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 REV. CHARLES KISSELMAN IMBRIE, D. 
 
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 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
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 BX 9225 .142 142 
 In memoriam 
 
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 Rev. Charles Kisselman Imbrie, D. D. 
 
 BORN, DECEMBER I5, 1814. 
 DIED, NOVEMBER 20, 189I. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 SERMON. 
 
 FUNERAL EXERCISES. 
 
 RESOLUTIONS. 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. WILLIAM IMBRIE, D. D. 
 
FATHER was born in the City of Philadelphia, on the fifteenth 
 day of December, 1814. He died at Jersey City, November 
 20th, 1891. 
 
 Grandfather was James Imbrie, a merchant of Philadelphia, born 
 in Scotland. His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all 
 ministers of the Church of Scotland. Grandmother was Margaretta 
 Kisselman, the daughter of Frederic Kisselman, a gentleman who, 
 during the Revolution, honored the King and suffered in conse- 
 quence. He died of yellow fever ; and was buried before his wife, 
 who had removed from the city to escape the epidemic, knew her 
 loss. The wife was left a widow with eleven children, and with 
 resources enough to bring them up and educate them properly. She 
 was a woman of strong character, and lived to a great age beloved 
 by her children and grandchildren, with a love not quite unmingled 
 with awe. The Kisselmans were members of the Episcopal Church ; 
 and it is only very recently that the family pew in old St. Peters 
 passed into other hands after possession during nearly a hundred 
 years. 
 
 When father was a boy of nine or ten years of age, the family moved 
 from a house on Spruce Street between Third and Fourth, to one on 
 Sixth Street facing Washington Square. This was a pleasant old- 
 fashioned house, and the location at that time was charming. With 
 this house were associated most of father's memories of his old home. 
 Nor were his memories those of place alone. Grandfather was a man 
 of singular beauty of countenance, of courtly manners, of literary 
 tastes, of strict integrity, and though somewhat stern, an example of 
 kindliness. His children all loved and revered him, and had a most 
 grateful recollection of his Christian walk and conversation. Grand- 
 mother was a Martha rather than a Mary ; but one of those of whom 
 Wisdom says " Her price is far above rubies." And so it was. Her 
 children called her blessed, and her husband praised her. They de- 
 parted this life within a few days of each other ; having tarried one 
 or the other until a good old age. Grandfather died on Good-Fri- 
 day and his body was committed to the tomb on Easter Sunday. 
 
 Father was the third in a family of four children. The eldest, 
 
Jessie, married mother's brother Edward Miller of blessed memory. 
 She was one of those in whom strength and sweetness are woven 
 together ; a woman, rich in love, strong in faith, constant in praj-er, 
 zealous of good works, giving glory to God. Five sons and five 
 daughters rose up to do her honor. The second child was James ; 
 long an elder, first in the Presbyterian and then in the Reformed 
 Church. When he entered into rest in the seventy-eighth year of his 
 age, father wrote of him, "What a sweet Christian life his has been. 
 It is just sixty years since he first sat down at the Table of the Lord ; 
 and how faithfully he has walked ever since. So the Lord is gather- 
 ing us one by one." The fourth child, Stark ey, died in early man- 
 hood deeply lamented. When mother stood looking through her 
 tears mto his dead face which wasting disease had robbed of its 
 beauty, father said to her with trembling lips, " But think of him as 
 we shall see him when he is changed into the image of the glory of 
 Christ." And so this generation too all died in faith. 
 
 As the custom of those days was, father began school before he was 
 five years old. On returning home at the close of the first day he 
 weighed with himself the question whether or not he would prosecute 
 his studies further. Due reflection, however, inclined him to the 
 belief that on the whole the end justified the means. Some years 
 afterwards he attended the Franklin Institute, a school which had a 
 deservedly high reputation. There he was prepared to enter college. 
 In a conversation with Aunt Jessie I learned that he was always a 
 leader among his comrades in all athletic sports. The impression 
 which his character as a boy made upon those about him appears in 
 the following transcript from a letter recently received from his cousin 
 and companion Bishop Starkey. " He was always correct and care- 
 ful in his language and action ; reverent in thought ; and devout as 
 if by instinct. This was so marked that I always think of him as a 
 religious boy and never otherwise. Yet he kept his religion to him- 
 self, and the other boys never laughed at him or taunted him with it. 
 I used to think in after years, when we met occasionally, that I had 
 never encountered a more evenly religious life than his. Apparently 
 it was as natural for him to be devout as for a tree to bear fruit. 
 There was no apparent grafting ; the tree brought forth fruit after its 
 kind." 
 
 On leaving school father's first choice was the life of a merchant. 
 He therefore entered a wholesale hardware house, where he formed 
 
or confirmed the methodical business habits which were characteris- 
 tic of him. Two years later, however, he determined to follow 
 another calling. When, as a child of the Church, he claimed his 
 place at the Table of the Lord, he heard a voice bidding him to 
 preach the gospel. On declaring his decision, the head of the house 
 in which he was employed said to him, " Charles, if you will remain 
 with us, we will make you a member of the firm when you are of age." 
 It was a house conducting, for those days, an extensive business ; and 
 many years ago those connected with its management retired with 
 honorable fortunes ; but he counted the ministry of reconciliation 
 greater riches than any earthly treasure. 
 
 This decision once made he reviewed his studies in private and 
 entered Princeton College, where he graduated four years later a 
 member of the class of 1835. His college record runs thus, "In 
 scholarship he stood high, being seventh in honorial grade and a 
 speaker at Commencement. He was chosen to deliver an address 
 on the Fourth of July and as Junior orator." During the Autumn of 
 1835 he went to Natchez, Mississippi, where for a year he served as 
 tutor in the family of Dr. Carr. Dr. Carr he always remembered 
 with much respect. While a member of his household he saw slav- 
 ery in its best estate ; a large plantation, inherited by a good man, 
 anxious to do what was right but often puzzled to know what the 
 right was. In December of 1836 he returned to Princeton and en- 
 tered the Theological Seminary. Illness, however, compelled him to 
 suspend his studies and rest at home for a number of months. 
 Accordingly in the autumn of 1837 he once more entered the Junior 
 class. During two years of his theological course he was also tutor 
 in the College. Those were the days of which the elder graduates of 
 the Seminary ever speak with such affection ; the days when Dr. 
 Hodge was in the morning of his strength, and when Dr. Alexander 
 and Dr. Miller were Princeton's crown of glory. And now, in Octo- 
 ber, 1840, after these eight years of study and waiting, he was licensed 
 by the Presbytery of Philadelphia to preach the gospel of the Son of 
 God. 
 
 During the following month father was invited to preach before the 
 Presbyterian Church of Rahway. A sermon on Sympathy, which is 
 still held in loving remembrance by some of those who heard it, drew 
 the hearts of the people to him ; and on January 5th, 1841, he was 
 ordained and installed as pastor by the Presbytery of Elizabeth. 
 
10 
 
 That pastorate continued for eleven years ; and many of its incident 
 have been fastened in the family memory by affectionate recitation. 
 It was to the old Rahway parsonage that in the flowering month of 
 May he brought home his bride. There was his garden in which he 
 took such keen delight ; and where the joy of an occasional triumph 
 over some other gardener to the manner born, gave proof that he had 
 not yet quite flung away ambition. Into that home the children 
 came. There he learned the joys and sorrows of a young pastor's life ; 
 the sorrow with which he once wrote in the Records of the Session, 
 "The church has to mourn that during the year but one has been 
 added to it from the world "; and the joy with which he also inscribed 
 a record of praise, when sixty-seven of his people had confessed Christ 
 before men. Among these years too was the year of the cholera ; 
 when, as mother used to say, it seemed as if the gate never opened 
 excepting for a messenger to say that some one was dying and wanted 
 to see father. But the event for which the Rahway pastorate will 
 chiefly be remembered is the organization of the Second Presbyterian 
 Church, on November 9th, 1849. Of the thirty-five members who 
 went out to form the new congregation, many were among father's 
 dearest friends and most highly prized co-workers. The four elders 
 whom he counseled to go with the flock were men of whom he wrote, 
 "our beloved brethren with whom we have so long taken sweet 
 counsel, without a single interruption to disturb our fellowship." 
 But he bade them go with joy. In 1889 the Second Church met to 
 celebrate the fortieth anniversary of its birth. The love which greeted 
 him on that occasion touched him deeply. Every little incident con- 
 nected with the services awakened interest in his heart and found a 
 welcome place in his letters; " How it carried me back," he wrote, 
 " to the scenes of that day forty years ago. So many whose names were 
 mentioned are gone ; and all the memories are so precious. It was 
 a joyful and yet a tearful time." Yes, the recollection of the Rah- 
 way pastorate brought not a little joy to his serene spirit. " You 
 love him and revere him when he comes among you," said a later 
 pastor of the Church, " Because he was your faithful pastor, because 
 he lived a holy life among you ; and with great diligence, faithful- 
 ness and tenderness, preached unto you, Jesus ; because with his 
 sympathetic heart he was the partner of your sorrows, the sharer of 
 your joys." And on the day when father closed his next long pas- 
 torate, he on his part spoke of Rahway, as the place where he " had 
 served as pastor to a most affectionate and beloved people." 
 
11 
 
 Near the close of the year 1851, he was called to the First 
 Presbyterian Church of Jersey City ; and on the eleventh day of 
 February he was installed as pastor by the Presbytery of New York. 
 That pastorate continued for thirty-six years, during which much of 
 his time was given to interests not directly those of his own congrega- 
 tion. He was faithful as a presbyter in Presbytery. From the year 
 185 1 he was a Trustee of Princeton College. From the year 1856 he 
 was a member of the Board of Foreign Missions. Of his services 
 upon that Board, his fellow members testify, " He was faithful in his 
 stewardship, enduring to the end in every good word and work. His 
 intercourse with his associate members was marked \)y genial kindness 
 and courtesy which never failed. No word or act of his has caused a 
 wound to any. He was eminently a spiritual man, strong in the faith 
 and most positive in his convictions. During all these years, how- 
 ever, his chief work was that of a Shepherd of Christ keeping watch 
 over his own flock. 
 
 Statistics have a certain value, and it may be well to repeat the few 
 which occur in the last sermon of his ministry. During his pastorate 
 in Jersey City almost seven hundred names were entererd on the 
 Communion Register ; on an average nearly twenty, year by year, of 
 which between one-third and one-half were added upon confession 
 of faith. He spoke "in the name of the Lord very much more than 
 five thousand times, not including more than one thousand times at 
 prayer meetings or other gatherings, or the hundreds of funeral ad- 
 dresses." He baptized "478 persons, of whom just fifty were adults ; 
 arid solemnized 352 marriages, in some cases those of the parents and 
 then those of the children after them." He attended 731 funerals; 
 having, during the whole time of his ministry, committed to 'the grave 
 considerably more than one thousand persons. " Do you wonder," 
 he asked, " that to an old minister life seems very short ? " Such are 
 the statistics. But statistics such as these no more tell the story of 
 his pastorate than the number of those fallen on the battle-field tells 
 the story of the battle. To know his pastorate one must have known 
 him ; and there was much of which even those who knew him best 
 knew but little ; for it was his wont to enter into his inner chamber 
 and shut the door. But some things are certain ; because he himself 
 declared them, out of a pure heart, in love unfeigned, and before the 
 sight of God. His " rejoicing over converts brought to Christ, and 
 souls nourished by the word of God." His thanks for all their graces. 
 
12 
 
 knowing no greater joy than to see his children walking in the truth." 
 His " fervent and believing pleading with God the Father and the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, that the abiding peace and faith and love, which 
 are from God, might rest in their souls, and bind them first to God 
 and his Christ, and then to one another." His "continual prayer for 
 every one, that the Lord would make him perfect and complete and 
 preserve him unto his heavenly glory." The joy he "had in every 
 soul that was earnest in the service of the Lord" ; the " bitterness 
 of heart" he knew by reason of the " coldness or decline of any who 
 had professed the name of Christ ", and because of those who were 
 "insensible to all appeals and never openly acknowledged Christ." 
 The "exhortations, the warnings; the prayers, the wrestlings, and the 
 tears", regarding which he prayed "May His mercy be meted out to 
 us, both pastor and people, in that day." Just fifty years before, 
 when still a student in the Seminary, he had stood up in a little school- 
 house near Princeton to preach his first sermon. How well he 
 remembered that scene. " The long walk in the sabbath evening, the 
 dim tallow-candles on the school desk used for a pulpit, the assembled 
 audience sitting in the shadow, and the young preacher, timid and 
 anxious, as he rose to publish his first message of the gospel of Christ.'' 
 That was just fifty years before to the very day. For fifty years he had 
 endured hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. 
 
 In the closing sermon, after speaking of the hesitancy with which 
 he undertook his new charge. Father said, "and for a few years 
 these doubts continued for reasons upon which I need not now 
 dwell." This, however, may be added. There was a diff"erence 
 between father and some of the members of his congregation ; and 
 while the congregation, as a congregation, with great cordiality and 
 unanimity maintained his cause, his position still remained a trying 
 one. An old friend, therefore, counselled him, having now carried 
 the matter to a successful issue, to seek another field of labor. But 
 his people had had the courage to do what he regarded right ; and no 
 consideration of his own ease could tempt him to leave them, unless 
 patient waitmg should make the wisdom of such a step manifest. 
 That is the truth concealed beneath the words, " But upon reflection 
 I decided to remain at all events for five years." When the five years 
 were gone the heavens above were blue ; and as time passed, most if 
 not all of those who had diff"ered with him were bound to him by a 
 cord of aff"ection never to be broken. 
 
13 
 
 No just account of father's pastorate in Jersey City will fail to note 
 one thing. When it began the neighborhood in which the church 
 stood was rapidly filling up with a church-going population. For 
 a number of years therefore the congregation was large and growing 
 larger. There was a time when some of its members surrendered 
 their pews on the ground-floor and took others in the galleries to 
 make room for new-comers. Then came the change. With that 
 change all are now familiar ; it went on for years known of all men. 
 But there is one thing which may not be familiar to all, and that is 
 not to be forgotten. Father noted the moment that the tide began 
 to ebb. There was a fact of great significance to the life of the 
 church, unperceived by most, which he perceived clearly. While for 
 years many came, there never was a time when many also did not go. 
 Whenever four names were entered on the Communion Register 
 three names were taken off. Then came a time when the entries 
 and erasures stood four and four. When the account stood four and 
 five, the secret was out. But the secret was no secret to him who 
 kept the Register. I think it was very shortly after the close of the 
 War that the future of the church became manifest to father's mind. 
 The question was not one of another pastor. Had he thought so, 
 there would have been another pastor. There lay before the church 
 a struggle like the straggle with a force of nature. A man in its 
 pastorate was a man with his hand upon a crevice in a dike. Father 
 was then about fifty-five years of age. There were those who thought 
 he would be wise to take another charge. But he took no other 
 charge. He stood at his post and fought a good fight. 
 
 As the years went by it must have been harder and harder not to 
 grow weary in well doing. When at last he was nearing the close he 
 wrote, " The time to which I have been looking forward so long has 
 at length come. My ministry here is about at an end. It has been 
 dreadfully uphill work ; it has been sailing against wind and tide." 
 That, however, was not his common tone. I have been reading over 
 many of his letters, but I remember no other so strong expression of 
 discouragement. He always wrote cheerfully. If there was some- 
 thing disheartening that he could not avoid telling, he always had 
 something encouraging to match it. Dear heart! I sometimes won- 
 dered whether he thought that I was blind. But if he did not write 
 of his discouragements, of what else did he write .' He wrote of the 
 fidelity of his people. His account of the annual meeting of thecongre- 
 
14 
 
 gation never came without the tribute of his praise. If the church 
 were his, it was theirs also ; if he was fighting a good fight, so likewise 
 were they. And he wrote of their love. His letters, especially those 
 written towards the close of his pastorate, are redolent of this theme. 
 " It is a trial to end a long pastorate. But we are seventy-three years 
 old ; and God has been very gracious in giving us the hearty affection 
 of the people." The courtesy and delicacy with which everything 
 was concluded were very grateful to him ; and of this he wrote most 
 carefully. " The particular point in which they were all interested 
 was that I should be satisfied." "All were very sad and very tender 
 in the whole matter, and expression was given to their feelings in the 
 most loving words." And that love of his people toward him made 
 it impossible that he should decline to receive a last and just benefit 
 at their hands. Every temporal need for the rest of his pilgrimage 
 had been already made secure by the afi'ection of a son ; but when 
 his people told him of their desire that he should receive during life 
 the interest accruing from the sale of the church property, he accepted 
 their offer in conscience and in love. " All was done in a very kind 
 and loving manner. And I could not but accept the offer, both as 
 conscientiously offered by them as a Christian Church in order to 
 discharge as far as they were able what they felt to be due to an old 
 Christian pastor (a right feeling which I would not hinder from ex- 
 pression) ; and also for the reason that it was a kind provision from 
 the Master, graciously ofi'ered to me as His servant, which I ought 
 therefore to accept." It was a loving pastor's acceptance of a loving 
 return from a loving people. It was deep answering unto deep. 
 
 At the close of his last sermon, preached in the old church on the 
 29th day of April 1888, father announced the dissolution of the 
 pastoral relation between himself and the congregation. By the 
 appointment of Presbytery, however, he still remained Moderator 
 of the Session. In due time the Session and Trustees began to take 
 thought touching the future of the organization and the final dispo- 
 sition of the property. Among other propositions made was that of 
 uniting the congregation with the one worshipping in Emory Street. 
 This proposition received father's cordial approval. In the course of 
 time the union was accomplished, the united congregation taking the 
 name of the First Presbyterian Church of Jersey City, It was promised 
 that father should receive from the united congregation, in lieu of the 
 interest accruing from the sale of the old church, one thousand dollars 
 
15 
 
 a year as long as he lived. A sacred promise sacredly performed. 
 Also father was chosen pastor emeritus ; the pastor being the Rev. 
 Charles Herr. From one who would have been just to mark any real 
 shortcoming, there is the witness, " Father's relations with Mr. Herr 
 have been most cordial ; he could not have acted more tenderly if he 
 had been father's own son." A single extract more from father's 
 letters completes the story of his pastorate. " On Tuesday morning 
 early (March i8, 1890) Mr. McGee, now the only elder, and myself 
 met as a Session and finished up all the remaining church business ; 
 and after winding all up, we closed with prayer and thanksgiving the 
 long continued series of Session meetings which the old church has 
 seen. It really seemed as if the change was more felt at that moment 
 than ever before. And now as I look back, from the time when it 
 was proposed to close the church up to the present moment, and see 
 how God has led us along in all this matter, and how prosperously it 
 has been carried forward to this consummation, I think I can realize 
 more than ever how gracious and kind He has been in it all ; and 
 I am more than satisfied (trying as it has been at times) that all has 
 been for the best. Praise be to His name ! " 
 
 Father was a good Greek scholar and a very good Hebrew scholar. 
 Latin he read with ease. When he was a boy the choice was between 
 German and Spanish. To his lasting regret he chose Spanish, which 
 he spoke. German he did not seriously attempt until middle life, 
 when he learned to read it. He could read French and Italian and 
 had sufficient knowledge of Dutch to enable him to travel in Holland 
 without an interpreter. Of the poets, Shakespeare was first and with- 
 out a near second ; Wordsworth and Tennyson had I think no 
 message for him. Among novelists, Dickens bore the palm with 
 Thackeray next but a long way behind. He admired Addison and 
 frequently spoke of his clearness and elegance, preferring him to Dr. 
 Johnson ; though the patient industry and vigorous style of the latter 
 attracted him strongly. While the life and works of Coleridge brought 
 something to him he thought him misty and unsound. Though he 
 was very familiar with Burns he rarely spoke of him. Macaulay's 
 rhetoric always roused him ; at the same time he frequently expressed 
 a regret that Macaulay was apt to shade a truth to make a fine sen- 
 tence. Goethe, Dante and Tasso he read again and again ; and he 
 was the only man I ever knew to be very fond of Tasso. He enjoyed 
 keenly Chaucer's Tales and Spencer's Fairy Queen, — the latter he 
 
16 
 
 frequently read aloud accompanying the reading with sweet com- 
 ments. Carlyle he read with delight; Leighton on Peter was an old 
 friend ; Jay was always on his table. Many years ago I asked him 
 as to his favorite hymn. He hesitated for a moment and then 
 answered, "Jesus, and shall it ever be." But in later years I think 
 he would have said, " Fairest Lord Jesus." Of works on systematic 
 theology I doubt whether any other ever held the same rank with 
 him as that of Turretin. How well I remember seeing him reading 
 it when I was a boy. As the edition which he had was in four large 
 Latin volumes, and as at the time I was much engaged in the acqui- 
 sition of that tongue, this struck me as one of the eccentricities of the 
 ministerial mind ; but now as I recall the scene and his beaming eyes 
 when I told him what I thought, I feel rather as I do when I look at 
 a rare and polished knot in a panel of beautiful old oak. Touching 
 logic, I think he would have listened with a half-consenting, smile to 
 a son's conclusion of the whole matter, that "Logic is a science 
 divided into two parts ; one of which comprises the things that every- 
 body knows to begin with ; and the other, the things that nobody 
 cares to know anyhow." But the smile would have been half-dis- 
 approving too ; for such a definition might wound the feelings of 
 some one who thought otherwise ; nor was he ever flippant. In 
 metaphysics also he took but little interest. No, that is not the right 
 way to put it. To him, the invisible things were clearly seen, Angels 
 and archangels, the spirits of men and the Father of spirits, were the 
 world whose fashion fadelh not away. They were the things most 
 surely believed among us. But the study to which he gave himself 
 assiduously during all his life was that of the Holy Scriptures ; and 
 the Old Testament he studied as particularly as the New. Indeed 
 he seemed at times to bend over the older writings with a peculiar 
 reverence ; searching what time or what manner of time the Spirit of 
 Christ which was in them did point unto, when it testified beforehand 
 the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that should follow them. In 
 his study he made use of the best helps available ; and his reading of 
 the Word was ever with diligence, preparation, and prayer. He 
 received it with faith and love, laid it up in his heart, and practiced 
 it in his life. " May our Lord with his Spirit ever be with you still 
 and guide you into the green pastures and by the still waters ", was 
 one of his last messages. 
 
 The theology that father preached was the theology whose founda- 
 
17 
 
 tion truth finds expression in the text occurring oftenest in his letters. 
 The Lord reigneth. The theme upon which he dwelt with most 
 insistence is easily to be discovered in his closing sermon. The 
 mystery of God is Christ ; in him God reveals himself to man ; in 
 him man is raised to the throne of God. Faith is faith in God and 
 in his Christ, "I am sure that the great thing is to bring men to 
 faith in a Person and love towards a Person." He who believes in 
 Christ is in Christ. Such a one has put on Christ ; and when God 
 beholds him he beholds only Christ. Furthermore, if any man be 
 in Christ, Christ is in him ; Christ reigns in him, Christ lives in him. 
 Thus his preaching was a preaching of life. "A life not of this 
 world, but separated from it, in spirit, in desires, in aims; a life really 
 unknown by the men of this world, and unrelished by them just so 
 far as it is known ; a life whose greatness and glory and holiness, its 
 now unseen and unknown and inconceivable grounds of existence, 
 and its sublime realities, are yet to be revealed ; a hidden life — hidden 
 with Christ in God, and to be revealed in its Glory only when the 
 Lord comes." A life, a conquering life, a life triumphant over sin 
 and death. That was his message. And he always said, If any man 
 will, let him take of the water of life freely. "I address you with 
 tender importunity. Jesus Christ says to you, as to all : The way 
 is open ; so fully, widely open to him who is ready to enter, that 
 none can shut it against him. But it requires decision to enter it. 
 Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life. He 
 that layeth not down all that he hath and taketh not up his cross can 
 not be my disciple. Once more you have life and death set before 
 you. Will you fail after all of the grace of God." But no account 
 of his preaching is a faithful one that fails to mark the tender love 
 with which he lingered over two other themes. It was clear to him 
 that the ancient covenant and prophecies vouchsafe to Israel as a 
 nation blessings that are yet to be fulfilled ; that Israel is yet to be 
 the head among the peoples. For the hastening of that day he 
 prayed. Likewise his studies of the Scriptures made him confident 
 that before the end of all things, this earth shall see a day of glory to 
 be ushered in by the coming of Christ with all his saints. For that 
 appearing he waited in earnest expectation ; to him it was indeed the 
 blessed hope; in life and death alike he clasped it to his heart. 
 "And there we laid the sweet one down to wait the coming of the 
 Lord ; and in my heart, again and again and again, I committed her 
 
18 
 
 dear body to his care, to bring her forth in glory in that coming 
 blessed day." So he wrote of mother. No wonder, then, that he 
 never wearied of the apostolic supplication, Amen ; come Lord Jesus. 
 
 An endearing inspiration of father's life was his love of nature. 
 He ever looked through Nature up to Nature's God. He could not 
 bear to bruise a flower. I rarely saw him pluck one. He never 
 failed to find a use and beauty and providence in every twig and tree. 
 Strength in the oak, loveliness in the rose, faithful providing for God's 
 creatures in every waiving field of grain. The little that the most 
 skillful gardener or hardest-working farmer does and the much that 
 the dear God does, in bringing forth the flower and the grain ; and 
 the watchful love of Him who cares for the sparrows, — was constantly 
 his theme with those who were with him during his vacations. The 
 pets of the household, the birds of the air, the useful beasts of farm 
 and hillside, the faithful horse and ox, — all found in him a friend 
 and one who saw something in them that is lovable and filled with 
 good example. The sweet serenity of his countenance at such times 
 filled all who looked upon him and listened to him with quiet joy 
 and peace. How many times in childood, and in maturer years, he 
 has taught us to see that each stone and plant and insect and 
 animal and human being has a mission and a purpose. In every 
 way, on every side, at all times, he saw something that suggested a 
 loving Father, — omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, — beckoning 
 all men and creatures to Him with infinite tenderness. 
 
 The things essential in his character were love and justice. He 
 was just to others ; both to their virtues and to their faults. When a 
 son, with boldness of speech, condemned a notorious criminal in 
 prison for his crime, he said, " My dear son, you can never be certain 
 that a man is as bad as he seems. You can never be sure how he 
 has been brought up, or what his temptations have been." What is 
 more difficult ; — he was just to himself. He acknowledged his 
 " weakness of endeavor, his failures, his probable mistakes, his misuse 
 or feeble use of opportunities, his poor attainments, and the poverty 
 of the apparent fruits of his labors compared with what he felt they 
 might have been." But if he acknowledged his imperfections, he also 
 maintained his cause. He declared his "sincerity and integrity"; 
 and told his people that he had "sought to know and do God's will " 
 among them. And he meant the one just as truly as he meant the 
 other. No one ever had a keener consciousness of the rectitude of 
 
19 
 
 his purpose. And he was loving. He was kind to the poor and the 
 distressed. With a peculiar grace for wandering Jews and Scotch- 
 men. For the Jews were God's ancient people ; and was not his 
 father a Scotchman ? His love too was a charity that went beyond the 
 pale of his own Church to embrace the whole Church of Christ. He 
 " could not help looking out with a smile of joyful recognition to the 
 great company where are seen all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in 
 sincerity ; and who, in their different assemblies and lands and 
 nations, are walking together, as one people separated from the world, 
 toward the same heavenly rest, toward the bridal day of the Lord 
 Christ." So it was not a strange thing that he and a godly Roman 
 Catholic priest who lived for many years in this city were accustomed 
 to pray for each other That he loved his own church and his own 
 people, no one can doubt. And beloved us. For years he has been 
 to me the dewdrop in which I have seen reflected the face of the 
 Father of an infinite majesty. And we loved him. He had no child 
 to whom it was not a delight to render him any little service. But it 
 as almost always he who did the service. He took an interest in 
 all our doings ; he rejoiced in our joys, and was stirred when we 
 were in trouble ; even down to old age he shared our griefs and 
 carried our burdens. 
 
 My brother wrote me " Father seemed to me to be a typical 
 example of the truth, 'Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall 
 see God.' He seemed to be constantly seeing God and knowing 
 more and more of him day by day. One characteristic of him that 
 you will remember was that he always looked upon God as his friend. 
 Many a time, as I have been going along the street and heard an 
 oath, I have seen his face flush up ; and any irreverent use of the 
 name of Christ made him actually shudder. I never met any one 
 who seemed, if I may use so curious a phrase, to be so intimate with 
 God. And so far as I have been able to learn, he was so from the 
 time he was born ; though of course daily growing more so." This 
 is true. But if one of us had told him so I think I know what would 
 have happened. There would have been silence. For a moment 
 the color would have come and gone in his face. Then he would 
 have said, " We love Him because He first loved us.'' But he would 
 have said it very quietly. As quietly as, when Death laid his hand 
 upon him, he looked up and said, " The golden bowl is broken." 
 
 Father and mother were married on the fifth day of May, 1841 ; 
 
20 
 
 and mother died on the fourth day of May, 1891. The next day 
 would have been their golden wedding-day. They were as different 
 as blue eyes and hazel. In his veins ran the blood of his old Tory 
 grandfather ; she was a pure Whig. He was Old School ; she was 
 New. He was grave, though less grave as he grew older ; her gay 
 sayings were his constant delight. He said " I know him whom I 
 have believed " ; at times she could only say " Lord, I believe, help 
 thou mine unbelief." But the candle of their love burned v/ith a 
 flame that never flickered. "Last Thursday was the fifth of May, 
 our wedding-day. Only think of our having been married for forty 
 years. One thing I can say with truth. That I have had the very 
 dearest and best husband that a woman ever had. Many things that 
 I have looked upon as choice blessings have disappointed me. He 
 never has. I have never for one moment seen a fault in him ; with 
 all my faults he has loved me and encouraged me in every effort to 
 do right ; and he has always infinitely more than appreciated anything 
 that I have ever tried to do for him." And he writes "I have just 
 been out and got a bunch of roses to present to dear mamma. We 
 .have been married for forty-seven years." The last years of her life 
 were years of languor and a longing to be at rest. But love never 
 failed. When she was taken " the light in the house went out." 
 
 I had hoped to see his face once more in this life ; but the time 
 came when I began to fear that it could not be. That was after 
 mother died. There was a something in his letters that said so. 
 Other eyes than mine saw the sign. We began to say to one another, 
 Knowest thou not that the Lord will take away thy master from thy 
 head to-day? and to answer, Yea, I know it, hold ye your peace. 
 Never slothful in business, there seemed to be an increasing purpose 
 to redeem the time ; ever mindful of everything and every one, there 
 was a new carefulness that nothing and no one be forgotten. It was 
 clear too that he himself was waiting for the porter to open the gate. 
 "One generation goeth and another cometh." " So we drop away 
 one after another." "So the Lord is gathering us one by one." 
 "May he gather us all together at last into our blessed, peaceful, holy 
 home, in his Kingdom." Faint sounds. But like the tinkling of the 
 golden bells on the robe of the high priest drawing nigh to enter into 
 that within the veil. 
 
 I had hoped to see his face one more. I had even thought to 
 bring into his presence my two boys, whom God hath given me in a 
 
21 
 
 strange land ; to have him put his hands upon their heads and to 
 hear him say, "The God before whom my fathers did walk, the God 
 which hath fed me all my life long unto this day, bless the lads." 
 But we are not comfortless. They are beloved for the father's sake. 
 And though we might not see his face nor hear his voice again, we 
 are not without our benediction. "The best of blessings be on you 
 all. A heart full of love to you all." Those are the very last words 
 he ever wrote to me. 
 
SERMON 
 
 PREACHED IN THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, JERSEY 
 
 CITY, ON SUNDAY EVENING, NOV. 22, 1891, 
 
 BY THE PASTOR, THE 
 
 REV. CHARLES HERR. 
 
Before his transJalion he had this lestimony, that he pleased God. — 
 Heb. xi. 5. 
 
 A long drive from Geneva of flat, tame miles ends before the tow- 
 ering majesty of Mont Blanc. It is somewhat of a dull road through 
 the genealogical records of Genesis, but when you come to Enoch 
 the road sweeps up into the hills. It is a weary stretch of nobodyism, 
 but at last you meet a man, a monarch, Enoch, of whom it is on 
 record that he walked with God, and for a reward God took him — 
 took him into heaven without the dark process of death. Magnifi- 
 cent man ! Magnificent finish ! 
 
 It is proper and necessary for us to talk together to-night a little, 
 though very inadequately indeed, of Dr. Imbrie whom we have lost. 
 In truth we cannot keep our minds away from him. We talk of him, 
 because the glory and the sadness absorb all our thoughts. And we 
 do not anticipate anything which will be said at the funeral ceremonies 
 to-morrow, because our feelings are such as no one else, having 
 other relations with Dr. Imbrie, can utter. 
 
 In thinking of some starting-place for our thoughts, it seemed to 
 me that there was hardly a more adequately suggestive personage 
 than this Enoch, seventh from Adam, who so early in biblical history 
 reached a point of renown in godliness. As we look at the details 
 of his sparse record, we shall find that they admirably prompt the 
 recollection of the dominant characteristics of our Pastor Emeritus. 
 
 I. Enoch pleased God by seeking His heavenly companionship, 
 by finding his happiness in God's communion. The Genesis record 
 reports him as one who walked with God, which signifies a very 
 intimate, reverent and confidential intercourse. 
 
 And when we remember the times in which Enoch lived, that 
 seems a wonderful thing indeed. He lived in the world that Cain 
 had made, the world that was the offspring of selfishness and murder. 
 The religion which controlled men's actions was one which disowned 
 the claims of God in righteousness. It confessed no sin and guilt. 
 It refused to worship. It laughed at the words of the Almighty. It 
 was an age when the evil thoughts of men's hearts were far developed 
 
26 
 
 toward that height of wickedness which brought on the o'ersweeping 
 flood in the days of Noah, Enoch's greatgrandson. A constituent 
 part of the civihzation of that day was a city, the stronghold in un- 
 godly times of luxury and materialism. There were manufactures, 
 the art of man was cultivated to the production of every possible 
 comfort, ingenuity was taxed in ever-new devices to create what might 
 make the world, out of which God had been rejected, bearable to 
 man. It is truly wonderful that at such an early time and in such 
 hard and uncongenial circumstances, Enoch walked with God. 
 Original, peculiar, brave to oppose the religious negations of his fel- 
 low-men, and turning his back with firm self-denial upon their un- 
 godly lusts and luxuries, he walked with God. He is the one point 
 of light in a black expanse. 
 
 I am sure we will all agree that it was eminently true of Dr. Imbrie 
 that he walked with God, His conversation was habitually and deeply 
 with our heavenly Father, 
 
 He carried the proof of it upon his face and in his utterance. He 
 did not try to prove it. He did not need to tell any one that he was 
 a man of God. It proved itself. He had the Christ-spirit, the Christ- 
 light, the Christ-speech. It was not peculiar that Moses' face should 
 shine with the reflection of Divine glory when he came down from 
 the communion of the mount. Every man of God will carry the 
 marks of the ethereal converse upon his face. No servant of the 
 Most High ever had those marks more distinctly, more beautifully, 
 imprinted upon his countenance than Dr. Imbrie. I suppose that 
 he must always have been a very handsome man, of open face and 
 clear fine features. But we know him best for something diff'erent 
 from that and deeper than that. He had that which is not natural 
 beauty, and which can make even plainness beautiful, — the outward 
 signals of an inner life lived in the presence of God, lived under His 
 smile, lived under the illumination of His grace. 
 
 And this was evident in all his action. The holiest and loveliest 
 graces were the easy and natural features of his daily walk. There 
 were no second-thoughts about him ; he did not need any. The 
 first thought was always the Christ-thought, the heavenly thought. 
 His talk never had need to be revised for any reason of spiritual in- 
 adequacy or moral lack. It was always in angelic vein. It was 
 always the talk of a man who kept continuous company with our 
 blessed Lord, and whose lips never for an instant dropped the con- 
 tinuity of their holy habit. 
 
27 
 
 Perhaps no mark of his walk with God was more impressive to us 
 than his prayers at our midweek gathering. They were always so 
 prompt, so helpful, so heavenly. They bore us all up so confidently, 
 so joyfully to God. They so uttered our unutterable thoughts. They 
 exhibited and interpreted to us the strange and fugitive sensations of 
 our hearts with such ease of saintly power. His prayers were a sub- 
 lime evidence of his reverent, yet childlike and confident familiarity 
 with God. Their flow, their unlabored elevation, their sweet and even 
 naturalness, their wondrous spirituality, and that amazing quality by 
 which the delicatest thoughts were fixed and the most vanishing feel- 
 ings caught and uttered in accumulating flow and splendor ; these 
 things showed us, as few things could, that he lived in an attitude of 
 prayer, that his life was spent in God's presence. 
 
 2. Enoch pleased God by the witness which he faithfully bore for 
 Him, for the integrity of his truth against th^ falsehoods of un- 
 righteous men. Though we have no record of this in Genesis, we 
 can easily understand that his life would necessarily be of this sort. 
 Living a rare saint of God in the midst of a wicked world, his very 
 life would be a testimony. He must have been a martyr in every 
 sense, a witness to the truth and a sufferer for it. We cannot believe 
 that a character of his exceptional sort could have escaped the con- 
 tumely and enmity of men, who did not even need words to con- 
 demn them while his life stood forth in silent but complete accusation. 
 But the apostle Jude has preserved something for us out of the dying 
 testimonies of tradition, which shows that Enoch's life was not 
 without its vigorous spoken protest against the wickedness of the 
 world. " Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying. Behold 
 the Lord cometh among His holy myriads to execute judgment upon 
 all, and to convict all the impious concerning all their works of im- 
 piety which they impiously did, and concerning all the hard things 
 which impious sinners spoke against Him." 
 
 Dr. Imbrie was every way a witness for God, by life, by act, by 
 word. He was profoundly learned in the Scriptures. I think he 
 could be called a scientific theologian, a man who knew the testi- 
 monies of the word of God and was able to bring them together into 
 a consistent and harmonious scheme. There are not many men in 
 our country who can so amply justify that designation. 
 
 In all the large and burning questions that came before the 
 Presbyterian Church he was a ready, faithful, courageous and 
 
28 
 
 splendidly intelligent witness for the truth of God, as he understood 
 it. And he understood it in the old way, the way made glorious by 
 the singing feet of the generations which echo to us from the past. 
 The struggle connected with the proposed revision of the Confession 
 of Faith saddened his heart deeply, and I somehow feel that he 
 would not have found out how to adjust himself with repose of heart 
 in the new conditions which now seem likely to come to pass. He 
 was a redoubtable antagonist. Those who came forward from time 
 to time with raw ideas and radical departures and sudden enthusiasms 
 of revolution met in him an unconquerable foeman and found their 
 propositions overwhelmed with the condemning testimony of scrip- 
 ture. 
 
 He was with us at communion seasons (and perhaps there we 
 shall miss him most), and talked to us so winningly of the love of 
 Christ, and ministered to our fainting souls the comfortable encour- 
 agements of Divine grace. He was with us at our prayer-meetings, 
 and spoke upon all the varied subjects which come before us in the 
 round of the year. His address was the glorious feature of the 
 occasion, that for which our souls waited as for their food. He was 
 with us at protracted meetings, when the duties of the unworldly life 
 in their multitudinous forms of expression, — the obligation and 
 wisdom of early profession, the sinfulness of sin, the misery and 
 despair of the ungodly life, the responsibility and privilege of re- 
 sponding to the redeeming love of God, the deceitful persuasions of 
 Satan, — were declared by him with exceptional and pressing em- 
 phasis, with stirring freshness and power. His facility in all these 
 things, his supreme adequacy for every occasion, was the mark of a 
 great and faithful witness for God. 
 
 3, Enoch pleased God by his faith. This is asserted in the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews as the explanation of his godly walk. " By faith 
 Enoch was translated that he should not see death ; and was not 
 found because he had translated him : for before his translation lie 
 had this testimony that he pleased God. But without faith it is 
 impossible to please Him ; for he that cometh to God must believe 
 that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek 
 Him." 
 
 Dr. Imbrie believed that God is. He believed it with all his soul. 
 He knew it. To him it was the truest of truths. It was more real 
 to him than anything else in the wide universe. 
 
29 
 
 And he grasped it as a truth that has meaning — a truth to Hve by. 
 It was not an intellectual tenet ; it was a life-faith. He accepted 
 all that it entailed. It involved him in relations of love and duty 
 which he entered into with sincere joy, into which he threw himself 
 with abandonment of soul. This is the only belief in God's existence 
 which has value and virtue. With so many men that truth, though 
 accepted, lies bedridden in the dormitory of the soul. It does not 
 go like an arrow into their consciences ; it does not plough up their 
 hearts like a coulter ; it does not shake them with its magnificent 
 significance. With Dr. Imbrie it had all these pure and stirring 
 effects. He saw what it meant that God is. He saw that it required 
 the response of his adoration, his obedience, his love. And he gave 
 them with gladness and without reserve. 
 
 He digged deep into this truth of truths. He felt it so fully and 
 so intelligently that he became not merely a servant of God, but a 
 son. The utmost that a large number of Christians realize in their 
 religious experience is just that they are pardoned criminals. But 
 Dr. Imbrie entered into the higher and sweeter relationship. He 
 took God's word for his adoption into the heavenly family, he under- 
 stood the testimony of the Holy Spirit in his soul, and gave 
 convincing evidence of his faith by acting out in all his life the spirit 
 of a son. He was sweetly constrained to all happiness of temper 
 and all gladness of service by the fact that he was an accepted and 
 beloved child of the Heavenly Father. In his heart sprung up and 
 lived the graces that belong to that relationship — confidence, serenity, 
 love, courage, assurance. 
 
 And he believed that God rewards those who diligendy seek Him. 
 This is evident, because he devoted himself to the attainment of 
 those rewards, and those only. He wanted nothing except what 
 came from the hand of God. That which supported him in tlie 
 patience and joyfulness of his daily walk, that which inspired his 
 unrequired yet uninterrupted faithfulness in the service of this Church, 
 that which fortified his exhaustless activity in every direction of use- 
 fulness, was not the hope of reward from men, not even their good 
 opinion or their grateful word. Before the face of his unseen master 
 he lived ; for Him he did all this ; to Him alone he stood or fell. 
 
 The wholesome and serene sweetness of his mind amid many 
 cares and trials shows to what comforts his heart was turned. No 
 one would ever have judged from his words or manner that he had 
 
30 
 
 quite the full measure of human griefs and burdens, if indeed he had 
 not a little more than the common share. The pain and loneliness 
 that came to him from his wife's death only six months ago were 
 absolutely undiscoverable to any except those to whom he was willing 
 to utter them in words. I have never known any one who could 
 more thoroughly make his own the declaration of the Apostle Paul : 
 " None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto 
 myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, 
 which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the 
 grace of God." 
 
 And how has Dr. Imbrie been rewarded ? 
 
 I. By blessedness here. 
 
 He pleased God — and behold the consequences in his revered 
 and beautiful life — "honor, love, obedience, troops of friends." A 
 face upon which were written the peace and grace of the Saviour. 
 Lips which moved with delight to the motive of this ancient German 
 hymn, which was his favorite : 
 
 Fairest Lord Jesus ! Ruler of all nature ! 
 
 O Thou, of God and Man the Son ! 
 .Thee will I cherish, Thee will I honor, 
 Thee, my soul's glory, joy and crown. 
 
 Fair are the meadows, fairer still the woodlands, 
 
 Robed in the blooming garb of Spring : 
 Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer, 
 
 Who makes the woful heart to sing. 
 
 Fair is the sunshine, fairer still the moonlight, 
 
 And all the twinkling starry host ; 
 Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer. 
 
 Than all the angels heaven can boast. 
 
 And above all, he had the sweet heart, glad in the inward testimony 
 that he pleased God and having secret springs of heavenly joy and 
 satisfaction. 
 
 Such are some of the rewards that God bestows in this world. Is 
 anything else to be named beside them ? Is anything else desirable 
 without them ? Can riches compare with the rewards of God's 
 favor ? Dr. Imbrie never wanted anything, for he was a child of the 
 Father ; but he never was rich. He did not need to be. No man 
 needs to be. Avaunt the despicable materialism which weighs men 
 by their purses and strives for wealth as the chief good ! The 
 
31 
 
 greatest thing in the world is to be a Christlike man, a God-inhabited 
 soul. 
 
 2. Then God rewarded him with death. Strange reward, say you ? 
 Oh, no ! 
 
 Enoch was not — for God took him. His translation was super- 
 natural. But many saints die not much dissimilarly. Dr. Imbrie's 
 death was such. It was just as little to him as translation was to 
 Enoch. His death-bed was a sublime spectacle of faith. I suppose 
 that most of us, if we should undertake to imagine an ideal picture 
 of a believer's closing hours, would illustrate them with expressions 
 of confidence and hope, with triumphant utterances of fearlessness, 
 with emotional testimonies and rapt prayers of faith. But though 
 he had clearness and vigor of faculty, there was quiet in Dr. Imbrie's 
 room. No audible prayer ; no last messages of warning or appeal ; 
 no ejaculations of high confidence broke the tender hush. He had 
 left nothing undone or unsaid in his holy life that needed fuller wit- 
 ness from his death-bed. His faith did not need to encourage itself 
 with outward asseveration. Perfect self-control, self-restraint, rest, 
 peace. 
 
 3. Last of all, best of all, fulfillment of all, heaven ! As the gray 
 line of light on the morning sky is the pledge of the shining sun and 
 the risen day, as the blade above the soil is the earnest of the waving 
 corn-field and the plentiful granary, so are these first rewards of service 
 here the foretokens and prelibations of eternal joys. We know that 
 our beloved Pastor and friend inherits the precious promises of God 
 in the Scriptures. 
 
 Thev are before the throne of God a7id serve Him day attd night in 
 His temple. And the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall 
 feed them ayid shall lead them unto living fbuntains of waters. And 
 God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. 
 
THE FUNERAL SERVICES. 
 
The funeral services were held on Monday afternoon, Nov. 23, 
 
 1 89 1, at half-past one o'clock, from the First Presbyterian Church 
 
 of Jersey City. The services were opened by the choir with the 
 
 anthem, 
 
 "Lead, Kindly Light, etc." 
 
 After reading the following sentences : — 
 
 " I am the resurrection and the life ; he that believeth in me, 
 though he were dead, yet shall he live : 
 
 "And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." 
 
 "But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning 
 them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have 
 no hope. 
 
 " For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them 
 also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." 
 
 The pastor of the Church offered the following prayer : — 
 
 "Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we give Thee 
 thanks for Thy mercies toward us and to all men. We bless Thee 
 for Thy redeeming love, through which we are made sure that this 
 beloved friend and father has ascended up on high, to enter with the 
 saints and the spirits made perfect into an Everlasting Home. We 
 thank Thee for that word of Thine by which we know that, returning 
 unto Thee from this twilight vale, he has been borne up by Thy holy 
 angels in the way of righteousness and through Thine open doors o^ 
 glory, to dwell forever in the light which no eye hath seen, and midst 
 the song which no ear hath heard. 
 
 "Almighty and merciful God, who art the fountain of all compas- 
 sion, and hatest nothing that Thou hast made, we pray Thee deliver 
 our souls from the power of darkness, put behind Thyself the remem- 
 brance of our sins forever, and give us the sweet assurance that we 
 are the sons of God, redeemed not with corruptible things, as silver 
 and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ ; and destined to be 
 kings and priests unto God forever, through Him that loved us. 
 
 " Holy and pitiful Father, be among us as we gather in respectful 
 and affectionate remembrance of the dead, and do Thou make our 
 
36 
 
 hearts sweet in communion together with Thee ; help us to magnify 
 Thy grace ; may our hearts beat with eternal life ; and may we greet 
 for ourselves on the horizon the sweet promise of immortality with 
 Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." 
 
 The scriptures were read by the Rev. Charles D. Shaw, D. D., of 
 Paterson, Moderator of the Synod of New Jersey, after which the 
 Rev. P. D. Van Cleef, D. D., representing the pastors of Jersey City, 
 spoke as follows : — 
 
 Dear Friends, — " Know ye not that there is a prince and a great 
 man fallen this day in Israel ? " A long and useful life is ended. 
 A ministerial career of 52 years has come to a close in the death of 
 Dr. Imbrie. This long and faithful ministry is a source of great joy 
 to many here, to his co-presbyters who were fellow-workers with him 
 in his denominational connection, in missions, in education and in 
 all th« departments of benevolence in which he was so deeply 
 interested. 
 
 But there is a pastorate of almost 40 years in one church in this 
 city where he has been a co-laborer with his brethren of other 
 denominations, of which I am to speak a few words. What shall I 
 say? Shall they be words of condolence, — words mingled with 
 tears, — words of sorrow .? No, it seems to me rather that they should 
 be words of congratulation ; for if we could see the glory revealed to 
 his vision now, if we could taste the cup of joy which has been pre- 
 sented to his lips, we would have no reason for sorrow. He has 
 passed seven years beyond the period allotted to man on earth. He 
 has fulfilled his ministry, he has fought a good fight, he has finished 
 his course, he has kept the faith ; there is a crown of righteousness 
 laid up for him. The earth and earthly things were fading away, and 
 Heaven was growing brighter and nearer, and surely we may congrat- 
 ulate our brother upon his exchange of worlds ; and who can be so 
 selfish as to grieve when he departs from us to be "with Christ, which 
 is far better ? " 
 
 I look back through a long vista of years. The farther verge is 
 somewhat dimmed by reason of distance, but I see there the faces of 
 old friends, devoted Christians, earnest workers in the Lord's vineyard, 
 many of whose names I could recall, some venerable elders in the 
 Presbyterian Church, who held up the hands and cheered the heart 
 of their pastor. I see that pastor as he stood in the spacious pulpit 
 
37 
 
 of the old historic church, tall and straight, with dignified bearing, 
 solemn and impressive mien, yet animated in his delivery, a messenger 
 of God with a message fraught with tremendous import, a message 
 from the mouth of God to the soul of man, — a message that was 
 never diluted with human speculations or fancies, never marred by 
 witticisms, or by other violations of pulpit dignity and decorum which 
 so often blunt the edge of the sword of the Spirit. His ministry was 
 faithful. He won and kept the hearts of his people. He commanded 
 the respect of the community. He afifected no oddity, he practiced 
 no sensationalism in the pulpit to attract the thoughtless crowd. 
 His was not an ephemeral popularity, lasting only until the appetite 
 for new and strange things is satisfied. The sermons of Dr. Imbrie 
 never lost their power, because their power consisted in the truth as 
 revealed in the word of God, as received by a loving heart, as grasped 
 and comprehended by a well disciplined mind, and as delivered in 
 all the sincerity and earnestness of one who could say with the 
 Apostle Paul, "Which things also we speak, not in the words which 
 man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth ; com- 
 paring spiritual things with spiritual." 
 
 Consequently, amid all the changes that have taken place, the 
 death and removal of members of his church and their families, the 
 final dissolution of his once large and flourishing charge, or rather its 
 union with another, a union in which pastor and people, and the 
 history, associations and work of both were blended, the people 
 trained under the ministry of Dr. Imbrie have never lost their venera- 
 tion for his character, their admiration of his clear statements of truth, 
 and his fearless and honest exhibitions of the requirements of the 
 divine law, and the overflowing tenderness of his appeals to the heart 
 and conscience, as he pointed to the "Lamb of God who taketh 
 away the sin of the world." 
 
 The mental vigor of Dr. Imbrie was remarkably preserved. We 
 who have been associated with him from the beginning or the early 
 part of his ministry in this City, and have wrought in this field when 
 we were all in the morning or in the noontide of life, cannot realize 
 that he was an old man. His cheerfulness and vivacity, as he moved 
 about our streets or participated in public services, and his mental 
 force in preaching and teaching, even when his voice was weak, 
 rendered his ministrations interesting, profitable and acceptable to the 
 last. We never have been able to think of our brother as old. He 
 
38 
 
 never did grow old, for his last service as a minister and teacher was 
 among the children and was performed in the interests of the Sabbath- 
 School which bore the honored name of " The Imbrie Mission ", 
 and which, by its union with the Grand Street Sabbath-school, will 
 perpetuate his memory and his influence. 
 
 I feel that in representing the ministers of Jersey City I must have 
 in view first the little circle which until a few weeks ago was unbroken, 
 composed of brothers Verrinder, Parmly, Imbrie and myself, and I may 
 add the name of Dr. Rice, who was for so many years associated with 
 us. It would be hard to find, within such a limited circle and in such 
 a changing population, a quartet of ministers who could look back 
 over a pastorate of forty years in which they had been co-laborers. 
 And I can say from my heart that I do not believe there are many 
 examples of fraternal union so close, so warm, so sincere as in the 
 union of these brethern who have dwelt together in unity until parted 
 by death. I have often heard this fraternal unity of pastors of different 
 denominations spoken of in the sentiment, if not the words, of the 
 Psalmist, " Behold, how good and how pleasant it is." 
 
 I feel that in representing the Jersey City ministers, the younger as 
 well as the older pastors, I need not hesitate to speak as with one 
 voice the sentiments of all. There is no one here, and there is no 
 one anywhere to differ or dissent. Dr. Imbrie was a scholarly man. 
 We who were associated with him in literary and theological studies 
 and discussions have no hesitation in saying that he was a leader in 
 scholarship among all the ministers in Jersey City. He was a modest 
 man, as all true scholars are. He was a conservative man, never 
 extravagant in his public utterances, never sensational in the common 
 meaning of that term. He was a brotherly and a manly man. He 
 was tender and loving, affectionate and true. He was a Godly man, 
 an Israelite indeed, in whom was no guile ; as transparent as crystal. 
 He was careful not to wound the feelings of others. I have never 
 heard a sentence or a word from Dr. Imbrie's lips that indicated an 
 unkind feeling or a resentful spirit. I have never heard from him a 
 sarcastic utterance intended to wound his brethren or calculated to 
 hurt the most tender sensibilities. 
 
 If Dr. Imbrie had his failings, I am not able to speak of them, for 
 somehow or other I could not see them. 
 
 It was my happy privilege to visit him a few days before his illness 
 assumed a severe and dangerous form. We indulged in our usual 
 
39 
 
 cheerful conversation, he urging me to stay longer ; and then, after a 
 prayer and a warm pressure of the hand that had so often grasped 
 mine, we parted, never to meet or speak to each other on earth. 
 
 Heaven seems brighter as one after another of the friends we have 
 loved on earth are gathered there, and not the least of its anticipated 
 pleasures will be the meeting with him and kindred spirits in the 
 mansions of our " Father's House." 
 
 After the choir had sung the hymn beginning, 
 
 " Fairest Lord Jesus! Ruler of All Nature r 
 the Rev. David Magie, D. D., of Paterson, on behalf of the Presby- 
 tery of Jersey City, spoke as follows : — 
 
 It is not easy within the few moments of time allotted to one 
 speaker to express that sense of regard and reverence which filled the 
 heart of every member of our Presbytery for Dr. Imbrie. Through 
 all the years of our Presbyterial existence he has filled the most prom- 
 inent place in our counsels and actions and has been regarded with 
 feelings of love and admiration as our head and leader. 
 
 Beyond the grateful recollections of a score of years in Presbyterial 
 associations and personal friendship, my memory recalls Dr. Imbrie 
 before he came to this city, when in my father's house and in my 
 father's pulpit I saw in him the ideal of a Christian gentleman and 
 scholar and minister. The passing years and closer intercourse have 
 deepened those impressions. The inner life, the private character, 
 and the public work have made but one impression on all who knew 
 him. 
 
 How then can one speak of such a life ! What is there to say .' 
 When you have spoken of a circle as round, what more can be 
 said } How well rounded were the character and life of Dr. Imbrie ; 
 how trulv centred in Jesus Christ, whom he loved and served 1 
 Always there seemed to come from his speech and actions a single 
 influence, always there seemed to be made the same impression of 
 truthfulness and honesty. His whole life was so true, so sweet, so 
 sincere, so loving, so open, you seemed to read it at once, and to 
 know it all. You seemed to look into his very soul, so calm, so trans- 
 parent, so loving, and to know and love him at once. There was 
 nothing to be hidden. I know not where you will find a man better 
 loved, nor one who more deserved to be loved. Like the beloved 
 disciple, whom he resembled much in spirit, he ever seemed to say 
 " love one another. " 
 
40 
 
 In our Presbytery he became naturally a leader not through any 
 assumption of superiority on his part, nor even on account of his age. 
 His mental vigor so endured, his interest in affairs so remained active, 
 that no one ever associated with him any of the weaknesses of age. 
 He was our leader, because we felt the strength that was in him, the 
 strength of a well-disciplined mind, the strength of excellent scholar- 
 ship, the strength of a sound judgment, the strength of sure prin- 
 ciples, the strength of self-control, the strength of a consecrated life. 
 Through the long years of his active ministry he had acquired such a 
 knowledge of the law and practice of our Church, his opinion settled 
 questions in debate. An appeal to him was regarded as a final 
 judgment. 
 
 Beyond, and above this, in Dr. Imbrie were ever found the true 
 gentlemen and the sincere Christian, as well as the minister. What- 
 ever may be the gifts possessed, there is needed for a true character 
 and life the man and the Christian. The truest man needs the beauty 
 of the life and influence of Jesus Christ. This was the glory of Dr. 
 Imbrie's character, and the secret of his power. Whoever failed to 
 recognize in him a Christian gentleman ? Whoever heard him offer 
 prayer and did not feel that his life was a walk with God .? What 
 unction there was in his prayers 1 His face glowed with light of Him 
 with whom he talked. Such a character and such a life are as rare 
 as they are beautiful. 
 
 We have seen Dr. Imbrie in our Presbytery when his church was 
 strong and vigorous, and we have seen him when the Church he loved 
 and served so many years had to lose its practical existence. Events 
 beyond human control drove from the region of his Church its 
 members. In the severance of those ties between pastor and people, 
 and in the apparent undoing of what he had labored to do, there was 
 the truest test of his real manhood and Christian principle. Those 
 who saw him pass through those days of trial can attest the power of 
 Divine grace in him. With beautiful submission, uncomplaining 
 resignation, and cheerful confidence, he bowtd to the Divine will and 
 laid down his active work. Never did he more adorn his Christian 
 character and his services for the Lord Jesus Christ. Through all the 
 years of his ministry we can bear witness to the praise of Divine grace 
 there was a growing ripeness for service in the Church below and for 
 glory in the Church above. 
 
 The memory of Dr. Imbrie will ever remain with the Presbytery of 
 
41 
 
 Jersey City a benediction to bless us, and an inspiration to follow 
 him as he followed Christ. 
 
 The Rev, J. D. Wells, D. D. , President of the Board of Foreign 
 Missions, then delivered the following address : — 
 
 It is not easy for one who knew and loved Dr. Imbrie more than 
 forty years, and who bears in tender remembrance his love for the 
 Saviour, with his desire for his presence here and hereafter and the 
 coming of his kingdom, to grieve that he has departed to be forever 
 with the Lord. For his surviving kindred and ourselves we may 
 well have tears. For the Church here and the missionary work of the 
 Church in all the world, we could have wished him to remain longer 
 as our fellow-worker unto the kingdom. But for himself and "the 
 church of the first born whose names are written in Heaven", we 
 have only congratulations and salutations of joy and peace. He has 
 fallen asleep in Jesus. He rests from his labors and his works do 
 follow him. After a short illness, and cared for by those who loved 
 him best, he comes "to the grave in a full age, like as a shock of 
 corn Cometh in his season ", and "being dead he yet speaketh."' 
 
 May I not add that to the Blessed Christ who saved him by his 
 grace, called him into the ministry and made him what he was in all 
 the relations of life, — to Him we give most heartfelt thanks ; that 
 He lent him to us so long and for such long and varied service ; and 
 that in taking him away at last He left to us in his character and life, 
 as we have heard, the assurance that he had received him unto 
 himself. 
 
 For reasons that I may suggest later, I would wish that my 
 knowledge of Dr, Imbrie's lineage and earliest years made it possible 
 for me to speak of the influences that had to do with the moulding 
 of his character to the beauty and strength which we know it had. 
 Rarelv, if ever, does a personality like his come from other than a 
 godly parentage and a Christian home. I do not remember to have 
 heard Dr. Imbrie speak of his parents, or of the years spent under 
 their care. But I have often thought of the correspondence between 
 his erect form and beautiful countenance on the one hand, and the 
 inner man of his heart, as we knew it, on the other. And in doing 
 so I have been very sure that the rare excellencies of his parents and 
 remoter ancestors were repeated in himself. 
 
 My acquaintance with Dr. Imbrie began in the year 1849. He 
 
42 
 
 was then pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Rahway, N. J. 
 Graduating from Princeton College in 1835, and from the Seminary 
 in 1839. He had been in Rahway about eleven years. Under his 
 strong and blessed ministry the church there had grown in numbers 
 and resources. And the place was beginning to feel the pulsations 
 of a new life, and was growing away from the old centres of population. 
 There was clearly a call for a second Presbyterian Church. Dr. 
 Imbrie favored the enterprise, and with his brethren of the Session 
 willingly surrendered influential families for the nucleus of the new 
 organization. I was requested by him and them to consider the 
 question of becoming the first pastor. That church, I need hardly 
 tell you, under the able and consecrated ministry of the Rev. Dr. 
 Leggitt, has become one of the strongest churches of the Presbytery of 
 Elizabeth ; while the mother church has the joy of its loving co-opera- 
 tion in the growing City. 
 
 In the year 1852 Dr. Imbrie became pastor of the First Presbyterian 
 Church in Jersey City, and until 1888, a peroid of 36 years, gave to 
 it the full service of a faithful and laborious pastorate, happily con- 
 tinuing from the latter date until his death pastor emeritus of the same 
 church in its new location and sanctuary. 
 
 I have not forgotten that in this service I am asked to represent the 
 Board of Foreign Missions, of which Dr. Imbiie was an active and 
 most useful member up to the end of his life. But I have referred 
 to him in other and certainly important relations because I am sure 
 that his usefulness in the Board grew largely out of habits, and a 
 combination of qualities, intellectual and spiritual, that were nurtured 
 and developed in the pastoral office, in the editor's chair, in association 
 with men charged as Trustees with the care of the College of New 
 Jersey, and in faithful and helpful attendance upon meetings of 
 Presbytery, Synod and General Assembly. 
 
 With rare natural endowments, the best culture of the schools and 
 severe application to useful studies in all his later years, he brought 
 to the service of the Board of Foreign Missions a mind and a heart 
 of large resources, with truest consecration to the Master and his 
 cause. 
 
 How tender and fervent and graciously bold, how comprehensive 
 and minutely particular were his prayers ! The very tones of his voice 
 linger in our ears. We cannot forget his importunate pleadings for 
 the coming of the Kingdom, by the witness bearing of the Church and 
 
43 
 
 the power of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of men. The fact that a 
 beloved son was in a commanding position of usefulness among the 
 most progressive people with whom we have to do kept him in a living 
 touch with the great work of missions in all the world. 
 
 We shall miss him all the more because of the promptness and 
 constancy of his attendance upon the meetings of the Board. He 
 felt that a dispensation of the Gospel for the race was committed to 
 him in common with the other members of the Board and its Exe- 
 cutive Officers ; and heart and conscience both constrained him to 
 utmost fidelity. Devotion to the Master whom he loved with an ever 
 increasing love as his years were multiplied made it a joy for him to do 
 with his might any special service, however delicate and severe, that 
 was entrusted to him, with others or alone, as well as to bear his full 
 part in all our counsels. 
 
 Dr. Imbrie came into the Board in 1857, when it was a large body 
 chosen by the General Assembly, and representing what was known 
 as the old-school branch of the Church in all the land. It con- 
 sisted of nearly a hundred members — ministers and laymen — and met 
 but once in the year. The business of the Board in the care of the 
 missions was transacted by an Executive Committee of five ministers 
 and four laymen, the Executive Officers being members of it in virtue 
 of their office; and this Committee met every Monday morning, as a 
 rule, in the City of New York. 
 
 Dr. Imbrie was a member of the Board but not of the Committee ; 
 and immediately upon coming into the Board he was made Record- 
 ing Secretary, and continued to be such thirteen years, until 1870, 
 at the happy re-union of the long severed branches of the Presbyterian 
 Church, the Board was re-constructed and became what it now is, an 
 incorporated Board of ten ministers and nine laymen. It was 
 because Dr. Imbrie held the pen of a ready writer, and was known 
 to be an exceptionally careful and competent Secretary that he was 
 held to that service by the old Board for so many consecutive years. 
 
 Since 1870 he has given twenty-one years to the new Board, with 
 its new methods and its ever-increasing area of work. None of its 
 members have more intelligently and joyfully watched the progress 
 of the work than Dr. Imbrie. We have together seen nine missions 
 supplemented by fourteen, making twenty-three in all, with a multi- 
 tude of out-stations ; seventy ordained missionaries increased to 210, 
 with many hnndred laborers of other classes co-operating with them; 
 
44 
 
 a native membership of 900 grown to nearly 30,000, besides the 
 hundreds and thousands that have finished their course and entered 
 into rest; an expenditure for the work done in 1857 of $214,000, 
 grown to an expenditure for the work done in the year ending April 
 30th, 1891, of $972,517. But I may not multiply statements of the 
 work done by our part of the Church, and the entire Protestant 
 Church, during the 34 years of Dr. Imbrie's active service. I cannot 
 believe that he is ignorant of what has been celebrated in Heaven as 
 the years have passed. 
 
 As I have sat in the Board and co-operated with him and others 
 during these years, I have seen absolutely nothing in him that I 
 could now wish to blot or change. Tenacious of his opinions when 
 he had facts on which to base them, firm in his judgments, and always 
 very clear in the statements he had occasion to make, he still knew 
 how to yield gracefully, if, in any case, he failed to carry the Board 
 with him. 
 
 Personally I shall miss him more almost than my brethren of fewer 
 years, for we were of one age. Thinking of him as he now is, and of 
 the little time that will keep us apart, I cannot withhold the expres- 
 sion of my joy. Thinking of the great cause itself, and of his pres- 
 ence with the multitude that preceded him and are forever with the 
 Lord, and like Him, I will not allow myself to doubt for a moment 
 that he and they are mighty personal forces in relation to the same 
 work that commands the ministry of all the holy angels, and fills the 
 heart and the hands of the Lord of Angels. And this, brethren, is 
 the work that we are commanded to do without regard Do its diffi- 
 culties and delays and discouragements. The power is with the 
 enthroned, almighty and most gracious Saviour. This he claimed 
 when he gave the commission. "All power," He said, "is given unto 
 me in Heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and make disciples of 
 all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son 
 and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoevbr 
 I have commanded you ; and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the 
 end of the world. Amen." 
 
 May the children and the children's children of our beloved 
 brother perpetuate his influence in the world, and be comforted with 
 the consolations of God, which are neither few nor small. The 
 Heavenly Father is as near to Japan as to us, and the exalted Jesus 
 is as true to the dear ones there as to you who are here. To you and 
 
45 
 
 to them alike He says, " I will not leave you orphans. I will come 
 to you." One in your grief, may you be one in the sacred joy of 
 your common parentage, and of a filial relation to the God of your 
 father and your mother. For this church, its pastor and elders and 
 members in particular, we invoke a double portion of the spirit of 
 grace and supplication and consecration that made Dr. Imbrie what 
 he was in his character and life and work, even unto death. 
 
 For ourselves, as the Board of Foreign Missions and the Church at 
 large, we can ask nothing more in preparation for the work which the 
 Master gives us to do. The work remains, and what a work it is ! 
 The great commission outlines and measures it. Does it lose in its 
 claims upon our thoughts and prayers and labor and stewardship of 
 the Lord's treasure by the breaking of our ranks ? The long line of 
 co-workers from the beginning can answer with only one voice. 
 Personally, we who are here to-day to bury our precious dead look 
 back but a little way, though we measure the way by decades and 
 even scores of years. Of the nine men who composed the Executive 
 Committee when I entered it in 1854 but three remain, and two of 
 the three are now in service. Dr. Phillips, Dr. Potts, Mr. Lenox, Mr. 
 Stuart, Mr. Ward, Mr. Carter are gone. The Recording Secretary of 
 the Board as then constituted, Dr. McDonald, and the auditors, 
 James Donaldson and Thomas Pringle, are gone. It would startle 
 you should I read the names of the large Board of that day that are 
 gone too. The venerable John C. Lowrie, D. D., then associated 
 with his father of blessed memory Walter Lowrie, and J. Leighton 
 Wilson, as Corresponding Secretary, and Wm. Rankin, Treasurer, are 
 left as living links holding us to the workers of that day. 
 
 But, my dear brethren, the cause remains. At the touch of Christ, 
 the head of the Church and head over all things to the Church, the 
 world opens. The peoples of the world are accessible and expectant. 
 The Church herself asks for a new recognition in her venerable con- 
 fession of God's love for the world, of Christ's relation to it, and of 
 the Holy Spirit's presence in it. Science and art and commerce are 
 helpers of the Church. We flash important messages to the ends of 
 the earth with lightning speed. Swift ships carry our missionaries 
 across the wide seas, and up and down all inland waters ; and swifter 
 trains bear them from sea-ports to the places of their blessed service. 
 
 And with all, and best of all, converts are multiplied. Systems of 
 false religion, hoary with age, and proved to have long deceived the 
 
46 
 
 nations, are forced to give way before the migtit of Him whose name 
 is " The Word of God ", whose Representative is the Personal Spirit 
 of God, and whose great instrument of saving power is "the word of 
 reconciliation", voiced by the life and from the hearts of "the minis- 
 try of reconciliation ", and witnessed unto by the holy Catholic 
 Church. 
 
 Fathers and brethren of the Board of Foreign Missions, and all 
 .whose co-workers and servants we are, let the passing from earth to 
 heaven, from toil and conflict here to rest and victory there, of such 
 men as I have named, and our precious brother and fellow-laborer, 
 Charles K. Imbrie among them, be an inspiration to more joyful, 
 hopeful, and helpful service to our Blessed Master and the cause that 
 he loves. Amen. 
 
 After the singing of the hymn, 
 
 " Hark! Hark, My Soul : Angelic Songs are Swelling," 
 the Rev. F. L. Patton, D. D,, LL. D., President of the College of 
 New Jersey, spoke as follows : — 
 
 My Dear Christian Friends, — It is only a few weeks ago that I had 
 the pleasure of standing in this pulpit and taking part in the dedica- 
 tory services in connection with the opening of this house of worship. 
 I think those of us who were here that night must remember the 
 comprehensive, tender and spiritual prayer that was offered on that 
 occasion by Dr. Imbrie. To-day we meet in the same house of 
 worship to think only of Dr. Imbrie as taking part in the services of 
 the Upper Sanctuary. I have been asked to say a word this afternoon 
 because, in the providence of God, I was associated with Dr. Imbrie 
 in the administration of the affairs of the College of New Jersey ; but 
 my acquaintance with Dr. Imbrie goes back beyond the period of 
 my relation to Princeton College. He and I were co-presbyters in 
 the old First Presbytery of New York, twenty-five years ago. We 
 were members together of an association of ministers as far back as 
 that. To that ministerial association I owe far more than I could 
 express here, and I make this personal reference here and now 
 because I think it serves to throw light upon a phase of Dr. Imbrie's 
 nature and character that has not been alluded to. 
 
 You know him as he went in and out among the people of his 
 charge ; others know him in his relations to the^Presbytery, and in 
 connection with his thorough interest in mastery of the practical 
 
47 
 
 affairs of ecclesiastical life ; but I like to think of him in the relation 
 that I sustained to him, — as the young minister looking up to his 
 senior. Ministers sustain different relations. They are related to 
 their people, but they are also related to one another ; and it is in 
 this relation that they sustain to one another — of seniors to their 
 juniors — that they have the opportunity of showing the finest phases 
 of their nature. There was never any assumption of superiority on 
 the part of Dr. Imbrie. He never was too busy to give heed to the 
 suggestions that might come from a younger man ; he never was too 
 much interested in public affairs to take a warm, living, personal 
 interest in the affairs of his juniors in the ministry. I think ministers 
 sometimes forget what opportunities they have here. I think that 
 older ministers do not always know what heroes they always seem to 
 the young man, because he looks up to them, he finds inspiration in 
 their life and their example, and he gets a crumb of comfort when he 
 needs it most from some kindly suggestion. I look back with grati- 
 tude to the warm friendship between myself and Dr. Imbrie. What 
 was true of my own relation to him was true of other men likewise 
 sustaining the same relation of juniors to their seniors. If a young 
 minister wanted to leave his parish, Dr. Imbrie was always ready to 
 use his influence in his behalf. If he wrote an article or read a 
 paper Dr. Imbrie was never slow in showing his appreciation, and 
 never stinted in his praise. If he thought he could write for the 
 press, and wanted an introduction that might assist him in his plans. 
 Dr. Imbrie was the first to volunteer to give it. I say this in grateful 
 recollection of personal experience. 
 
 I cannot help referring also to another feature in Dr. Imbrie's life 
 that has already been spoken of. To me it seems to be such a 
 splendid example of what a busy minister may be and do. He was 
 faithful in his pulpit preparations, as you know. He was prompt in 
 the discharge of his duties as a member of the Presbytery. But 
 besides that he made it his duty to keep up his studies. He was a 
 scholar, and he was a scholar in lines that do not always commend 
 themselves to ministers, because those lines of study are not always 
 regarded as practical. He could read his Hebrew bible, and he did 
 read it ; and he was fond of the study of the Old Testament, led to 
 it principally, perhaps, by his interest in the study of prophecy. But 
 more than that, I can remember, and I can speak particularly as to 
 the papers that he used to write on practical questions, questions in- 
 
48 
 
 volving the settlement of or dealing with fundamental principles in 
 the sphere of practical Christian ethics. I remember the clearness 
 with which he presented his views ; and the comprehensive grasp of 
 questions, much larger than those he happened to be discussing, 
 which these papers evince. 
 
 So, that having known him so long, when as it happened four 
 years ago I came into the Presidency of Princeton College, I did not 
 come as a stranger at least to Dr. Imbrie. He grasped my hand as 
 that of an old friend. He was one of the oldest members of our 
 Board of Trustees, — he was third, I think, in seniority in the Board. 
 He was faithful in the discharge of all the duties connected with that 
 work. He was a wise counsellor. He was profoundly interested in 
 the College — himself a graduate of the College, and he had sent two 
 sons there, who are still the ardent, earnest supporters of Princeton 
 College ; and he was a faithful custodian of its interests. 
 
 A rounded life has thus been completed. Generous, affectionate> 
 wonderfully kind, a prudent counsellor, a wise ecclesiastic, an 
 earnest advocate of all the interests in connection with which he had 
 responsibility, he has finished his work ; and for him to depart is to 
 be with Christ. He leaves behind him a sweet memory, and we think 
 of this as we speak a word of sympathy to those who have been 
 bereaved. He has fought a good fight, he has finished his course, he 
 has kept the faith ; and doubtless his first greeting on yonder shore 
 came from the parted lips of the Master whom he served, "Well 
 done, good and faithful servant, enter the joy of your Lord. " 
 
 The pastor of the Church then said : — 
 
 I think there is at least one more word to say, and one that can be 
 said only by a member of this Church, with which Dr. Imbrie was 
 connected as pastor for the past i8 months. We think that the 
 crown and the glory of his life was in this time, in these last and 
 mellowest and chastest days, and was exemplified most strikingly and 
 truly in the daily intercourse which he had with us in this religious 
 family. It was here and in these last times that we felt that he 
 showed most the marks of the Prince of God. He was first among 
 us in learning and wisdom surely, most surely in the Christ-spirit 
 which made him servant of all. Such a meekness, such a humility, 
 such an unselfishness, such a self-effacement in one of so elevated 
 piety and so extraordinary worth, made an exhibition that has filled 
 us vvith inexpressible wonder and affection. Jesus gave at the very 
 
49 
 
 last the most signal proof of his lordship and love when he washed 
 the disciples' feet, who were amazed and bewildered at the infinite 
 condescension. In such a way to us did Dr. Imbrie's lovely pre- 
 eminence utter itself. His beautiful service on our behalf for Christ's 
 sake will always be an affecting remembrance and inspiration. 
 
 The following prayer was offered by the Rev. John W. Teal, D.D., 
 of Elizabeth : — 
 
 O God, our Father, we have spoken one to another of a rarely 
 beautiful life. We have spoken many things of the Christian charac- 
 ter and distinguished service of one who has gone from us. Now we 
 turn our hearts for a little time unto Thee, ere we go from this 
 House to the place of the dead. We would lift up our voices to 
 Thee in prayer and supplication mingled with thanksgiving ; and 
 first of all we would thank Thee for what we have known and ex- 
 perienced in the companionship and in fellowship with the departed 
 one. We thank Thee for what he was as a man, that Thou didst 
 endow him with rare gifts of mind and heart. We thank Thee for 
 the use he made of these gifts, making the one talent five and the five 
 talents ten. We thank Thee for what he was as a Christian minister, 
 in all the faithfulness that he showed. Even as Moses was faithful 
 in Pharoah's house as a servant, so our beloved brother was faithful 
 in the least things and in the chief. 
 
 We give Thee thanks, our Father, for what our beloved brother 
 was in his relations to his brethren in the ministry, in the Presbytery, 
 in the Synod, in the highest courts of the Church, and in his relations 
 to the great institutions of education and missionary interest. We 
 thank Thee for all that he was enabled to do as a cultivated and 
 earnest and loving servant of Christ to further educational and mis- 
 sionary interests. 
 
 We thank Thee for what he was as husband and father and friend, 
 for what he was as pastor to his people, and for what he has been to 
 all who have known him in the bonds of Christian faith and love. 
 We give Thee thanks, dear Father, that we can meet here this after- 
 noon not as those who sorrow without hope, but that our sorrow is 
 lifted up into a great and holy joy, and that we forget our sadness in 
 our rejoicing in his behalf, — that we forget that we shall no longer 
 meet him in the rejoicing of heart that he has gone to be forever with 
 the Lord, in the Blessed Presence, in that home where no night is. 
 and where all is light and joy. 
 
50 
 
 We give Thee thanks, dear Father, for the thirty-five years of faith- 
 ful ministry in one church, for the more than three decades of service 
 in the Board of Foreign Missions. We thank Thee for what he did 
 as the Chairman of the Committee of Synod in this same great work ; 
 and we shall not forget how gentle he was among us, how ready to 
 prefer in honor others to himself, how willing to be nothing if he 
 might exalt Christ, and to serve in any capacity if he might thereby 
 further the interests of the Church of Christ in all the earth. 
 
 And now as we mourn his departure for ourselves, we pray Thee a 
 blessing may come upon us. We pray that his mantle of love may 
 rest upon each of his brethren in the ministry ; that the institutions 
 that he has served may be blessed in the memory of this godly man, 
 and that Thou wilt raise up others to take his place in the work ; so 
 that the cause of Christ, which he had ever close to his heart, may 
 not be stopped, but that the work may go on, because of the memory 
 of his service, the memory of his prayers, with greater power and 
 force. To Thy loving care and embrace we commend the immediate 
 friends of our brother departed. We thank Thee that Thou art 
 everywhere the same God ; that Thou hast care of them, of those who 
 belong to Thy service ; and although the fathers depart, the children 
 shall be in their places. 
 
 We commend to Thy loving care this church, all the members who 
 survive of the church in which he ministered so long , and may those 
 who have been associated with him rejoice in the memory that he has 
 left behind, and in all the blessed, purifying, sanctifying influences 
 which the Holy Spirit exerted upon them through him. May we go 
 to our homes and to our places of work, determined to be more 
 faithful, to be more earnest in the defense of the truth ; that it may 
 be said of us that we have fought a good fight, that we have finished 
 our course, that we are ready for the crown, and that we have entered 
 into the joy of our Lord. 
 
 We ask Thy blessing to enter upon Thy servant, the pastor of this 
 church, and we pray that Thou will make him more and more a man 
 of God, taking up the work which his brother in the ministry laid 
 down, and doing faithfully that work until Thou shalt call him to lay 
 it down . May Thy kingdom come and Thy will be done in all the 
 earth. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. 
 
 After the singing by the assembly of the Long Metre Doxology, 
 the benediction was pronounced by the Rev. Dr. Patton. 
 
RESOLUTIONS. 
 
Extract from the Minutes of the Session of the First Pres- 
 byterian Church of Jersey City. 
 
 On the death of the Rev. Charles K. Imbrie, D. D., the Session 
 wish to mark their sense of the sorrow and loss sustained by this 
 congregation thereby. 
 
 Dr. Imbrie was connected with this Church only for the brief 
 period of eighteen months and in the honorary relation of Pastor 
 Emeritus. His services were always free, generous, devoted and of 
 eminent value. In the pulpit, where unhappily he rarely stood 
 because of the thinness and huskiness of his voice ; in the prayer- 
 meeting, from which he was never absent, and where he shone like a 
 great light ; in the meeting of the Sabbath-School Teachers for the 
 study of the lesson, which he conducted with an unselfishness of toil 
 and a wealth of learning equally unsurpassed ; at the Lord's Table, 
 where he presided with an apostolic venerableness and sweetness ; 
 in all, his services were the rare, ever fresh, brilliant, spiritual activities 
 of an accomplished mind and a lofty soul. 
 
 Beyond all outward labors, his mere presence and life among us 
 were a benediction. The refinement and grace of his manners, the 
 spiritual beauty of his countenance, the commanding power of his 
 example, the loving gentleness and unction of his speech made him 
 an inestimable joy and blessing to the people among whom he went 
 out and in. He was a present attestation of the gospel of Divine 
 grace. He was an angel of God, to unfold astonishing riches from 
 the Holy Scriptures and to comfort our hearts by his embodied 
 assurance of the heavenly favor. He was a holy and blessed father 
 in God, and he passed away from us amid universal love, reverence, 
 and sorrow. 
 
 " He had kept 
 The whiteness of his soul, and thus men o'er him wept." 
 
 Extract from the Minutes of the Presbytery of Jersey City. 
 
 Charles Kisselman Imbrie, son of James Imbrie and Margaretta 
 Kisselman, was born in Philadelphia, December 15, 18 14. His 
 grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather were 
 Scotch Presbyterian clergymen. His father emigrated in early man- 
 
54 
 
 liood, and became a merchant in Philadelphia, marrying there, and 
 living there until within a year of his death. He was revered as an 
 honorable, pious, and upright man, and his children held the most 
 grateful recollections of a happy and faithful Christian home. 
 
 Charles gained the education which was considered sufficient for 
 commercial life at several academical institutions in his native city, 
 and had spent two years as clerk and bookkeeper in a business 
 house, when being converted and making a public profession of his 
 faith in a Presbyterian Church, he decided to study for the ministry. 
 To that end he entered the Freshman class of the College of New 
 Jersey in 183 1, graduating in September, 1835. After a year of 
 teaching in Natchez, Miss., he entered the Theological Seminary at 
 Princeton, where his graduation was delayed by sickness until 1840. 
 For two years of his theological course he also served as tutor in the 
 College. 
 
 Being soon afterwards licensed to preach by the Presbytery of 
 Philadelphia, he was called to the First Presbyterian Church of 
 Rahway, N. J., in December, 1840, and was ordained and installed 
 the following January by the Presbytery of Elizabethtown. After 
 eleven years of honored and successful labor, he relinquished his 
 pastorate to accept that of the Presbyterian Church of Jersey City, 
 over which he was installed by the Presbytery of New York, in 
 February, 1852. An exceptionally long and beautiful union followed, 
 the toil, ability and consecration of Dr. Imbrie bringing the church 
 up in strength and usefulness to the front rank in this State. But as 
 the years passed, the changes of time revolutionized the character of 
 the population among whom the sanctuary was located, and the end 
 of its existence on that spot became inevitable. Finally he and his 
 people yielded to the providential constraint of circumstances. 
 Public services ceased, the edifice was sold, and the pastoral relation 
 dissolved in April, 1888, Dr. Imbrie, however, remaining with the 
 people to moderate the Session and to minister in their homes the 
 comforts and instruction of the Gospel. These essentially tem- 
 porary conditions came to an end in March, 1890, when the 
 church of which he had been the pastor consolidated with the First 
 Presbyterian Church of Bergen to form the First Presbyterian Church 
 of Jersey City. Of this new church Dr. Imbrie became the beloved 
 pastor emeritus, and resided and labored within its bounds until his 
 death, November 20, 1891, at seventy-seven years of age. 
 
55 
 
 He was elected a member of the Board of Foreign Missions in 
 1856, and served until his death. He received the degree of Doctor 
 of Divinity from the College of New Jersey in i860, and in 1861 be- 
 came a member of the Board of Trustees. During the years 1869 
 and 1870 he was associate editor of The New York Evangelist. He 
 was elected moderator of the Synod of New Jersey in 1870, and for 
 many years was the Chairman of its Committee on Foreign Missions. 
 He was one of the members by whom this Presbytery was con- 
 stituted at the Reunion, and his services were unique and invaluable 
 up to his death. In May, 1841, he was married to Miss Elizabeth 
 Miller, of Philadelphia, of the fruits of which union there remain 
 one daughter and two sons. 
 
 Dr Imbrie was a man of very exceptional ministerial attainments, 
 and of very finished and beautiful piety. As a preacher he was or- 
 thodox, Scriptural, instructive, elegant, energetic, persuasive, and 
 helpful. There was maintained a uniformly high standard of Chris- 
 tian thought and living among those who sat continuously under his 
 preaching. Without many seasons of what are known as revivals, 
 his young people were, at maturity, brought, with very few exceptions 
 into the church. His methods were not such as to attract those who 
 wander from place to place in search of novelties, but did gather and 
 hold those who wished to be fed with the substantial Word of the 
 living God. His people were well instructed and grew up in 
 spiritual strength and maturity under his ministrations. The freedom, 
 comprehensiveness, sublimity, and unction of his public devotional 
 exercises were markedly impressive and uplifting. He was a 
 thorough Presbyterian, yet a real brother of every Christian, of what- 
 ever name. He was zealous most for the faith and holiness of the 
 Gospel, and opponent most of every form of unbelief and sin. 
 
 As a pastor he was full of the Holy Ghost, pitiful toward the weak 
 and sinful, long-suffering toward the backslider, a rare counsellor 
 in trouble, a grateful comforter in affliction. He was genial, kindly, 
 equable in temperament, conciliatory, a promoter of harmony ; he 
 fulfilled a pastorate of nearly fifty years in one church without any 
 disagreement among his people. Yet he was not a man of yielding 
 disposition in any matter which touched his dignity or duty as a 
 minister of the Gospel ; in matters of faith he was inflexibly or- 
 thodox, in matters of practice he was rigidly true to the principle he 
 might feel to be brought in question. But he was witlial of such 
 
56 
 
 good judgment and such loving temper, that he retained the fealty 
 of those who differed from him, and none ever felt a doubt of his 
 perfect sincerity. 
 
 No greater monument to his praise can be conceived than the 
 consummate acceptance and ability by which he held together for 
 thirty-six years a useful, vigorous, and distinguished church. The 
 exceeding spiritual beauty, also, of his submission to the inevitable 
 changes of time which gradually erased the church from its place, 
 was profoundly impressive. And his paternal and gracious identifica- 
 tion with the flock, of which for the eighteen months before his 
 death he was the pastor emeritus, added to his crown perhaps its 
 purest gems. 
 
 As an ecclesiastic he was beyond praise. He was the continued 
 joy, admiration and strength of the Presbytery, for his faithful attend- 
 ance, for his indefatigable and sagacious services on important com- 
 mittees, for his happy discharge of delicate functions, for his power 
 and lucidity of argument, for his manifold usefulness, for the safety 
 of his counsels, for the benignity of his presence. His mental and 
 spiritual equipment as a presbyter was superb." He was ripe and 
 mellow in all learning and all gracious traits of heart. He was 
 always the sympathetic and unaffected friend of younger brethren. 
 His mind was so full and trained that he was instantly ready for any 
 debate, whether simple or abstruse the subject, and he was an un- 
 yielding, though a courteous opponent. He had a profound and 
 systematic knowledge of the truth divinely revealed ; his defense of 
 it was scholarly and convincing, his antagonism to error was quick 
 and formidable. Loyalty to truth made him superior to all personal 
 considerations and unreachable by any bribe of friendship. And he 
 was so high above animosities and prejudices, that he seemed never 
 to have had any to conquer. There was no diplomacy in him, other 
 than Christian love and meekness, and no fear, other than the fear of 
 being wrong. 
 
 As a man he was the epitome of a Christian gentleman. He was a 
 complete man, strong and lovely. His character was spotless. His 
 influence was purifying and unworldly. His aims were divine. 
 Highly educated, of refined manners and courtly demeanor, his place 
 was among princes. His benevolence toward rich and poor was of 
 that spontaneous and holy quality that threw no shadow of patronage 
 and raised no suspicion of insincerity. His disposition was always 
 
57 
 
 sympathetic, bright, and attractive, and he was fresh in his old age 
 with the simplicity and enthusiasm of life's spring time. Righteous- 
 ness and love were the utterances of his life, and the Church and the 
 world have lost inexpressibly by his translation. 
 
 We rejoice with the First Presbyterian Church of Jersey City that 
 their sanctuary is hallowed with the fragrance of his loveliest years, 
 and that over them remains the benediction of his extended arms. 
 
 We bless God that his sweet, holy, and heroic spirit is perpetuated 
 in his family, and we pray that through many generations of his 
 children's children may continue in heavenly and unbroken succes- 
 sion the father's part in the love of God, the grace of Jesus Christ, 
 and the communion of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 By order of Presbytery. 
 
 Edwin A. Bulkley, Stated Clerk. 
 
 Extract from the Minutes of the Board of Foreign Missions, 
 
 At a special meeting of the Board of Foreign Missions, held at the 
 Mission House, 53 Fifth Avenue, Nov. 21st, the following action was 
 taken : 
 
 The Board has learned with sorrow of the death of one of its 
 members. Rev. Charles K. Imbrie, D. D., who died at his home in 
 Jersey City on the 20th inst of pneumonia. Dr. Imbrie had been a 
 member of the Board thirty-five years, having been elected in 1856. 
 As a wise counsellor and faithful friend of missions, he had stood by 
 the Board through all the adversities attendant upon a protracted war, 
 as well as in its days of peace and prosperity. He had seen the work 
 of foreign missions in the Presbyterian Church extend from nine mis- 
 sions to twenty-three ; the number of ordained missionaries raised 
 from seventy to two hundred and ten, and a total native church mem- 
 bership from nine hundred to nearly thirty thousand. 
 
 Dr. Imbrie's protracted service was characterized by great regularity 
 and promptness of attendance, by thoroughness in every special duty 
 assigned him, and by a conscientious regard for every claim which 
 the position imposed. He was faithful in his stewardship, enduring 
 to the end in every good word and work, according to the measure of 
 his strength. His intercourse with his associate members was 
 
58 
 
 marked by genial kindness and courtesy which never failed. No word 
 or act of his has caused a wound to any. Dr. Imbrie was eminently 
 a spiritual man, strong in the faith and most positive in his convictions. 
 
 While devoting himself for so many years to the cause of missions 
 here, he also gave a son for the service on the mission field, the Rev. 
 Wm. Imbrie, D. D., Professor of the Presbyterian College of Tokyo, 
 Japan. 
 
 The Board would express its deep sense of loss to the great work 
 of missions, its high appreciation of his faithful services, and the 
 many personal excellencies of their late associate ; also its deep sym- 
 pathy for the surviving members of his family. 
 
 In accordance with an invitation from the pastor of the church over 
 which Dr. Imbrie had so long presided, it was agreed that Dr. Wells, 
 President of the Board, should represent the Board in the funeral ser- 
 vice ; also that the members attend the funeral in a body. 
 
 It was ordered that copies of this action be sent to the survivors of 
 Dr. Imbrie's family, and to the Session of the First Presbyterian 
 Church of Jersey City.