H 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 %i3i" 
 
 '-iMH 
 
 THR'=:MSTOR 
 
 mwLm.- 
 
 I)LD STONE CHURCH 
 
THE PASTOR, 
 Taken at the age of nlnety-seven 
 
THE PASTOE 
 
 >: 
 
 OLD STONE CHURCH. 
 
 MR. HOTCHKIN'S MEMORIAL, JUDGE ELMER'S EULOGY, 
 AND MR. BURT'S ADDRESS, 
 
 COMMEMORATIVE OF 
 
 REV. ETHAN OSBORN, 
 
 LATE PASTOR OF THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, FAIRFIELD, NEW JERSEY. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 WILLIAM S. AND ALFRED MARTIEN 
 
 No. 60S CHESTNUT STKEET. 
 
 1858. 
 
HENRY B. ASHMEAD, BOOK ANB JOB PRINTER, 
 
 George Street above Eleventh. 
 
dlfmcriiil 
 
 REV. ETHA-lSr OSBORlSr, 
 
 WHO DIED MAY 1, 1858, 
 IN THE ONE HUNDREDTH TEAR OF HIS AGE, 
 
 By Rev. B. B. HOTCHKIN. 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 The filial relation which I sustained toward the subject of the 
 following sketch, as his eldest son in the pastorate of the Fairfield 
 Church, was probably the reason why the duty of preaching a Fune- 
 ral Discourse at his burial was assigned to myself. I was afterwards 
 requested by members of his family and others to furnish a copy of 
 the Sermon for publication. This I engaged to do, provided material 
 could be obtained for improving the biographical notice which formed 
 perhaps its only point of interest. Having had only the time of the 
 evening before the funeral for preparation, I regarded its historical 
 details as too imperfect to be placed into permanent form. The 
 matter which I have since found, has enabled me to make such cor- 
 rections and enlargement that I do not regard it proper to claim for 
 the present production any identity with the Funeral Discourse. I 
 have therefore dropped the form of a Sermon, and in its place I here- 
 with present to my bereaved friends this " Memorial" of their vene- 
 rated and glorified parent, an affectionate tribute to his memory, and 
 a testimony to the grace that was in him. 
 
 B. B. H. 
 Wallace, Pa., 1S58. 
 
 1* 
 
MEMORIAL OF REV. ETHAN OSBORN. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 FROM HIS BIRTH TO HIS ORDINATION. 
 
 When we laid tlie remains of the sainted father, 
 of whom I write, in their last resting place, a 
 Christian minister stretched his hand over the grave 
 and said — '^ Mark the perfect man, and hehold the up- 
 right, for the end of that man is peaceV Around 
 him stood an audience — in numbers almost an 
 army — but it is believed there was not a heart 
 among them all to withhold the responsive '^ Amen." 
 "Whether we consider the length of time during 
 which such a character was borne, the uniformity 
 with which it was sustained, the blending of energy 
 and inojQTensiveness in acting it out before the 
 world, or the consistency of the various experiences 
 and acts which make up the life, we are impressed 
 with the propriety of applying the highest Scriptural 
 terms for describing the good man, to the late Fair- 
 field Pastor. We adopt them, not in their unquali- 
 fied meaning, but in the comparative sense which 
 alone justifies their application to beings this side of 
 heaven. 
 
8 COMPLETENESS OF CHARACTER. 
 
 A Stranger, brought for the first time into the 
 company of Father Osborn, would observe an air of 
 general goodness and Christian simplicity in his 
 speech and deportment; but he might wonder what 
 were the striking traits— the strong salient points of 
 character— which created his high reputation, and 
 preserved it in growing strength through more than 
 two human generations. Closer intimacy would 
 reveal the secret of this wonder. The strength of 
 his character did not lie in individual traits, and 
 this memorial of his life will have little to say of 
 salient points. In the unity of his excellences'^ lay 
 the hiding of their power. His life, as a whole, 
 was a striking life. All its parts revealed the ever- 
 present influence of Divine grace. In the intima- 
 cies of home or out among men, in sacred or secular 
 duties, in seasons of festivity or in the chambers 
 of the dying, in the church or in the world, his 
 demeanor was uniformly marked by habitual com- 
 munion with God. It is true, there were fine traits 
 in his mental constitution; still we feel our chief 
 indebtedness to the grace of God that was in him, 
 for the precious fragrance of his memory. 
 
 Eev. Ethan Osborn, the subject of tliis memorial, 
 was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, August 21, 
 1758. I am indebted to one of his relatives resid- 
 ing in that place, for a few statistics respecting his 
 family, which his near friends will be glad to see 
 
FAMILY LONGEVITY. 9 
 
 preserved. The remarkable longevity wliicli the 
 record exhibits, will also engage the attention of 
 the general reader. 
 
 His father, Capt. John Osborn, died January 7, 
 1814, aged eighty-six years. His mother, (maiden 
 name, Lois Peck,) died ITovember 28, 1819, aged 
 eighty-seven. They were the parents of nine chil- 
 dren, five of whom died at ages ranging from 
 seventy-nine to ninety-nine, viz: John, who died at 
 the age of seventy-nine; Ethan, ninety-nine; Elia- 
 da, eighty-six; Rebecca, (Mrs. Samuel Seymoure,) 
 eighty; and Elizabeth, (Mrs. Ebenezer Marsh,) 
 seventy-nine. One daughter, Anna, (Mrs, James 
 Riley,) died at the earlier age of forty-six. Two 
 children died in youth — Heman, while a member 
 of Dartmouth College, at the age of nineteen, and 
 Lois, aged twenty-one. There is one survivor, Mrs. 
 Thalia Kilbourn, Widow of Whitman Kilbourn, 
 now eighty-one years of age, in good health, and a 
 regular attendant at church in Litchfield, three 
 miles from her home. 
 
 It may not be without interest to give, in this 
 place, another table of longevity among the early 
 friends of Mr. Osborn. It was communicated to 
 me from the necrological records of Dartmouth 
 College, through the kindness of Rev. John Rich- 
 ards, D. D., of Hanover, (N. H.,) the seat of the 
 College. Of Mr. Osborn's class, seventeen in num- 
 ber, eleven are known to have died at the following 
 ages respectively: Mr. Jacob Osborn, (cousin to 
 Ethan,) sixt^^-two ; Rev. Christopher Page, sixty- 
 
10 EARLY LIFE. 
 
 four; Eev. Gilbert Tennent Williams, sixty-four; 
 Rev. Solomon Aiken, seventy-five ; Rev. William 
 Montague, seventy-six ; Rev. John Wilder, seventy- 
 eight; Rev. Nathan Church, eighty-two; Rev. Wil- 
 liam F. Rowland, eighty-two; Rev. Thomas Gross, 
 eighty-four; Rev. David Porter, D. D., eighty-nine; 
 Rev. Ethan Oshorn, ninety-nine. Almost cotem- 
 poraneously with the death of Mr. Osborn, a college 
 associate of a previous class. Rev. Zechariah Greene, 
 of Hempstead, L. I., at the age of ninety-eight years, 
 passed to the world of spirits. 
 
 The records of Mr. Osborn's early life are few. 
 There are almost none living to tell us the incidents 
 of his childhood and youth, or even his entrance 
 upon public life. My chief resources for his per- 
 sonal history until the first third of the duration of 
 his pastorate had expired, are two auto-biographi- 
 cal discourses, and his occasional reference to the 
 events of that period in conversation with myself 
 or others who have favored me with their recol- 
 lections. 
 
 In the year 1822, having been the Pastor of the 
 Fairfield congregation more than thirty years, he 
 gave to the people an account of his life and labors 
 up to that time, in the two discourses mentioned 
 above, preached on consecutive Sabbaths, using for 
 his text, Acts ;s:x. 18 — "Ye know from the first day 
 that I came into Asia, after what manner I have 
 been with you at all seasons."* These sermons will 
 
 ■" For a copy of the first of these discourses — the most important, 
 because reaching back beyond all other means of information — I am 
 
AUTO-BIOGRAPHICAL SERMONS. 11 
 
 contribute largely to the narrative wliicli follows. 
 He approached his subject through the following 
 apology for bringing himself so prominently into 
 the pulpit — an apology which the reader will not 
 require, when it is remembered that he had even 
 then filled out an ordinary day and generation of 
 ministerial labor. 
 
 "Having lived and labored among you in the gospel ministry 
 for more than thirty years, it seems reasonable that T\^e should 
 take a brief review of the ground we have traveled over, and of 
 God's dealings with us. It is hoped that such a review may 
 afford us some lessons of useful instruction. The general design 
 of these discourses is to lay before you some of the principal 
 events which have occurred during my residence among you, and 
 as I pass along, to express my thoughts and opinions respecting 
 them. This I shall do with the utmost freedom, and shall per- 
 haps disclose to you some of my secret thoughts which have 
 never yet been made known. The time has arrived when I have 
 nothing to fear from such a frank disclosure. My motives of 
 action, my regard or disregard of your welfare, are known to God, 
 and must ere long be known to yourselves, whether I speak them 
 out or not. You have been eye and ear witnesses of the principal 
 events of providence and grace which we shall review, and thanks 
 to God ! many of you have been heart witnesses by your own 
 happy experience.'' 
 
 He then introduced the review of his pastoral 
 labors with some notices of his childhood and youth, 
 including his early religious experience, and his 
 
 indebted to the care of J. Barron Potter, M. D., of Bridgeton, whose 
 reverential regard for its author led him many years ago, to secure 
 it from the oblivion which otherwise would probably have befallen 
 it. The last I was fortunate enough to find among the manuscripts 
 of Mr. Osborn. 
 
12 FIEST RELIGIOUS IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 entrance upon the great work of his life, the min- 
 istry of salvation. The account must have heen 
 highly welcome to his people of that day, but his 
 giving it was especially providential for us, after this 
 lapse of thirty-six more years. Beginning with his 
 childhood in Litchfield, he proceeds — 
 
 " My condition and school education were like those of other 
 children in my native place. I was favored, thanks to God ! with 
 religious parents and a religious education. My parents are 
 gone to their long home, and I trust sleep in Jesus. They trained 
 me in the habit of attending public worship, but for some years 
 I went to meeting rather reluctantly, or against my inclination. 
 Some alarming providences impressed my mind with serious 
 thoughts of death and the judgment.* This was perhaps before 
 the age of nine or twelve years.f After my serious impressions 
 began, I went to religious meetings without persuasion or driving. 
 I then went, not to see and be seen, but to hear the word of God, 
 and to learn how I must escape the wrath to come and obtain 
 eternal life. The Sabbath became a most welcome day, which I 
 tried to keep holy, and improve for my best spiritual interests, 
 for this was my principal concern. Compared with my souVs 
 salvation, every affair of this life appeared low and trifling. 
 
 " About this time I began secret prayer, which I have continued 
 more or less to this day, though I am conscious that I have often 
 been too remiss in it. * * -x- * I fgit conscious that the eyes of 
 the Lord were upon me, and I fully resolved carefully to avoid 
 whatever would incur his displeasure, and to do whatever my 
 conscience and his word and Spirit should tell me was my duty. 
 But, like David, I soon found that innumerable evils had com- 
 passed me about, and mine iniquities had taken hold upon me. I 
 found that my own strength was weakness ; temptations assaulted 
 
 * The alarming providences here referred to were two shocking 
 casualties, each resulting in the death of a family relative, 
 f Does he not mean bekveen nine and twelve ? 
 
MATURED EXPERIENCE. 13 
 
 me and too often prevcailed against me; yet like Job, I tried to 
 hold fast mine integrity. 
 
 " When I was preparing for college, wliile studying the Greek 
 Testament, I saw more clearly than ever the amiable excellency 
 of our Saviour. My mind was enamored of his heavenly beauty, 
 and my soul's desire was to be like him and with him. ^t^r 
 since, I have had a trust that I have received the Saviour by 
 faith, and am interested in the special favor of God through his 
 merits and mediation, though it often seems too exalted a favor 
 and blessedness for such a sinner to expect. And scarcely, if 
 ever, do I feel that assurance of salvation which I desire. May 
 the Lord perfect in us all that which is lacking of grace, faith, 
 and assurance V 
 
 We cannot now tell liow much distrust of his own 
 acceptance with God, he intended the last two sen- 
 tences should express. It is certain that in his later 
 years, he was a living illustration of the peace which 
 the full assurance of hope affords. In the last inter- 
 view which the writer had with him, a few months 
 previous to his death, to the question, "How do you 
 do. Father Oshorn?" he replied in his cheery tone, 
 "I am very well, thanks to a merciful Providence! 
 well in hody, and in good spiritual health." If any 
 regard such a reply as presumptuous, let them con- 
 sider the man, the spiritual experiences of a long, 
 long life, and his consciousness of his then present 
 position on the threshold of eternity, and then say 
 what other testimony they would have him give 
 respecting the work of God in his soul. 
 
 In the foregoing outline — for it is only an out- 
 line — of a long travel from carnal security to a full 
 appreciation of Christ his Saviour, the discerning 
 2 
 
14 FIRST SACRAMENTAL COMMUNION. 
 
 reader must have noticed liow distinctly the j^rogres- 
 siveness of Divine influences on his heart, is In-ouglit 
 out. "We first find him under the alarms of a Provi- 
 dential warning, and with some rising convictions 
 of sin and righteousness, striving to do what is right. 
 Then through years of legal experience — perhaps in 
 the twilight of grace — he tries to hold fast his integ- 
 rity, tries to keep the Sabbath holy, and avoids what 
 he thinks will incur the displeasure of God, because, 
 as he says, "I felt conscious that the eyes of the 
 Lord were upon me." At length ^'the amiable excel- 
 lency of our Saviour'' unclouds itself before his soul, 
 and Christ is to him the end of the law for righteous- 
 ness. "Where should such a gradually developing 
 experience rest, short of that faith which, standing 
 on the shore of time, sends back the testimou}^ — "I 
 know that my Redeemer liveth !" 
 
 The following sentence closes his account of his 
 early religious experience: — 
 
 " While I was a student in Dartmouth College, I was admitted 
 to full communion with the Presbyterian^-' Church there. Never 
 shall I forget the first time I partook of the Lord^s supper. My 
 mind was solemnly and devoutly exercised, and with a good 
 degree of consolation.'' 
 
 The reader will regret the rapidity with which 
 the foregoing account runs over the period included 
 in it. I have no means of supplying its deficiency 
 of incidents in his spiritual experience, except as I 
 have heard him refer to the influences which he 
 
 " Congregational ? 
 
IN THE ARMY. 15 
 
 enjoyed under a work of grace among the students 
 during liis college course.* He spoke of those in- 
 fluences as liaving wrought in his soul new and 
 enlarged views of the blessedness of laboring for 
 Christ, but whether they were the immediate cause 
 of his selection of the gospel ministry for the work 
 of his life, I am not informed. In estimating, at 
 this distant period, the effects of that revival, there 
 may be some significancy in the fact that thirteen 
 of the seventeen graduates of 1T84, (Mr. Osborn's 
 class,) became ministers of the gospel. 
 
 The auto-biographical sermons pass in silence one 
 important part of Mr. Osborn's life, previous to his 
 entering college. Perhaps it was left without men- 
 tion, under the impression that it did not properly 
 belong to his religious experience. I refer to his con- 
 nection with the army of the American Eevolution. 
 
 He was eighteen years of age when the colonies 
 were in the second year of their memorable strug- 
 gle for independence. During that year, his native 
 township furnished a company of volunteers for the 
 service, and no one who knows the readiness for 
 self-sacrifice and intrepidity for the right, which 
 were elemental in his natural constitution, will be 
 surprised that the list contained the name of Ethan 
 
 * I find in the sketch of a sermon preached at the funeral of Rev. 
 Zachariah Greene, in Hempstead, L. I., on the 20th of June, 1858, by 
 Rev. N. C. Locke, furnished for the New York Observer, the following 
 notice of this revival. " There was a very general awakening in the 
 parish around and in the College. Some fifty converts were the fruits 
 of it — all admitted to the church in Hanover, in the winter of 1782. 
 The pastor of the church was Sylvanus Ripley, D. D." 
 
16 PROVIDENTIAL DELIVERANCE. 
 
 Osborn. His connection with the army was brief, 
 but it extended through one of the darkest periods 
 of the war — the campaign of 1776. He was with 
 the forces under the immediate command of Wash- 
 ington, in the retreat through ITew Jersey. From 
 this field of personal observation, his memory 
 gathered up many incidents illustrating the noble- 
 ness and virtue of the commander-in-chief; and 
 during the later years of his own life, his eye was 
 rekindled with the fire of those days, whenever his 
 friends made a draft upon his personal recollections 
 of the war. 
 
 He kept in his mind a catalogue of providential 
 deliverances from imminent perils of death. One 
 of these interpositions of heaven on his behalf, 
 occurred during this service. While the division 
 of the army to which he belonged occupied Fort 
 Washington, above New York, he was compelled, 
 by sickness, to accept a short furlough. During 
 his absence, the fort was taken hj the British, and 
 the prisoners were removed to 'New York. Some 
 were confined in the building known by the name 
 of the Sugar House, and others were thrown into 
 prison ships. Close confinement and a fare that 
 was next to starvation, produced a mortality so 
 great, that only four persons of the company to 
 which Mr. Osborn belonged, survived. If in his 
 then enfeebled health, he had been subjected to 
 those exposures, there is little doubt but his per- 
 sonal history would from that time have belonged 
 to another world. But there remained for him a 
 more distinguished warfare in the army of the Cap- 
 
COLLEGE COURSE COMPLETED. 17 
 
 tain of Salvation, and until this was accomplished, 
 Divine providences were arranged to secure him 
 alike from the arrow by day and the pestilence in 
 darkness. 
 
 Mr. Osborn had become a member of Dartmouth 
 College previous to his enlistment, probably when 
 he was seventeen years of age ; but his course there 
 was interrupted by the temporary breaking up of 
 the College in consequence of an invasion from 
 Canada. This, with him, must have produced a 
 delay of some years in his studies, as we find him a 
 graduate of the class of 1784. 
 
 His conversational references to his college life, 
 in after years, contained many affectionate allusions 
 to the then presiding ofiicer. Dr. John "Wheelock. 
 For him, he seems to have cherished a peculiar 
 attachment, and once after his settlement in 'New 
 Jersey, he paid him a visit of friendship and con- 
 dolence under the trials which beclouded his declin- 
 ing years. 
 
 The scant outline of his auto-biographical ser- 
 mons is all our clue to his spiritual history, from 
 the time of his leaving College to his entrance upon 
 his public ministry. He says — 
 
 "After I left College, I was disemployed- for about three years. 
 Daring that time, being often exposed to vain company, I insen- 
 sibly and gracfually became too much conformed to the spirit and 
 
 * I give this word as I find it, presuming he does not mean to say 
 that his time was not employed in some specific pursuit. It is cer- 
 tain that he was licensed to preach the gospel in ] 786, and he else- 
 where says that he received his licensure after he had studied Divinity. 
 
 9* 
 
18 LICENSED TO PREACH. 
 
 fashion of the world. More than once my feet, like David's, were 
 almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped. More than once I 
 was almost drawn into the whirl of iniquity. But in mercy the 
 Lord sternly rebuked me, stopped me in my presumptuous course, 
 and once more turned my feet unto his testimonies. For ever 
 blessed be his name !'' 
 
 Mr. Osborn entered the ministry before the exist- 
 ence of Theological Seminaries in this country. He 
 pursued his theological course of study in part, 
 under the tuition of Kev. Andrew Storrs, of Ply- 
 mouth, Connecticut, and for the remainder, with 
 his cousin. Rev. Joseph Yaill, of Hadlyme, in the 
 same state. 
 
 In 1786, he received his license to preach as a pro- 
 bationer for the holy ministry, and without any 
 delay, he gave himself to the pursuit of his chosen 
 work. A few weeks afterward, he was formally 
 invited to become the pastor of the Presbyterian 
 Church in Spencertown, IT. Y. He declined this 
 call, chiefly because he wished to take a wider ob- 
 servation of the great field for ministerial labor, 
 before settling himself in a pastoral charge. With 
 this view he came on to Philadelphia, and from 
 thence, under the advice of the late Rev. Dr. Sproat, 
 made an excursion to the lower counties of New 
 Jersey. Those who are accustomed only to the pre- 
 sent rapid and easy modes of journeying, may smile 
 at the mention of this tour as a formidable enter- 
 prise. But in that day, over the country as it then 
 was, a journey from Connecticut to Lower ISTew 
 
PASTOEAL SETTLEMENT. 19 
 
 Jersey, was an event in the history of a man. It 
 was performed by Mr. Osborn on horseback. 
 
 On his way down, he preached and remained a 
 few days in Pittsgrove, Salem county. From thence 
 he came to Deeriield, where he spent his first night 
 in Cumberland county, (the night of the thirtieth 
 anniversary of his birth,) in the house of Ephraim 
 Foster, Esq., to whose family he allied himself, some 
 thirty years afterwards, by marriage. He then came 
 on to Fairfield, where, after laboring with accept- 
 ance through what was then the usual time of trial, 
 he entered upon that pastoral settlement which was 
 destined to be so enduring, and so fruitful of blessed 
 results. On the 3d of December, 1789, the Presby- 
 tery of Philadelphia inducted him into this charge, 
 under the ordination formula of his church. The 
 sermon was preached by the Kev. George Dufiield, 
 D. D., Pastor of the Pine Street Church, Philadel- 
 phia, whose descendant of the third generation was 
 Mr. Osborn's co-presbyter at the time of his death. 
 
f *> 
 
 PART II. 
 
 FROM HIS ORDINATION TO HIS DISMISSION. 
 
 We liave readied tlie point where the ministerial 
 life of Mr. Osborn becomes so interwoven with his 
 church, that some anterior notice of the last becomes 
 almost an essential introduction to a history of the 
 pastorate now to be reviewed. 
 
 When in 1789 the Presbyterian Church in Fair- 
 field welcomed its young Pastor, it was already 
 venerable among the churches of this country. We 
 have no means of ascertaining its exact age. Its 
 records previous to 1759, were destroyed in a fire 
 which consumed the house of one of its pastors, 
 and there is neither documentary history, nor any 
 preserved tradition of the date of its organization. 
 The remotest known document bearing incidentally 
 on the point, is a provincial law of 1697, which 
 enacts "that the tract of land on Cohansey, pur- 
 chased by several people lately inhabitants from Fair- 
 field, in 'New England, from and after the date here- 
 of, be erected into a township, and be called Fair- 
 field."* These ''several people" were a colony of 
 Puritans, whose descendants remain, to the present 
 day, the principal occupants of the township, with 
 little intermixture by foreign marriages, a still less 
 
 * Contributed by Hon, L. Q. 0. Elmer, to Dr. Hodge's Constitu- 
 tional History of the Presbyterian Church. 
 
ORiaiN OF FAIRFIELD CHURCH. 21 
 
 alloy by immigration. It would be difficult, even 
 in New England, to find a community where tlie 
 truths, order, and moralities of religion, as taught 
 by Brewster, Hooker, and Davenport, have suffered 
 less corruption, than in these isolated congrega- 
 tions which have grown out of the former parish 
 of Mr. Osborn. Doubtless his long administration 
 of its spiritual affairs — being himself of Puritan 
 stock, and a connecting link between the old and 
 new times — contributed not a little to this result. 
 
 The custom of the times suggests the probability 
 that a church was organized in the colony before it 
 entered the Delaware Ba}^ At least it would vio- 
 late all our notions of Puritanical order, to supj)0se 
 the settlement existed any length of time without 
 such an organization. We are, therefore, safe in 
 carrying its date back to 1697. Probably the truth, 
 if it could be known, would remove it a little 
 farther into the past distance, as the colonists may 
 have occupied their new home a short time before 
 obtaining a township incorporation. Doctor Hodge, 
 in his History, makes this one of the three oldest 
 Presbyterian Churches in 'New Jersey, without de- 
 termining to which of the three seniority belongs. 
 The others, he says, are Freehold, instituted in 1692, 
 and Woodbridge, which appears on the Presbyterial 
 records in 1708. The first mention of Fairfield on 
 the same records, is in the same year. It must be 
 remembered that there was then but one Presby- 
 tery in the country — that of Philadelphia. It was 
 not organized until 1705, and the churches then in 
 
22 EARLY NOTICES 
 
 being, did not all drop in at once, so tliat nothing 
 regarding their exact age can be settled by their 
 first mention in the Presbyterial minutes. 
 
 Mr. Osborn preserved a few traditionary points in 
 the early history of the church, which he informed 
 me were handed down to him by Ephraim Harris, 
 Esq., a member of the session at the time of his 
 settlement. These were written out by him in 1846, 
 and published in the Christian Observer, Philadel- 
 phia. But all which relates to the time previous to 
 the destruction of the church records, is comprised 
 in less than a quarter of a column. I find that 
 the Presbyterial records, and some other reliable 
 authorities, modify this tradition in a few particu- 
 lars, and where I depart from the account in the 
 Observer, it may be understood that I do it in obe- 
 dience to recorded evidence. 
 
 Mr. Osborn supposes, with much probability, that 
 the colony brought a minister with them from E'ew 
 England, and gives the name of Kev. John Bradnor 
 as the first settled minister. Some doubt, however, 
 rests upon the tradition which has placed this name 
 at the head of the list of Fairfield pastors. A man 
 of the same name, said in the record to be from 
 Scotland, was licensed by the Presbytery in 1715, 
 but there is no account of his having preached in 
 Eairfield; neither could the first pastor be identified 
 in him, without an anachronism. 
 
 Coming down to 1702, we have a notice of Eev. 
 Thomas Bridge, as preaching to this congregation 
 in that and the following year, but I find no account 
 of his installation. 
 
FROM MR. SMITH TO MR. ELMER. 23 
 
 The first known settled pastor was Eev. Joseph 
 Smith, from Connecticut. He came as a licentiate, 
 and Avas here ordained to the ministry and installed 
 in this charge, May 10, 1709. His pastorate must 
 have heen very brief, as in 1711, the church is again 
 found vacant. So it appears to have remained until 
 October 15, 1714, with the exception of the inci- 
 dental mention of the name of a Mr. Exell, as 
 preaching here in 1711, but not as pastor. 
 
 Under date of 1714, we have the record of the 
 installation of Rev. Howell Powell over this congre- 
 gation. He is said in Mr. Osborn's account to have 
 been from Wales — a su^Dposition which is corrobor- 
 ated by the circumstance that his name was some- 
 times written Howell Ap Powell. His work was 
 soon done, and it is said, Avell done. The Synodi- 
 cal record of 1717, records his name among the 
 deceased brethren. 
 
 In 1722, Rev. Henry Hook, from Ireland, is found 
 ministering to this church, but without any pastoral 
 connection with it. His name soon after appears as 
 a minister in the State of Delaware. * 
 
 Following this, in each of the years 1724 and 
 1726, we find notices of Rev. ^oyes Paris in a simi- 
 lar relation, and then we are brought to the record 
 of a more memorable installation. 
 
 In 1727, Rev. Daniel Elmer, from Connecticut, 
 under the sanction of the Presbytery, took his posi- 
 tion as the appointed watchman on these heights of 
 Zion. His connection with the church continued 
 until 1755, twenty-eight years. This was the first 
 
24 THE GREAT REVIVAL. 
 
 loDg continued pastorate wliich the clinrcli, now 
 more than half a century old, had enjoyed. 
 
 Up to the period of Mr. Elmer's settlement, all 
 history of its spiritual condition is lost. "What ef- 
 fusions of the Spirit of converting grace were en- 
 joyed, how its members walked in the light of 
 the Lord, what jealousy was exercised over the 
 cardinal truths of the Christian system, how minis- 
 ters preached and people prayed, with what unction 
 the means of grace were sustained — all these things 
 are without any written record, and beyond the 
 memory of men. The lips from which we might 
 have learned, have long been mute in death. It is, 
 however, a very suggestive fact, that our earliest 
 reading of the reliable history of the church, brings 
 us into the presence of a praying people. 
 
 The pastorate of Mr. Elmer was cotemporaneous 
 with the great religious revivals in connection with 
 the preaching of Whitefield and the Tennents, and 
 there is no reason to doubt the tradition preserved 
 by Mr. Osborn, that this place shared largely in the 
 prevalent influences. In 1740, Mr. Whitefield per- 
 sonally aided in the work in Greenwich, on the 
 opposite shore of the Cohansey, and the influence 
 of his presence there could hardly fail to be felt in 
 Fairfield. Indeed, it is not an improbable supposi- 
 tion that his own labors were extended across the 
 narrow channel which divides the two parishes.* 
 
 * I find in the American Tract Society's edition of the Life of 
 Whitefield, an account of Mr. Whitefield's preaching at Cohansey. 
 This was the original name of the Fairfield church, on the book of 
 
OLD AND NEW LIGHTS. 25 
 
 Throiigliout tlie country these seasons of refresliing 
 were seldom free from some real or supposed inno- 
 vations upon Christian order, which led some good 
 men to withhold their sympathies from the popular 
 religious movement, and in not a few instances, to 
 assume the attitude of bitter hostility toward them. 
 Serious alienations followed, both in individual 
 churches, and in the Synod, which then embraced 
 all the Presbyteries Vvdiich had been formed in this 
 country. The rupture of the Presbyterian S^^nod, 
 dividing it into what was then termed the Old and 
 Is'ew Light sides, occurred in 1741, and continued 
 until 1758, when our Zion again returned to the 
 blessed unitv which should distiuo-uish the kins:- 
 dom of Christ. The last fourteen years of Mr. 
 Elmer's pastorate were included in this period, and 
 while this church enjoyed a good share of the pre- 
 valent gracious effusion, it did not escape the 
 opposite excitement of party spirit. It, however, 
 preserved its connection with the Presbytery of 
 
 the Presljytery, but at this time it was applied to the country on both 
 sides of the creek. It cannot, as used in Mr. Whitefield's journal, 
 refer to Greenwich, because that place appears under its own name, 
 a few lines above. It is claimed for a locality near what is now 
 Shepherd's Mill, on the same side of the creekj once the site of a 
 Baptist church. There was also, at that time, a Baptist church in 
 Cedarville, on the Fairfield side, which was then in the temporary 
 possession of a party from Mr. Elmer's church, prominent among 
 whom — strange to say — was Daniel Elmer, jr., a son of the pastor. 
 Mrs. Ruth Davis, now a lady of great age, and very reliable memorj-, 
 says that her mother spoke of Mr. Whitefield's preaching in this last 
 church, as a well known fact. 
 
 3 
 
26 SETTLEMENT OF MR. RAMSEY. 
 
 Philadelphia, which remained in the Old Light 
 Synod. It speaks mueli for the pastoral qnaliiica- 
 tions of Mr. Elmer, that under the numerous em- 
 barrassments to which this state of things must have 
 subjected him, he was able so long to maintain his 
 .position. 
 
 Mr. Elmer's mortal remains lie among those of 
 his ilock, in an ancient burying-ground on the bank 
 of the Cohansey. It has loiig been unused, and is 
 now grown into a pleasant forest. A little human 
 care, added to its present rural adornments, would 
 make this one of the most beautiful sanctuaries of 
 the dead in lower isTew Jersey. The descendants 
 of Mr. Elmer are numerous in Cumberland county, 
 and many of them in distinguished positions, and 
 by intellectual and moral worth, have imparted an 
 abiding fragrance to the name of their common 
 parent. 
 
 Kev. William Ramsey, who succeeded Mr. Elmer, 
 was ordained as pastor in 1756. His ministry ap- 
 pears to have been one of signal prosperity and use- 
 fulness. Harmony was restored to the church, and 
 the new era of revivals which opened during the 
 administration of Mr. Elmer, came out from the 
 clouds of discord and appeared as the shining day. 
 In relation to the most interesting period of this 
 pastorate, Mr. Osborn has left the following minute : 
 " In 1765, there was a remarkable awakening and 
 revival of religion. In almost every house, one or 
 more were subjects of the gracious work. The 
 whole number added to the church in 1765-6, was 
 
THE OLD STONE CHURCH. 27 
 
 eighty-nine. It has l)een observed, that the revival 
 was still and orderly, though powerful." 
 
 After a ministry of fifteen years, Mr. Ramsey, at 
 the comparatively early age of thirty-nine years, was 
 removed by death. 
 
 In 1773, he was succeeded by Rev. William Hol- 
 lingshead, who presided over the church ten years, 
 and was then transferred to a pastoral charge in 
 Charleston, S. C. Of his ministry, Mr. Osborn says, 
 — "E'othing uncommon occurred until the winter 
 of 1780-81, when the Lord was pleased to visit his 
 people with another shower of Divine grace. In 
 May, 1781, there were forty-eight admitted to full 
 communion. In December following, forty-six more 
 were added to the church, and several afterward, 
 so that the whole number added to the church in 
 1781 and 1782, was one hundred and fifteen. Well 
 may the people of Fairfield say — Hitherto hath the 
 Lord helped us, and blessed be his name!" In one 
 of his manuscript sermons, I find this additional 
 remark respecting that season of special interest — 
 "It has been said that this revival was attended 
 with more commotion and crying out than the pre- 
 ceding one. ' There are diversities of operations, 
 but it is the same God which worketh all in all.' " 
 
 The time honored edifice, now so extensively 
 known as the Old Stone Church, was built during 
 the pastoral administration of Mr. Hollingshead, 
 and used by him during the last two years of his 
 continuance here. In our remotest knowledge of 
 the congregation, we find them worshipping in a 
 
28 OLD STONE CllUliClI AND ITS PllEDECESSOKS. 
 
 log meeting-house, called the Cohansey Church, 
 situated in the entrance corner of the old grave- 
 yard referred to in the notice of Mr. Elmer, and 
 about a mile from where the present Old Stone 
 Church stands. The log house was supplanted hy 
 a wooden structure, on or near the same site. This, 
 in ^Ir. Hollingshead's time, became so decayed as 
 to be unsafe for use, and the pulpit was removed 
 to the open air, under the shadow of a large tree. 
 There he continued to address the congregation 
 until they entered their new sanctuary, September 
 7, 1780.* The graves of Mr. Elmer and Mr. Eam- 
 sey are where the shadow of the Avooden church fell 
 upon them. Mr. Powell was doubtless buried in 
 the same cemeter}^, but no trace of the place of his 
 interment remains. 
 
 After the removal of Mr. Hollingshead, in 1783, 
 the congregation appears to have lived under the 
 precarious and comparatively thriftless ministry of 
 occasional sup^Dlies, until in the winter of 1788-9, 
 when in the manner already described, the provi- 
 dence of their covenant God guided hither the 
 youthful minister whose long walk and labors 
 among them now come up for notice. 
 
 Much of Mr. Osborn's pastorate was like his 
 general life, tranquil and not abounding in histori- 
 cal points. The quiet every-day labors of a faithful 
 
 * For this date I am indebted to the researches of Judge Elmer. 
 
NO REVIVAL FOR TWENTY YEARS. 29 
 
 minister of God, will fill a large space in the reve- 
 lations of eternity, but they present few biographical 
 incidents. The leading events of his ministry are 
 the special effusions of the Holy Spirit, which, from 
 time to time, swelled up the numbers of the church, 
 and preserved the wholesome tone for which it was 
 distinguished in the times now under review. In 
 his own account of his pastoral administration, 
 revivals were his historical eras — the landmarks by 
 which he kept himself historically accurate. Still 
 the first twenty years of his ministry appear to have 
 passed with only the ordinary amount of spiritual 
 prosperity. "Writing to the Christian Observer, he 
 says that in 1790, (immediately following his settle- 
 ment,) the number of church members was one 
 hundred and twenty-five. In his historical sermon, 
 he informs us that in April, 1809, there were one 
 hundred and twenty-four, thus barely keeping up 
 with the current losses. Of the state of things dur- 
 ing this time, he says — 
 
 "Regular discipline in the church was kept up, and the sacra- 
 ment of the Lord's Supper was administered. Members of the 
 church very generally walked in the commandments and ordi- 
 nances of the Lord, blameless. Small additions were made to 
 the church from time to time, so that the number remained 
 nearly the same/' 
 
 This ''regular discipline," in those days, took a 
 high rank among the means of spiritual edification. 
 In the Fairfield church, the administration of it was 
 sometimes rather unique, but it was applied in a 
 gracious mood, and generally to the purpose. Let 
 
30 DISCIPLINE IN THOSE DAYS. 
 
 US take an example from the records of the Session, 
 under date of August 25, 1792 : 
 
 "Mr. John Ogden having brought a complaint against Mrs. 
 -, they both appeared and produced their evidences before 
 
 the Session, which being heard, it was judged that Mrs. 
 deserved a severe censure for accusing Mr. Ogden of stealing her 
 corn, and that both of them should he cautioned concerning several 
 things. 
 
 "Mr. Zeb Woodruif also brought a complaint against Mrs. 
 
 , [same defendant again.] The evidence being given in, 
 
 the Session judge that both of them should be admonished to lay 
 aside ill-grounded suspicion and all contentions, and live as be- 
 cometh the Christian religion." 
 
 This defendant's tongue appears in the end to 
 have been an overmatch for the diligence of the 
 Session, for we find eight months afterward, a 
 record of her "exclusion" for falsehood. 
 
 Another example : — 
 
 "1st May, 1797. The Session met, and was constituted with 
 prayer. Present — Ethan Osborn, Amos Westcott, Jeremiah Har- 
 ris, Jedediah Ogden, William Bateman, and Thomas Burch. 
 Several members of the church were mentioned as persons faulty, 
 either in commission of offences or omission of duty. After due 
 consideration of their particular cases, it was agreed that Mr. 
 William Bateman make inquiry of concerning a com- 
 plaint made against her for breach of the Sabbath ; that Amos 
 Westcott, Esq., inquire of , his reason for absenting him- 
 self from the Lord's Supper ; that Mr. Thomas Burch inquire of 
 
 his reason for not having his children baptized ; and that 
 
 Mr. Jer. Harris inform , that it is the desire of this Session 
 
 that he refrain from the sacraments till a certain criminal alle- 
 gation, now depending in law, is cleared up. The reports of these 
 several cases to be made at the next meeting of the Session. 
 Concluded with prayer." 
 
CO-OPERATIVE EFFORT. 
 
 "^1 
 
 Kear tlie close of 1805, Mr. Osborn, in connec- 
 tion witli some neigliboring pastors, entered upon a 
 course of co-operative effort for tlie advancement of 
 religion in tlie region around tliem. An extract 
 from a letter to liis familiar and mucli beloved 
 friend, Gen. Ebenezer Elmer, of Bridgeton, then in 
 Congress in Washington, will exhibit the character 
 of this effort. It is dated January 11, 1806. 
 
 "We had a monthly meeting at Bridgeton. We began them 
 at Fairfield the first Tuesday in last month. The next is to be 
 at Decrfield, the first Tuesday in February. These meetings, 
 agreed upon by the neighboring ministers, are to be by rotation 
 from one congregation to another, where ministers reside, on the 
 first Tuesday in every month. 
 
 "A little past the middle of last month, Mr. Freeman and my- 
 self took a preaching tour three days successively, at Alloway's 
 Creek, Pittsgrove, and Deerfield, and talk of taking another after 
 awhile. Last Tuesday evening, we four^" agreed to preach at 
 seven places, mostly in the outposts of our congregations, on the 
 same day and hour at four of the places, and about once a fort- 
 night by rotation. The general object of all these meetings is 
 the promotion of religion.'' 
 
 This movement on the hearts of these pastors 
 may have been the dawning of a special operation 
 of the Holy Spirit, which in Fairfield, three years 
 afterward, culminated in the first great revival 
 under Mr. Osborn's ministry. We will take our 
 account of this work of grace from his own pen. 
 
 " The Lord once more appeared for his favored church in Fair- 
 field. Through the summer and fall of 1809, a general awaken- 
 
 * The four present at the monthly meeting in Bridgeton, Mr. Osborn, 
 Mr. Freeman, Pastor in Bridgeton and Greenwich, Mr. Davis, Pastor 
 in Millville, and a fourth now unknown. 
 
32 MR. osborn's first revival. 
 
 ing to the concerns of the eternal world prevailed among the 
 people. Conference, or prayer-meetings, were held in dlifercnt 
 parts of the congregation, not less than six or seven evenings in 
 the week. It was truly a revival time, both to saints and sinners; 
 the Spirit of grace was poured upon each. Some were severely 
 experienced and brought into deep distress ; others were exer- 
 cised in a mild manner. Though there were divers operations, 
 yet the same God wrought in all. In a few months, a consider- 
 able number entertained a hope, and thanks to God ! he continued 
 his gracious work for many months. On December 3, 1809, just 
 twenty years from my ordination, twenty-four were admitted to 
 the church. In April, 1810, thirty were admitted to full com- 
 munion; in August following, twenty-seven more, and small 
 numbers at the two communions following, so that in the space 
 of two years, there were added to this church one hundred and 
 twelve. The Lord hath done great things for us, and blessed be 
 his name ! 
 
 " Though various means were used, yet it was evident that the 
 excellency of the power was of God, and not of men. This appears 
 from the great change wrought, and the good fruit following. 
 Though I was not idle during the revival, yet it seemed as if I 
 was a spectator beholding the wonderful operation of Divine 
 grace convincing and converting sinners. My brethren of the 
 Session were alive and diligent in prayer and religious conver- 
 sation, and perhaps I may have aided, in some measure, the good 
 work of the Lord. But I was only one among a multitude of 
 agents who were active in the same employ. Truly my soul 
 rejoiced to see many return unto the Lord and enlist under the 
 banner of King Jesus." 
 
 This revival, Mr. Osborn informs us, was fol- 
 lowed by a maiutenance of prayer-meetings, and 
 an orderly walk in tlie cliurcli generally, "keeping 
 the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace," but 
 "no remarkable occurrence in the state of religion," 
 until the year 1819. Then the soul of the Fairfield 
 pastor was again enlarged in a year of the right 
 
GRATEFUL NOTICE OF LAY AGENCY. 33 
 
 hand of God. The revival of that year was first 
 manifest in prayer-meetings, commenced in the 
 part of the township known as Sayre's l^eck, hnt 
 its influences were felt in other parts of the congre- 
 gation. As the result of it, fifty-six were added to 
 the church. 
 
 In the sermon which contains the account of this 
 revival, Mr. Osborn again speaks of his own agency 
 in a tone of humility, which his friends will not fail 
 to recognize as in keeping with his uniform spiritual 
 temper. Those who are familiar with this temper, 
 will have no doubt that he felt as he spoke when he 
 said — 
 
 " Though I promptly seconded the proposal, yet a Christian 
 brother whom I shall forever esteem and love, first proposed the 
 prayer-meeting, which was so signally blessed for the spiritual 
 good of the congregation. I think that brother, as an active 
 instrumental agent, has done much more in promoting the good 
 work than I have." 
 
 He then adds some reflections on the power of 
 lay agency in promoting revivals, which come with 
 a double interest to us in this year of our Lord, 
 1858— a year in which the use of this agency forms 
 so prominent a feature of the stupendous work of 
 grace now in progress over our whole country. 
 He says — 
 
 " I now speak it as my candid opinion, that in any revival of 
 religion, the ministry is only one among many agencies which 
 co-equally operate in promoting the blessed work of God. If a 
 lay brother is active in prayer and exhortation, the people are 
 more impressed with his sincerity, so that what he says and does 
 
34 FIRESIDE PREACHING 
 
 may have more influence on their minds. And not a little have 
 my Christian brethren and sisters, as agents under God, con- 
 tributed to maintain and promote the blessed religion of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ. I thank them for their labors of love, and I 
 thank my God for moving them to labor. Mine exhortation to 
 them is, not to be weary in well-doing, for in due season they 
 shall reap a glorious harvest.^' 
 
 During tlie next few years, there was only the 
 ordinary amount of spiritual movement in the 
 church. The pastor labored as usual, faithful and 
 affectionate, in public and private, and some Divine 
 influences distilled as the gentle dews. About this 
 time, Mr. Osborn preached to his people a sermon 
 descriptive of his pastoral visits to fiimilies — a mode 
 of effort which he had reduced to a system. I have 
 the manuscript of this sermon before me. An ex- 
 tract from it will afford a fine specimen of the man 
 in the character of a Christian shepherd. 
 
 " In the first place, I aimed to represent religion as the most 
 important of all things with which we have any concern, and 
 that it ought to be the chief object of our desire and pursuit. I 
 aimed to show that our neglect of religion must lead to everlast- 
 ing ruin. I also represented religion as good and amiable in 
 itself, as it assimilated us to the blessed God, and generally said 
 some things concerning the nature of religion, as it consisted in 
 a heart and life conformed to God. xind as we are fallen, 
 depraved creatures, I urged the necessity of a change, by the 
 renewing and sanctifying influences of God\s Spirit. As such a 
 change is all-important to us, I urged it home to the conscience 
 by this serious question — 'Do you really think you have experi- 
 enced such a change, or ptossess true gospel religion?^ I generally 
 observed, that though we may not know as certainly as God 
 knows, yet we ought to make it a frequent serious question to 
 
^ TO HEADS OF FAMILIES. 35 
 
 ourselves, in order to form a right judgment of our religious 
 character and present preparation for eternity, whether if we 
 should now die, our eternity would be happy or miserable. I 
 put this or a like question to heads of families; indeed, it ought 
 to be the great question with all, both old and young. 
 
 "When the answer was in the affirmative — that they enter- 
 tained a prevailing hope of being in a gracious state, I reminded 
 them of their constant need of the grace of Christ to keep them 
 in such a state, and their obligation to live near to God, by walk- 
 ing as Christ walked. I observed, that to live thus would con- 
 duce to their own peace and comfort, as well as to the glory of 
 God. I also cautioned them against the deception of a false hope, 
 and exhorted them to be always willing to examine themselves 
 by whatever might serve as a test of their sincerity. So doing, 
 they might be either undeceived, or find their piety and faith 
 made more evident. 
 
 "When the answer was in the negative — that they did not 
 consider themselves in a gracious state, I reminded them of the 
 lamentable character of such a conclusion, and their gloomy 
 prospect beyond the grave. I solemnly warned them of the 
 danger of resting there, and exhorted them immediately to seek 
 for mercy by imploring God to bring them out of a state of con- 
 demnation, and to pardon and save them through the redemption 
 by Jesus Christ. Here I frequently enlarged, by putting them 
 in mind of life's uncertainty, of the folly of risking their salva- 
 tion on their possible repentance at some future day, and how 
 dreadful their eternal state must be, should they die impenitent 
 and unpardoned. 
 
 " After mentioning some essential duties, such as repentance, 
 faith, love, and obedience, I spoke of the relative duties of parents 
 and children, and urged on parents and guardians the important 
 duty of bringing up their children in the fear of God. I observed 
 that they should discourage in them what is evil, and endeavor 
 to restrain them from it, and encourage them in what is com- 
 mendable and right. At the same time, they must pray God to 
 prosper their endeavors for the good of their children. 
 
 "After this, I led on the conversation to the duty of family 
 
36 FIRESIDE PREACHING. 
 
 prayer, and inc[ulred ■whether it was performed in tlie family. 
 AVhen the answer was in the affirmative, I observed that we 
 sh(juld pray to God with reverence, in sincerity and faith. I 
 mentioned some good effects which, by the blessing of God, it 
 tends to produce in the minds of both parents and children. 
 When the answer was, that family prayer was not attended, I 
 then observed that the neglect of it must certainly imply a fiiult 
 in them; that they either had no grace, or neglected the proper 
 exercise of it. I told them they ought to pray, and do it right, 
 and I exhorted them seriously to consider it, and to pray for a 
 spirit of prayer. 
 
 "After this I turned my conversation to the children and others 
 present. Here I urged the importance of obtaining religion in 
 early life, as youth is the most favorable time for it. I repre- 
 sented religion as conducive to their own peace and welfare, the 
 welfare of others, and the glory of their Heavenly Father. I 
 recommended it as Divinely excellent, and of absolute necessity, 
 for without it, we must be miserable, but in the spirit and prac- 
 tice of it, we shall be like angels, and qualified for the joys 
 of heaven. Sometimes I asked them questions, and counseled 
 them to learn, and advance in goodness as well as knowledge. I 
 reminded them of their duty to their parents, and solemnly 
 charged them not to neglect that or any other known duty, but 
 to be dutiful and pious children. And in order to move them to 
 it, I led on their thoughts to the solemn day of judgment, the 
 joys of heaven and the sorrows of hell. After speaking of our 
 present state of probation and the all-important consequences 
 which must follow, I concluded with prayer. 
 
 " Such, my brethren, was the general line of conversation 
 which I pursued in those religious visits, aiming to bring into 
 view things of universal concern, our duty and happiness in time 
 and throughout eternity." 
 
 It is a suggestive, as well as interesting fact, that 
 a round of pastoral labor, similar to wliat is here 
 described, preceded the last general eftnsion of the 
 Holy Spirit noticed above. 
 
CATECHETICAL INSTRUCTION. 37 
 
 In this connection, we ought not to pass over 
 another form of pastoral hibor which Mr. Osborn 
 performed with strict punctuality, until the grow- 
 ing np of denominational jealousies in after years, 
 forced him to abandon it. Once in three months, 
 he visited all the schools in the parish, for the pur- 
 pose of hearing from the scholars recitations of the 
 Westminster Assembly's Shorter Catechism, and 
 affording such exxDlanations of its doctrines as he 
 "thought adapted to their age and condition. It 
 must be remembered, that during the early part 
 of his ministry, his church stood alone in the 
 township. The Baptist Church in Cedarville, (since 
 resucitated.) was scattered and dead, and the Meth- 
 odists had not come in. The custom of teaching the 
 Shorter Catechism in the public schools, brought 
 from New England, was agreeable to the antece- 
 dents of the people, and there is no doubt but it 
 contributed largely to that clear, discriminating 
 appreciation of preaching which prevailed among 
 hearers thus trained. It would not be an unprofit- 
 able meditation, to reflect here upon the contrast 
 between that practice, together with the general 
 Scriptural knowledge of the people under it, and 
 the times when prejudice has expelled the primary 
 catechism of our church, even from many of our 
 own parish Sabbath-schools. 
 
 One of the three remarkable preservations from 
 death, in moments of imminent peril, which were 
 registered in the memory of Mr. Osborn, occurred 
 4 
 
38 A DAY OF DELIVERANCES. 
 
 during one of tliese catechetical instructions.* It 
 was some forty or fifty 3^ears ago, in a scliool-liouse 
 which stood near the present residence of Ephraim 
 H. Whiticar, Esq. While he was standing with the 
 children around him, the house was struck hy light- 
 ning, and the fluid, apparently following the course 
 of a row of nails in the floor, entirely tore away a 
 toe from one of his feet, without inflicting upon him 
 any other injury beyond the temporary shock of his 
 system. 
 
 The disasters of the day were not, however, ended. 
 In the evening, the house was accidentally set on 
 fire by a light carried by one of the family into the 
 attic, while searching for a bandage for his foot. It 
 was first discovered by some person in the road, and 
 for the second time in the history of this parish, the 
 wild cry of fire! rung fearfully out from the pastor's 
 house. f Help was gathered in sufiicient time to 
 save the building, but not without injury extending 
 to the destruction of a considerable portion of the 
 roof. 
 
 It was on the whole, a gloomy night for the 
 family, but doubtless a good one for the man who 
 was armed with the life-long habit of faith, and to 
 
 * One of these providential deliverances was experienced during 
 his boyhood, in connection with the upsetting of a loaded wood-sled. 
 The second has been recorded as following the capture of Fort Wash- 
 ington. The third is now related. 
 
 ■j- The house of Mr. Elmer was consumed by fire, in, or a little pre- 
 vious to A. D. 1759, involving the loss of the records of the church, 
 already noticed. 
 
A HOUSE THAT COULDN'T BURN. 39 
 
 whom tlie trial of tins grace was more precious than 
 gold. The Lord ivill i^rovide. The earnest of it was 
 not long in coming. The next morning, almost 
 before the family had time to deliberate upon 
 measures of relief, parishioners were seen coming np 
 with boards, rafters, shingles, nails, saws, hammers, 
 and whatever else the occasion demanded, and be- 
 fore night, the household were snug and dry under 
 a sound roof, and went quietly to their rest, after 
 blessed thanksgivings, mingled with many prayers 
 for that ''kind people" who were so often on Mr. 
 Osborn's lips and in his heart.* 
 
 Eeturning to the spiritual history of Mr. Osborn's 
 pastorate, we find no strongly marked events until 
 the year 1826. That year closed amidst another 
 extensive work of grace in the congregation. The 
 most full account which I have obtained respecting 
 it, is in a letter to his brother, Capt. Eliada Osborn, 
 of Litchfield, May 19, 1827. 
 
 ^ In relation to the peril of this house, one might almost say, as a 
 Fairfield gentleman once said to the writer, at another strife with the 
 consuming element. In the spring of 1848, I believe, while a town- 
 ship election was going on within it, the Old Stone Church was fired, 
 through a defect in the stove-pipe, between the ceiling and roof. 
 Men were plenty, but it was not so with ladders, buckets, and the all- 
 important article of water. For some minutes, the salvation of the 
 building was regarded as an impossibility. The gentleman referred 
 to, (not a professor of religion,) was standing near me. I said de- 
 spairingly—" The church must go.'' "Not a bit of it," was the reply, 
 "it canH burn down." "Why not?" I inquired. ^^ Because,'' said he, 
 " the good man above won't let that building be burned; 7ni?id I fell you." 
 I may add, the fire was subdued, with only some inconsiderable 
 damage to the roof. 
 
40 GREAT RELIGIOUS INTEREST. 
 
 "The Lord, ttg believe, has been carrying on a wonderful 
 gracious work among us since last November. There seemed to 
 be some unusual seriousness among the people through the fall, 
 and nine were added to the church on the first Sabbath in De- 
 cember. From that time, a general awakening seemed to prevail, 
 and a wonderful spirit of prayer was poured out on old and young. 
 Prayer-meetings were multiplied, and that cold weather in Janu- 
 ary could not stop the people from going to them. They were 
 often crowded. 
 
 " Such a degree of general earnestness and anxiety in religion, 
 I never before witnessed, either here, or in any other place. 
 Many were seriously inquiring what they should do to be saved; 
 and there were several instances of alarming conviction and dis- 
 tressing fears, sinking almost in despair. One young man, after 
 conversing with another in the evening, on the interesting sub- 
 ject of religion, while returning home, felt such a burden of guilt 
 that he could hardly move along. He said it seemed every 
 moment as if the lightning would strike him. After going along 
 awhile, he kneeled down by the fence and prayed ; he went 
 further and prayed again, and again after he returned home. The 
 heavy rain of that evening had thoroughly soaked his clothes, but 
 he scarcely thought of that, so intensely was his mind occupied 
 with the concerns of religion and eternity. 
 
 "A meeting for prayer and conversation with the anxious, was 
 established, and afterwards another, but so many crowded in, that 
 in a few weeks they became common prayer-meetings. The boys, 
 of their own accord, began a prayer-meeting, and afterwards 
 another, both of which are yet continued. You will understand 
 that all these prayer-meetings are weekly, on fixed evenings. 
 But besides these, there were in the winter, frequent extra meet- 
 ings collected in the two villages,* on two or three hours' notice. 
 One week our people counted nineteen meetings, fixed and extra. 
 
 " Previous to the sacrament, the Session appointed two days to 
 converse with those who should come forward. The total num- 
 
 ■^ Fairton and Cedarville, four miles apart, with the Old Stone 
 Church nearly midway between them. 
 
A SON BROUGHT IN. 41 
 
 ber propounded and admitted to full communion with the church 
 was fifty-one. This we believe is the Lord's doing, and while it 
 is marvellous in our eyes, we would rejoice and give thanks. 
 Among the aforesaid number were five men with their wives. A 
 large proportion of the new members are young people, and two 
 of the age of thirteen, one of whom — thanks to God ! is our dear 
 son, Robert.* The gracious work seems to be still in a measure 
 progressing." 
 
 In Mr. Osborn's notice of the clinrch, published 
 in the Christian Observer, he says, without adding 
 any particulars — "In 1831, we were blessed with 
 another revival, during which about eighty were 
 added to the church." But in this account, his 
 mind evidently embraced the work of 1827, which 
 is not otherwise noticed in that article. The jcsly 
 1831 was certainly a season of peculiar religious 
 interest. On March 30th of that year, he writes to 
 Litchfield — 
 
 " The state of religion is more encouraging. Four or five were 
 added to the church last December; nine are coming forward next 
 Sabbath. We are to have a three days' meeting, beginning on 
 Friday and continuing on Saturday and Sabbath. Four or five 
 neighboring ministers attend and preach, and one of them stays 
 with us over the Sabbath.'' 
 
 In the following August and December of that 
 year, there were twenty-seven received on profes- 
 sion into the church, so that regarding the move- 
 ments of this time as a continuation of the interest 
 of 1827, we have the ''about eighty" much more 
 than made good. 
 
 * Now Rev. Robert Osborn, of Point Pleasant, Western Virginia. 
 
 4* 
 
42 SETTLEMENT OF A COLLEAGUE. 
 
 At this time, witli but little numerical increase of 
 tlie population of the township, the number of com- 
 municants in the church had increased from one 
 hundred and twenty-five at the time of Mr. Os- 
 born's settlement, to three hundred and thirty-six. 
 The Old Stone Church had become so filled that 
 not a pew, and scarcely a sitting, either on the floor 
 or in the spacious galleries, remained without rent. 
 
 In 1836, (Mr. Osborn then being in his 78th year,) 
 Kev. David McKee, from Kentuck}^, was installed as 
 co-pastor, to take part in the labors of this large 
 parish. During this year, the Spirit was once more 
 poured from on high, in a work of grace which the 
 aged pastor characterized as the most powerful 
 which had occurred during his ministry, with the 
 single but lamentable exception of its short continu- 
 ance. In August of that year, sixty-one united with 
 the church, the largest number received at any one 
 communion during his pastorate. 
 
 As this closes the history of ingatherings under 
 his pastoral administrations, it may here be said the 
 number received on profession under his ministry, is 
 a fraction over six hundred. And it is recorded 
 with peculiar satisfaction, that notwithstanding his 
 was so eminently an administration of revivals, still 
 the aggregate number which we have counted up as 
 the fruit of those revivals, makes but little more 
 than one half of the total accessions just named. 
 Almost one half were the occasional dropping in of 
 new members as the fruit of the every day faithful- 
 ness and faith of the pastor and people, in the regu- 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL TllOUBLES. 43 
 
 lar moans of grace. It is a notable evidence that 
 the absence of great outward religious demonstra- 
 tions, is no evidence that Christ has forsaken his 
 ministers, or is not present in their administrations. 
 Mr. McKee's pastoral relation to the church con- 
 tinued only about two years. After his dismission, 
 Father Osborne, as it is now time to call him, under 
 his weight of four-score years — the time when men 
 are generally expected to 
 
 " Rather sigh and groan than live," 
 
 was once more left alone in the pastorate. His labors 
 would have been suificiently arduous, even if the 
 sky had been as serene as formerly, over his admin- 
 istration. But he was now to pass under some 
 clouds and meet some anxieties and cares which 
 were new in his experience. 
 
 Though calm in his spirit toward men^ he seldom 
 failed to take his position on questions, and it was 
 done in such a way that all knew where to find him. 
 In the troubles of the Presbyterian church previous 
 to 1837, and which then resulted in the organic di- 
 vision into w^hat are now known as the Old and l^&w 
 School, Father Osboru's sympathies were with the 
 latter, while some influential members of his session 
 and church, and a majority of his Presbytery were 
 with the former. 
 
 Although he believed and preached the doctrines 
 of personal election and the certain perseverance of 
 Christians, still his friends never claimed that he was 
 a strongly Calvinistic theologian; and in this time of 
 unusual sharpness in searching out heresies, he 
 
44 CHANGE OF RELATION. 
 
 made several free exposures, (once at least before an 
 assembly of co-presbyters, under much provocation 
 as he averred,) of views of the atonement which were 
 sure to be oiFensive to a rigid Calvinist. 
 
 It was in the midst of these excitements that the 
 Presbytery of West Jersey, which geographically 
 includes Fairfield, was set off from the Presbytery 
 of Philadelphia, and in the new Presbytery he stood 
 alone among the ministers, on the questions which 
 were rocking the church. Although he had for 
 long years been an acceptable co-presbyter with men 
 of the highest orthodox stamp, such for example as 
 Doctor Ashbel Green, still his ecclesiastical position 
 was now seriously imperiled. Measures did not, 
 however, reach the length of formal charges of 
 heresy, but there was much earnest discussion of the 
 matter, both in and outside of the meetings of the 
 Presbytery. The final result of the agitation was 
 the dismemberment of his church, and the organiza- 
 tion of the Presbyterian church in Cedarville, known 
 as the Brick church, and finally the transfer of him- 
 self and the old church, from the Presbytery of 
 West Jersey to the Third Presbytery of Philadel- 
 phia. * In this last connection he continued to the 
 
 * It is proper to say that the Cedarville organization is not wholly 
 due to this disturbance. The necessity of a separate church in that 
 village, had long been a subject of thought, and without the excite- 
 ment of the times, things were nearly ripe for it. There is, however, 
 no question that the events recorded above were the immediate oc- 
 casion of the separation, and it is certainly owing to the earnest 
 strife of that day, that the village of Cedarville now contains two 
 Presbyterian churches. 
 
INFLUENCE UNIMPAIRED. 
 
 45 
 
 end of life, in great peace with all branches of the 
 chnrch of our common Redeemer. 
 
 But while Father Osborn took his position strong- 
 ly, and maintained it amidst a warm excitement 
 rising sometimes to asperity, he was enabled to main- 
 tain in the view of all sides, his character for integ- 
 rity and piety. The settling away of the first excite- 
 ments of the dispute, found him still high in the 
 confidence of both Old and E'ew School, and in the 
 society and pulpits of all, he was once more the dear 
 and honored minister of Christ. The difterence, so 
 far as it affected his personal relation to his breth- 
 ren, was soon forgotten by almost all, and by none 
 sooner than himself. I believe I may say that at the 
 time of his death, every church in Fairfield bearing 
 any relation to his former charge, and every minis- 
 ter of the Presbytery to which he formerly belong- 
 ed, regarded him with the same unaffected reverence 
 as if the times from 1836 to 1840, had never had an 
 existence. 
 
 I knew him when these events were yet fresh, be- 
 fore lacerated tempers generally have time for heal- 
 ing, and my relations to him were such that if he 
 was disposed to transmit any latent grudge to any 
 living mortal, he would probably have sought to im- 
 bue me with it. But I rejoice to say I never heard 
 from his lips a word which would have gone harsh- 
 ly to the feelings of those with whom he had come 
 into ecclesiastical conflict. It was a subject upon 
 which he seldom spoke, and as time wore away, he 
 as seldom thought. It is a fact full of significance 
 
46 THE CHURCH BECOMES THREE. 
 
 respecting his spirit, that when his memory hegan 
 to he seriously impaired, the division of the Presby- 
 terian church was the first ecclesiastical event of 
 any importance which in his mind, was clouded 
 mth a haze. Four years previous to his death, 
 when the outlines of the history of his pastoral 
 charge were still clear in his remembrance, and 
 when he spoke freshly of the formation of the Pres- 
 bytery of West Jersey, he was bewildered when ask- 
 ed for the circumstances of his separation from it, 
 and only succeeded with great difficulty, in recalling 
 the fact of the division of the church. It is a mourn- 
 ful spectacle to witness the waning powers of a noble 
 mind, but the thought could hardly be avoided, that 
 if the failure of his memory had produced no obli- 
 vions more painful than this, he might almost have 
 been congratulated on its decline. 
 
 About the same time with the organization of the 
 Old School church in Cedarville, Father Osborn was 
 called to give up another portion of his people who, 
 on account of the local inconvenience of the Stone 
 church to them, formed a E'ew School church in 
 Cedarville. Most of the members of this church 
 went in with certificates from the old Fairfield ses- 
 sion. Thus the organization which had remained 
 intact for about a century and a half, became sud- 
 denly multiplied into the three Presbyterian churches 
 which now exist in the township of Fairfield, to wit : 
 The First Presbyterian church of Fairfield, since re- 
 moved to the village of Fairton, which retains the 
 legal succession, and is now under the pastoral 
 
THEIR PRESENT CONDITION. 47 
 
 charge of Rev. James Boggs ; the First Presbyterian 
 church of Cedarville, (the Brick church,) of which 
 Rev. John A. Annin is pastor; and the Second 
 Presbyterian church of Cedarville, (the "White 
 church,) under the pastorate of Rev. Charles F. 
 Diver. The first and last are connected with the 
 Fourth Presbytery of Philadelphia, and the Brick 
 church with the Presbytery of West Jersey. All of 
 them are in a state of thrift, perhaps exceeding that 
 of the average of churches of their circumstances 
 and breadth of field ; and they live in as harmonious 
 intercourse as any group of churches within my 
 knowledge. Harmony was the spirit breathed into 
 their parents under the ministrations of their sacra- 
 mental father, and until recently, the sight of his 
 venerable form among them, has been a gentle and 
 living admonition — ^' Children, love one another!" 
 
 Father Osborn continued to preside over the 
 mother church after its severe depletion ])y the drafts 
 from Cedarville, until 1844. He had then reached 
 his eighty-sixth year, and his weight of years seemed 
 to present an imperative necessity for his release 
 from the care of a congregation. He presented his 
 request for a dismission, to the Presbytery, and that 
 body thereupon sundered the long, well sustained, 
 and mutually afiectionate relation between the pas- 
 tor and people of the Old Stone church. It was felt 
 by all concerned as a mournful necessity. It is sel- 
 dom that a minister becomes in so many respects, 
 the spiritual father of his fiock. There was but here 
 and there one who could remember his comins: 
 
48 CLOSE OF THE PASTORATE. 
 
 among tliem. Of all wlio were members of the 
 church at that time, one aged man alone remained. * 
 Fairfield, since his settlement, had received but little 
 increase by immigration, and consequently acces- 
 sions to the church by certificate, had been rare. 
 Almost all who were members at the time of his dis- 
 mission, had received their baptism at his hands, and 
 their covenant vows from his lips. They were the 
 children for whom he had travailed in birth until 
 Christ was formed in them. But it was a necessity 
 which should be met by submission, not rebellion ; 
 and the Presbytery, pastor, and people all bowed 
 under it and said, " The will of the Lord be done!" 
 In closing the history of his pastoral administra- 
 tion, the minute adopted by the Presbytery, on the 
 occasion of his dismission, April 1844, may be ap- 
 propriately subjoined. It was prepared by Rev. 
 David Malin, D. D. 
 
 " In complying with the request of our venerable Father and 
 Brother in the ministry, the Rev. Ethan Osborn, to dissolve 
 the Pastoral relation between himself and the church and con- 
 gregation of Fairlield, New Jersey, the Presbytery feel that there 
 are circumstances of interest which render it worthy of peculiar 
 notice. 
 
 " For fifty-four years, Father Osborn has ministered to this 
 branch of Zion, during which time a degree of harmony and 
 
 * Mr. Nathan Bateman, whose subsequent death and burial are 
 noticed in a letter to Father Osborn's sister, Mrs. Kilbourn. " Nov. 7, 
 1848. This morning Nathan Bateman died. Of 125 members of the 
 church at my ordination, he was the last. I am requested to preach 
 at his funeral to-morrow. 8th. I returned from the funeral near 
 noon. A large number attended-. My text was Heb. iv. 9." , 
 
PRESBYTERIAL TRIBUTE. 49 
 
 friendship has subsisted between pastor and people, and a suc- 
 cess has attended his ministry, highly creditable to them, and 
 happily illustrating the beauty and importance of a permanent 
 pastoral relation. 
 
 " Now, late in the evening of life, in the eighty-fifth year of his 
 age, after having been permitted to enjoy in connection with his 
 labors, several revivals of religion ; and after having buried all 
 but one of those who composed his flock at the time of his instal- 
 lation ; and after having seen the children of two generations, 
 baptized with his own hands, succeeding to the places in the 
 church vacated by their fathers, he comes with an undiminished 
 regard for his people, and in the unabated enjoyment of their 
 confidence and afi'ection, to commit his united and happy charge 
 to the care of this body. 
 
 " The Presbytery commend this church for providing that their 
 worthy and venerable Pastor may continue to lean upon their 
 arm while he lives, and recline on their bosom when he dies, and 
 hope that other churches may follow their example." 
 
PART III. 
 
 - FROM HIS DISMISSION TO HIS DECEASE. 
 
 FouETEEN years of life remained to Father Osborii 
 as a minister without a pastoral charge. Those who 
 supposed that after his dismission, he would resign 
 himself to the repose which an old man is expected 
 to'seek, underrated the strength of his devotion to 
 the work of God. In his own breast there was no 
 such thought. In a letter to his Litchfield friends, 
 written after he had announced his intention to ask 
 a dismission, but before it had been carried into 
 eflect, he says — " Do remember me to James Birge, 
 Esq. * and tell him I shall still preach more or less, 
 when I am dismissed." The ruling sentiment of his 
 heart had been love to Christ, to his work, and to 
 the souls of men. From step to step, it had carried 
 him through rising degrees of devotion to his profes- 
 sion, until at the moment when he received ecclesi- 
 astical liberty to retire, he found himself under 
 another. law, as if written upon the chamber of his 
 heart, '' Necessity is laid upon me, yea woe is unto 
 me, if I preach not the gospel !" 
 
 Throughout the churches of the region, his name 
 was a household word, and there were few of them 
 to whom a pastor could ofifer a more accepta- 
 ble occasional treat, than to present before them 
 
 * A companion in arras during his service in the army. 
 
LOVE FOR HIS WORK. 51 
 
 Father Osborn as the preacher for the day. He 
 availed himself of numerous invitations to supply 
 neighboring pulpits, either to fill vacancies, or to 
 give pastors a Sabbath's respite. Preserving those 
 methodical habits for which he was peculiar, he was 
 accustomed to spend the months from the cooling 
 off of summer heat to the time for "going into 
 winter quarters," as he expressed it, in a round of 
 preaching excursions sometimes reaching from Pitts- 
 grove to Cape May. In this circuit, denomination- 
 alism was ignored. To him, the pulpits of Presby- 
 terian, Baptist, or Methodist churches were all the 
 same, if he could but use them to " speak as a dying 
 man unto dying men." IsTovember 7, 1848, (re- 
 member he has now passed his ninetieth year,) he 
 writes to his sister Kilbourn : 
 
 " Since my return, [from his last visit to Connecticut,] I have 
 not been idle, but have preached here and there among the Bap- 
 tists, Methodists, Old School and New School Presbyterians. Out 
 of twenty-five Sabbaths in succession, I have preached nineteen; 
 in all cases but two, in the surrounding congregations." 
 
 By the "surrounding congregations," I suppose 
 he means those which are in Fairfield and the re- 
 gion around. He was a frequent preacher in the 
 Old Stone Church, the scene of his former labors ; in- 
 deed for at least six years, he conducted the morn- 
 ing service there about once a month. 
 
 The last sermon which he wrote, was a farewell 
 to that venerable edifice, on the occasion of the re- 
 moval of the congregation to Fairton. The setting 
 off of the Cedarville churches had created such a 
 
52 VALEDICTORY TO 
 
 geograpMcal change in tlie congTegation, that a new 
 location became essential to its prosperity. A new 
 house of worship had been erected in the growing 
 village of Fairton, about a mile and a half west, and 
 by arrangement, March 20, 1850, was designated as 
 the time when, with preaching and sacramental 
 communion, we should turn from the consecrated 
 walls, hallowed by so many exhortations, prayers, 
 sacraments, sorrows and joys, and leave them alone, 
 a silent memorial of the past, a monument of change 
 and death. 
 
 At the request of the pastor and session. Father 
 Osborn accepted the charge of preparing a sermon 
 for the occasion ; indeed there would have been an 
 unpardonable impropriety in any other arrangement. 
 The reader will be grateful for some quotations from 
 this sermon. * I will offer no apology for lengthen- 
 ing the number of these pages with copious extracts 
 from a performance which may exhibit less vigor 
 than some of his earlier efforts would show. We 
 have passed his prime. I now wish to bring out the 
 aged preacher, in all the faithfulness of his still lov- 
 ing heart, and under circumstances which could not 
 fail to awaken for him the sympathy of his audience. 
 He is now in his ninety-second year. The place 
 where he stands was the scene of his eventful minis- 
 trations for more than half a century, and he does 
 not expect ever to preach from that pulpit again. 
 
 ■^ For a copy I am indebted to the family of liis son-in-law, Rickart 
 Hurd Esq., of Cincinnati, through whose care the original MS. has 
 been preserved. 
 
THE OLD STONE CHURCH. 53 
 
 After referring to the ministry of liis predecessor, 
 who in 1780 preached the first sermon in the house, 
 to his own labors there, and to those of the writer 
 of this memorial, then the pastor of the congrega- 
 tion, he proceeds — 
 
 " I may safely say that by the preaching of these three minis- 
 ters, in this house, the doctrines and all things essential to duty 
 and salvation, have been clearly explained and faithfully urged 
 upon the people. The doctrine of human depravity has been ex- 
 plained and proved from Scripture and common observation. Here 
 also the doctrine of regeneration has been repeatedly set forth, 
 and the absolute necessity of it urged upon the people. It has 
 been shown that we must be new created in Christ Jesus, must 
 have the love of God ruling in our hearts, or we can never be ad- 
 mitted into his kingdom. 
 
 " Also the doctrines of repentance toward God and faith in the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, have been faithfully preached in this house, 
 and their absolute necessity in order to obtain pardon and heaven- 
 ly felicity. Likewise the duties prescribed in the gospel have 
 been explained and insisted on. The people have been informed 
 that supreme love to God is their indispensable duty. Here also 
 they have been taught the duties we owe, one to another, to do 
 good to all according to our abilities and opportunities : and 
 to ourselves, to live sober and religious lives in the world. Here 
 also, that the law forbids every sin, whether in action, word or 
 heart, and pronounces a curse on every transgressor of it. For 
 * cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are 
 written in the book of the law to do them.' And as all have sinned, 
 therefore no human being can be justified before God by the deeds 
 of the law, or by meritorious obedience. The law requires per- 
 fect and perpetual obedience. But as no man has yielded such 
 obedience, or possessed sinless perfection, therefore in vain do you 
 now look to the law for justification, 
 
 ' Since to convince and to condemn, 
 Is all the law can do.' 
 
 5* 
 
54 SOLEMN APPEALS 
 
 " But, thanks to God 1 the gospel reveals a way of justification, 
 how we may obtain forgiveness and the favor of God. And this 
 blessed gospel has often been preached in this house, the gospel 
 which ofiers a free pardon to every humble penitent. ' This is a 
 faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus 
 came into the world to save sinners.' The blessed Saviour in- 
 vites the weary and heavy laden sinner to come to him, assuring 
 him that he will raise him up at the last day, to eternal life. 
 Such is the inviting and beneficent language of the gospel. But 
 at the same time, both law and gospel denounce everlasting pun- 
 ishment on such as reject the Saviour and die impenitent. 
 
 "Now the interesting question is, How have the people im- 
 proved the preaching of the law and the gospel ? Most of those 
 who lived under the ministry of my predecessor have gone to the 
 grave.* But to you who are yet living and hearing the gospel, 
 the question is solemn and important. Have you so improved 
 the preaching of God's word as to become wise unto salvation 
 through faith in Christ Jesus ? 
 
 " To those who are pious believers, I would say, you have 
 chosen the good part, and God has begun a gracious work in you 
 which he will carry on until it terminates in glory. So that by 
 faith in Christ, having laid hold on the hope set before us, you 
 may have a strong consolation, and go on your Christian course 
 rejoicing. Be not satisfied with your present relative attainments, 
 but press forward to the mark of perfection, the prize of the high 
 calling of God in Christ Jesus. Use the appointed means of read- 
 ing and hearing the word of God, not forsaking the assembling 
 of yourselves for public worship, as many do, and by no means 
 neglect the privilege and duty of prayer. Ask and receive, not 
 only that you may have grace to serve God^ but that you may 
 also grow in grace and in the knowledge of your Lord Jesus 
 Christ. In this way religion will become more pleasant. The 
 
 ■^ He might have said all — literally so, if he referred to those who 
 when they heard his predecessor, were old enough to recall any of 
 the instruction imparted. 
 
TO FORMER HEARERS. 55 
 
 nearer you advance toward heavenly perfection, the more delight- 
 ed you will be with heavenly enjoyment. * taste and see that 
 the Lord is good.' 
 
 * Come learn his pleasant ways, 
 And let us taste his grace.' 
 
 " Never be weary in well doing, for in perseverance, you shall 
 in due time reap a glorious harvest. As an inducement thus to 
 live and spend your remaining days, remember your judge and 
 mine will ere long call us to answer, how I have preached the 
 gospel and how you have improved it. 
 
 " I now turn to those of you whose future happiness is not yet 
 secured by faith in the Mediator. Your situation is awfully 
 dangerous. You are now suspended between the possibility of 
 eternal happiness or eternal misery. You are now between the 
 two vast extremes, or if I may more plainly express it between 
 heaven and hell. Either celestial happiness or infernal misery 
 must in a short time be your everlasting portion. How solemn is 
 the prospect before you — the joys of heaven or the sorrows of 
 hell, one of which must be your everlasting portion, — the latter 
 except ye turn at God's reproof. ' As though God did beseech 
 you by us, we pray you, in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to 
 God.' Believe me when I say it is my heart's desire and prayer 
 to God, that you and I may have a joyful meeting at the judgment, 
 in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 " As we expect this to be the last Sabbath on which I shall 
 speak to you from this pulpit, let me say, in the presence of God 
 who knows my heart, that I have endeavored and prayed that I 
 might faithfully perform my ministerial duties. Though I am 
 conscious of much imperfection, God is my witness, that I have 
 ever preached such doctrine and precepts as I verily believe are 
 agreeable to his word. I have repeatedly said, ' the lines are fal- 
 len unto me in pleasant places ; yea, I have a goodly heritage.' 
 With gratitude to God I look back upon the religious revivals 
 with which he has blessed us and the friendly relations which 
 have subsisted between us. It is no small satisfaction that as 
 pastor and people we separated as friends, and that a pleasant 
 
56 INTERESTING COINCIDENCE. 
 
 intercourse subsists between myself and my successor, your 
 present pastor. Never were the people more dear to me, I shall 
 love them as lonji; as I live. 
 
 *' Excuse my plainness, and permit me once more to say in the 
 fullness of my feelings, that my heart's desire and prayer to God 
 for you all is, that you may be saved. As it will not be long 
 before we must each answer to God — I for my ministry, and you 
 for your improvement of it, let us be diligent in what duty re- 
 mains and in advancing toward heaven. Let brotherly love con- 
 tinue and abound, until it shall be perfected in the heavenly 
 kingdom. And may God prepare us all to meet in heaven ! I 
 now bid you a cordial farewell, praying that it may fare well 
 with you in this world, in blessings of health and prosperity, as 
 far as shall be for God's glory and your own good, and that in 
 the future world, entered with your blessed Saviour into the joy 
 of your Lord, you may fare well." 
 
 There is a mournful comeliness in the circum- 
 stance that his last attempt to compose a sermon 
 should have been reserved for the last Sabbath ser- 
 vice that was held within that venerable sanc- 
 tuary, which, to him, was the most sacred place 
 this side of heaven. It almost seems as if the build- 
 ing which, while its walls were yet fresh from the 
 hands of the builder, had received him as the mes- 
 senger of heaven, and which had advanced along 
 with him from youth to old age, grew weary of the 
 voice of men as the time approached for his plain 
 and gentle-toned utterances to be heard no more. 
 
 In speaking of this discourse as his last attempt 
 at sermonizing, I refer to the labors of his study — 
 writing for the pnlpit. It must not be understood that 
 he then ceased to preach. From this time forward, 
 it is true, there was a more perceptible falling away 
 of power for public labors; still his friends in this 
 
PKEACHES NO MORE. 57 
 
 region know how dearly that blessed old servant of 
 Christ loved to preach, and how earnestly he con- 
 tinued, for several years more, to lift np his voice 
 for the gospel. But nature could not hold out for- 
 ever. The intervals between his pulpit labors 
 lengthened, until the summer of 1855, when at the 
 age of ninety-seven, in the church in Fairton, he 
 preached for the last time. Who can tell how aflect- 
 ing a service it would have been to himself, had he 
 supposed that it was, with the exception of assisting 
 in subordinate parts of service, his last official min- 
 istration. Was it not a gentle providence that he 
 did not ? This service, reckoning from his licensure 
 in 1786, completed sixty-nine years of actual service 
 as a preacher of the gospel of salvation. 
 
 While among the last things of Father Osborn, 
 the reader will find room for some thoughtful re- 
 flections in perusing what is supposed to be the last 
 letter which he wrote.* It is dated a little more 
 than two years previous to his death, and addressed 
 to the sole survivor among his brothers and sisters, 
 Mrs. Thalia Kilbourn. Mark how oblivious he be- 
 comes of long periods, speaking of the characteris- 
 tics of the country as if he were a fresh emigrant 
 giving information that was all new to her, and of 
 his exchange with Mr. Smalley, a clergyman who 
 had been deceased some twenty years, as if it were 
 a recent event. Observe also, how the fact that all 
 his brothers and sisters, except herself had gone, 
 
 * One of later date has been discovered since this paragraph was 
 written. 
 
58 AN OLD man's letter. 
 
 has passed from his memory. The thought of his 
 offering himself, at ninety-six years of age, to supply 
 a vacant congregation in Connecticut, may excite a 
 smile, but it will be one of pleasure in the inex- 
 haustible strength of his devotion to the work of 
 his Master. It is the expression of his indomitable 
 passion to be always preaching Christ. 
 
 "Fairfield, New Jersey, 
 
 January 23, 1855. 
 
 *'Dear Sister, — Through the goodness of God, who is the 
 giver of every good gift, we enjoy good health. I say we, mean- 
 ing Sarah McQueen and myself. We live in a two story house, 
 with a good cellar under it and chambers. The water is not 
 quite so good as it is in Connecticut, though better than that 
 which is still nearer the salt marshes. The face of the country 
 is one vast extended plain for miles around. No stones on the 
 surface ; some are found in brooks and rivulets. The land has 
 been so worried with crops, year after year, that it produces 
 about the same as in Connecticut.* The land does not produce 
 potatoes so plentifully as in Connecticut, but they are more mild 
 and have no strong taste. They make no use of potatoes for 
 fattening and raising hogs. They feed their horses almost 
 altogether with corn. 
 
 " Their religious practices are commendable. Very few 
 families who attend no religious meeting. I know of none. We 
 have different sects as you have ; the Presbyterians most nume- 
 rous ; then the Methodists, and then the Baptists. They are 
 mingled in the same neighborhood without any contention, and 
 unite in business as if of one denomination. I have exchanged 
 pulpits with Mr. Smalley, a Baptist minister : no complaint was 
 made. In religion, the earth seems to be still and at rest. I 
 trust many have vital piety. The ordinances of baptism and the 
 
 * He is speaking of the couiitry as it was before the agricultural 
 advancements of the last twenty-five years. 
 
CANNOT FORGET PRAYER. 59 
 
 Lord's Supper are regularly administered quarterly — four times 
 in a year. 
 
 "Do write before long, and tell who of our father's children 
 and grand children are living, and who of the Landons are liv- 
 ing. Who is your minister now ? And who preaches in Milton? 
 If they have none, I think I should be willing to preach for them 
 awhile. I was dismissed by my own request. Mr. Meeker is 
 our minister now, and is well esteemed. We live in peace, and 
 may the God of peace be with and bless you. 
 
 *' Ethan Osborx.'' 
 
 From this time forward, there was supposed to be 
 a rapid decay of his mental powers. Having before 
 this time been transferred to a parish in another 
 State, I had few opportunities for a personal obser- 
 vation of the condition of his mind. "When I occa- 
 sionally did see him, it appeared to me — and in this 
 view I am supported by some of his most judicious 
 friends — that his faculties generally were in a much 
 sounder condition than casual observers supposed. 
 His memory was far gone, sometimes so far that he 
 seemed to lose the recollection of those who were 
 dearest to him in life. Often he could not remem- 
 ber the common events of life, an instant after they 
 had passed. He would sometimes perform family 
 worship twice in the morning, and I believe in some 
 cases a third time, forgetting that it had been ob- 
 served at all. It is however a striking index to the 
 state of his heart, that his memory of worship was 
 never treacherous in the opposite direction. He 
 never forgot to observe family devotions. 
 
 Still I could never perceive but his perception of 
 truth, his reason, and even his judgment were sound, 
 
60 
 
 when some friendly voice was at hand to keep his 
 mind from losing the points of a conversation. 
 Without such assistance, he would soon become be- 
 wildered. But with the simple aid of prompting his 
 memory, I have heard him, within the last year of 
 his life, make observations, and even draw conclu- 
 sions from a process of reasoning, with the sense 
 and shrewdness which belonged to his better days. 
 Let it be remembered how the loss of the single 
 faculty of memory seems to unhinge the whole mind, 
 and the ap'parent intellectual decay of Father Osborn, 
 in his last year, is explained. 
 
 With all the infirmity which he carried into these 
 years of almost absolute retirement from the world, 
 it may with truth be said that his last days were his 
 best days. His spiritual sense was never dimmed. 
 Ask him of things of this world, even the number 
 and names of his own children, and in the effort to 
 gather up a correct reply, his mind would often be- 
 come so confused, that the whole subject would es- 
 cape his attention. But ask him of the dealings of 
 God with his soul, and his bow abode in strength. 
 Among earthly things, he might often be lost, but 
 he never wandered in the way to the throne of 
 grace. People said with wonder — ''How happy 
 Father Osborn is ! and how happy he makes all 
 around him !" It did seem strange that one so lost 
 to the natural enjoyments of life, and who was such 
 an object of care and anxiety, requiring for his safe- 
 ty an almost sleepless vigilance, should still retain 
 the power of diffusing such a serene tranquillity 
 
ONCE MORE IN A REVIVAL. 61 
 
 around him. But there he sat, or walked from room 
 to room, or wandered ahout the grounds, singing 
 some happy song of Zion, or rehiting some sweet ex- 
 perience, talking always of mercies, and wondering 
 how any can complain when God is so good. 
 
 But his work for God is not yet done, and we are 
 to contemplate him once more in the field of active 
 duty. The winter of 1857-8, was to all the churches 
 of Fairfield, a season of great refreshing. The work 
 was general, powerful, and full of incidents illustra- 
 ting the power of prayer. 
 
 The cry — A Revival ! was one which would almost 
 move Father Oshorn in his coffin : certainly while 
 living, it could not fail to kindle all the inflamma- 
 bility that was left in his nature. It did not start 
 his spirit into new life, for it found him already gird- 
 ed, arming himself for his last battle in the earthly 
 Christian warfare. It came not to rouse him to pray- 
 er, for it found him praying for this one more sight 
 of the glory of salvation among the community 
 whom he never ceased to call his people. It may 
 well be doubted whether, in the sight of God, there 
 was any human agent in that great revival, more 
 active than the old pastor, wrestling with the Angel 
 of the Covenant, in his Bethel home. Like the pa- 
 triarch, he^ wrestled almost literally until the break- 
 ing of the day, for so engrossing had the work be- 
 come to his own soul, that he sometimes rose from 
 his bed, in the dead of night, to pray for particular 
 unconverted persons whose spiritual peril awakened 
 in him anxieties too deep to allow slumber. 
 6 
 
62 LAST PUBLIC APPEARANCE. 
 
 His apprehension of things around him, such as 
 the spiritual condition of his neighbors and the state 
 of the churches, experienced an astonishing resus- 
 citation, and he was once more in the blaze of the 
 old revival years. Most of this, it must be remem- 
 bered, was at a remove from the sympathetic influ- 
 ences of crowded assemblies with their mourning 
 sinners and happy converts. It was mostly in the 
 quiet of his own household, and in the deeper seclu- 
 sion of his communion with God. He attended 
 only a few of the public meetings; his infirmities 
 forbade his going abroad oftener. But he kept him- 
 self advised of all that was going forward, and 
 preached to his family, (then consisting of two 
 persons in addition to himself,) of the wondrous 
 salvation of God, and held with them many meet- 
 ings of prayer for a blessed ingathering of souls. 
 
 His last appearance in church was in connection 
 with this work. He was then in the one hun- 
 dredth year of his age. It was in the "White 
 Church," in Cedarville, at a meeting of ''young 
 converts," in number from one hundred and fifty 
 to two hundred, to listen to a sermon from Rev. 
 Mr. Parker, who had greatly aided some of the 
 local pastors during that season of arduous labor. 
 He heard Mr. Parker with fixed attention, through 
 a long and interesting discourse, and was then 
 called on to add an exhortation, and offer the con- 
 cluding prayer. Concerning this performance, the 
 pastor, Mr. Diver, writes me — " He seemed like an 
 old veteran commander in the army, taking a view 
 
APPROACHING THE END. 63 
 
 of tlie recruits just entering the service for King 
 Immanuel. He reminded them it was a service 
 for life, and their warfare would not be done until 
 they obtained their crown. In such a manner he 
 spoke, and then prayed God that they might be 
 faithful unto death." 
 
 From this scene he returned to his house, and 
 when he next went to the sanctuary, it was where 
 the glorified congregation worship — 
 
 " Where the assembly ne'er breaks up, 
 The Sabbath ne'er shall end." 
 
 His translation was at hand. Though more vigorous 
 in body and mind than he had been a few weeks 
 previous, he saw with unerring accuracy, that the 
 time had almost come, and his peace was as a river. 
 He expressed his consciousness of the near approach 
 of death to his beloved niece, who for many years 
 had filled a daughter's place and given to his aged 
 heart a daughter's love. Filled with sorrow by the 
 suggestion, she inquired — "What shall I do with- 
 out you?" He took her by the hand, and looking 
 upon her out of his loving eye, bade her be com- 
 forted, and said — '' "When thy father and thy mother 
 forsake thee, then the Lord will take thee up." 
 
 I have been furnished with a letter, written by 
 this lady to Rev. Robert Osborn, containing a vivid 
 sketch of the experiences of the last week of his 
 life. Though written without a thought of its pub- 
 lication, it comes so freshly from the chamber of 
 death, that with Mr. Osborn' s permission — indeed 
 
64: ON THE BANK OP THE RIVER. 
 
 at Ills suggestion, I subjoin it as better than any 
 other account which it is now possible to furnish of 
 that ahnost beatific scene. As Mr. Osborn justly 
 remarks, in his note forwarding me a copy of the 
 letter, the description is peculiarly valuable in view 
 of the source from which it comes. " She was," he 
 says, '' an eye witness, and was not one who is liable 
 to be swayed by her feelings alone." 
 
 " My Dear Cousin, — It appears to me like months instead of 
 weeks, since I stood by the dying bed of my ever dear uncle, and 
 saw him draw his last breath. Of how little importance did the 
 world then appear to me! He had so long been the object of 
 constant care and solicitude, the centre of all my thoughts and 
 labors, that it almost seemed that there was nothing left for me 
 to live for ; and I still feel an indescribable dreariness that none 
 can realize who have not felt the same. I am glad it is not 
 wrong to weep, and I can at times rejoice that his glorified spirit 
 is free, no longer cramped and bound by the frail tenement that 
 had borne the trials of almost an hundred years. But he was so 
 ripe for heaven and enjoyed such a blessed nearness to the Sa- 
 viour, and was so abundant in prayer, that although for him to 
 depart and be with Christ was far better, yet his death has left a 
 void that no common Christian can fill. 
 
 " How I wish you could have been with us the day before he 
 was taken down. I shall always feel thankful for the privilege 
 of being with him when he had, (as I believe,) a view^ and fore- 
 taste of heaven. lie had passed a night of suffering. In the 
 morning he slept till ten o'clock. When he awoke he was all life 
 and animation, and his whole appearance was changed. He had 
 been so long confined, mostly to the house, that his complexion 
 had become very fair and clear. Now, his face was full, without 
 a wrinkle, his eyes sparkled, he walked erect ; the stoop in his 
 shoulders was all gone — his appearance was beautiful. He 
 came out of his room singing words that I never heard him sing 
 
PASSING OVER. 65 
 
 before, '0 happy! happy! My happy, happy home !' then 
 spake in a loud clear voice, '0 what a glorious King is Jesus! 
 The martyr Stephen saw Heaven opened and Jesus standing on 
 the right hand of God/ He then spoke of the glories of Heaven 
 as described in the Revelation. After repeating the passages— 
 
 * and there shall be no night there ; they stood on a sea of glass ; 
 they sang the Song of Moses and the Lamb ;' and after speaking 
 in the same strain a long time, he sang — 
 
 ' glorious hour! blest abode ! 
 I shall be near and like my God,' &c. 
 
 ■ " I could but look and listen almost spell-bound, and the words 
 
 * They shall flourish in immortal youth,' were constantly in my mind. 
 He took a slight dinner, and then seated in his rocking chair, 
 with his head resting on the back of it, and eyes fixed upwards, 
 he sang songs of praise most of the afternoon, without the least 
 apparent fatigue ; not low, humming, but loud and clear, ringing 
 sweetly through all the house, and heard distinctly at the barn. 
 
 " When asked to supper, he said, ' Yes, willingly and thank- 
 fully.' He wheeled round his chair, asked a blessing, and then 
 sang — 
 
 ' My flesh shall slumber in the ground 
 Till the last trumpet's joyful sound ; 
 Then burst the chains with sweet surprise, 
 And in my Saviour's image rise.' 
 
 " It was the first time he had sung that verse, though the pre- 
 ceding ones he had repeated often. He took supper with a good 
 appetite, and in the evening asked us to sing — 
 
 ' How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord.' 
 
 " He attended family prayer three times, and went to bed ap- 
 parently in good health. He was awake most of the night, but 
 did not sufi'er as usual. 
 
 " Next day he slept till noon, took a little dinner — then slept 
 again. At three o'clock I found he was unwell, and called the 
 Doctor, who was very attentive to the last. About midnight he 
 expressed his belief that he would soon leave us and be with the 
 
 6* 
 
66 LETTER OF CONDOLENCE. 
 
 Saviour, where there is * fullness of joy.' He gave me his last 
 charge to trust in the Lord, look to Him and He would not for- 
 sake me. These were his last connected words. But let me pass 
 over those two days and a half. Suffice it to say, ' he was made 
 perfect through suffering,' and left us at noon on Saturday ! 
 
 ' Servant of God, well done ! 
 Praise be thy sweet employ.' " 
 
 Sucli a close of such a life ! Could the one better 
 befit the other ? Almost literally like the prophet 
 Elijah, he went on talking with us along the coun- 
 tr}^ of Jordan, until it came to pass as he still went 
 on and talked, there appeared a chariot of fire and 
 horses of fire, and parted him from us. It is not 
 strange that when we beheld such a translation, we 
 cried — "My father! my father! the chariot of Israel 
 and the horsemen thereof!" Be ours the supplication 
 that a double portion of his spirit may rest on us ! 
 
 From among the numerous testimonials to the 
 worth and loveliness of Father Osborn, contained 
 in letters of sympathy addressed to his family, the 
 following from the Eev. Heman L. Yaill, of Litch- 
 field, Conn., is selected, as affording an interesting 
 illustration of the abiding remembrance in which 
 he was held in the home of his childhood. 
 
 " Litchfield, Connecticut, 
 
 May 24, 1858. 
 
 " JBenj. Thompson, Esq. 
 
 " My Dear Sir. — The tidings that the venerable Ethan Osborn 
 has at length passed away, came somehow very unexpectedly to 
 me, for, notwithstanding his great age and consequent feebleness, 
 I had in a manner hoped, and almost believed, that he might be 
 permitted to remain on earth a little longer, at least till the round 
 
HOW HE USED TO SING. 67 
 
 hundred of his years should have been complete. I wrote on the 
 5th instant, to one of the Professors in Dartmouth College, and 
 expressed my hopes as above stated, not knowing at that date, 
 that our venerated friend who had so long ' walked with God,' 
 had been already translated. I also sent, at the same time, to 
 the Faculty of the college, some historical sketches of the four 
 Osborns, his cousins, who were educated at Dartmouth, and a 
 brief notice concerning himself and the Rev. Joseph Vaill— his 
 cousin, for more than fifty years pastor of the church in Hadlyme, 
 Conn. These six young men, born and reared through their youth, 
 in the same neighborhood, all went within a few years of each 
 other, to the same college ; and as its next Triennial Catalogue 
 will show, have now all gone to the eternal world. 
 
 " Your friend Ethan never received, nor sought for, the secondy 
 or master's degree from college; but he did receive from all the 
 friends of Christ who knew him, a nobler honor than earthly uni- 
 versities can give— the honor of being ' a good minister of Jesus 
 Christ'—' a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost :' and now be- 
 yond all this, he has received that last and highest degree, such 
 as the Lord himself confers, when he calls to his faithful and 
 worn out servants, who have finished their course, saying, ' Come 
 up hither !' 
 
 I am now myself an old man, of upwards of three-score ; but I 
 remember with pleasure, far back to the days of my earliest 
 childhood, the visits of our departed friend and father to the old 
 homestead where he was born ; and the calls he was wont to 
 make on the families in the neighborhood. I well remember how 
 he used to preach, and how he used to converse — grave and 
 serious always— and yet always genial and attractive. Yes, and 
 I remember how in the little social religious meetings, held 
 here, because lie was here, how he used to sing ; that high, yet 
 soft and sweet tenor voice, in the Psalm 89th of Dr. Watts, ' With 
 reverence let the saints appear,' &c., sung to the tune ' Virginia.' 
 But though this good old tune is now a thing of the past, that 
 same 89th Psalm, as David wrote it for 'Ethan the Ezrahite' 
 remains ; and the Ethan of ancient time, and our Ethan the 
 * Saint of God' may now be singing the same words, ' I will sing 
 
68 FUNERAL SERVICES. 
 
 of the mercies of the Lord forever/ members of the same choir, 
 and worshipping before the same throne. Praying that we may 
 all be the true and faithful friends of Jesus Christ, while here on 
 earth ; and be at length all welcomed home to the Heaven where 
 they all sing, I remain, 
 
 "Yours very respectfully and truly, 
 
 "Herman L. Vaill." 
 
 "Where cleatli lias been, there must be a funeral. 
 The attendance, the expression of the countenances 
 of the assembly, and the general cast of the services 
 at the obsequies of the departed, are sometimes good 
 indications of the estimate jDlaced upon them while 
 living. Probably the county of Cumberland was 
 never before the scene of a funeral where people as- 
 sembled in such a throng, and where the assembled 
 throng came, attended, and returned under liiore 
 profound impressions. 
 
 Father Osborn's mortal remains were interred 
 with the customary Christian services, on Thursday, 
 the fifth day after his death. Several well written 
 notices of the event were published in the local pa- 
 pers, and in Philadelphia. One from the Bridgeton 
 Chronicle, is selected for insertion here, in preference 
 to those in the religious papers, only as coming from 
 a secular publication, it may better show the hold of 
 our departed father upon the affections of the people 
 at large. 
 
 "FUNERAL OF REV. ETHAN OSBORN. 
 
 " Thursday, May Gth, 1858, was a great day in Fairfield. The 
 whole township seemed awake for some great gathering. There 
 was to be a funeral, but not a time of great mourning. There had 
 
THE ASSEMBLY. 69 
 
 been no untimely frosts to blast the ties of blood and friendship, 
 but one had come to his grave in a full age, like as a shock of 
 corn Cometh in his season. * Father Osborn,' the man longest 
 and best known, and best beloved, had died among the people of 
 his first choice, and ' devout men' were about to carry him to 
 burial. 
 
 " We started from Bridgeton with another carriage or two, but 
 before arriving at Fairton, we found we were in company with a 
 dozen, which was increased to between twenty and thirty after 
 we had passed through the town. 
 
 *' In Fairton, business was hushed — 
 
 ' No busy hum, 
 Nor sound of anvil, nor of plane Avas heard, 
 But peace and holy quiet reigned around.' 
 
 "The faces and dress of the inhabitants wore a Sunday-like as- 
 pect, and their ways were turned toward the 'Old Scone Church/ 
 The meeting at the house was at 10 o'clock, and in more than 
 half an hour after, the procession arrived, with the body, at the 
 church. But long before this — excepting the seats reserved — the 
 building was filled from the neighboring country around. Bridge- 
 ton, Greenwich, Hopewell, Deerfield, Pittsgrove, Millville and 
 Newport, were all represented and nearly 250 carriages were on 
 the ground. Hundreds remained outside upon temporary seats 
 in front of the church, or standing at the side windows. There 
 would have been hundreds more if the early morning had been 
 tiuspicious and accommodations prepared. Seventeen ministers 
 were present, mostly occupying the platform and pulpit. After 
 the hearse had been raised to the platform, the Rev. B. B. 
 Hotchkin stated that the last time our lamented Friend and 
 Father sat at the table, he spontaneously broke forth in singing 
 the last three stanzas of the 17th Psalm, to the tune of Glasgow, 
 
 'This life's a dream, an empty show,' &c., 
 
 which was accordingly sung by the congregation, to the same 
 tune, led by Mr. Williams. 
 
 "Rev. Mr. Cattell, of Deerfield, read from the second chapter of 
 2 Kings. 'And it came to pass, when the Lord would take 
 
70 SERVICES IN THE CHURCH. 
 
 up Elijah into heaven/ — following with prayer. The Rev. Mr. 
 Ilotchkin then arose and stated that it had been deputed to him, 
 as eldest son in the pastoral office to the venerated dead, to take 
 the principal part in the services, and although he had but little 
 time for preparation, with such an inspiring theme, he could plead 
 no apology. His text was in the 12th verse of the 12th chapter, 
 of 2 Kings, — ' My Father, my Father, the chariot of Israel and 
 the horsemen thereof.' 
 
 [The synopsis of tlie discourse, as here given, is 
 omitted, all its particulars being reproduced in the 
 present Memorial.] 
 
 "The 2d, 3d, and 4th stanzas of the 623d hymn were then sung. 
 
 ' Servant of God, well done ; 
 Kest from thy loved employ ; 
 The battle fought, the victory won, 
 Enter thy master's joy. 
 
 ' The voice at midnight came, 
 
 He started tip to hear ; 
 A mortal arrow pierced his frame, 
 
 He fell — but. felt no fear. 
 
 ' Tranquil amidst alarm, 
 
 It found him on the field, 
 A veteran slumbering on his arms 
 
 Beneath his red cross shield.' 
 
 *'Pvev. Dr. Kollock, of Greenwich, made a short and interesting 
 address from these words : ' And when they had taken up the 
 body and buried it, they went and told Jesus.' He was followed 
 by the Rev. Mr. Cattell of Deerfield, who feelingly called to the 
 minds of his hearers, the eternal themes, which the voice now 
 hushed in silence before them, had so often sounded in their ears. 
 The Rev Mr. Boggs, of Fairton, read the Testimonial of the Pas- 
 toral Association of Philadelphia, to the churches of Fairton and 
 Cedarville. The congregation then sang the 1st, 3d and 4th 
 stanzas of the 624th hymn 
 
 ' Why do we mourn departed friends.' 
 
EARTH TO EARTH — DUST TO DUST. 71 
 
 "The Rev. Mr. Gillette, of Shiloh, made the concluding prayer 
 in the church. After which the body was removed to the front 
 of the church, that all might take a last lingering look at all that 
 was mortal of Father Osborn. 
 
 "At the grave, the Rev. S. Y. Monroe, gave out the beautiful 
 hymn 
 
 ' Unveil thy bosom faithful tomb, 
 
 Take this new treasure to thy trust, 
 And give these sacred relics room 
 To slumber in the silent dust.' 
 
 "Mr. Monroe then closed these interesting services by exclaim- 
 ing, ' Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end 
 of that man is peace ;' and pronounced the Benediction. Thus 
 ended probably the largest and most interesting funeral ever at- 
 tended in our country. Who can estimate the good done by the 
 life of such a man ! What a living epistle ! From the exhibi- 
 tion of Christianity, as seen in him, influences have emanated, 
 which, like dews and showers, have distilled upon generations. 
 And it is not improbable that his life and glorified death have 
 given as sweet a savor to religion as his inculcation from the 
 Pulpit.^' 
 
PABT IV. 
 
 GENERAL VIEWS OF HIS CHARACTER. 
 
 We have followed tlie career of Fatlier Osborn, in 
 consecutive order, from his entrance upon the mor- 
 tal to the immortal life. Some remarks upon his 
 official and personal character, illustrated from his 
 discourses and family correspondence, which were 
 not convenient for chronological arrangement, have 
 been reserved for this place. 
 
 The first impressions of a stranger making his ac- 
 quaintance, w^ould be that he was in the presence of 
 a calm, equable Christian of a gentle heart, and whose 
 life was running like an even spun thread — a plain, 
 common sense thinker, and an earnest friend of 
 Christ. It is true, further intimacy would confirm 
 these views, but it would reveal some unexpected 
 traits, such as deep, native shrewdness, a tact for the 
 administration of affairs that was peculiarly his ow^n, 
 and a prudence of manner which seemed almost 
 feeble, but which was found in the end to grasp some 
 bold results. I have often noticed with surprise how, 
 with the least appearance of doing it, he would read 
 men through and through, and how, in a few simple 
 words, almost pointless to one who did not compre- 
 hend their drift, he would make the power of rebuke 
 felt in exactly the place wdiich he wished to reach. 
 
 The portraiture of Father Osborn as a preacher, 
 
CHARGE TO A PASTOR. 73 
 
 he Shall draw for himself. I have obtained from 
 among his manuscripts what is labeled, "A Charge 
 delivered at Mr. Edwards' Ordination." There is no 
 information accompanying it respecting the tmre or 
 place of this ordination. It was probably at Cape 
 May, near the beginning of the present century. In 
 a letter to his brother, June 1809, he mentions Mr. 
 Edwards as the pastor at Cape May. From this 
 char-e the reader can learn his theory of the preach- 
 ino- and conduct of a Christian pastor, and there is 
 no'lack of living witnesses that what he regarded as 
 a good theory, was with him a law of performance. 
 
 "DeaeBrother,-You are now, mth your own consent, sol- 
 emnly set apart to take part with us in the mm.stry of the gos- 
 pel You have devoted yourself to a most weighty and usefu 
 employment. See that you undertake it from right moUves, and 
 ulfilJt in such a manner .as to meet with the approbation of 
 your Master and Judge. ' Take heed unto thyself and unto the 
 doctrine' Let thy preaching and example so correspond with 
 f: r tier, and wfth the gospel, as to n^tually strengt en and 
 enforce each other's influence. Consider thyself a worker together 
 with God, employed by him, and self-devoted to the bmld:ng-«p 
 of his churci among men. Therefore be f'ke md.fferent to 
 human censure or applause. Let the Word of God be the rule of 
 your preaching, his approbation your most emuUt.ve endeavor, 
 and his glory in the edification of his church, your highest end. 
 Endeavor so to vary your subjects and discourses, as to su.t the 
 various characters and cases of your hearers. Deal out to every 
 •one a portion in due season. , „ , • ,, 
 
 " Preach the law and preach the gospel. Preach the law in all 
 its strictness and spirituality, as an eternal rule of right, bmdmg 
 on every moral agent, and as covering all the exercises of the 
 mind as well as outward actions, requiring perfect and perpetual 
 
74 WHAT A PREACHER SHOULD BE. 
 
 obedience in every act, word and thought, on pain of condemna- 
 tion. And make close application to the conscience for the con- 
 viction of impenitent sinners, to make them duly sensible of their 
 sin, and to make them feel as if standing in the day of judgment. 
 
 " But not confining yourself to the law, preach the gospel. Hold 
 up the blessed remedy it provides for guilty, pe/ishing sinners. 
 Preach Christ and him crucified, in all his fullness and freeness to 
 save. Preach him in all his offices and sacred characters, as the 
 way and the only way to the Father, through whom alone we can 
 be redeemed from the curse of the law, and obtain salvation. 
 Show his ability and willingness to save all who come to him be- 
 lieving, and also the necessity of the Holy Spirit's influence to en- 
 able and dispose them to come believing. Show the happy con- 
 sequences of belief, and the fatal consequences of resisting the 
 Spirit's influence and remaining in a state of impenitency and un- 
 belief. Show the indispensable duty of all to repent and believe, 
 and the increasing guilt and just condemnation of such as persist 
 in the neglect of it. 
 
 '* Do not confine yourself to general doctrine and truths. De- 
 scend frequently to particulars, that so you may touch the par- 
 ticular cases of your difierept hearers, whose different cases study 
 to know, that you may be able rightly to divide the word of truth, 
 giving to each one according to his respective case. In a word, 
 declare the whole counsel of God as a faithful ambassador of 
 Christ, and keep back nothing that may be profitable for the 
 people to hear and know. 
 
 " And let your practice correspond with your preaching, that 
 it may appear you do believe and feel the influence of those truths 
 which you preach to others. Let your conversation be as becometh 
 the gospel. Be an ensample to the flock among which you are 
 made an overseer, * showing thyself a pattern of good works, that 
 he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil . 
 thing to say of you.' 
 
 " And should you have occasion to contend against heresies, be 
 zealous yet temperate, * in meekness instructing those that oppose 
 themselves, if God, pcradventure, will give them repentance to the 
 acknowledging of the truth.' In a word, let the life of our bless- 
 
WHAT THE PREACHER WAS. 75 
 
 ed Saviour be the pattern of your deportment, conversation and 
 life, that your light may shine before men, and your example may 
 reconmiend to them the heavenly religion which you preach. 
 As you have time and opportunity, visit the sick and such as are 
 awakened or in distress, and administer to them such instruction 
 and counsel as their cases seem to require. 
 
 " Pay a proper attention to the discipline of the church to puri- 
 fy and build it up. And as the success of your ministerial la- 
 bors depends on the efficacious influence of the Divine Spirit ac- 
 companying them, accustom yourself to secret prayer, and exhort 
 your people to do the same, as the means which has the most 
 direct tendency to keep up the life of religion in the soul, and to 
 draw down the blessing of heaven upon your ministry. 
 
 "And in all things approve thyself a minister of God, in much 
 patience and perseverance in the blessed work to which thou hast 
 devoted thyself. ' Preach the word : be instant in season, out of 
 season ; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long suffering and doc- 
 trine.^ ' Watch for souls as one who must give account, that thou 
 mayest do it with joy and not with grief.^ ' I charge thee before 
 God and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou 
 observe these things.' Be faithful to thy Lord until death, and 
 he will give thee a crown of life." 
 
 In this charge we have Father Osborn's ideal of 
 a gospel preacher. We turn next to his effort to 
 give Ideality to this ideal, in his own person. I quote 
 again from his autobiographical discourses. The 
 text it will be recollected, is, "Ye know * * * after 
 what manner I have been with you," &c. 
 
 " Ye also know after what manner I have varied my subjects 
 of discourse. Well knowing from mine own experience, and from 
 the remarks of others, that the people wish to hear discourses on 
 various subjects, and observing how much sameness there is in 
 
76 SUITING THE STYLE TO THE END. 
 
 some preachers, I have aimed to discourse on many different sub- 
 jects. This I have done with a view of entertaining the people, 
 not only with an agreeable, but also a profitable variety. How 
 far I have succeeded in this endeavor, you can judge. 
 
 " But after several years, I was convinced that in trying to 
 shun one error, I had run into another ; that I had spent too 
 much time on some points less interesting, and had dwelt too 
 little on others which are of vital importance. For although the 
 parts of religion are numerous, yet those which relate to expe- 
 rience and practice, are certainly the most essential and interest- 
 ing, and should therefore be most frequently brought into view. 
 ¥r ¥r * ^ Yov a time, my aim and labor Avas to find out new 
 subjects and matter, but for many years past, the chief difficulty 
 has been to bring forward subjects in due season. Sometimes 
 several things seemed to demand an immediate hearing, and I 
 have to bring them forward, one after another, as they seem to be 
 most urgent. 
 
 " You know after what manner of style I have preached to 
 you — that it has been a simple and plain style. Though I might 
 have used a more elegant, learned, or sublime style, yet I 
 thought it my duty to follow the example of Paul in speaking to 
 you with great plainness of speech. For the design of preaching 
 is to convey ideas, and give instruction and knowledge to the 
 hearer. But if my language is above the understanding of many 
 hearers, I might as well speak to them in Greek or Hebrew. And, 
 therefore, to speak the truth has been ray first object, and next 
 to speak it in such language as to be intelligible or easily under- 
 stood. I have been all along sensible that by using such a plain 
 style, I have sacrificed my reputation for learning. But that is 
 a matter of little consequence. I ought not to care whether I 
 am thought learned or ignorant, if I can but promote your Chris- 
 tian knowledge and be a helper of your faith." 
 
 There spoke our blessed Father Osborn ! " ISTo 
 matter for my reputation as a speaker, if I can only 
 
APPEARANCE IN THE PULPIT. 
 
 77 
 
 be of good to your soul !" The reader wlio lias 
 been accustomed to hear him, can easily supply the 
 rest from his own recollections. Recall in your 
 mind the slender and lithe form standing in the 
 lofty eagle's nest of a pulpit, under the '' sounding 
 board," in the Old Stone Church, bending over the 
 congregation, with his manuscript (to which, how- 
 ever, he is but loosely confined,) held before his face 
 with one hand, while the other is stretched over the 
 people : in imagination listen again to the flow of 
 that mellow, earnest voice, but shghtly modulated, 
 except as it occasionally rises to a majesty of utter- 
 ance, or breaks under the fullness of emotion, yet 
 never aspiring to anything higher than simplicity of 
 speech, and you have a vivid likeness of Father Os- 
 born as a preacher. 
 
 The trait of earnestness in delivery abode with 
 him to the last. When he was so far enfeebled by 
 years that it was painful to witness his embarrass- 
 ment in some other parts of service, let him. once 
 get out his subject and feel himself settled in the 
 harness, and the hearer was soon made conscious 
 that all was right — the old minister was at home. 
 "Does the old man fail in the pulpit?" was the 
 question which one of his absent friends asked of a 
 Fairfield gentleman in 1852. The reply was, "He 
 fails among the hymns and chapters, but get him 
 on his preaching legs, and he goes like a house a 
 fire." 
 
 Between himself and his constitutional associates 
 
78 HIS INTERCOURSE WITH 
 
 in tlie government of the church, the session,* great 
 corclialitj seems in general to have existed. Speak- 
 ing of the commencement of his pastoral adminis- 
 tration, he says — 
 
 " I was favored with a session of able and pious men, and 
 never shall I forget the first prayer meeting, in which they as- 
 sisted me in this house. They prayed with the spirit, and my 
 mind was so sensibly afiected, that perhaps I could not refrain 
 from tears of gratitude and joy. And respecting the session ever 
 since, the Lord has highly favored me and the church." 
 
 It was common for him, in his later years, to speak 
 in pleasant terms of those who had shared with him 
 the governmental administration of the church. 
 One circumstance which I had never before heard, 
 and which I presume would otherwise have been 
 
 * From the time of his settlement to his dismission, the following 
 
 persons had seats in the session. 
 
 Eleazer Smith, Jeremiah Nixon, 
 
 Ephraim Harris, John Bower, 
 
 Levi Stratton, John T. Hampton, 
 
 Amos Westcott, Jedediah Ogden, 
 
 Jeremiah Harris, William Bateman, 
 
 Norton Lawrence, Joseph Ogden, 
 
 Thomas Burch, Thomas Harris, 
 
 Henry Howell, Daniel Burt, 
 
 John Howell, Ephraim Westcott, 
 
 Nathaniel Diaraent, Bergen Bateman, 
 
 Asa Fish, Ephraim H. Whiticar, 
 
 Nathaniel Howell, John Holmes. 
 Only five of this number were living at the time of his death. By 
 
 reading across the columns above, the names appear in the order of 
 
 their election. 
 
HIS OFFICIAL ASSOCIATES. 79 
 
 lost from the knowledge of men, is presented in his 
 iiutobiographical sermons. 
 
 •* After a few years, [from the date of his settlement,] the ses- 
 sion on some accounts were dissatisfied with me, and conversed 
 with me on the subject of their complaints. Whether I gave 
 them any degree of satisfaction, or not, there was no further al- 
 tercation between us. Believing that they did what they thought 
 was their duty, I cherished no ill will toward them. And ever 
 since, my friendly attachment to the session and church has been 
 growing stronger. May our friendship be immortal I" 
 
 The fancy of those of us who were intimate wdth 
 Father Osborn, can readily supply the meagreness 
 of the account of that interview with the session. 
 They doubtless found him open to conviction. If 
 he saw they had just cause of complaint, he frankly 
 acknowledged it, and rendered all reasonable satis- 
 faction. But if he regarded his own position as 
 right, he certainly said so, and he said it in such a way 
 that we may be sure " there was no further alterca- 
 tion" in the matter. 
 
 It is true he was a man of much humility. We 
 have seen this in the spirit in w^hich he speaks of 
 the success of his ministerial labors. Extracts from 
 other sermons and from his correspondence, might 
 be given in further illustration. Two of the marked 
 and often mentioned traits of his character were 
 humbleness and meekness. But he had no mawkish 
 affection of modesty. He knew how to appreciate 
 his position, and in the sight of men, to respect him- 
 self. " If you thought," he says in one of his ser- 
 mons, "that I intend to do my duty, you thought 
 
80 TEMPER — ONCE AND NOW. 
 
 riglit. Respecting my aims, I have like Paul, lived 
 in all good conscience before God, until this day. 
 * * * * You will consider that in choosing the 
 subject of a discourse, I have to judge alone. I 
 have no human counsellor, no earthly friend to con- 
 sult how I shall proceed, or what I had better say. 
 Single and alone I have to judge for myself, to be 
 responsible for my judgment, and bear the burden 
 of my labor." 
 
 The prevalent gentleness of his temper is a more 
 noticeable trait, from the fact that it appears to have 
 been one of the triumphs of grace within him. He 
 often spoke of his habitual mildness as a thing very 
 foreio;n to his natural constitution. In one of the 
 sermons before me, he says : — 
 
 " If I have followed Paul's counsel to let my moderation be 
 known to all men, I have not acted out my natural temper. One 
 of my friends observed to me, ' You are a moderate man/ 
 Thought I, you do not know what I am made of. Though I wish 
 to follow the aforesaid counsel, still my natural constitution is 
 fire and thunder. Ye avaricious misers who grind the faces of 
 the poor, I would trample you under foot and thrust you out of 
 the world. Ye cruel and tyrannical oppressors, I would blast 
 you with the lightnings of Heaven. Y^e profane swearers, 
 drunkards and liars, I would strike you through with a thunder- 
 bolt. That is the * moderation' of my natural constitution. If 
 by the aid of reason and religion, I have been enabled to confine 
 it within proper limits, or give it a right direction, it is ' by 
 the grace of God I am what I ara,^ and I have reason to thank 
 him if 'his grace which was bestowed upon me, was not in vain.' " 
 
 Throughout his life, an occasional scintillation 
 from that pent "fire and thunder" betrayed the 
 
REGARD FOR THE POOR. 81 
 
 truth of his faithful judgment of himself. But it 
 gave a brighter reflection from his grace, that it so 
 ahoundecl over the corrupt nature that extraordinary 
 mildness was generally supposed to belong to his 
 native temper. Yes, gentle father, we will blend our 
 thanksgivings with thine, that the grace bestowed 
 upon thee was not in vain ! 
 
 N"o one acquainted with him will doubt that if he 
 ventured an imprecation upon any human being, 
 none would sooner come in for it than those " who 
 grind the faces of the poor." i^othing could sooner 
 rouse his sympathies than the cry of the needy. 
 This was with him an inherited susceptibilit}^, 
 quickened also, like the gift of young Timoth}^, by 
 the counsels of his piother. He has told us that her 
 first charge to him, on his assuming the care of a 
 church, was — ^'Be kind to the poor." He was 
 located in a community where people are not severe- 
 ly pressed with calls for the relief of poverty imme- 
 diately around them. There is li-ttle known in 
 Fairfield of either of the extremes of overgrown opu- 
 lence or biting penury. In their pecuniary condi- 
 tion, the families are generally well. off, in the true 
 sense of the term. But there have been periods in 
 the history of his pastorate here, which brought out 
 the temper of those who possessed any means of 
 helping the distressed. He has described one such 
 season in a letter to his brother in Litchfield, dated 
 June 20, 1817. 
 
 " Such difficult and distressing times, the oldest man living 
 never saw. For weeks and months past, there have been con- 
 
82 PRACTICAL BENEVOLENCE. _ 
 
 stant vendues of household goods and other property, by the 
 sheriff and constables, for less than half their value ; sometimes 
 less than a third or quarter. I was told of a horse lately bought 
 at vendue, for one dollar, by a man who said he would not take 
 thirty for him. Many families not long ago in independent or 
 comfortable circumstances, have been sold out, and reduced to 
 beggary and want. The paupers increase. People are tired of 
 going to vendues. Many have no ready money to pay for arti- 
 cles, and to see one family after another stripped of food and 
 clothing, is enough to sicken and draw tears from a person of any 
 feeling. May the Lord have mercy on them !" 
 
 I liave no record of his personal sacrifices in aid 
 of the distressed at that time, but I find this sentence 
 in a sermon preached a few years afterward. 
 
 " If I am a friend to the poor, or partial in their favor, you 
 will not wonder at it. If I was not their friend, after having re- 
 ceived so many tokens of their friendship, I should be a monster 
 of ingratitude. May the Lord bless them with every needful 
 good, making them rich in faith and heirs to his heavenly 
 kingdom V 
 
 But we need no written record of his habits of 
 practical benevolence, either toAvard the children of 
 want, or the institutions for the advancement of re- 
 ligion. His living epistles are all around him. The 
 cause of the poor and the support of religious enter- 
 prises, were all his life brought prominently into the 
 very methodical manner in which he managed his 
 pecuniary affairs. His salary never exceeded what 
 is -regarded as a living mark ; indeed many would 
 say it was never up to it. He began his service of 
 the congregation, with a salary of XlOO, equivalent 
 to $2Q6M, and the use of a parsonage. In a few 
 
PAYING HIS SALARY. 83 
 
 years it was raised to f 300.00. In 1807, Laving pre- 
 viously given up the parsonage, his salary was rais- 
 ed to ^400.00. In 1809, it was further raised to 
 $450.00, and in 1812, to $500.00, at which last mark 
 it remained until the settlement of a colleague in 
 1836, when it was reduced to $300.00. When he 
 was again left alone in the pastorate, the division of 
 the church had so weakened its pecuniary ahility, 
 that no attempt was made to increase his compensa- 
 tion. At his dismission, he received the guaranty 
 of an annual payment of $100.00 during his natural 
 life. Although this salary was his main means of 
 support, still under his careful management, a small 
 ^property was eventually secured from it. 
 
 But he was accustomed to say that he must pay 
 his salary also. Accordingly he set apart from it, an 
 annual stipend for widows in straitened circumstan- 
 ces. He kept a list of these beneficiaries, and when 
 death or any other circumstance, removed one from 
 the list, another was sought out to fill the place. 
 One half of his marriage fees was sacredly devoted 
 to charitable purposes. How much was realized from 
 this, may be judged from the fact that in the course 
 of his ministry, he solemnized between seven and 
 eight hundred marriages.* During my own pastoral 
 administration in Fairfield, in our collections for be- 
 nevolent objects, his figures uniformly took the lead 
 in magnitude, and such I was informed, had long 
 previously been the case. Indeed the disparity be- 
 tween his contributions and those of others, must 
 
 * In 1846, the record has 725. 
 
84 FAITH AND CALCULATION. 
 
 sometimes liave been quite too striking ; certainly 
 so, if there is no slip of the pen in this sentence 
 which I find in a letter to his relative in Litchfield, 
 under date of July 10, 1844, — '' We took up a col- 
 lection on Celebration Day, of $5.00, to which I have 
 added $50.00, and enclosed it in a letter directed to 
 the Treasurer of the Colonization Society in Wash- 
 ington city." Toward this Society, he cherished a 
 peculiarly warm attachment. His usual (contribution 
 to it was $10.00 at a time. 
 
 For his short service in the army, he obtained in 
 his old age, a small pension. Although there was 
 then every prospect that he would be obliged to 
 draw upon the substance of his little property for 
 the support of his declining years, still with his 
 habitual trust in God, he divided all but $10.00 of 
 this pension between the American Board of Com- 
 missioners for Foreign Missions, the Philadelphia 
 Home Missionary Society, and the Colonization 
 Society. 
 
 Let it not be thought, however, that his faith in 
 God as a provider for his old age, was a' reckless or 
 improvident trust. The following extract from a 
 letter, written to his nephew, Myron Osborn, shortly 
 after his dismission, will show that there was calcu- 
 lation as well as faith in the matter. 
 
 "Perhaps I mentioned to your father that the terms on Avhich 
 I was dismissed were, that the congregation should continue to 
 me the annual payment of one hundred dollars. This is ratified 
 by a written agreement. I feci not the least uneasiness about a 
 comfortable living, for if my income is not enough, I can easily 
 lean on my (nvn resources. Tt is calculated that the growth of 
 
WAITING FOR THE PENSION. 85 
 
 my wood land, (one hundred and sixty or one hundred and seventy 
 acres,) is as much as fifty or sixty cords every year. All that I 
 have sold, (several.hundred cords,) I have sold for $2.00 a cord, 
 on the stump. And the people would not let me suffer, for they 
 have ever been kind and friendly, and done for me all that I 
 asked of them, so that I ought to love them and pray for them as 
 long as I live. You see that I linger on this subject, as if I could 
 not leave it. And truly I feel interested in it and affected with 
 it. I ought to be very thankful that the Lord has cast my lot 
 among such people.'' 
 
 Of tlie $10.00 reserved for himself out of Ms pen- 
 sion, after tlie expenses of collection, only about 
 seven remained annually for liis personal use. A 
 better picture of his spirit and life could hardly be 
 drawn, than to produce him sitting at his table, and 
 as he noticed the absence of some favorite article of 
 food, saying with a smile— '^ We will have it when 
 my pension comes. It is but little, hut it is a great 
 deal better than nothing r It must not, however, be 
 supposed that Father shorn was allowed to want 
 while waiting for the pension. The means which 
 he had stored were more than enough for his com- 
 fort, and if they had not been, he had children who 
 loved him, and around him were "the people" of 
 whom he so often spoke. He was safe enough. 
 
 It is impossible to transfer to paper the pleasant- 
 ness in which his content and gratitude were 
 expressed, not only in relation to his pecuniary 
 condition, but on all subjects involving his comfort. 
 In 1850, at the age of ninety-two, he had a severe 
 attack of erysipelas, which it was thought at the 
 time would prove fatal, and which in the end, left 
 8 
 
86 WILL NOT MORTIFY MRS. OSBORN. 
 
 one of his eyes in total and permanent blindness. 
 ^' Thanks to a merciful Providence !" he said in a 
 letter to the writer, shortly after his recovery, 
 "thanks to a merciful Providence! my health is 
 once more restored. The disease has, however, 
 blinded my right eye, but I cannot complain, for I 
 have one eye left for which I would not take all the 
 gold in California." It would puzzle the brain of a 
 satan to contrive a method of seriously disturbing 
 the happiness of such a man. 
 
 Sometimes his pleasantry varied from a devout 
 to a mirthful tone. Judge Elmer, of Bridgeton, in 
 a letter to myself, containing some valuable mate- 
 rial and suggestions for this memorial, relates the 
 following incident: — "About 1815 or 1816, I re- 
 member stopping at his house with a carriage load 
 of young people — he had a daughter then grown 
 up. Some one asked for water. It was brought in 
 a pitcher, but no glasses. Mr. shorn, in his pecu- 
 liarly pleasant manner remarked, 'I would tell you 
 that all our glasses got broken, and in these war 
 times we could not afford to buy any more, but it 
 rather mortifies Mrs. Osborn, [she was present.] So 
 I suppose I mustn't say any thing about it.' " 
 
 Though not exactly german to the last point, I 
 may as well in this place relate an incident fur- 
 nished me by another gentleman, for whose aid I 
 have already expressed my obligation. It illustrates 
 Father Osborn' s considerateness for the feelings of 
 others — a trait around which a host of pertinent 
 anecdotes might be gathered. In his later years, 
 after his memory was seriously impaired, he at- 
 
TOBACCO GOES WITH THE RUM. 87 
 
 tended the funeral of a man wlio left a wife to 
 mourn his death. He prayed earnestly for the 
 parents, brothers, and friends of the deceased, but 
 omitted any supplication for the widow. In the 
 evening, he was told that he had forgotten to pray 
 for her. ^'Didn't I?" he exclaimed in sorrowful 
 surprise. He waited only until the early morning, 
 and then set off, post haste, to assure her of his sym- 
 pathy, and commend her to the widow's God. 
 
 Another scrap, bearing on his personal habits : — 
 Writing, in 1831, to his Litchfield friends, who it 
 appears had with him taken an early stand in favor 
 of the temperance movement, he says — "I advise 
 you to give up the use of tobacco as well as rum, as 
 I have done. ISTot a morsel have I chewed or smoked 
 since last September. I think it will be for your 
 health as well as mine." He was not, however, cor- 
 dial toward what he regarded as fastidious abstemi- 
 ousness, and he resolutely adhered to his favorite 
 beverage of coffee. Sometime about his ninetieth 
 year, a guest at his table declined coffee and took 
 water instead, adding a remark on the subject 
 which did not tally with the old gentleman's liy- 
 giene. He, however, only replied with his bland 
 humor — " Some folks say that coffee is poison, but 
 it has been a very slow poison w^ith me." 
 
 While in the sporadic way, another incident may 
 be related, illustrating the wide respect which his 
 name commanded. A Cumberland county farmer, 
 whose general good character was marred by one 
 bad habit, was one night picked up by the police in 
 
88 A JERSEYMAN IN TROUBLE. 
 
 the streets of Philadelphia, in a state of intoxica- 
 tion. A night in the lock-up restored him to sober- 
 ness, but he was notwithstanding marched up to the 
 police magistrate to give an account of himself. He 
 stated, as was true, that this was his first offence 
 against the peace of the city ; that he was an lionest, 
 and in the main, a quiet citizen of ISTew Jersey, and 
 that if now discharged, he would go home and of- 
 fend the majesty of Philadelphia no more. 
 
 "In what part of New Jersey," inquired the ma- 
 gistrate, " do you live ?" 
 
 "In Cumberland county." 
 
 " Cumberland — Fairfield is in Cumberland coun- 
 ty, is it not?" 
 
 "Yes sir, and I am well acquainted there." 
 
 "Perhaps you know Father Osborn, the min- 
 ister." 
 
 " Know Mm ! yes, well — have been to his meeting 
 often. Every body there knows that good man." 
 
 "Well, if you are a neighbor of Father Osborn's, 
 I think we must let you go this time." 
 
 And out from the clutches of the municipality he 
 went, wondering and rejoicing that such a name 
 should have been to him a shield of defence afar 
 off, where he supposed himself out of all reach of 
 friends. 
 
 It is not, however, to be supposed that a respecta- 
 ble official's sense of duty, was so light as to allow 
 the bare fact of a man's neighborhood to Mr. Os- 
 born to settle the question of his discharge. He 
 doubtless saw that the dismissal of the offender was 
 
FATHER OSBORN AS A CITIZEN. C'J 
 
 in itself proper, and happening himself to knoAv of 
 the aged pastor, took this playful method of honor- 
 ing his name. 
 
 To return to the weightier points of his charac- 
 ter ; his sacred office did not overlap his sense of his 
 civil responsibilities. Father Osborn was a patriot, 
 and he was not scrupulous of making himself known 
 as such. He came down to us from the times when 
 the absence of such a virtue would have been little 
 less than moral treason. He brought the spirit of a 
 soldier of the Revolution along into his whole fol- 
 lowing life, and he felt no hesitation in linking the 
 patriotic duties of the citizen to the articles of prac- 
 tical religion. He never lost his interest in public 
 celebrations of our national independence, and 
 whenever, as was often the case, he took part in 
 them, he sought to turn the minds of the people 
 into a religious meditation on God's mercy to our 
 country. He was a uniform voter at the political 
 elections, and not always a silent politician, especi- 
 ally when he supposed that any class in the land, 
 were suffering under political oppression. He held 
 aggressive war in peculiar abhorrence, and nothing 
 raised his hostility toward an administration to a 
 higher mark, than measures of a warlike tendency. 
 
 In this connection, I am permitted to quote from 
 a letter of Judge L. Q. C. Elmer, who, as well as 
 his father. General Elmer, was on terms of personal 
 intimacy with Mr. Osborn : 
 
 ** A biographical sketch [of Mr. Osborn,] which does not men-, 
 tion his political opinions, will be incomplete. He was a sup- 
 
 8* 
 
90 THE DOCTRINE OF ELECTION. 
 
 porter of Mr. Jefferson. I have before me five letters from him 
 to my Mher, then in Congress, dated in 1802, 3 and 6. In Feb- 
 ruary, 1803, he says — ' I was ghid to hear of your good health, 
 and congratulate you and every well wisher to his country on the 
 happy effects produced by our beloved President, and the brave 
 patriotic republicans at the last session. From the verge of na- 
 tional ruin, we are rescued and set in a prosperous way. A de- 
 gree of national gratitude is due to the beneficent agents, but the 
 highest degree to the Divine moving cause who hath not dealt so 
 with any other nation.' 
 
 " Three-fourths of his congregation [Judge Elmer adds,] agreed 
 with him in politics, until the contest between Adams and Jack- 
 son in 1828. It had been a frequent custom of his to preach a 
 political sermon previous to the fall election, which was gener- 
 ally well received. During the presidency of John Quincy 
 Adams, he together with the most leading republicans of his 
 flock, adhered to him, and rejected Jackson. The congregation 
 became about equally divided. In 1832, he preached his last po- 
 litical sermon, which produced such a ferment that he abandoned 
 the practice." 
 
 An anecdote concerning fhat last political sermon, 
 will show tliat there was a vein of shrewd humor in 
 some of the hearers, as well as in the Pastor of the 
 old church. As already noticed, there had always 
 seemed to hang a little mist over his Calvinism, and 
 he had some hearers who occasionally expressed a 
 wish that he would preach the doctrine of election 
 a little often er, and a little more plainly. While re- 
 turning from church, a member of the session re- 
 marked to his family, who were sitting with him in 
 the carriage — "Well, I do not think any one can 
 complain that we have not had the doctrine of elec- 
 tion preached to-day." 
 
POLITICS IN THE PULPIT. 91 
 
 It is presumed that this sermon was fully up to 
 the ferment point ; for at that time, his mind was 
 highly incensed by what he regarded as a breach of 
 a solemn treaty of our government with the Chero- 
 kee Indians, and the imprisonment of the Cherokee 
 missionaries, Worcester and Butler, by the courts 
 of Georgia, in consequence of the refusal of the ad- 
 ministration to regard that treaty. 
 
 My correspondent is, however, not aware that 
 Father Osborn did carry his politics into the pulpit 
 at subsequent times. The Mexican war excited his 
 warm hostility toward a subsequent administration, 
 and his sentiments were incidentally but unsparing- 
 ly proclaimed in his sermons, on more occasions 
 than one between 1844 and 1848. 
 
 I give these particulars because I think, with 
 Judge Elmer, that they are essential to a fair view 
 of his life and character. When it is remembered, 
 that in his youth, and especially in ]N"ew England, 
 politics was not an uncommon theme for the pulpit, 
 and also how deeply his spirit was imbued with the 
 civil events of those times, we can with great com- 
 placency accord to him a privilege, which under pre- 
 sent circumstances, ministers of the gospel cannot 
 claim without deep detriment to their aj)propriate 
 work. 
 
 There is a precious odor in the remembrance of 
 Father Osborn, as he was known in the domestic re- 
 lations of life. As he advanced in years, his mind 
 often went back to the home of his childhood, and 
 its circle of parents, brothers and sisters, with a 
 
92 STRONG AFFECTION 
 
 warmtli which seemed to melt the frosts of age, and 
 rejuvenate .all the affections of his nature. In a 
 note to his mother, appended to a letter to his Bro- 
 ther, under date of September 9, 1816, he says — 
 
 " Dear Motuer, — Your son, Ethan, is yet alive, and through 
 the goodness of God, is, with those of his family who survive, 
 in good bodily health. And I pray the Lord we may be in good 
 spiritual health. And may the Lord support my kindest of pa- 
 rents, and grant you those consolations of his grace which are 
 neither few nor small. Never shall I forget my obligations to 
 you for all your care, forbearance, indulgence and kindness to- 
 ward me, from my infancy up. Though I can never reward you, 
 I pray and trust the Lord will, and with the blessings of eternal 
 life.'' 
 
 Writing to his last surviving brother, Eliada, 
 March 15, 1832, he commences — 
 
 "Dear "Brother, — Your last letter, dated the 9th of last 
 month, we received a few days after it was written. The melan- 
 choly news it contained was quite unexpected. When I read — 
 * I write to you as my only brother,' my mind was so agitated 
 with grief that I stopped. I anticipated the words which follow- 
 ed, that my other brother was gone to his long, long home. Read- 
 ing on, I soon found that what I anticipated was true — that bro- 
 ther John was indeed gone, and as we trust, gone to his heavenly 
 rest." 
 
 A few extracts from another . letter to the same 
 brother, February 21, 1833, will close our notice of 
 his yearnings toward Litchfield. 
 
 " Though I have so long neglected to write to you, I have often 
 thought of you and desired to see you. No distance or length of 
 time can ever separate you from my thoughts and affections. As 
 
TOWARD HIS LITCHFIELD FRIENDS. 93 
 
 our relatives are removed by death, and ^ve are left more alone, 
 it seems as if we become more endeared to each other. AVhen I 
 look to my father's family, my parents are gone, my oldest bro- 
 ther is gone, besides many of my cousins and former neighbors. 
 But I espy one dear brother left, and dear to me he ought to be. 
 Often do I run back with a kind of mournful pleasure, to our 
 days of childhood and youth. How many days and nights we 
 have worked and slept together ! In my mind, I often go with 
 you into the cornfield, or into the meadow to mow and rake. And 
 when our day's work is done, we walk together down to the brook, 
 and sometimes get on the great rock a little north of the bridge, 
 to wash our feet. Those childish affairs do often occupy my 
 thoughts, and afford some pleasant meditation, though mingled 
 with serious reflections. 
 
 "As our relations are, one after another, going the way of all 
 the earth, we must ere long follow them. I can truly say that 
 after I went away from my father's house, and for months and 
 years was far absent, I felt very sensibly the ties of affection be- 
 tween us, and you seemed to be the nearest relation I had in the 
 world. Yet those ties must be dissolved. And happy for us if 
 we are so united to the blessed Jesus by the ties of faith and love, 
 as that when all things here fail us, we shall be received into 
 everlasting heavenly habitations. Dear brother, I hope you are 
 giving diligence to be found of God in peace, not having on your 
 own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is by faith 
 in Christ Jesus, that so you may be accepted and welcomed to 
 the joy of our Lord. And whether or not we ever meet again in 
 this world, I pray that God would prepare us for the first resur- 
 rection, and for a happy meeting in his heavenly kingdom." 
 
 To pass over Father Osborn's Fairfield home, 
 would be an unpardonable omission, even in an out- 
 line of his life. That home was a centre of attrac- 
 tion for some of the best society in Cumberland and 
 adjacent counties, who sought it, not for its hospit- 
 ality alone, but for the impressions of tranquillity 
 
94 
 
 which they were sure to carry away, Father Os- 
 born's love for the society of his friends was un- 
 bouudecl. Those who were in the habit of visiting 
 him, will never forget the benignant smile with 
 which they were alwa^^s welcomed, the cordial sur- 
 render of his time to their enjoyment, and the pe- 
 culiar art with which he turned discourse on any 
 subject into a cheerful current. 
 
 He loved a home, in the local as well as domestic 
 application of the term. "We have seen with what 
 words of fondness he spoke of the things as well as 
 friends of his home in boyhood — the cornfield, mea- 
 dow, brook and rock — we almost expected him to 
 add — 
 
 "The old oaken bucket that hung in the "well." 
 
 It seems to have been with him, a hereditary love. 
 His nephew, Myron Osborn, writes from Litchfield — 
 " Grandfather, [Mr. Osborn's father,] was a farmer, 
 and if I am not mistaken, was seven years old when 
 his father came with his family, to this place. The 
 fourth generation are now in possession of the old 
 homestead where my progenitors lived and died." 
 The above account leaves the family in possession 
 of their Litchfield home, one hundred and thirty- 
 seven years. 
 
 At an early period of his ministry, Mr. Osborn 
 took measures to obtain a place which he might call 
 his own. He secured a central situation, highly eli- 
 gible for his purpose, and abandoning the parsonage 
 owned by the congregation, he took possession of 
 
AND WHO WERE THERE LOVED. 95 
 
 it in 1803. His own care in giving it improvements, 
 has made it the pleasant home so w^ell known to 
 his friends. There he trained his family, and there 
 he died. 
 
 He was twice married. His first wife was Eliza- 
 heth Riley, horn near Bridgeton, January 30, 1775, 
 to wdiom he w^as married, September 18, 1794. Their 
 children were — 
 
 Anna — born August 7, 1795 ; married to Lorenzo 
 Lawrence, 1815 ; died in Cincinnati, September 13, 
 1845. 
 
 Betsey, born June 7, 1797 ; died September 28, 
 1825. 
 
 Ruth — born September 5, 1799 ; married to Ben- 
 jamin Thompson, March 16, 1^25; died June 4, 
 1836. . 
 
 Ethan— born June 12, 1801 ; died August 6, 1811. 
 
 John'Elmer — born December 4, 1803 ; married to 
 Margaret Harvey, of Massachusetts ; now living in 
 Hennepin, Illinois. 
 
 Mary — born February 6, 1805 ; married in 1827, 
 to Rickard Hurd, of Cincinnati, and now living. 
 
 Harriet Seymoure — born October 30, 1810 ; died 
 September 2, 1816. 
 
 Robert — born August 27, 1813 ; noAv a clergyman 
 in Point Pleasant, in "Western Virginia, where he 
 married Josephine Browne. 
 
 It will be seen that only three of the eight named 
 above, survive. Mrs. Thompson is represented in 
 the living world, by her children, Mrs. James Pow^ell 
 of Cedarville and Mr. Ethan Osborn Thompson, of 
 
96 LEAST SAID WHERE MOST IS FELT. 
 
 Philadelpliia. Mrs. Lawrence has one living repre- 
 sentative, in the person of Mrs. Marv Elizabeth 
 Eiohardson, residing in Ohio. All the living chil- 
 dren have tamilies around them. 
 
 Their mother, the fii*st Mrs. Oshorn died, October 
 9, 1817, at the age of fortj-two years. 
 
 He vras married to his second wife, Esther Foster, 
 of Pittsgrove, Salem Co. K J. May 8, 1822. She 
 was born in 1785, and died June 7, 1835. 
 
 Father Osborn had a peculiar manner of nourish- 
 ing his domestic afleetions in silence. I have often 
 been surprised to observe that he spoke least of 
 those whose memories I found, on careful scrutiny, 
 were most deeply treasured in his heart. Perhaps 
 this habit grew out of his settled method of bringing 
 forward only cheerful themes for conversation. 
 Perhaps he was unwilling to trust his voice in the 
 effort to speak where his feelings were too' deeply 
 interested. In a letter to his particularly beloved 
 brother Eliada. he refers to their last parting which 
 proved their final separation in this world, in these 
 terms — " Since in parting, we shook hands, but 
 could not speak." He talked but little of his be- 
 reavements, or the absence of his children, but his 
 domestic relations had been happy, and his heart 
 was often with the dead or absent ones of his house- 
 hold. 
 
 His survi^dng children have for many years, been 
 settled in homes of their own, in distant parts of the 
 country, and since the death of his last wife, the ad- 
 ministration of his household has been conducted, 
 
PASTORAL AFFECTION. 97 
 
 as already mentioned, by the devoted niece wliom 
 God in mercy preser^-ed for the support of his help- 
 less years. Her long, faithful watch over his com- 
 forts, merits at least this humble notice. * 
 
 Passing from his home to his spiritual family, 
 the church, the welling up of affection from his 
 heart, thousfh no more real, was oftener brouo*ht to 
 the notice of the people. His love of his flock was 
 one of the elements of his long influence over them. 
 It was not alone the heavenly sentiment of love for 
 their souls, but also the personal attachment of 
 friend toward friend. They seldom listened to a 
 sermon in which this did not in some way. so break 
 forth, as to secure a response in their own hearts. 
 An example of this will be afforded by another quo- 
 tation — ^the last which I shall make from the dis- 
 courses which have so liberally contributed their 
 material to this narrative : 
 
 " My cordial attachment for my Christian friends has for many 
 years been growing strong. I trust our friendship in Christ 
 Jesus will be immortal in the happy heavenly realm. I love 
 you because you love my Saviour, and are my fellow-travelers 
 to the heavenly Zion, and candidates for a like crown of glory. 
 As long as I live, your Christian friendship will be dear to me, a 
 sweet balm of mv life : and in the morning of the resurrection, I 
 
 ^ The personal friends of the parties, will be pleased with the no- 
 tice of a transaction highly honorable to all concerned. During the 
 last visit made by ilrs. Hurd to her father, while as yet he was com- 
 petent to make a devise, at her earnest instigation bis will was so al- 
 tered as entirely to supersede herself in favor of Miss McQueen, the 
 lady referred to. 
 
 9 
 
98 
 
 SEPARATION AND RE-UNION. 
 
 hope to spring forward to greet you with ineffable delight. Let 
 our brotherly love continue and advance until it be pei^fected in 
 glory/' 
 
 ^ We may well imagine how this unaffected expres- 
 sion of his holy attachment, wrought up the sympa- 
 thy of his hearers, and prepared them to listen to 
 the following sentences with child-like reverence and 
 love. They close his autobiographical sermons, 
 and in transcribing them, the writer parts from what 
 has been to himself the interesting service of pre- 
 paring this memorial. 
 
 "And now, brethren and friends, we have been together a 
 long time, and how soon we may separate, God only knows. But 
 whether our separation for this world be sooner or later, I solemn- 
 ly charge all of you, in the name of God, to be ready to meet me 
 at the right hand of our final judge. Let not one of you neglect 
 the salvation of his immortal soul. 
 
 " We shall all stand on a level before our Judge, and he will 
 pass sentence on us without respect of persons. I shall have no 
 advantage over you on account of my present station. We shall 
 each be tried by the same rule, the word of Christ who will judge 
 us in the last day. If some of you are better Christians than'^I 
 am, as I hope you are, you will be more glorious, and I shall re- 
 joice with you in your superior dignity and happiness. There 
 is no envy in that blessed world: all rejoice in each other's joy. 
 My only hope of reaching it, is through the mercy and grace of 
 God in Christ Jesus. Brethren, do continue to pray for me, and 
 I pray the God of peace to sanctify you wholly, and preserve you 
 unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 END OF THE MEMORIAL. 
 
 
CENTENARY EXERCISES 
 
 AT THE 
 
 ERECTION OF A MONUMENT OVER THE GRAVE 
 
 OF 
 
 REV. ETHAN OSBORN, 
 
 AUGUST 21, 1858, 
 THE ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS BIRTH, 
 
 WITH EXTRACTS FROM THE 
 
 EULOGY PRONOUNCED BY Hon. L. Q. C. ELMER, 
 
 AKD THE 
 
 ADDRESS OF REV. N. C. BURT. 
 
CENTENARY EXERCISES, 
 
 The remains of Father Osboru were hardly left 
 to the quiet of the grave, before his friends in Fair- 
 field and Bridgeton, started the enterprise of pro- 
 curing a suitable token, of remembrance to stand 
 over the grave. The effort resulted in the- erection 
 of a plain, comely monument, composed of a shaft 
 about ten feet in height, wrought from Italian mar- 
 ble, standing upon a square plinth, the whole spar- 
 ingly, but neatly ornamented, and corresponding 
 with the character which it is set to commemorate. 
 Carrying out this likeness, the inscriptions on the 
 four sides are brief, simple, and pertinent. 
 
 Front—" Erected August 21st, 1858, to the memory of Rev. 
 Ethan Osborn, born in Litchfield, Conn., August 21, 1758 ; died 
 full of faith, and in the hope of a joyful resurrection, May 1, 
 1858, aged 99 years 8 months and 10 days. 
 
 Right Side—*' Graduated at Dartmouth, 1784, licensed 1786, 
 called to Fairfield 1788, ordained 1789, and resigned his charge 
 1844, having been pastor of this Church 55 years. 
 
 Rear — " A soldier of the Revolution, a good man, a faithful 
 minister of the Gospel. 
 
 Left Side — " He obeyed the command — * Go preach my Gos- 
 pel.^ His children in the flesh and in the spirit lie around him." 
 
 Saturday, August 21, 1858, was the one hundredth 
 anniversary of his birth, and it was selected as an 
 
 9* 
 
102 CENTENARY EXERCISES. 
 
 appropriate time for public services in connection 
 witli the erection of this monument. Once more a 
 great assembly was gathered within and around the 
 Old Stone Church. They came, as at the funeral, 
 from all the country around, crowding about the 
 outside of the doors and windows, after the seats, 
 aisles, galleries, and pulpit and gallery stairs, were 
 all crowded. 
 
 The presence of all Father Osborn's surviving 
 children, who for more than thirty years, had not 
 before been together under the family roof, was a 
 feature of no small interest in the scene. His old 
 Litchfield friends also sent on a delegate, in the per- 
 son of his nephew, Mr. Myron Osborn. The follow- 
 ing, as far as recollected, are the clergy who occu- 
 pied the pulpit and platform. — The Rev. Messrs. 
 James Boggs and Charles F. Diver, resident pastors 
 with the supervision of the exercises ; Rev. John A. 
 Annin, also a resident pastor ; Rev. George "W. Jan- 
 vier, of Pittsgrove, the patriarch of the Presbytery 
 of West Jersey, and Rev. Messrs. S. B. Jones, D. D., 
 T. W. Cattell, and J. W. Hubbard, pastors in the 
 same Presbytery; Rev. Messrs. Challis and Ken- 
 nard, of the Baptist church, and Hugg and Duffield, 
 of the Methodist, all of Cumberland county. From 
 without the State, the venerable William I^eill, D.D., 
 of the Second, Rev. B. B. Hotchkin, of the Third, 
 and Rev. A. Converse, D. D., of the Fourth Presby- 
 tery of Philadelphia, and Rev. Nathaniel C. Burt, of 
 the Presbytery of Baltimore. 
 
 The services were commenced by Dr. JSTeill, who 
 
CENTENARY EXERCISES. 103 
 
 gave out the following lijmn, which was sung with 
 great effect hy a choir under the leadership of Mr. 
 Daniel Williams, now of Philadelphia, hut for many 
 years chorister under the old pastor : 
 
 " God of Bethel, by whose hand 
 Thy people still are fed, 
 • Thou through this weary pilgrimage, 
 Hast all our fathers led. 
 
 " Our vows, our prayers we now present 
 Before thy throne of grace ; 
 God of our fathers, be the God 
 Of their succeeding race. 
 
 " Through each perplexing path of life 
 Our wandering footsteps guide ; 
 Give us each day our daily bread, 
 And raiment fit provide. 
 
 " spread thy covering wings around 
 Till all our wanderings cease, 
 And at our Father's loved abode, 
 Our souls arrive in peace. 
 
 " Such blessings from thy gracious hand, 
 Our humble prayers implore, 
 And thou shalt be our chosen God 
 And portion evermore." 
 
 Prayer was then offered hy Eev. Mr. Janvier. 
 Hon. John T. l^ixon, of Bridgeton, followed with a 
 statement respecting the monument, and the various 
 documents deposited in the foundation stone, com- 
 prising the names and proceedings of the Committee 
 of Erection, a manuscript sermon written hy the 
 deceased, notices of his death and funeral, and other 
 
104 ■ CENTENARY EXERCISES. 
 
 articles, from the West Jersey Pioneer, Bridgeton 
 Chronicle, Christian Observer, and American Pres- 
 byterian. 
 
 The audience then listened to the Eulogy pro- 
 nounced by Judge Elmer, and the Address of Rev. 
 Mr. Burt, copies of both of which are subjoined at 
 the earnest solicitation of the family, find other 
 friends of Father Osborn. The interval between 
 the delivery of them was occupied by singing a 
 hymn given out by E,ev. Dr. Jones. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Converse, editor of the Christian Ob- 
 server, and co-presbyter with the deceased, was then 
 called upon for remarks. He responded by saying 
 "That our late Father Osborn was loved, and honor- 
 ed, and held in high esteem by all the members of the 
 Presbytery, and that at their last regular meeting 
 they appointed a large committee to be here on this 
 day, to unite with you in commemorating the hun- 
 dredth return of his birth-day.* In this appoint- 
 ment it was no doubt their purpose to act in accord- 
 ance with the precept which God gave his ancient 
 Church : 
 
 ' Thou shalt stand up before the hoary head, and honor the 
 face of the old man, and fear thy God : I am the Lord.' 
 
 " The Presbytery would have rejoiced to be here by 
 their Committee of which I am a member, to greet 
 
 * At the spring meeting of the Presbytery, while Father Osborn 
 was yet living, and his friends were looking for the continuance of 
 his life beyond this period, a committee was appointed to represent 
 the Presbytery in a contemplated congratulatory festival on the pre- 
 sent anniversary. 
 
CENTENARY EXERCISES. 105 
 
 and honor our aged and revered co-presbyter ; but 
 it lias pleased God to disappoint our hopes, and to 
 call our father to the assembly and church of the 
 First-born in Heaven. "We cannot regret his ab- 
 sence. Having accomplished the great purposes of 
 life and finished the work God gave him to do, it 
 was far better for him to be absent from the body 
 and present with Christ, than to be here suffering 
 under the infirmities of a hundred years. The 
 speaker added that he could not think it proper to 
 occupy the time of this large assembly, with desul- 
 tory remarks suggested by the occasion, after the 
 able and interesting discourse to which they had 
 listened. Before closing he referred to the faithful 
 sketch of Father Osborn, given by Judge Elmer. 
 The honorable speaker had not called him a great 
 man ; he had presented him before us as a good man, 
 unassuming — of great simplicity of character, — a 
 man of true humility and modesty. And is not sm- 
 'plicity an element of greatness ? Are not modesty 
 and humility characteristic of greatness ? We may 
 mistake in our estimates of men, but our departed 
 friend was a man of great influence, of which the 
 hundreds convened here to-day are living witnesses. 
 The influence of such a man survives on earth when 
 he has gone to his rest." Dr. C. closed with a brief 
 remark on transmitted influences as seen in that com- 
 munity, with a passing reference to the Rev. Daniel 
 Elmer, who was the Pastor of that church a hun- 
 dred and thirty years ago. 
 
 The services were closed with a benediction pro- 
 nounced by Rev. Mr. Challis. 
 
JUDGE ELMER'S EULOGY, 
 
 [Statement by the Publisher. — It was expected and earnestly 
 desired, that the complete Eulogy, pronounced by Judge Elmer, 
 should be given in this place. It is proper to state, that he and 
 Mr. Hotchkin were engaged at the same time on their respective 
 performances, and without any such facilities for conference, (be- 
 ing a long distance apart,) as would enable them to keep their 
 tracks from interfering. Having both, to some extent, access to 
 the same materials, and being in common familiar with the most 
 observable traits of Mr. Osborn, their pens could not well avoid 
 falling into several coincidences. These, however, are found to 
 have been fewer than might have been expected. Still, it turns 
 out that some historical portions of the Eulogy, and a few 
 thoughts in review of the character of its venerable subject, had 
 been anticipated in the "Memorial." 
 
 In view of this fact, the Judge felt great embarrassment in 
 yielding to the request for a copy for publication. The consent 
 at first given reluctantly, has since been followed by a letter so 
 deprecatory of its appearance as a whole, for the reasons above 
 stated, that we are constrained to defer to his feelings, and con- 
 tent ourselves with the publication of copious extracts, embracing 
 however, more than three-fourths of the entire Eulogy.] 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM THE EULOGY. 
 
 I COME to speak of the character and virtues of 
 Ethan Osborn, with feelings of lively sensibility. 
 Although out of the bounds of his congregation, 
 
JUDGE ELMER'S EULOGY. 107 
 
 from my earliest recollection I liave known and 
 revered him. He was long the pastor of a people 
 once ministered to by the Eev. Daniel Elmer, from 
 whom all of the name, in this part of the State, 
 are descended. He was the life-long friend of my 
 father. Many ties bonnd them together. Although 
 not then acquainted, they had both fought in that 
 great contest which established our Independence. 
 They were generally of one mind, in politics and in 
 religion. Looking recently at Mr. Osborn's family 
 Bible, I found recorded in his own hand-writing, the 
 dates of the birth and death of Ebenezer Elmer; he 
 alone, of all his friends, in nowise related by blood 
 or marriage, being thus remembered. 
 
 But why this monument, this solemn ceremony, 
 and this eulogy of a deceased minister? He neither 
 coveted nor expected such distinctions. He was a 
 plain man, and not specially distinguished for learn- 
 ing or eloquence. He was far more anxious to per- 
 form well the duties of a humble station, than to 
 reach a high seat in the synagogue. His voice was 
 seldom heard in the pulpits of fashionable congre- 
 gations ; and when it was, attracted no applause. 
 
 All of us who knew the man, feel, however, that 
 he deserved to be thus commemorated. Our object 
 is, not to glorify him, for to him the applause or 
 censure of men is nothing. Our object is to benefit 
 ourselves and posterity, by a record of the life, 
 labors, and death of a faithful minister of the gos- 
 pel, a true patriot, a prudent counsellor, a reliable 
 friend, an humble, consistent Christian. He spent 
 
108 JUDGE ELMER'S EULOGY. 
 
 a long life in the service of the one people, among 
 whom he first settled. He was spared to an extreme 
 old age, and from the beginning to the end of his 
 life, commanded the respect and love of all who 
 knew him. Children's children grew up and called 
 him blessed. 
 
 A century has elapsed since his birth ; a century 
 of great events. Born a subject of King George II., 
 he died the citizen of a great and prosperous repub- 
 lic. Seventy years, the allotted period of human 
 life have gone by, since he left his nativ/e home in 
 Connecticut, after having graduated at Dartmouth, 
 I:i[. II., and been licensed to preach about two years 
 and a half. ISTo steamboats or railroads then ren- 
 dered a long journey easy and of quick despatch. 
 Traveling on horseback, and not intending at first 
 to go farther south than Philadelphia, he was provi- 
 dentially directed to this congregation, which had 
 been about five years destitute of a pastor. He 
 came to a people prepared to receive, and needing 
 such a man. They were of Puritan origin. For 
 many years in their early history they had resorted 
 to I^Tew England for pastors. Daniel Elmer was 
 born and educated there ; and when William Eam- 
 sey, who was of Irish parentage, and had been 
 educated at the new College at Princeton, was 
 selected to succeed him in 1756, it was thought 
 advisable that he should go to Connecticut, and be 
 there licensed. After a probation of six months 
 Mr. Osborn received a very cordial invitation to 
 settle, and obeyed the call. He was received by 
 
JUDGE ELMER'S EULOGY. 109 
 
 the Presbytery of Philadelphia, ordained and in- 
 stalled December 3, 1789. Following Mr. Ramsey, 
 a man of uncommon eloquence, and Mr. Hollings- 
 head, who was also distinguished as a preacher, 
 although differing much from them, he must have 
 been an acceptable preacher. That, considering all 
 his qualifications, he was well fitted for the place, is 
 shown by the fact, that from the commencement of 
 his pastorate, until advancing age and infirmities 
 induced him to resign, after a service of fifty-five 
 years, no one talked, no one thought of a separa- 
 tion. He had enlisted for life; his people chose 
 him for life ; and to the end of his life he remained 
 among them, only ceasing to labor wdien his strength 
 no longer permitted. 
 
 When he arrived, he found this '' Old Stone 
 Church," now in its turn abandoned, newly erected 
 and occupied. The frame building, following the 
 temporary structure of logs, which stood in the old 
 grave yard, on the bank of the Cohansey, about a 
 mile from this place, and which had been known 
 for three-fourths of a century as the " Cohansey 
 Church," having become unfit for use, the property 
 here had been purchased and stone collected for a 
 new building in the year 1775. But the trials and 
 privations of the Eevolution suspended the work 
 until the year 1780, when it was resumed, and the 
 building completed in that and the succeeding year. 
 In the meantime the old house had so decayed, that 
 it became necessary to remove the seats aud the 
 pulpit and place them under the large, old corner 
 10 
 
110 JUDGE Elmer's eulogy. 
 
 tree, now gone, where Mr. Hollingshead was accus- 
 tomed to preach. The first sermon in the new 
 house was preached by him September 7, 1780, from 
 the text, ^'But what things were gain to me, those I 
 counted loss for Christ." Philip, iii. 7. The labors 
 and sacrifices of the people, considering the time 
 and circumstances, must have been great, and a 
 great blessing from God followed them. About 
 one hundred and twenty persons were added to the 
 church during the ensuing two years. Such, how- 
 ever, was the efiect of the destitution that followed 
 the removal of Mr. Hollingshead, that when the 
 new pastor commenced his work, he could find but 
 one hundred and twenty-five members in all. 
 
 The congregation was scattered over the whole 
 of Fairfield township, and in parts of the adjoining 
 townships of Downe and Deerfield, including a por- 
 tion of the people of Bridgeton where there was no 
 church of any denomination, although it had been 
 the county town forty years. The only churches 
 then in the county were the Old Cohansey Baptist 
 Church, founded in 1690, probably the first in the 
 county, which then worshipped at a house in lower 
 Hopewell, near where Sheppard's mill now is ; the 
 Presbyterian churches at Greenwich and Deerfield; 
 the Seventh-Day Baptist Church at Shiloh ; a Baptist 
 church at Dividing creek; a German Keformed 
 church in Upper Hopewell, which had no pastor and 
 soon went to decay ; and the Friends meetings at 
 Greenwich and Port Elizabeth. The population de- 
 
JUDGE ELMER'S EULOGY. Ill 
 
 X3endcnt on tliis churcli for religious instruction, 
 may be estimated at about two tbousand. * 
 
 It was the understanding of the new pastor and 
 his people, as I have already remarked, that he set- 
 tled for life. Such was then the usual tenure of the 
 pastoral office, in the land of steady habits from 
 which he came. He did not sit down among a 
 secluded people, to prepare himself by a few years 
 of careful composition and study, for greater useful- 
 ness in a more important charge, nor did the con- 
 gregation stipulate that six months' notice should 
 terminate the engagement. He did not come with 
 a partner already chosen, but after a few years of 
 careful saving, as one important preparation for 
 housekeeping, found a wife among his hearers, and 
 soon afterwards purchased a convenient and com- 
 fortable but modest house, with a few acres of 
 ground, leaving the old parsonage and farm to be 
 sold. In this house he lived fifty-five years, and 
 there he ended his days, and died in the joyful hope 
 of a glorious resurrection. 
 
 * Since the above was spoken, I have ascertained that property 
 was conveyed to Trustees for a Methodist Episcopal church at Port 
 Elizabeth as early as 1785, and it is probable that there vs^ere a few 
 Methodists in other parts of the county before 1789. The whole num- 
 ber of communicants belonging to all the churches at the last date 
 did not exceed 600. The population was then about 6000, so that 
 the communicants were about one in ten. At this time there are 8 
 Presbyterian churches with about 1150 members, 7 Baptists with at 
 least 1000 members, and 17 Methodist Episcopal, with near 3000 
 members, the whole number exceeding 5000, which is more than one 
 in four church members in the present population of 19,000. 
 
112 JUDGE Elmer's eulogy. 
 
 Laboriaus in his habits, blessed through his long 
 life with imcoiiinion health, he went faithfully to 
 work, to win souls for Christ. He adapted himself 
 in all respects, to his circumstances. Although a 
 very fair scholar, he soon lost his character for 
 scholarship, as he has been heard pleasantly to re- 
 mark, by striving to be plain and intelligible to the 
 weakest capacity. In a sermon preached in 1822, 
 he said with his characteristic simplicity: "As to 
 my proceedings in the affairs of the church, I aimed 
 to follow the practice of my worthy predecessors, 
 wdthout making any alteration, unless it could evi- 
 dently be made for the better. I was favored with 
 a session of able and pious men ; and never shall I 
 forget the first prayer meeting in which they assisted 
 me in this house. They prayed with the spirit. My 
 mind was so sensibly affected, that perhaps I could 
 not refrain from tears of gratitude and joy. And 
 respecting the session ever since, the Lord has high- 
 ly favored me and the church." 
 
 ******* 
 
 For twenty years or more after his settlement, he 
 followed the ancient custom of preaching two ser- 
 mons on the Sabbath, in the meeting house, with an 
 interval of half an hour. But during the intermedi- 
 ate time, he was by no means idle. He visited the 
 schools in the different neighborhoods ; was at all 
 times attentive to the sick and suffering, and visited 
 and prayed with his people systematically and 
 diligently. 
 
 When he began his labors, Bible, Tract, Mission- 
 
JUDGE Elmer's eulogy. 113 
 
 ary and Colonization Societies were unknown ; but 
 when in the good providence of God, the church 
 was aroused to some proper sense of duty in these 
 matters, he entered at once and heartily into 
 measures for promoting them. He was one of the 
 founders of the Cumberland Bible Society, which 
 preceded the American Bible Society, and was 
 among the first in the country. He was also an 
 earnest promoter of the movement in favor of tem- 
 perance, cheerfully relinquishing his long practice 
 of taking a small quantity of spirits daily, which he 
 had been taught to consider important for his 
 health, and acting upon the apostolic principle of 
 total abstinence from whatever might make his 
 brother offend. 
 
 But while he did not hesitate to combine with 
 others to set a public example of abstinence when 
 the emergency required such a testimony, and to en- 
 deavor by all suitable means to promote the welfare 
 of his fellow-men, he was too wise, and too deeply 
 imbued with the spirit of his Master, to fall into the 
 prevalent error of attempting reforms, upon princi- 
 ples not sanctioned by his infallible guide, the re- 
 vealed will of God. 
 
 [After some remarks upon the superficialness and certain re- 
 action of reforms which ignore the moral and spiritual element, 
 and after a notice of the political views and course of Mr. Osborn, 
 corroborative of what is contained in the " Memorial," the 
 Eulogy proceeds to speak of his Theological opinions in terms 
 more to be regarded, because coming from one whose ecclesiasti- 
 cal connections are with the Old School branch of the Presbyte- 
 
 10* 
 
114 JUDGE ELMER'S EULOGY. 
 
 rian church. They probably express the vie-vys now entertained 
 of the departed pastor, by the body from which, the asperities of 
 the times severed him. J 
 
 His theology was that of a very moderate Calvin- 
 ist. Believing and preaching the doctrines of per- 
 sonal election and final perseverance of the saints, 
 he ias firmly believed and tanght a general atone- 
 ment. And this he did with the sincerity and open- 
 ness that always characterized him. Abont twenty- 
 five years ago, not being listened to when the sub- 
 ject was discussed at the monthly association, with 
 the respect to which he thought his age entitled him, 
 he prepared a sermon in defence of his views, which 
 on a subsequent occasion he preached before them. 
 When accosted, after the services by one of his bre- 
 thren with the remark, " Well, brother Osborn, you 
 gave it to Cahanism to-day with an Arminian 
 cudgel," he good humoredly replied, " My opinions 
 have been a good deal questioned, and I thought I 
 would let you know my views." 
 
 Firm and decided as he was in maintaining his 
 own opinions, he was entirely free from envy and 
 jealousy, and was willing to accord to all others the 
 same freedom of opinion he claimed for himself. 
 He disliked controversy, and was a model and ad- 
 vocate of peace. So thorough was the conviction 
 of his sincerity, so meek was his spirit, so blameless 
 his life, and so courteous his manners, that although 
 his brethren were grieved, at what they could not 
 but regard as a departure from the true doctrine of 
 their confession of faith, and of the Bible, they 
 
JUDGE ELMER'S EULOGY. 115 
 
 never failed to accord to him their love and esteem, 
 and to tolerate diiFerences, which exhibited by an- 
 other man or with a different spirit, might have pro- 
 duced very unpleasant consequences. 
 
 When the disruption of the Presb3i:erian body 
 occurred, no one doubted, on Avhicli side he would 
 be found. But he was in no hurry to break up old 
 associations. "Writing to a sister in 1840, he said : 
 " I have been frequently asked, what is the differ- 
 ence between the Old and 'New School. Yesterday, 
 agreeable to previous notice, I answered the question 
 from the pulpit. After explaining some difference 
 of opinion respecting the doings of the Assembly of 
 1837 and 1838, and of a few doctrines, I drew sev- 
 eral inferences, one of Avhich was that the New 
 School Assembly is the genuine constitutional Pres- 
 byterian Assembly in the United States. Whether 
 we shall remove our standing to a ISTew School Pres- 
 bytery, we have not yet determined. I am much 
 perplexed in a troubled situation, between two fires. 
 May the Lord direct me, to do what is right and 
 best." His church very soon seceded from the 
 West Jersey Presbytery, and united with one con- 
 nected with the other party. Before this, there had 
 been a secession from his church and a new one 
 constituted. The final result, as you know, has 
 been that the one Old Cohansey Church, has become 
 three, that at Fairton, claiming to be the regular 
 successor, so far as I know, without a contestant. 
 
 Fairly to characterize Mr. Osborn's preaching, 
 will be difficult. As I have already intimated, it 
 
116 JUDGE ELMER'S EULOGY. 
 
 cannot be said that lie was an eloquent man. Too 
 busy to be a great student, be drew bis sermons di- 
 rectly from tbe Bible, and depended on bis own 
 tbougbts. Many bere, remember bis common prac- 
 tice, at a certain period of bis discourse, of stopping 
 and looking at bis watcb, and tben saying, ^'Hav- 
 ing gone tbrougb tbe doctrinal part of my discourse, 
 I come now to make some practical remarks." He 
 bad a clear, distinct voice ; " tbe finest, some of us 
 tbougbt, in tbe Pbiladelpbia Presbytery," is tbe tes- 
 timony of one, for many years a co-presbyter. His 
 sermons were eminently practical, were well 
 tbougbt out, and well adapted botb to edify bis flock, 
 and to alarm tbe careless. I can never forget tbe 
 solemn empbasis witb wbicb I once beard bim pro- 
 nounce tbe awful warning of tbe last ten verses of 
 tbe first cbapter of Proverbs. 
 
 You bave all beard of tbe famous Wbitefield, tbat 
 " prince of preacbers," wbose voice was once beard 
 by multitudes of tbis and tbe otber congregations 
 in tbe county, wben be preacbed in tbe year 1740, 
 on a small bill near tbe meeting-bouse at Greeu- 
 wicb, and wbere in bis own language ; " Tbe words 
 gradually struck tbe bearers, till tbe wbole congre- 
 gation was greatly moved, and two cried out in tbe 
 bitterness of tbeir souls, after a crucified Saviour, 
 and were scarcely able to stand. My soul was re- 
 plenisbed as witb new wine, and life and power flew 
 all around me." "Wbat was said by tbis wonderful 
 man, wben put on paper, evinced no superiority to 
 tbe productions of ordinary preacbers. Gifted witb 
 
JUDGE ELMER'S EULOGY. 117 
 
 a most musical and powerful voice, and with deep 
 feelings, his matchless power, like the power of all 
 great orators, w^as due to his heing able to commu- 
 nicate his own emotions and passions to his hearers, 
 and thus to bring their whole minds into sympathy 
 and union with his own. 
 
 The influence exerted by Mr. Osborn, although it 
 fell far short of that exerted by Whitefield, I am per- 
 suaded was due to" a similar power of bringing the 
 feelings of those he addressed, to a lively sympathy 
 with his own. His natural temper was quick and 
 irritable, entirely controlled by perfect self-com- 
 mand ; and he was endowed with a lively sympathy 
 for others, and especially for those in trouble, and 
 the poor and humble. 
 
 A strong feeling for the poor, and for every class 
 of his people, was shown in his countenance, and in 
 every word and action. If he rose to address a 
 Sabbath-school, with his ordinary greeting, " Well, 
 children, I am glad to see so many of you here," 
 every eye brightened, and every little heart beat with 
 quick emotion, for all felt that his feelings toward 
 them, were those of the most aiFectionate parent, 
 and every word he spoke fell on listening ears. 
 
 He was not addicted to writing for the press. I 
 am not aware that any of his sermons have been 
 printed. In May, 1812, just before the declaration 
 of war against Great Britain, he delivered a short 
 address to a company of soldiers, then recently en- 
 listed and about to depart, which in his own words, 
 
118 JUDGE ELMEK'S eulogy. 
 
 was " by request (unexpectedly) of the officers and 
 others, submitted to publicity." This address as 
 now read, is in nowise remarkable, but it made a 
 deep and lasting impression on his hearers, some of 
 whom could repeat much of it from memory, and 
 many preserved the paper containing it, among their 
 choicest relics. He spoke from a heart deeply im- 
 bued with the feelings of a true patriot ; he knew 
 from experience the dangers and trials of a soldier's 
 life ; and he was anxious to benefit his hearers. 
 First addressing to the soldiers suitable cautions and 
 admonitions, he closed with the affecting words : — 
 " And now, in taking leave of you with brotherly 
 affection, we bid you a cordial farewell, praying that 
 God would have you in his holy keeping, give you 
 prosperous success and a safe return." Then to the 
 people, he inculcated the duty of contributing to 
 the comfortable support of the soldiers. ^' And at 
 the call of proper authority, let us cheerfully and 
 promptly aid their exertions, and consider them not 
 as military slaves, dragged into service by a press- 
 gang, but in the honorable character of volunteer 
 citizens, going forth to put themselves between us 
 and the hostile foe, defenders of our rights and 
 avengers of our wrongs. Let us boldly aid the 
 Christian cause, by frowning upon vice and wicked- 
 ness of every kind and encouraging the duties re- 
 quired by the gospel. And as the battle is not al- 
 ways to the strong, let us implore the blessings of 
 Almighty God, that he would bless rulers and peo- 
 ple with wisdom and grace to rightly perform their 
 
JUDGE ELMER'S EULOGY. 119 
 
 respective duties, that he would preserve our armies 
 in camp from wasting sickness, shield them in the 
 day of battle and give them the victory, and cause 
 the war in its consequences to be subservient to the 
 best interests of mankind and Divine glory." 
 
 With this spirit, he addressed himself to his peo- 
 ple from w^eek to week, with. unwearied assiduity, 
 carefully adapting his discourses to the times and 
 seasons. There was much sameness of manner, com- 
 bined with a great variety of topics. In his ser- 
 mons, and in his conversation, he was accustomed 
 to dwell very much, upon the ove^Tuling providence 
 of God, in which he put his trust. When a drought 
 occurred, he would appoint a day of fasting and 
 prayer, taking care to say. If it pleases God to send 
 us rain before that time, we will make it a day of 
 thanksgiving and praise. And such faith did the 
 community come to have in these special interces- 
 sions, that it became a common remark far out of 
 the bounds of his parish, " We shall soon have rain; 
 Mr. Osborn has appointed a day for fasting and 
 prayer." 
 
 5fC 5ji ^ ^ ^ SjC 5JC 
 
 Acceptable and successful as a preacher, he was 
 still more beloved in the sick-room and at funerals. 
 Who that has ever been present, can forget his man- 
 ner of speaking to the mourning friends of the de- 
 ceased? Ready at all times to ^'rejoice with them 
 that rejoice, and weep with them that weep," per- 
 haps no one ever more skilfully adapted his remarks 
 to the circumstances of each particular case, and no 
 
120 JUDGE ELMER'S EULOGY. 
 
 one was ever beard with more aiFectionate rever- 
 ence. Speaking manifestly from a full heart, he yet 
 maintained a calm demeanor, and spoke in a clear 
 and distinct tone, eminently calculated to soothe and 
 edify. So true was his sympathy and so delicate 
 and nice was his perception of what was due to his 
 hearers, that he could speak with a plain directness, 
 which very few could imitate. He was felt to be a 
 sincere friend and a wise counsellor. 
 
 In social intercourse he was kind and courteous, 
 and was always an acceptable guest. Like most 
 men of naturally quick temperament, he had a strong 
 sense of the ludicrous, and although always mind- 
 ful of his holy calling, would often let off a flash of 
 wit or tell a humorous anecdote with no little zest ; 
 and being able to accommodate himself readily to 
 every description of persons, he gained access to 
 those who to others were almost inaccessible, and 
 was thus enabled to enlarge the sphere of his use- 
 fulness. At his own house he was a model of hos- 
 pitality and kindness, and let no one depart, with- 
 out exciting the wish to see him again. I remem- 
 ber calling there a few years ago, after his faculties 
 had began to fail, but while he still retained his re- 
 collection, and could converse intelligently, with a 
 clerical friend, who afterwards remarked how much 
 he was struck with his cordial manner, his grateful 
 sense of attention, and especially his mode of tak- 
 ing leave of us, following us out of the gate, thank- 
 ing us for the visit, and showing as well as express- 
 ing how much he was pleased, looking after us until 
 
JUDGE Elmer's eulogy. 121 
 
 we were out of sight. From my first knowledge of 
 him, his manner was the same. I saw .him for the 
 last time, about a fortnight before his death, and al- 
 though I could not be sure that he knew who I was, 
 when he followed me to the door, and in his old 
 pleasant cordial manner thanked me for the visit, 
 and expressed his hope that we should meet again, 
 if not here, in heaven. He seemed the same kind, 
 courteous Christian friend I had always found him, 
 during the more than fifty years of our acquaint- 
 ance. 
 
 Whatever might be thought of him as a preacher, 
 he was mighty in prayer. Long before I could ap- 
 preciate his excellence in this respect, I remember 
 to have heard his prayers spoken of as peculiarly 
 acceptable to devout minds. They were the prayers 
 of a man used to converse with God. After his 
 faculties had so decayed that he could not remember 
 the names of his children and grand children, he 
 could lead the devotions of the family and of a con- 
 gregation, with entire propriety. He preached his 
 last sermon in this building, and took an afiecting 
 leitve of the place where he had so long stood as an 
 ambassador for Christ, in the year 1850, and attend- 
 ed public worsliip for the last time at Cedarville, 
 about three months before he died, closing the ser- 
 vices with some appropriate and impressive remarks 
 to the people, and a touching prayer to the God and 
 Saviour he had so long served. 
 
 Very few ministers of the gospel, could be so 
 11 
 
122 JUDGE ELMER'S EULOGY. 
 
 aptly described in the language of Cowper, as Ethan 
 shorn. 
 
 '' Would I describe a preacher, such as Paul, 
 
 Were he on earth, would hear, ajiprove and own, 
 
 Paul should himself direct me. I would trace 
 
 His master strokes, and draw from his design. 
 
 I would express him simple, grave, sincere. 
 
 In doctrine uncorrupt ; in language plain, 
 
 And plain in manner ; decent, solemn, chaste, 
 
 And natural in gesture ; much impress'd 
 
 Himself, as conscious of his awful charge, 
 • And anxious, mainly, that the flock he feeds 
 
 May feel it too ; affectionate in look, 
 
 And tender in address, as well becomes 
 
 A messenger in grace to guilty men. 
 
 He 'stablishes the strong, restores the weak. 
 
 Reclaims the wanderer, binds the broken heart ; 
 
 And arm'd himself in panoply complete 
 
 Of heavenly temper, furnishes with arms, 
 
 Bright as his own, and trains by every rule 
 
 Of holy discipline, to glorious war. 
 
 The sacramental host of God's elect." 
 
 In the fullness of time he has been gathered to his 
 fathers.. We do not sorrow. His body has been con- 
 signed to the tomb, his spirit has ascended, as we 
 trust, to his heavenly home. But the good that men 
 do lives after them. His faithful teaching, his fer- 
 vent prayers, and his Christian life, have not been in 
 vain. Many of his spiritual children, lie around 
 him in this graveyard, where he buried the fathers 
 and mothers and very many of the children of his 
 flock. Some survive, to cherish his memory, and to 
 
JUDGE ELMER'S EULOGY. 123 
 
 be living witnesses of the power of the gospel he 
 preached. If there are any within the sound of my 
 voice who turned a deaf ear to his faithful warn- 
 ings and earnest entreaties ; let me affectionately 
 remind them, that soon they must stand at the judg- 
 ment bar of Christ, and there meet the pastor, who 
 in the long suffering mercy of God, was spared to 
 them so many years. If "he that despised Moses' 
 law, died without mercy under two or three wit- 
 nesses ; of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, 
 shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under 
 foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of 
 the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an un- 
 holy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of 
 grace." 
 
MR. BURT'S ADDRESS, 
 
 It is a sadly pleasant duty, wliich lias been assign- 
 ed me, my respected friends, of speaking to you tlius 
 to-day, as from beside the grave of our late lament- 
 ed and venerated pastor. It is a sad duty ; for a 
 few months ago I bad hoped that when this day 
 should arrive, we should be gathered here just as 
 now, but with him in the midst of us, laden with 
 the mercies of a full hundred years, and, while re- 
 ceiving our congratulations, once more — if only once 
 more — pronouncing upon us his blessing. 
 
 How sadly this occasion contrasts with that anti- 
 cipation. Yet, as it hath pleased God to remove 
 him from us, the duty is now a pleasant one, of 
 doing what we may to call to mind the many things 
 of his long life among us which we desire to have 
 in lasting remembrance, and for the sake of which, 
 especially, we have to-day reared this monumental 
 stone. 
 
 It is as a parishioner, more particularly, that I 
 would speak of Father Osborn : — it is as one upon 
 whose infant head he laid his hand in baptism, — as 
 one who often, in all the growing years of childhood, 
 saw his beaming face in the Sabbath-school, and 
 
REV. MR. BURT'S ADDRESS. 125 
 
 heard there that uniform salutation so familiar to 
 you all, — as one who dwelt for many years amidst 
 the breakings of the word and the bread of life from 
 his lips and hands, — as one whose parents' and 
 grandparents' marriages he solemnized, and some 
 of whose remoter ancestors he buried, — as one thus 
 nearly and tenderly related to him, like as were so 
 many of you ; — it is as one of his parishioners, and 
 in the name of all his parishioners present, that I 
 would speak of him. 
 
 I could have wished, indeed, that the duty of 
 speaking thus as a parishioner had fallen to the lot 
 of some older person — t)f some one whose memory 
 reaches farther back upon his life, and comprises a 
 greater variety of its occurrences; for although 
 thirty years have gone since my recollections of him 
 begin, — since I first sat in yon pew, next the front, 
 and looked up into his face as he stood here, and 
 childishly feared lest this sounding-board should fall 
 upon him, — although thirty years have gone since 
 then, yet he was then fulfilling his threescore and 
 ten ; so that it is only as an old man, and a very old 
 man, that I have any recollection of him whatever. 
 • This deficiency has been made up, perhaps so far as 
 could be, by the honored gentleman who has pre- 
 ceded me, speaking, as he has done, with the inter- 
 est and affection of long acquaintance, and as a de- 
 scendant of one who here occupied the pastor's 
 place long before Father Osborn. I say the defici- 
 ency has been made up, so far as could be ; for who 
 is there among us old enough to recall his early 
 
 11* 
 
126 REV. MR. LURT'S ADDRESS. 
 
 years? I see here and there, among his former 
 flock, a form bowed down with the weight of years, 
 but even these were young to him. The last survi- 
 ving member of his original congregation, after 
 lingering the last for many years, as you know, long 
 since died. Yes; he was a rare exception in the 
 matter of age. We are all children compared with 
 him, whose life, stretching backward and forward, 
 touched upon six generations. 
 
 We celebrate these services for the centenarian. 
 And centuries ! these are not periods in the life of a 
 man, but in the life of nations and the world's his- 
 tory. Yet, what an affecting view we have of the 
 shortness of life and the speedy flight of successive 
 generations, when we think that even the long life 
 of the venerated deceased was short, when compared 
 with the brief existence of many things about us. 
 
 He is gone ; but this house, which was new when 
 he was young, still stands. He is gone; but that 
 hickory tree yonder, which throws its evening 
 shadow on these windows, which lived before this 
 house was built, against which my grandfather lean- 
 ed his gun when this roof was raised, — that tree 
 waves its limbs as if in benedictions on the pastor's 
 grave hard by, and still is young. 
 
 It is fit, my friends, to engage to-day in such ser- 
 vices as these. You have done well to devise and 
 execute the purpose which this monument speaks. 
 
 In honoring the memory of one so aged, you 
 honor the memory of your own fathers, and fathers' 
 fathers, whose companion and friend he was. 
 
iiEV. MR. burt's address. 127 
 
 In honoring bis memory, you pay a tribute of de- 
 served praise to the heroes who won our nation's in- 
 dependence ; for at the call of his country, as you 
 haye heard, in the ardor of youth, he threw down 
 his books, and put off his student's gown, and catch- 
 ing up musket and sword, hastened to the standard 
 of Washington. 
 
 In honoring his memory, you fulfill the decree of 
 Heaven, that '^the memory of the just shall be 
 blessed," and you avoid the -reproach of Heaven, 
 which cries, "The righteous perisheth and no man 
 layeth it to heart." Ah ! he was a good man. The 
 common phrase in all this region, as you know, has 
 been, — " as good as Father Osborn." And if they 
 whom the world calls great receive applause and 
 win a monument, — nay, if it be so ofttimes with 
 even those who excel only in what is fiendish in our 
 nature, and whose career is one of crime and desola- 
 tion, shall not he be honored who adorned himself 
 with heavenly graces and scattered blessings all 
 along his pathway ? 
 
 'Nor is this all ; but more than all this, in honoring 
 his memory you honor him who, for more than half 
 a century, well and faithfully discharged the duty of 
 a Christian Pastor among us. '^ I magnify mine of- 
 fice." Where is an office so sacred and so honor- 
 able ? An ambassador of God — a minister of Jesus — 
 a herald of salvation, — shall we not have him in re- 
 vered remembrance who, more fully than most who 
 occupy this office, felt its weighty import, and strove 
 to meet its large demands ? And where, further, I 
 
128 REV. MR. BURT'S ADDRESS. 
 
 may ask, is an office that so connects with it the 
 tender and precious interests of men, — that enters so 
 familiarly and fully into the aiFairs of social and per- 
 sonal life, acquainting itself with them and busying 
 itself about them in loving sympathy ? 
 
 The pastor is not only the interpreter of the ora- 
 cles of God in the gathered assembly ; he is a visitor 
 in every home, and a personal friend of every indi- 
 vidual. In every crisis of life he is at hand, sooth- 
 ing in sickness, comforting in sorrow, counseling 
 in perplexity, and, at last, accompanying the dying, 
 as far as he may, toward the brooding shadow^s of 
 the dark and solitary valley ; and in all this he is the 
 friend of the soul, drawing from earth, leading to 
 Christ, and inspiring with heavenly hopes. O there 
 is none who so fully and so tenderly interweaves his 
 whole life with that of each of a community, and 
 draws after him and binds upon him such a train of 
 ardent and holy affections, as the faithful and 
 loving pastor. And such a pastor was he, whom 
 we mourn. Kay, his career, extending through 
 generation after generation, and ever widening and 
 deepening its sympathies and cementing its affec- 
 tions, identified with him the life of this community 
 to a degree seldom known. He has been a repre- 
 sentative character among us, and his biography 
 would be the history of Fairfield, in the most im- 
 portant respects, for the period which it would 
 cover. 
 
 As one, then, venerable for years; as one who 
 took his young life into his hands for our country's 
 
REV. MR. BURT'S ADDRESS. 129 
 
 deliverance ; as one radiant with the virtues which 
 God approves and which bless mankind ; and as 
 our worthy, long-tried, long-trusted, ever-loving 
 pastor, we do well to honor him and call him to re- 
 membrance, by monuments more enduring than 
 marble. 
 
 It is fit, too, to celebrate these services in this 
 place. Here, rather than any where else, did he 
 perform his life's work. And so little comparative- 
 ly has this house been occupied since he ceased 
 from his active labors, it seems sacred to his memo- 
 ry alone. 
 
 All things here speak of him. This was his pul- 
 pit, this his Bible ; these walls echo his voice ; this 
 room is pervaded by his presence. I can almost see 
 him — can you not ? — coming in at yon door, walk- 
 ing up that aisle, treading these pulpit steps so sol- 
 emnly, hanging his hat on that knob, (the right 
 hand one, not the left,) closing the door of the pul- 
 pit as he seats himself, and then giving himself to 
 brief meditation. 
 
 At such a time as this, the heart prizes the recol- 
 lection of the little peculiarities which marked the 
 object of its affection. — And thus in picturing him 
 to ourselves in the pulpit, we love to think of such 
 things as these, the frequent wrinkling of his fore- 
 head, his occasional rising on his toes, his opening 
 his eyes for a moment, and at regular intervals, in 
 prayer. — We all remember the form in w^hich his 
 sermons were cast, — of the doctrinal and the practi- 
 cal part, and the habitual performances with watch 
 
130 REV. MR. hurt's ADDRESS. 
 
 and spectacles and handkerchief, which separated 
 the two parts in the delivery. — We call to mind 
 certain peculiarities of language ; * particularly the 
 pronunciation tlioufore for therefore^ the suhstitution 
 of who and which for that in his reading, as also the 
 suhstitution of shall for will, in cases where Scottish 
 usage had prevailed against correct English. — So we 
 recollect the heartiness with which he joined in the 
 singing, and the readiness and interest with which 
 he caught and used our new tunes, notwithstanding 
 his natural partiality for the older music. — And 
 who, that has ever heard his preaching, will forget 
 that silvery voice, so distinct in its articulation, that 
 the dull ear of age caught every quavering syllable 
 of his calm utterance, when the vociferations of 
 others would give the impression only of a confused 
 noise. — And although he could hardly he called an 
 orator, yet we all remember the serious earnestness 
 which marked his speaking. Yes ; and there were 
 times when this earnestness kindled into eloquence. 
 It has often seemed to me, that I never stood so 
 nearly face to face with the Great Judge of all, as 
 when, sometimes, in the closing of his sermon on a 
 summer day, he would turn and look through these 
 open windows out upon the churchyard, with its 
 great congregation of slumbering occupants, and re- 
 ferring to the scene, turn again to us, and, with 
 roused voice, press the exhortations of his subject 
 by the consideration of death and the life after 
 
 * See Note A. 
 
KEV. MR. BUHT'S ADDRESS. 131 
 
 death. Often, at such times, I thought the archan- 
 gel's trump might the next moment sound, and I 
 could not but imagine the pious dead of the church- 
 yard trooping forth from their graves, and, in robes 
 of white, pluming themselves to meet the Lord in 
 the air, while I trembled, lest the day of my doom 
 had come. At such times, he was "the old man 
 eloquent." He seemed indeed transfigured and in- 
 spired for a moment, — a heavenly messenger let 
 down into the midst of us, to ply the ministries of 
 God's mercy by the urgencies of the world to come. 
 And what a congregation was that which here 
 listened to his discourse. For a long time, almost 
 all Fairfield worshipped in this place. And, even 
 within my own memory, the Sabbath assembling of 
 his congregation, in the summer season, was a sight 
 to behold. Kecall the scene. Out from Cedandlle 
 on the south, Fairton on the north, Sayre's Neck 
 and Back 'Neck, on the west, and even the woods on 
 the east, come pouring uncovered wagons and 
 great covered carriages, and throngs of people on 
 foot, men and women and children. The grove of 
 oaks at the end of the church, and the road in front, 
 on both sides of it for a long way, at length are fill- 
 ed with the vehicles. Those persons arriving be- 
 fore the time go — some at once into the church, 
 others into the churchyard, others again into the 
 grove or dooryard. By and by, but punctual to the 
 hour, the pastor is seen slowly approaching. * He 
 
 * See Note B. 
 
132 REV. MR. BURT'S ADDRESS. 
 
 leaves -his carriage in the grove. He advances up 
 the dooryard, his summer gown flowing" in the 
 breeze. His coming is the signal for the scattered 
 multitude to assemble and enter and be seated. And 
 soon they come sweeping in, filling the seats below 
 and the seats above, and often running over into 
 stairways and aisles. — Aye, this broad gallery was 
 crowded then, back to the wall. It contained in- 
 deed a large proportion of the entire audience, and 
 perhaps it was this nearly even division of the as- 
 sembly which suggested the classification of his 
 hearers which the pastor often made in his preaching 
 — a classification which I have never heard made 
 elsewhere or by any one else, and in this case made 
 upon what principle or for what purpose I have 
 never exactly known, the classification of " all who 
 are here present, either below or in the gallery." 
 
 It is not my desire to dissect very closely the 
 character of our departed father and friend. Our 
 hearts are full of reverence and esteem for him, and 
 we wish to look upon him as our hearts picture him, 
 and receive the impression of his character and life 
 as a whole, and in its broad native colors. Yet the 
 picture, as a whole, has its strong features ; and it 
 may be w^ell to glance at some of the prominent 
 points of his character— those of which we cannot 
 but think when we think of him at all, and those 
 which most of all made him what he w^as. 
 
 If to any extent I should traverse the field gone 
 over by the gentleman who has preceded me, it still 
 may not be useless ; for in the mouth of two or three 
 
REV. MR. BURT'S ADDRESS. 133 
 
 witnesses every word shall be established. Good is 
 the word, as already iutimated, most often used con- 
 cerning him. And perhaps his goodness was his 
 most prominent attribute. He was good, if by that 
 we understand that he was remarkably free from 
 imperfections of character generally, and possessed, 
 in remarkable degree and combination, the various 
 virtues and graces. — He was a holy man. — And he 
 was good, if by that we understand that he wa.^ un- 
 selfish and benevolent. His was a gentle disposi- 
 tion, and an even course of life spent in doing good. 
 He wished well — he thought well — he spoke well, 
 of every one possible ; and he acted as he felt and 
 spoke. This gentleness may not have been wholly 
 natural. It was, no doubt, in part acquired. He 
 was not without a certain natural quickness of 
 temper, and in view of what was mean and wrong 
 he was capable of a read}'- indignation. But a St. 
 John was once a Boanerges, while it may be said of 
 Father Osborn, that his natural temper was, on the 
 whole, singularly amiable, and that all his life long 
 he was characterized bv eminent 2:entleness. 
 
 Yet the word good does not fully describe him. 
 The word kind, in its primitive meaning, must be 
 added to the word good. He felt his kindred with 
 mankind. He was of ready and tender and wide 
 sympathies. His was not an intense and rugged 
 personality walling him off from his fellow men; 
 but in him humanity prevailed over individuality, 
 and he came in contact with others at many points. 
 He thouo-ht that " nothino' of human concern was 
 12 
 
IM KEV. MR. BURT'S ADDRESS. 
 
 foreio'ii to himself," and reckoned as liis friends all 
 wliom he could befriend. And with such a nature, 
 stimulated and sanctilied, he could not but have 
 power. Yes ; he was good if he was not great; and 
 if he had not genius he had geniqlity^ and these two 
 are perhaps more nearly allied than we commonly 
 think. As minor traits, suitable to be simply 
 mentioned here, were his courteousness and cordial- 
 ity of manners, his facetious humor, and his general 
 and pleasing simplicity — all of which might readily 
 be illustrated.* 
 
 His piety was like his general character. Its ex- 
 ercises were of the calmer sort. His faith was sim- 
 ple, his love hearty, his peace ever flowing. 
 
 His theology answered to his religious experience. 
 With no manifest exhibition of the Divine sove- 
 reignty in his conversation, such as that seen in the 
 case of the Apostle Paul, and with no stormy con- 
 flicts of soul, such as WTung from that Apostle the 
 exclamation, " wretched man that I am," and 
 wrought in him the profoundest sense of his abso- 
 lute and immediate dependence on the grace of God, 
 it was natural that Father Osborn should delight to 
 dwell on the more general aspects . of the divine 
 favor. 
 
 His preaching addressed the conscience and the 
 heart more fully than the understanding. It made 
 statements of the truth rather than analytic exhibi- 
 tions. It was popular rather than profound. He 
 
 ^ See Note C. 
 
REV. MR. BURT'S ADDRESS. 135 
 
 commended tlie simple truths of salvation to every 
 man's conscience in the sio-ht of God. And he 
 rung these again and yet again, until they sounded 
 loud and long through the soul. 
 
 His 2?astoral intercourse was familiar and confiden- 
 tial. He will he especially remembered for his 
 words of comfort in the house of mourning, and at 
 the newly-made grave. * He renewed his youth 
 perpetually by perpetual intercourse with the young. 
 And not only was his heart a fresh fountain for new 
 personal sympathies, but he kept pace with the 
 moral and religious progress of the age. Early he 
 caught the missionary spirit. He was the fast friend 
 of the Sabbath-school, and rehearsed the story of 
 E-obert Raikes with an ever increasing admiration 
 for the founder of Sabbath-schools. He stood in the 
 van of the temperance movement ; he was an early 
 and active supporter of the Bible Society ; and he ap- 
 preciated and urged, as few others in these parts 
 have done, the claims and glory of the scheme of 
 African colonization. His heart indeed embraced 
 every good cause, and his hands were ready for 
 every good work. Considering his extreme age, 
 and the calmness of his natural disposition, and the 
 comparative seclusion of his position, this spirit of 
 moral and religious enterprise, was, in my opinion, 
 as remarkable in the venerable pastor as anything 
 we can say of him. 
 
 The heroic element did not largely enter into his 
 
 * See Note D. 
 
136 Ri]v. Mil. burt's address. 
 
 character, and his leading a soklier's life for even 
 eight months, may seem an incongruity. Yet, 
 while, no doubt, he well fulfilled his duty as a sol- 
 dier, and would have done so in any case, it was 
 providentially so ordered, that he was never called 
 upon, though often in near prospect of hattle, and 
 for a long time dwelling amidst the hostile move- 
 ments of great armies, and almost witnessing terrific 
 engagements of portions of them — he was never call- 
 ed upon to face the enemy or fire a gun. It may 
 seem amusing to sum up a soldier's history in the 
 statement, that he was never in a battle, but was in 
 a retreat : yet it was something to have been in the 
 Retreat of the Ten Thousand Greeks, and so it was 
 something to have been in the retreat across 'New 
 Jersey, in the dark days of seventy-six. He was 
 called to endure as a soldier, if not to fight. The 
 virtue exercised is none the less valuable, if it be not 
 so brilliant ; its exercise was, perhaps, more in accord- 
 ance w^ith his general character ; and, in view of his 
 after history, his negative career as a soldier is not 
 to be regretted. We are glad that the necessity 
 was never laid upon him who loved so well his 
 every fellow man, and whose life was to be occupied 
 in holy and merciful ministries to men, to mingle 
 in the infuriate and deadly strife of battle. 
 
 It is the Providence of God which assigns to in- 
 dividuals as well as nations the bounds of their 
 habitation ; and we cannot but admire the wisdom 
 and goodness which appointed to Father Osborn his 
 residence in Fairfield. How admirably was he 
 adapted to his position. 
 
REV. MR. BURT'S ADDRESS. 137 
 
 Connecticut-born himself, he found here a people 
 largely of l^ew England and Connecticut origin, and 
 a people eminently Puritan in their manners. He 
 was not a prophet in his own country, to fail of any 
 proper honor ; and yet he was a prophet in his own 
 country, to perceive at once the ways and wants of 
 the people, and to know how to apply himself to his 
 work among them. He had not violently to deny 
 himself the habits of his early training, but happily 
 to preserve and perpetuate them. — And then, this 
 peninsular position, retired from the great thorough- 
 fares of business and travel — this nook of eddying 
 waters, aside from the great rushing tide — how well 
 it met his quiet disposition, how much it contribu- 
 ted to his even course of life, — nay, how materially 
 it contributed under God to the wonderful lengthen- 
 ing of his life and the consequent significance of his 
 life's work. 
 
 Old age is not the fruit of the hot excitements 
 and intense living of the crowded city. It is the 
 genial suns of many da^^s and the gentle dews of 
 many nights that bring on the harvest to its richest 
 ripening. — I have seen the graves of three men side 
 by side — successive pastors of the same church, 
 whose united pastorates swelled to the period of one 
 hundred and fifty years ; but it was a country church- 
 yard in which they lay, and it was a peninsular re- 
 gion in which they had lived, — a region secluded 
 and quiet bej^ond even this. — In these days of the 
 almost universal restlessness of men, in these days 
 of perpetual movements and migrations, when the 
 
138 REV. MR. BURT'S ADDRESS. 
 
 attractions of native soil and homo and friends dis- 
 solve before tlie jirospect of new lands and El Do- 
 rados, and when tlie pastoral tie is readily sundered, 
 and great bodies of ministers are always to be found 
 in pastoral transit on tlie bigb roads of travel ; it is 
 well and delightful here and there to see an exam- 
 ple of the permanency of home, and of the peculiar 
 and happy results of a life-long ministry. — We bless 
 God, this day, that to such a place as this, he sent 
 such a man as him whom we mourn, and that he 
 permitted him here to exercise his ever-growing 
 ministry upon children's children, and live out his 
 honored days. 
 
 It is no marvel, that God ordered it that he should 
 live to such an extreme age. 'No ; painful as it may 
 be to witness the decay of the powers of the aged, 
 and burdensome from its multiplied infirmities as 
 old age may often be to itself and to others, I do not 
 wonder that God here and there preserves a man 
 to extreme old age. If it be not needful for such 
 an one himself, it is desirable for others. If God 
 have nothing more for him to do, it is much for 
 such an one to stand in the midst of us as a simple 
 witness for the Past. For not only do w^e dissolve 
 our connections with things around us — with soil 
 and home and living friends, but much more are 
 we disposed to cut ourselves oiF from the Past — to 
 lose the knowledge of its events, the memory of its 
 people, the sense of our obligations to it, and the 
 whole impression of its sacredness. ITow to have a 
 representative of the Past among us, a living tradi- 
 
REV. MR. BURT'S ADDRESS. 139 
 
 tion before our eyes, one whose life rooted in a re- 
 mote veneration blossoms and bears fruit in the 
 present, — is it not of manifest and essential service? 
 — These aged ones, — they are the overlapping mem- 
 bers which tie the separate parts of the rising 
 fabric ; they afford the needed splicing for the joints 
 of the loose construction ; by them the life of the 
 race finds continuous flow through its successive 
 generations. 
 
 And well may we bless God to-day, that he per- 
 mitted our departed father to live so long, after his 
 life's work seemed to have been finished. He was 
 with us, not only to afibrd a bond of union among 
 ourselves, by his personal influence as was Joshua 
 of old amidst the newly scattered tribes of Israel, 
 but he was with us also, as Joshua was with his bre- 
 thren, to testify of the past, to remind us of our an- 
 cestry and ancestral obligations, and to teach us 
 to adore God's wonders of old which our fathers 
 saw. 
 
 Yet he, too, must die. The stroke long delayed 
 must at length come. He had survived so many 
 people, he had buried so many who were so much 
 younger than himself, and the hand of time rested 
 so gently upon him, that, aged as he was, we did not 
 think much of his dying. But of each of the ante- 
 diluvian patriarchs whose name has come down to 
 us, whose life numbered almost its thousand years 
 —it is still written—" and he died." " The fathers 
 where are they, and the prophets do they live for- 
 ever?" 
 
140 REV. MR. BURT'S ADDRESS. 
 
 And what a death was that of our pastor! So 
 loDg a life, running so even a course, we should 
 have supposed, would end, amidst the decays of 
 age, in a gentle and peaceful slumber. We might 
 well have anticipated a calm assurance, a steadfast 
 faith, and a ha]3py hope, fully sustaining him to the 
 end ; yet beyond this, in the matter of religious ex- 
 periences, we should have expected little. But how 
 different the fact! How much beyond this the 
 realitj> ! What raptures of joy and what seraphic 
 devotions kindled about his departure, how for days 
 he sung the music of heaven and walked as on the 
 borders of glory, they have told, who so fondly and 
 faithfully watched with him, and he has recorded, 
 who occupies so worthily the old pastor's place. 
 
 His countenance seemed transfigured, and his go- 
 ing was almost a translation. We feel, in hearing 
 the faithful narrative of his death, that had we been 
 permitted, we should have watched for his depar- 
 ture, ready to cry, "My father, my father, the cha- 
 riot of Israel and the horsemen thereof," and to 
 catch his falling mantle. 
 
 His triumphant death was due under God, proba- 
 bly, to two causes. He had just been receiving the 
 fulfillment of his unwearied and earnest pra^^ers for 
 a revival of religion in this region of the church. 
 A blessed tide of spiritual influences had set in upon 
 Fairfield, as upon many other portions of the coun- 
 try, and, in the abundant watering, scores, and even 
 hundreds, were incpiiring after the Saviour or rejoic- 
 ing in the hope of salvation. The cup of his bless- 
 
REV. MR. BURT'S ADDRESS. 141 
 
 ing was now full. It w^as his to say exultingly Avith 
 the aged and holy Simeon, " Lord, now lettest thou 
 thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen 
 thy salvation." Moreover, he was called to undergo 
 great bodily suffering. He who for fourscore ^^ears 
 hardly knew the meaning of pain, in his last days 
 endured its sharp conflicts and long agonies. His 
 mortal frame was wa-ecked at last, when just about 
 to enter a quiet harbor. His declining sun, just 
 read}^ to set, passed behind a storm-cloud hanging 
 low on the horizon. Aged as he was, he yet did 
 not die from old age, but from acute disease, such 
 as may at any time overtake you and me, and before 
 which we might fall. !N"ow apart from such expe- 
 rience of suffering, probably his spiritual exercises 
 would have been of a more quiet sort. His end 
 would have been peace, yet not triumph. But under 
 these strokes of God's hand his spirit mounted 
 higher and higher. In his infirmity the power of 
 Christ rested on him. From the conflict he issued 
 a conqueror. Palms and robes of white were already 
 his, as one coming out of great tribulation. 
 
 We cannot now wash that his death had been 
 longer delayed. Long time God kept him from his 
 home and crown, that he might still be with us. 
 The friends of his youth, and nianhood's prime, and 
 even of his great old age, had passed into the bless- 
 ed mansions in advance of him. The attractions of 
 heaven had so multiplied before him and brighten- 
 ed upon him, his exile of earth and of age must 
 have been weary. Yet still God had said to him — 
 
142 Rcv. MR. bukt's address. 
 
 " A little longer : Stay tlie aspiring hope : Bear the 
 weariness and the exile : Abide still in the flesh." 
 Ah ! it was because this was more needful for us. 
 But now, through a glorious death he has entered 
 into peace : he has joined the companions from whom 
 he had been long parted : he mingles with the gen- 
 eral assembly and church of the first born : he looks 
 on the face of the Lamb, and rests in the bosom of 
 God. We bless God that he was so long with us, 
 but we cannot mourn that his death was not lonorer 
 delayed. 
 
 Almost a translation may have been his depar- 
 ture, yet not quite. His bones are with us. We 
 have reverently laid them to rest. In this church- 
 yard, filled with those to whom in their lives he 
 ministered and whom in death he buried, all that 
 was mortal of him reposes. Yet, if God has not 
 translated him, as Elijah, but called him to die, and 
 if God has not buried him in a secret place, as 
 Moses, but given us his grave to have in the midst 
 of us ; we would not abuse the privilege thus grant- 
 ed us to any vain or idolatrous purpose, but even 
 while honoring him with suitable monuments and 
 memorials, would still look away to his God and 
 ours. 
 
 It is well, as already said, that we have raised this 
 day, this beautiful monumental stone. He deserved 
 such a token of our respect; and there let it stand 
 to honor the worthy dead. But more than this, we 
 needed to raise this monumental stone for the sake 
 of ourselves ; for his worthy life was especially em- 
 
REV. MR. BURT'S ADDRESS. 143 
 
 ployed ill ministering to us of God's great grace for 
 our eternal blessing, and herein had for us its signi- 
 ficance. There, then, let that monument stand, to 
 testify our gratitude to God for such a friend and 
 pastor. There let it stand, to remind us of all his 
 prayers and labors, in which he sought our salvation. 
 And there let it stand, to warn us of the solemnities 
 of the judgment, when all this life of privilege shall 
 come in strict review. 
 
 And as often as we come from the places of our 
 distant sojourning, to stand by the pastor's grave 
 and read the inscriptions on this monument, or as 
 often as in our daily familiar goings about this scene, 
 we catch glimpses of its shining from afar, let us 
 call to mind the responsible Past and the retributive 
 Future, and ponder it well, that as he once stood in 
 the midst of us a pleading witness for God, and as 
 his monument here presides conspicuous over the 
 tablets of the surrounding dead, so, in the great day, 
 when the graves shall have given up their dead, and 
 we all have appeared before the great white throne, 
 he will again stand in the midst of us, a foremost 
 witness in the great matter which shall decide our 
 destiny; and let us strive evermore to be found then 
 among those upon whom he shall smilingly look as 
 they flock to his side, and of whom he shall say in 
 joyful gratitude, ^'Here, Lord, are the children 
 whom thou hast given me." 
 
NOTES TO REV. MR. BURT'S ADDRESS. 
 
 Note A., p. 130. " Certain peculiarities of language." Many of these were of New 
 England origin. Thus, ho was accustomed to say hum, for home, and ceounty, for 
 county. Fairfield, the name of his church, and township of residence, he always 
 pronounced Furjield. 
 
 Note B , p. 131. " At length, but punctual to the hour, the pastor is seen .slowly ap- 
 proaching. " Punctuality was one of the strict moralities of his life. The following 
 is an instance of his punctuality. In the spring and summer' which closed his 90th 
 year, he made his last visit to Connecticut, traveling alone, excepting as he chanced 
 to find company. Some weeks before his return, he wrote to his friends in Fairfield, 
 to have his carriage at the steamboat wharf for him, on the afternoon of July 1st. 
 On that day, the writer happened to be in Delaware, with a friend, waiting to return 
 on the boat which would bring Father Osbor.'i. Knowing his appointment to be at 
 home that day, the writer said to his friend, " Now, we shall find Father Osborn on 
 board, you may be sure, if he has met with no accident." Going on board, we im- 
 mediately looked for him, but were disappointed at not finding him anywhere in the 
 more ordinary resorts of passengei-s We began to fear that some accident had be- 
 fallen him : but no ; ascending the hurricane deck, we descried him in the extreme 
 end of the boat, quietly enjoying the ride, and happy in the prospect of soon meet- 
 ing the friends whom he knew to be expecting him. 
 
 Father Osborn was not famous for his fast driving — but rather the contrary. His 
 favorite horse, Selim, named from General Marion's fleet charger, — perhaps lucus a 
 nan Ivcendo, — was trained j ust to his mind. He could trot over a bridge at any time, 
 without violating the ordinance against going " faster than a walk." 
 
 NoteC, p. 134. "Minor traits of character." His old parishioners speak of the 
 exceeding grace of manner, with which he would conduct a strange minister into 
 his pulpit. In the few words of exhortation which he usually gave at the close of 
 a stranger's sermon, he had a very happy way of commending the truth spoken, 
 without flattering the speaker. 
 
 He was by no means a retailer of jests ; yet he could very readily offset a good 
 story told by another, by something as good from his own resources. A person talk- 
 ing with him about the exceeding depravity of a certain people, said, " I have been 
 told that it is the rule with them to lie, and the exception to tell the truth." "Yes," 
 replied Father Osborn, " I heard of one of them being prosecuted for telling the 
 truth, because it deceived everybody." 
 
 His cordiality of manner was visible in everything, yet perhaps in nothing more 
 strikingly than in his mode of shaking hands. It was rather a shaking of anns than 
 of hands, and a, peculiar shaking withal, lateral and longitudinal, vibrating the arm 
 through a pretty large arc, and for a considerable time. 
 
 Father Osborn was reared to the observing of Saturday night as a part of the 
 Sabbath. This was not a universal custom in his congregation, some keeping Sun- 
 day night. In order that his example might be wholly unexceptionable, he kept 
 both Saturday and Sunday nights. And so strict was he in his observance of the 
 Sabbath, it was commonly reported that he put off opening his letters received on 
 Saturday afternoon, until Monday morning, lest their contents should distract hi.s 
 Sabbath meditations. 
 
 In connection with this remark about his conscientiousness, it may be said that his 
 unaflected piety spoke in his most ordinary conduct and words. His common re- 
 sponse to inquiries after his health was this, " Thanks to a kind Providence, I am 
 quite well." 
 
 Note D., p. 135. "His words at the newly made grave." How solemn, as well as 
 tender, were these words ! His address at the grave was nearly the same at all fu- 
 nerals, and many persons may recollect its language. After thanking the company 
 " in the name and on behalf" of the bereaved mourners, for their presence and sym- 
 pathies, he would thus speak of the deceased — " Go to his late home — he is not there : 
 go to the house of God on which he was so constant an attendant — he is not there. 
 His spirit has gone to God who gave it, while his body lies here until the resurrec- 
 tion morning, when the archangel's trump shall awake the dead and call the living 
 to judgment."