian, all republican, all Christian aspiration. A lady of Saint John's happily illustrates this point. Being invited to accompany a sister matron to Trinity upon a certain Sabbath, responds in terms to the following effect--"Dear Madam, I thank you for your kind invitation to accompany you to Trinity; but I am sorry to be unprepared to accompany you, as I am only dressed for St. John's." Was there ever such a comment on the wedding garment!!

      I have alluded to this grand affair, not to describe it, but to illustrate, and, perhaps, prove my position. Some might condemn this whole affair as being wholly "earthly, sensual, and demoniacal;" but from such rash Judgments I beg leave to dissent. Presuming that a very comfortable plain and substantial building, of equal capacity, (the ground not included,) could have been erected for ten or twelve thousand dollars, so much of this sum might have been religiously given to the Lord. But this is less than the one thirtieth part of the whole! Of course, then, in the judgment of charity, we may suppose that one thirtieth was given to the Lord, and only twenty-nine thirtieths to the "Prince of the Power of the Air."

      I could wish that this spirit of devotion to the "lusts of the eye" and to the "pride of life" was exclusively Episcopalian. But, alas! it is not so sectarian. Much of the piety of other Protestant edifices is of the same character. There is a leaven of rivalry and ecclesiastic competition in the erection of superb and costly edifices, which, in an age of wealth and worldly-mindedness, seems to be all-pervading. There is often heard and seen as much party rivalry in building "high places" for the Lord, as in building large and stately habitations for ourselves. We are just as proud of worshipping the Lord in a fine cathedral as in living in a fine mansion ourselves. We have three kinds of pride, and not any one of the three is spiritual pride. We have personal pride, family pride, and church [438] or meeting-house pride. It means, "I am a big man, belong to a big family, live in a big house, and worship in a big church, under a very high steeple!" This is to speak sincerely and without hypocrisy, and explains many a strange notion.

      On Tuesday morning, at noon, together with brother Robert Clark and Mr. Boddie, of Mississippi, our fellow-travellers to Europe, we got aboard our ship and bade adieu to our beloved America with all in it that nature and religion have rendered dear to our hearts.

      We were towed down the East River by the steam-boat Hercules, accompanied by brethren Craig and Melish along Staten Island, down through Sandy Hook, into the great Atlantic. Through a telescope I saw the buildings yet standing on Staten Island where first I sojourned in 1809. After an affectionate farewell, our friends returned to the city, and we turned our face to the Old World, where we now hope to arrive in a few days. I have sketched these few lines on a rough sea and amidst much confusion. I cannot transcribe them.------Your affectionate Father,

[The Millennial Harbinger, Third Series, 4 (August 1847): 433-439.]