Theodore L. Cuyler

“ No chaplet worn by a Roman conqueror in the hour of his brightest triumph, rivals the coronal that Pastor Paul sees flashing before his eyes. It is a crown blazing with stars; every star an immortal soul plucked from the darkness of sin into the light and liberty of a child of God. Poor, is he? He is making many rich. Despised is he? He wouldn't change places with Caesar. Homeless is he? His citizenship is in heaven, where he will find myriads whom he can meet and say to them: "Ye, ye are my glory and joy." ”

“ As for myself I do not propose to sit down on the veranda and watch the sun of life wheel downward in the west. The labors of a pen and of a ministry at large will afford me no lack of employment. The welfare of this church is inexpressibly dear to me—nothing is dearer to me this side of heaven. If, therefore, while this flock remains shepherdless, and in search of my successor, I can be of actual service to you in supplying at any time this pulpit or performing pastoral labor, that service, beloved, shall be performed cheerfully. ”

“ Would that I could lift up my voice this morning in every academy, college and university on this broad continent. I would say to every gifted Christian youth, "God and humanity have need of you." He who redeemed you by His precious blood has a sovereign right to the best brains and the most persuasive tongues and the highest culture. Why crowd into the already over-crowded professions? The only occupation in America that is not overdone is the occupation of serving Jesus Christ and saving souls. ”

“ Passing through Belfast in 1862, I looked in for a few moments at the Irish Presbyterian General Assembly, which was convened in Dr. Cook's church, and said to a man: "Whom can you show me here?" Pointing to a tall, somewhat stooping figure, standing near the pulpit, he said: "There is McCosh." I replied: "It is worth coming here to see the brightest man in Ireland." What a great, all-round, fully equipped, many-sided mass of splendid manhood he was! What a complete combination of philosopher, theologian, preacher, scholar, and college president all rolled into one! ”

“ The secret of Finney's power was the fearless manner with which he drove God's word into the consciences of sinners—high or humble—and his perpetual reliance on the immediate presence of the Holy Spirit in his own soul. Emptied of self, he was filled with the Holy Spirit. His sermons were chain lightning, flashing conviction into the hearts of the stoutest sceptics, and the links of his logic were so compact that they defied resistance. Probably no minister in America ever numbered among his converts so many lawyers and men of intellectual culture. ”

“ Converted souls are jewels in the caskets of faithful parents, teachers and pastors. They shall flash in the diadem which the Righteous Judge shall give them in that great day. Ah! it is when an ambassador of Christ sees an army of young converts and listens to the first utterances of their new-born love, and when he presides at a communion table and sees his spiritual off-spring gathered around him, more true joy that faithful pastor feels than "Caesar with a Senate at his heels." ”

“ The minister that foolishly runs races with himself is doomed to an early suicide. All that I claim for my sermons is that they have been true to God's Book and the cross of Jesus Christ—have been simple enough for a child to understand, and have been preached in full view of the judgment seat. I have aimed to keep this pulpit abreast of all great moral reforms and human progress, and the majestic marchings of the kingdom of King Jesus. The preparation of my sermons has been an unspeakable delight. The manna fell fresh every morning, and it had to me the sweetness of angels' food. ”

“ None will be sharper than the hour that bids farewell to yonder blessed and beloved study. For twenty-eight years it has been my daily home—one of the dearest spots this side of Heaven. From its walls have looked down upon me the inspiring faces of Chalmers, Charles Wesley, Spurgeon, Lincoln and Gladstone; Adams, Storrs, Guthrie, Newman Hall, and my beloved teachers, Charles Hodge and the Alexanders of Princeton. Thither your infant children have been brought on Sabbath mornings, awaiting their baptism. ”

“ Many a tear was shed on that sad day beside the tomb in which the Church of England laid her most fearless and yet her best beloved son. I never have visited the Abbey since, without halting for a few moments beside the chapel in which the Dean and his beloved wife are slumbering. Greater than all his books or literary achievements was Arthur Penryn Stanley, the modest, true-hearted, unselfish, childlike, Christian man. ”

“ The fires of devotion have never gone out on the altar of their Monday evening gatherings. For length of days and number of membership combined, probably it surpasses all similar young people's associations in our country. About three thousand names have been on its membership roll, and of this number twelve have set their faces toward the Gospel ministry. Oh, what a source of joy to me that I leave that association in such a high condition of vigor and prosperity! No church can languish, no church can die, while it has plenty of young blood in its veins. ”

“ Every nugget of fresh truth discovered makes him happier than one who has found golden spoil. Every attentive auditor is a delight; every look of interest on a human countenance flashes back to illuminate his own. Above all, when the tears of penitence course down a cheek and a returning soul is led by him to the Saviour, there is great joy in heaven over a repentant wanderer, and a joy in that minister's heart too exquisite to utter. ”

“ And how could he descend to scurrilously satirize all societies formed for the promotion of temperance? A still greater marvel is that so kind-hearted a man as Mr. Dickens, who sought honestly the amelioration of the condition of his fellow-men, could utterly ignore the transforming power of Christianity. He did not cast contempt on the Bible, and never soiled his pages with infidelity, neither did he ever enlighten, and warm and vivify them with evangelical uplifting truth. Only a few feet of earth separate the grave of Charles Dickens from the grave of William Wilberforce. ”

“ Who has a better right to reprove, exhort and correct with all long suffering than the woman who has given us her heart and herself? There are a hundred matters in the course of a year in which a sensible woman's instincts are wiser than those of the average man. There is many a minister who would have been spared the worst blunders of his life, if he had only consulted and obeyed the instinctive judgment of a loving and sensible wife. If we husbands hold the reins, it is the province of a wise and devoted wife to tell us where to drive. ”

“ I only ask to live just as long as God has any work for me to do—and not one moment longer. I do not seek to measure with this hand how high the sun of life may yet be above the horizon; but when it does go down, may my closing eyes behold the bright effulgence of Heaven's blessings upon yonder glorious sanctuary, and its faithful flock. ”

“ In one respect I have not followed the practice of many of my brethren, for I never have wasted a single moment in defending God's Word in my pulpit. I have always held that the Bible is a self-evidencing book; God will take care of His Word if we ministers only take care to preach it. We are no more called upon to defend the Bible than we are to defend the law of gravitation. ”

“ To no other benevolent society have I more cheerfully given service of tongue and pen than to this one. An honest view of the foreign mission enterprises to-day reveals the laying of broad foundations, and the building of solid walls, rather than any completed achievements already wrought. Blood tells, and God has entrusted his gospel to the Anglo-Saxons and the other most powerful races on the globe. The religion of the Bible is the only religion adapted to universal humanity, and in the Bible is a definite pledge that to all humanity that religion shall yet be preached. ”

“ Haven was not comparable with his associate, Bishop Simpson, in pulpit oratory, for he was rarely an effective public speaker on any occasion, but in brilliancy of thought, which made him in conversation like the charge of an electric battery, and in brilliancy of pen, that kindled everything it touched, he was without a rival in the Methodist Church—or almost in any other church in the land. Consistently and conscientiously a radical, he always took extreme ground on such questions as negro rights, female suffrage, and liquor prohibition, and he never retreated. ”

“ Gough's extraordinary platform powers I need not speak while there are so many now living that sat under the enchantment of his eloquence. A man who could crowd an opera house in London to listen to so unpopular a theme as temperance while a score or more of coroneted carriages were waiting about the door must have been no ordinary master of oratory. As an actor he might have been a second Garrick; as a preacher of the Gospel he would have been a second Whitefield. ”

“ He was—like Chalmers and Bushnell and Spurgeon—a born preacher. Great as he was on the platform, or on various ceremonial occasions, he was never so thoroughly "at home" as in his own pulpit; his great heart never so kindled as when unfolding the glorious gospel of redeeming love. The consecration of his splendid powers to the work of the ministry helped to ennoble the ministry in the popular eye, and led young men of brains to feel that they could covet no higher calling. ”

“ Methinks that those stalwart farmers of New England, who on a wintry Sabbath, sat and eagerly devoured for an hour the strong meat of such theological giants as Jonathan Edwards, and Emmons and Bellamy and Dwight, would laugh to scorn the ridiculous assumption of the present day congregations, many of whom have fed on little else during the week but novels and newspapers. This revolutionary spirit is expert in pulling down; it is a sorry bungler at rebuilding. Nothing is too sacred for its assaults. ”

“ The Apostle's great, warm heart kindles and blazes as he goes on, and at length bursts out in this impassioned utterance: "Ye are my glory and joy!"
Paul, I thank thee for a thousand things, but for nothing do I thank thee more than for that golden sentence. In these thrilling words, the greatest of Christian pastors, rising above the poverty, homelessness, and scorn that surrounded him, reaches forth his hand and grasps his royal diadem. No man shall rob the aged hero of his crown. ”

“ I hold that Dickens was the most original genius in our fictitious literature since the days of Walter Scott. As a social reformer his fame is quite as great as it is as a master of romance. His pen was mighty to the pulling down of many a social abuse, and from the loving kindness of his writings has been got many an inspiration to deeds of charity. But how could a man who went so far as he did go no further? How could the reformer who struck at so many social wrongs spare that hideous fountain-head of misery in London, the dram-shop? ”

“ It was this sharp scimitar of search and seizure which gave the original Maine law its deadly power. He took his bill to the seat of government and it was promptly passed by the legislature. He brought it home in triumph, and in less than three months there was not an open dram shop or distillery in Portland! He invited me to visit him, and drove me over the city, whose pure air was not polluted with the faintest smell of alcohol. It seemed like the first whiff of a temperance millennium. An invitation was extended to him to a magnificent public meeting in Tripler Hall, New York. ”

“ I am with you always!" seems to greet me this morning from every wall of this sanctuary. I confidently expect to see Lafayette Avenue Church move steadily forward with unbroken column led by the Captain of our salvation. All eyes are upon you. The eye that never slumbers or sleeps is watching over you. If you are all true to conscience, true to your covenants, true to Christ, the future of this dear church may be as glorious as its past. ”