A Story of Providence A.B. Simpson
A Paper read at the Quarter Centennial of the Gospel
Tabernacle Church, New York, Feb. 11, 1907.
The history of the Gospel Tabernacle Church for the past
quarter of a century divides itself into seven sections.
I. The Causes That Led Up To This Work
These involve a brief reference to the personal history of the
senior pastor. Thirty-one years ago he received a profound
spiritual blessing in the midst of an ambitious and half
consecrated ministry. The baptism of the Holy Spirit that
followed, awakened in this heart an intense longing for the
salvation of souls and simpler methods of reaching the masses
with the Gospel. After attempting for several years to
accomplish this purpose in a fashionable Presbyterian church
in a western city, during which something was accomplished,
but much was hindered by the social exclusiveness and the
conventional religious methods about him, he accepted a call
to the city of New York in 1880, with the explicit
understanding on the part of his new church officers that they
should unite with him in a popular religious movement to reach
the unchurched masses. After an experience of two years in
this city church pastorate, marked by unbroken harmony between
himself and his church, and much spiritual blessing every way,
he became convinced of the impossibility of reaching the
masses by the old conventional church methods, and determined,
after much prayerful consideration, to retire from his
pastorate and begin an evangelistic campaign along
undenominational lines and by simple methods of church work
and life, on the principle of a free church without pew rents,
where all classes and denominations would be equally welcome.
Two incidents occurred which hastened his decision at that
time. One was his own experience of divine healing, after
years of physical weakness and suffering. Another was his
being led to accept for himself the doctrine of baptism by
immersion, which, while not demanding his ecclesiastical
separation from his brethren, by joining a close communion
Baptist church, yet made it embarrassing for him to continue
to act as a Presbyterian pastor. In consequence of this
decision he quietly announced to his congregation his purpose,
and at the same time requested them not to follow him or leave
upon him the odium of having broken up the church to which he
had ministered. The parting was most friendly and the Church
has continued to prosper along the old lines until this day.
The following Monday morning he announced his resignation to
the New York Presbytery and was realeased by a kindly
resolution, on motion of Dr. Howard Crosby, seconded by Dr.
John Hall, who both expressed much affection, and the hope of
his early return to the church of his fathers. It is pleasant
to look back to a crisis of so much importance, passed without
any strain whatever. As he left the Presbytery that morning a
beloved brother expressed to him his sympathy and best wishes,
but added, "you will never succeed without keeping work under
the auspices of the Presbyterian church." He felt, however,
much freer and much stronger in simple dependence upon God
alone. It was a cutting of of every earthly cable of
dependence, and one of the olderst friends of his life, a
distinguished minster, who twenty years later came back to his
fellowship and help, wrote to him in those early days, that
had made the mistake of his life. That morning the elders of
his church called at his home to express to his wife their
profound sympathy, and they remarked, as the condoled with
her, that "they felt as though they were attending his
funeral," and it is possible she may also have felt that he
might as well be dead.
II. The Transition Days
The new work was immediately started by a Sabbath afternoon
meeting in a cheap hall in the vicinity, at which he announced
through the press an address on the spiritual needs of the
city and the masses, and invited all in sympathy with an
aggressive spiritual movement to come. There was an
encouraging attendance, and the first step was taken by
calling a meeting for conference and prayer during the week on
the part of all who were willing to help. It might be added,
that the secular press gave a wide advertisement to the new
movement and the reporters wanted to know how he expected the
work to be supported. His answer was, "that just as in
business, anything that was worth succeeding always found
people enough to sustain it, so in the work of God if anything
was worth doing God would see that it was supported." In this
spirit he announced at the meeting, above referred to, that
trusting in God alone to supply the means and the workers, he
would not personally ask any man to join the movement, or to
give a dollar to it. During these years God has graciously
supplied both the workers and the means and honored the simple
trust with which it was begun. On the appointed day the
meeting for Conference and Prayer was held in that cold and
cheerless dance hall, and as we huddled around a little stove,
there were just seven of us and as we opened God's word for
His message it was this, "This is the work of the Lord unto
Zerubabel, Not my might, nor my power, but by My Spirit, saith
the Lord of hosts. For who hath despised the day of small
things."
So the work started and only two of those seven are here
today, but they are here to bear witness that the word of the
Lord has not failed.
The next Sabbath evening, evangelistic services were begun in
the old hall, and the first convert was saved and is still a
member of this church. The week evening services were held in
the pastor's house, and were attended by the workers and
converts, their chief purpose being the teaching and training
of the little flock. At first there had been no thought of
forming a church, but simply the carrying on of an
evangelistic work, leaving the converts free to join various
churches. But a conversation with Dr. Judson at this time
first suggested the idea of an independent church. He asked
the pastor what he intended to do with his converts, and being
told, "I expect to send them to you and other ministers to
look after them," the good Dr. replied, " I have enough
children of my own to nurse and don't want any of yours. The
mother is always the best nurse of her own children." The
matter was taken to God in prayer and soon the little flock
was clamoring for a church home. Some wanted to be baptised,
all wanted the Lord's Supper and none wanted to be sent away,
so it came to pass that a little church of less than twenty
members was organized, with not enough men to go round and
fill the various offices, so that some of our first trustees
had to be "elect ladies."
III. The Work at Eighth Avenue and Twenty-Third St.
The evangelistic meetings had been removed in the meanwhile to
a larger place, and under circumstances for which this brief
summary allows no time to give details, the first large
popular service was held in the Academy of Music. At the
opening meeting we received valuable assistance from Dr.
George F. Pentecost and Mr. Stebbins. Later the meetings were
removed to Steinway Hall, and still later to Abbey's Park
Theatre, where large crowds continually came, and the saving
power of the Gospel and the Holy Spirit were continually
manifested. It should be added that Rev E.W. Oakes had at the
very beginning volunteered his services and for a considerable
time rendered efficient help in the evangelistic and other
services. The rental of these large buildings was expensive,
and for the first few months the pastor stood alone in
trusting God for the supply of these needs. But after the
organization of the little church, the members asked the
privilege of taking hold with liberal hands and
self-sacrificing love, and a system of weekly offerings was
begun, which up to the present has supplied the financial
resources of the work. So bold was the faith of the little
company that within two months after the organization of the
church, they dared to undertake the lease of the Grand Opera
Hall, Eighth Avenue and Twenty-third Street, at a rental of
$2,000 a year, and they nobly met it from the beginning. For a
considerable time this commodious hall became the headquarters
of our work, and a regular Sunday morning and evening service,
with meetings every night in the week, except Saturday, was
started. The hall was filled from the beginning on Sunday
evenings, and the work of salvation went steadily on. This
hall was pastor's office, auditorium, printing house, Sunday
School room, and almost everything that the needs of the work
required. The Friday meeting, for special testimony and
teaching in connection with divine healing was also organized
here, and has never ceased for the past twenty-four years to
be a centre of deep and even world-wide blessing. During the
ensuing summer a splendid evangelistic work was carried on in
a large Gospel tent on Twenty-third Street, on the site now
occupied by the Chelsea apartment house. During this year more
than three hundred souls were led to Christ in the tent and
most of them united with the church. These were days of great
blessing. Services were held every night in the week and our
young people had no trouble about settling the question of
amusement, for they wanted no better recreation than a Gospel
meeting. They were accustomed to go out on Saturdays in little
bands and scatter invitations to the services so that the
following Sunday the meetings were crowded with multitudes of
souls, who were unconnected with any church. One cannot look
back on those days of blessing without tears of grateful
memory and loving appreciation of the noble workers who gave
themselves wholly to this work. It is a great joy that this
fruitful field has not been allowed to pass into neglect, but
is still occupied so faithfully and successfully by the Eighth
Avenue Gospel Mission, under the direction of our dear sister,
Miss Wray.
IV. Our First Tabernacle
The time had now come when we began to feel the need of a
permanent home, and to watch and pray for the Lord's leading
regarding a tabernacle building. Our first idea was an
extremely cheap edifice of corrugated iron, costing from
$1,000 to $2,000, and holding a large audience on one floor.
For this purpose four lots were secured on Thirty-second
Street, on the site now occupied by the new Pennsylvania
Railroad station, with connecting lot, entering from Eighth
Avenue. A payment was made on this property, but the property
was afterwards lost, chiefly through the dishonesty of a
wicked attorney, who had been entrusted with a considerable
sum of money for the purpose of making a payment on the
property and absconded. Soon after our attention was directed
to a better location on Twenty-third Street, near Sixth
Avenue, an old Armory building, but at that time unoccupied.
This, we found could be leased for a moderate sum, and while
rude and plain, would accommodate a large crowd and was in the
very best location in the heart of the city. After much
prayer, we felt led to enter into an arrangement with the
proprietor, but before the lease was signed he sent us word
that a theatrical company had appeared at the last moment and
offered him a lease for the property, the amount we had agreed
to give, and a promise to expend nearly a hundred thousand
dollars in improving the property, for the purpose of the
exhibiting a religious drama, known as Passion Play, a
representation of the crucifixion of Christ. His partners
insisted upon his accepting this larger offer, and as the
papers were not signed, we were helpless.
The morning after this a good woman, a member of the church,
called upon the pastor and asked "if he had heard the good
news." He was at a loss to understand how this could be good
news, but she proceeded to explain to him that the Lord had
sent these people to fix up this old ruined building for us,
as we were poor and without means, and that just as soon as it
was all ready, she added, "see if He does not give it to us."
This was a little staggering at first, but this is exactly
what came to pass. After waiting a few months, while this
company expended $75,000 in making a little gem of the old
Armory, and all in ecclesiastical style for a religious play,
with seven golden candle sticks for lamps and decorations to
match, the city authorities refused to allow them to perform
this sacrilegious play, and as the building was unsuited for a
worldly performance they could not use it for ordinary
theatrical purposes. The result was the company broke down,
the president committed suicide, his partner was burned out
the same week, and the owner let us have the building at the
same rental that he had offered it several months before, with
all the improvements thrown in. It is needless to say that we
entered this little sanctuary on Twenty-third Street with awed
and thankful hearts and that we felt that nothing was too hard
to claim from our Almighty Master. For three years He
permitted us to work and worship in that place, the old
Twenty-third Street Tabernacle. It was there that the
Christian Alliance was organized and our first conventions
held, and all the things which have since been vouchsafed to
us in our home and foreign work inaugurated. This became a
great evangelistic centre. The doors were always open every
night in the week, and the one business of the church was to
seek and save the lost.
V. The Beginning of Our Institutional Work
Before this time the work of divine healing had taken quiet,
but powerful hold of the hearts of many of our people, and the
pastor was led in the very first year of the work to announce
the opening of a home on Thirty-fourth Street, near where the
Manhattan Opera House now stands. A few days after this
purpose was formed, a gentleman contributed $2,000, quite
unsolicited, and this enabled us to begin the work of
Berachah. Many delightful parlor meetings were held in that
home and many Christian men and women from other churches were
attracted to the work by this deeper spiritual teaching and
intense life and power. A year later a generous friend, who is
still with us, contributed a larger sum toward the purchase of
a permanent home on Twenty-third Street, for the Berachah
work, where again God was pleased to manifest His presence for
many years in healing and blessing. A little later one of the
workers in Berachah invested a few thousand dollars in
building lots up town for the Lord. Within a year the value of
these lots had multiplied so rapidly that they were sold at a
large profit, which, with the amount already contributed,
enabled us to purchase our next Berachah Home, Sixty-first
Street and Park Avenue. Still later, when the present
Tabernacle was building, this property was disposed of and the
larger building, 250 West Forty-fourth Street, was erected for
the work of Berachah.
Shortly after the work was begun a number of the young men
converted in the meetings offered themselves for missionary
work, and requested some regular means of Bible teaching and
training for their work. The result of this was the beginning
of the Missionary Training School, which has since grown so
rapidly and of which another paper has given us the fuller and
deeply interested details.
The spirit of rescue work was always predominant among our
people. One result of this was the forming of various
missions. One of the earliest was Twenty-seventh Street
Midnight Mission, and later Berachah, West Twenty-second
Street, both under the direction of Mrs. Henry Naylor, now
Mrs. Henck.
From the very beginning the work of publication had a
prominent place. Our first periodical was "The Word, Work and
World," a monthly, followed later by the "Christian Alliance,"
which afterwards became "The Christian and Missionary
Alliance," and has been published as a weekly journal, with a
large circulation, for about eighteen years. Various
publications were added from time to time, and the printing
press has been as widely used in the Alliance work as any
other agency.
The consecration of many young lives to the missionary field
led very soon to a call for some foreign missionary agency. As
long ago as 1884 several independent missionaries went out
from the Tabernacle to the Soudan, but the unsatisfactory
results of that movement showed the necessity of a thoroughly
organized society, and in 1887, just twenty years ago, the
first definite steps were taken for the organization of our
present missionary work, first under the name of International
Missionary Alliance, and now the Christian and Missionary
Alliance. The results of this movement and its world-wide
extent have been fully described in one of the special papers
of this series.
From an early date many Christian friends were attracted from
all parts of the country to visit the work in the Tabernacle,
and became deeply interested and much blessed, and they
expressed an earnest desire that the same truths might be
proclaimed and the same blessing communicated to other parts
of the land. The result was many invitations to hold
conventions and conferences in various cities and summer
resorts. One of the earliest of these was the Old Orchard
Convention. Others followed in many places. The pastor became
increasingly embarrassed by the strong personal aspect, which
these meetings necessarily had, and feeling that if the work
was to be recognized as his work in any special or exclusive
sense, it could never have God's fullest blessing, or the most
lasting influence, he earnestly advised the forming of some
society which would take away this personal character from the
meetings and conventions, and make all the workers equal
partners in this new spiritual movement. It was this that led
to the founding of the Christian Alliance in the year 1887 at
Old Orchard, Maine, for the purpose of uniting Christians of
various denominations in a common testimony for the fullness
of Jesus as our Saviour, Sanctifier, Healer and Coming King.
This society was afterwards united with the missionary branch
of the work and now they together form the Christian and
Missionary Alliance, which God has been pleased to use for a
much wider work than any single church could ever have
accomplished, but which the Gospel Tabernacle Church should
never cease to regard as one of her many spiritual children.
VI. The Second Tabernacle
After three years of blessed work in the old Twenty-third
Street Tabernacle, an opportunity offered to purchase a large
and valuable church property, known as the Hepworth Tabernacle
on Madison Avenue and Forty-fifth Street, at an extremely low
price, and on very easy terms. A cash payment of only a few
thousand dollars was required and the interest on the mortgage
was no greater than we were paying out for rent, and the
building was large, commodious and central. Besides, it
brought us into a new neighborhood, and added to us a new
constituency. Here we continued to work four years longer, but
we gradually found that the neighborhood was entirely too
fashionable for the simple Gospel work to which God had called
us, and it was somewhat difficult to draw the masses to our
meetings. To offset this we spent our summers in Gospel tent
work occupying for two seasons the vacant lot still used for
tent work on Fifty-sixth Street and Broadway. The conviction
gradually fastened itself upon us that God would have us
settle permanently on a more popular thoroughfare and within
reach of the masses, especially on the West side, where our
work had begun. In 1888 the Madison Avenue Tabernacle was sold
at a considerable advance on the price paid for it, and the
present site was purchased along with the adjoining site on
Forty-fourth Street for Berachah Home. A joint arrangement was
made for adding the rear portion of the Berachah lot to the
Tabernacle property, while Berachah built and used the upper
floors and the Tabernacle the ground floor of this rear lot.
This gave to us sufficient capacity for our present commodious
building, and steps were immediately taken for the erection of
the present Tabernacle. The congregation meanwhile worshipped
in Wendell Hall, Forty-fifth Street, near Ninth Avenue.
VII. Our Present and Third Tabernacle
We had now compassed the city, having really moved entirely
round in a circle from Caledonian Hall to the Academy of
Music, thence to Twenty-third Street Tabernacle, thence to
Forty-fifth Street and Madison Avenue, and finally back to
Eighth Avenue. It was with great rejoicing that the corner
stone was laid in the fall of 1889 and the work committed to
the ownership and blessing of our God. The entire building was
a triumph of architectural skill, in bringing the largest
possible accommodations out of the smallest space, including
an auditorium holding over a thousand persons, with three
chapels affording room for several hundred more, a store on
the street from our publication work, a Training Institute on
Eighth Avenue with accommodations for forty persons, and the
home of Forty-fourth Street, with accommodations for nearly
one hundred.
At length, in May, 1889, the buildings were dedicated to God
in connection with a large convention, gathered from various
parts of the United States and Canada. The financing of these
buildings was a task whose difficulty can only be understood
by one or two, who were permitted to stand in the place of
responsibility during those trying months. Their experience,
if it could be told, would be a story of divine providence and
simple trust, that could not fail to fill all hearts with
wonder and praise. If the rules that control this
commemoration service permitted, it would be a pleasure to
mention, at least, one honored name in this connection, but to
God alone be all the praise.
The early years of our work in the new Tabernacle will never
be forgotten by the few who still survive. The principal
services were our evangelistic meetings, which for a long time
were held every night in the week and constantly gathered in
the sinful and the sad, and brought new testimonies
continually of salvation and blessing. We were greatly aided
in this evangelistic movement by a beloved brother, who, with
his dear wife, has gone to be with Christ some years ago. We
refer to Mr. Burke, our Gospel singer, whose efficient
leadership of our chorus choir and earnest devoted work for
the salvation of souls and the service of praise can never be
forgotten. The Tabernacle was crowded on Sunday evenings from
year to year, and well filled most of the week nights, while
the Sunday morning service was at first much smaller and was
slowly built up to its present importance.
Meanwhile the growth of the Alliance movement in all parts of
the country and the world demanded more and more of the senior
pastor's time, both in official work and the visitation of our
numerous conventions throughout the country. In those days we
had no field workers as now, and the burden of convention work
fell chiefly upon him. It was his privilege in this connection
to visit from year to year the principal cities of the United
States and Canada, holding conventions and organizing the work
where it was practicable. This necessitated additional help in
the Tabernacle work and led to the calling of our beloved
brother, Dr. Wilson as associate pastor, along with Mr. Funk,
who acted in this capacity from the beginning, but whose
duties largely confined him to the Missionary Training
Institute, and left him only a little time for church work.
Dr. Wilson will give in his own words the story of his
precious and fruitful ministry amongst us, nor are we
permitted, by the restraint properly imposed upon us at this
meeting, to give adequate expression to the appreciation and
love which his character and labors have called forth from us
all. For the same reason we are constrained to be silent also
regarding the quiet, but ever faithful and efficient
ministries of Pastor Funk. It is not out of place, however, to
mention another quiet ministry, which, during the past ten
years, has grown more and more helpful in connection with the
Tabernacle, namely, the little four o'clock meeting and its
beloved and venerable leader, who is one of the little company
of not more than a dozen now living who have been with us from
the beginning.
During these years the Tabernacle became the scene of many
wonderful gatherings, especially our Alliance conventions.
Here also have been heard the voices of many of God's honored
servants, including such names as Henry Varley, Pastor
Stockmeyer, Hudson Taylor, Dr. Guinness, F.B. Meyer, Andrew
Murray, Dr. Scofield, Mrs. Baxter, Mrs. Brodie, Frances
Willard, and many more.
The increasing needs of the Alliance work had been making such
inroads upon Dr. Wilson's time that the need was deeply felt
for a pastor who could give his whole time exclusively to the
Tabernacle work. For this purpose Rev. Milton M. Bales was
called as associate pastor in the year 1901, and for three
years faithfully ministered in this place and was honored by
the Master, leading many souls to Christ and many others into
the fullness of the Spirit. At length promotion came to him
also, and he too was added to the increasing list of the Field
Superintendents of the Alliance, and once more the church was
called to pray for an under-shepherd. This need was finally
met by the call of the Tabernacle to Rev. F. E. Marsh of
Sunderland, England, our present Acting Pastor, whose work
amongst us began in November, 1905, and is still being
continued in manifold labors and increasing blessing.
The recent history of the Tabernacle is too near to form good
material for the historian's task. It will suffice to say that
the year recently closed has been, spiritually and
financially, one of the most prosperous and successful in the
history of the church, and the time seems again at hand, when,
with a great increase in the value of our property and the
need for a building more fully adapted to the various
departments of our Sunday School, church and convention work,
we may be called once more to move forward and change our
local habitation.
It will be sufficient, therefore, to sum up in a few general
remarks the leading lessons which God has been emphasizing in
the story of the Gospel Tabernacle.
1. The work has always been pre-eminently evangelistic, the
salvation of souls has ever been, and we trust will ever be,
its supreme business. It was born in this atmosphere and
without it, it will languish and decay.
2. It has always been a free church and its financial and
social methods have aimed to conform to the principles of
God's Word and the Apostolic Church. The system of pew rents
has been abjured, and all classes have been equally welcome
and all seats free. Religious entertainments have been
studiously avoided, whether with or without admission fees,
and our people taught to give voluntarily for the support of
God's work on principle only. Before commencing this work, the
pastor was often told by his former officers that a free
church never could be sustained in New York City. The success
of the Tabernacle is a sufficient answer and this church is a
monument of God's blessing on Scriptural methods of church
finance.
3. The Tabernacle has always stood for the deepest
spirituality and the highest standard of Christian faith and
life. While not demanding a deep experience as a condition of
membership for God's little ones, it has aimed to lead them on
into all the fullness of Christ, and we thank God, above
almost every blessing, for the sweet and holy lives which He
has linked with us in this blessed fellowship. Many of them
have gone to be with Christ, many of them are with us still,
but we believe that after all the most potent force of our
work has been the godliness of its little flock.
4. The Tabernacle has aimed to combine in the work of a
Christian congregation all the gifts and ministries of the
Apostolic Church. Not only have we the work of the evangelist,
but the deeper teaching of God's Word, the training of
Christian workers, the ministry of healing, the work of the
pastor, and the great work of foreign missions, besides all
those loving ministrations to the poor, the sick and the
destitute, which constitute the sweet credentials of a
Christ-like ministry. We have given a place for the ministry
of women, we have had no more beautiful department in all our
work than the training of the King's children, and there is
scarcely any line of Christian activity in which our people
have not some part. We believe today that more of our members
are engaged in the various charities and rescue missions of
New York City than ever in the work of the Tabernacle church,
and there is scarcely a religious movement in the community in
which some of them have not a part.
5. Perhaps the supreme glory of the Tabernacle work has been
that which has already been fully referred to, its relation to
the evangelization of the world. Hundreds of its members have
become foreign missionaries, and perhaps there is no church on
earth that has so large a proportion and so large an
aggregation of its actual communicants on the mission field,
while the gifts of its people to foreign missions are much
greater than their contributions to their own church work.
6. The spirit of sacrifice, especially in giving to God, has
been from the beginning a striking feature of our work. In the
very beginning of the work a beloved sister brought her bank
book, with the accumulated savings of her life, amounting to
more than a thousand dollars and insisted on giving them for
the needs of the work in the days of its poverty and trial.
Another dear woman brought $500 which she had saved for her
funeral and laid it at the Master's feet. Again and again has
the story been repeated of the poor woman in the Gospels that
gave her all. Humble house workers, with moderate wages, have
actually undertaken the support of a foreign missionary, and
for years it was true of a single Bible class in our Sunday
school, consisting of working girls, that it contributed more
for foreign missions than many of the wealthiest churches in
the land, actually supporting five missionaries at one time on
the foreign field.
7. Perhaps the most significant feature of the Tabernacle work
is the one that would be the most difficult to describe,
namely, its silent, indirect influence in stimulating faith in
God and earnest, aggressive work for our fellowmen among other
Christian organizations as well as individuals. Like the salt
and like the light, its pervading power has been stealing
silently through human hearts and only the final day will
measure the value and fruition of that "sweet savor of Christ"
which has gone forth through its humble and consecrated people
to the uttermost parts of the earth.
8. Above all else the aim and call of the Gospel Tabernacle
has been to exalt and glorify the Lord Jesus Christ, and to
write high above all human names, on the hearts of men and the
pages of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century, the name which
has always been its motto and its glory--Jesus only.
9. And finally, it has been its constant aim to witness to His
personal coming and God grant that some glorious day it may be
its high honor to welcome back our King.
And to Him of whom and for whom and by whom are all things, be
the glory, both now and forever. Amen.
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