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 A SERMON 
 
 IX (H^MMEMORATION OF THE 
 
 REV. JOHN GRAY, D.D., 
 
 "Pastor o/' f/ie /•''irst "Preshyleriftn Cfiiirch in Easfon, 7^a, 
 
 PREACHI'I) FEBRUARY 16, 1868, 
 
 REV. W. HEiNfKY GREEN. D.D. 
 
 PUOFKSSOK IN 
 
 New- York : 
 JOHN A. m\k\ k (4KEEN, PRINTERS, 16 AND 18 JACOB ST. 
 
 1868. WU 
 
 r^^ 
 
xM^' 
 
 A SEEMON 
 
 IN COMMEMORATION OF THE 
 
 REV. JOHN GRAY, D.D., 
 
 Castor of ihe First l^resbyterian Church in Fusion, 2^a, 
 
 PREACHED FEBRUARY 16, 1868, 
 
 EEY. W. HENEY GEEEIs\ D.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR IN THB THEOLOGICAL SEMINART, PRINCETON, N. 2. 
 
 New-York : 
 JOHN A. GRAY ^ GREEN, PRINTERS, 16 AND 18 JACOB ST. 
 
 18G8. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2013 
 
 http://archive.org/details/sermemorOOgree 
 
,sftjt;stp ^seo 
 
 Rev. W. H. Green : Easton, March 2, 1868. 
 
 Dear Sir : Having listened with religious interest and melancholy plea- 
 sure to your excellent sermon preached in the First Presbyterian Church of 
 Easton, commemorative of the life and services of its late lamented pastor, 
 Rev. Dr. Gray, and believing that its publication would be for the general 
 good, we earnestly and respectfully solicit a copy for the press. 
 
 William A. Kerb, 
 M. H. Jones, 
 J. W. Long, 
 J. S. Rodenbaugh, 
 Samuel Boileau, 
 
 P. F. Eilenberger, 
 Derrick Hulick, 
 James F. Randolph, 
 John T. Knight, 
 John Drake. 
 
 Princeton, March 5, 1868. 
 Rev. W. a. Kerr and Messrs. M. H. Jones, P. F. Eilenberger, and others : 
 Gentlemen : In compliance with the request of your note, I place the 
 sermon at your disposal. Yours truly, 
 
 W. Henry Green. 
 
SERMON 
 
 Zechaeiah 1 : 5. — "The Prophets, do they live forever?" 
 
 It is astonisliiDg to what an extent our practical 
 beliefs are moulded by our desires rather than by the 
 evidence before us or within our reach. Men will not 
 believe what they do not wish to be true. It might be 
 supposed, prior to experience, that no conviction could 
 be more deeply rooted in the human heart than that 
 all men must die. The Word of God distinctly and 
 emphatically declares it. The constant and uniform 
 experience of mankind confirms it, and yet there are 
 few who practically believe it in aj)plication to them- 
 selves. While no sane man can dispute a truth so pal- 
 pable, all tacitly except themselves from its operation, 
 or make their admission so vague and indeterminate 
 that it amounts to a practical denial. 
 
 And next in prevalence to that incredulity which will 
 not admit the thought of dying ourselves, is that which 
 refuses to believe it possible that those to whom we 
 fondly cling, or whose lives seem to us most necessary, 
 can die. But no exception will be made to the common 
 lot of humanity, whether for us individually, or for 
 those whom we deem most essential, or for whom we 
 would plead most earnestly that they might be spared. 
 No exception will be made even for the sake of God's own 
 cause in the world. Its staunchest defenders and most 
 strenuous promoters must in their tui'u succumb to the 
 
6 
 
 same fate with the rest of men. God's own chosen and 
 honored instruments are taken away, regardless of the 
 interests bound up in their life, and of the warm affec- 
 tions and fond hopes which have clustered about them. 
 The great Architect lays his hands with seeming vio- 
 lence on the pillars of the house which he is himself 
 erecting, as though reckless of the extent to which its 
 beauty and stability might be marred by their removal. 
 
 The prophets did not live forever. They served each 
 his generation by the will of God, then fell succes- 
 sively asleep. The Lord Jesus himself submitted to the 
 stroke of death ; his sacred abode on earth amounted to 
 no more than the bare averas-e of human life. And in 
 the prospect of his departure he said to his amazed and 
 sorrowing disciples, " It is expedient for you that I go 
 away." After this, for whom shall we expect or solicit 
 exemption? This rivets the absolute universality of 
 the law of death. The conqueror of the king of terrors 
 himself was obliged to pass through the portals of the 
 grave ; and he leads the whole of his victorious host 
 through the same gloomy passage. 
 
 The best and the holiest, the most honored and the 
 most useful, fulfil their appointed term, then pass from 
 the stao-e of life undistin2:uished from the common herd. 
 The gi'eat leveller lays his unsparing hand with frightful 
 impartiality on all. The servants of God are cut down 
 in the prime of life, or when they are just budding into 
 usefulness, or, like our venerated father recently laid to 
 rest, they come to their grave in full age like as a shock 
 of corn Cometh in his season. 
 
 ^nd now the marvel is, that of such frail and perish- 
 able materials Christ builds his church, against which, 
 he has declared, the gates of hell shall never prevail. 
 When men build for immortality, they select the most 
 
enduring materials they can find, and compact tliem 
 together in a rigid, unyielding mass. And yet their 
 efforts are mocked by wasting time. Their proudest 
 structures crumble into dust. Their monuments are 
 heaps of ruins given over to decay. But when God 
 would rear an earthly temple to his praise, that shall last 
 as long as the sun and moon endure, he chooses for the 
 purpose what is and remains transient and fieeting, 
 whose apt emblem is the vanishing cloud and the 
 fading flower. Of all the living stones that at present 
 compose the church of God on earth, there is not one 
 which must not shortly be removed, leaving an un- 
 sightly gap, unless another shall be fitted to its place. 
 There is not one particle in the entire structure that is 
 permanent ; not one that shall be suffered to continue. 
 The whole body of materials, out of which it has been 
 WTOught, is in constant flux. How can aught that is 
 stable be so constructed ? What is there to assure us 
 that it shall not suddenly crumble into atoms or vanish 
 out of sight ? In spite of any apj)arent strength it may 
 have gained, how can any confidence be reposed in its 
 perpetuity? Is it not, from its very constitution, inher- 
 ently unsubstantial ? If, like the rainbow, it needs to 
 be every moment^ renewed, what matters it though it 
 may have extended its beautiful arch until it spans the 
 sky, and its base seems to be firmly planted on the 
 ground ? May it not be similarly short-lived, and melt 
 away, even while we gaze admiringly upon it ? 
 
 If there were any exceptions <to this changing 
 and perishable nature of the constituents of God's 
 great edifice, our faith might be less sorely tried. 
 If only the divine Corner-stone himself, on which 
 the whole reposes, had but remained visibly in the 
 world. Or, if when the Master himself withdrew, 
 
lie had committed to angels wlio are not subject 
 to death, the work of maintaining and promoting his 
 cause on earth as long as the world stands. Or if, 
 making men his agents, he had exempted his own peo- 
 ple from the common law of mortality, so that every 
 stone built into this structure might stand where he 
 had placed it, to the end of time, and each accession 
 might be so much actual and permanent increase, 
 instead of being merely a temporary addition, which 
 would soon go to swell the magnitude of antecedent 
 losses, that there might be nothing to countervail. 
 Or, if at least apostles and prophets might live forever; 
 if there might be something that was permanent; some 
 buttress that need not fall nor crumble to decay ; some 
 portion of the materials that could abide fixed and 
 defy the ravages of time, it might assist our faith. 
 
 But when we look ujDon the church of God in the 
 world, as it actually is, made up of dying men ; and see 
 its gallant defenders mown down in their ranks, and 
 know of a surety that the lapse of a single generation 
 will carry all that now compose the church to their 
 graves, what is there to prevent the anxious fear, that 
 she, too, may experience the same fate which has over- 
 taken or is destined to overtake all that is merely 
 human ? What is there to forbid the apprehension that 
 she may not be able to sustain this constant waste, to 
 repair this incessant damage, to make up these never- 
 ending losses, and she, too, may in consequence fall 
 into ultimate decay? 
 
 There would be less room for ai^prehension if the 
 church of God in the world were sustained and ex- 
 tended by miracle, and the human means and agen- 
 cies employed had only a seeming, not a real value 
 and efficiency. I am not sure but the confidence we 
 
9 
 
 think we entertain of the perpetuity and progress of 
 God's earthly kingdom is sometimes built on this 
 unsubstantial foundation; and what we flatter our- 
 selves is faith in the unftiiling word of promise, may 
 be a presumptuous hope built on a mistake and a delu- 
 sion. The old Docetse imagined that the body of 
 Christ was but a phantasm ; that it existed in appear- 
 ance only, not in fact ; that it was not an actual material 
 organization, but only seemed to be; it was not real 
 flesh and blood, needing to be sustained by nutriment, 
 and subject to the ordinary law^s of life and growth, 
 but the mere vail or cover of the divinity within. I am 
 not sure but we sometimes revive this ancient heresy in 
 application to Christ's mystical body, withdrawing it to 
 an unwarranted extent from the laws and the condi- 
 tions of its earthly existence, forgetting that, though 
 it is the habitation of God through the Sj)irit, it is pos- 
 sessed of a true humanity, its members are still men 
 like other men, and the laws of our ordinary human 
 nature are not, in their case, and will not be, for their 
 sake, altered or suspended. The efficiency of its opera- 
 tions depends upon the judicious adaptation of means 
 to ends, and the energetic employment of the agencies 
 requisite to attain results, just as truly as in the case of 
 any purely human organization. If we imagine that, in 
 some unexplained, mysterious way, the immediate opera- 
 tion of God will supply the defect of human instrumen- 
 talities, or do away with the necessity of human activity 
 and effort, Ave are laboring under a delusion. If, when 
 the Lord's prophets die, and good men are taken away, 
 we remain unaffected, because we do not appreciate the 
 ma2:nitude of the loss which his cause has suflered in 
 their withdrawal, this does not so much evidence our 
 strength of faith as show that we do not see the occa- 
 sion that there is for the exercise of faith. 
 
10 
 
 While it is a blessed trutli that God is carrying on 
 his own work in the church and in the world, and that 
 he may be relied upon to secure its ultimate comple- 
 tion, and that we cannot expect too much from this 
 omnipotent cooperation, if only its nature be rightly 
 apprehended, it is nevertheless a possible, and perhaps 
 a common error, to take too exclusive or one-sided a 
 view of the divine agency in this matter, without pay- 
 ins; due reo;ard to the method of God's workins:, and the 
 laws which he has prescribed for his own supernatural 
 acting. Paul may j)lant, and Apollos water, but it is 
 God who gives the increase. It does not, however, 
 follow from this, that the increase ^vill come as well 
 without planting and watering as with it ; or that 
 unskilful, unseasonable, or scanty planting will be fol- 
 lowed by the same returns as that which is properly 
 performed ; or that Paul was no more efficient in his 
 Masters cause than a less highly endowed or less 
 devoted workman would have been. God will not 
 act, even in building up his own kingdom in the world, 
 without human instrumentality, and this will be made 
 efficient in direct proportion to its adaptation to the 
 end desired and to the skill and energy with which it 
 is employed. 
 
 The mystical body of Christ comes as truly under 
 the operation of those laws by which the world is gov- 
 'Crned as did his material body. Its growth may be 
 advanced or retarded. It is liable to injury, mutila- 
 tion, disease, and death. There will be no miraculous 
 intervention to suspend these laws in favor of the one 
 any more than there was in the case of the other. 
 Unless the seed of the word is sown, there wdll be no 
 iniratherins: of converts. If the means of c^race are not 
 em2)loyed, and the agencies of evangelization are not 
 
11 
 
 made use of, the Gospel will not make progress among 
 men. 
 
 When gallant champions fall, the cause which they 
 defended suffers, and there is no mao-ic or enchant- 
 ment to repair the loss. It can only be done by new 
 zeal or fresh enlistments. If, wdien the leader is slain, 
 his followers, instead of suffering themselves to be 
 intimidated or driven back, shall be roused by it to 
 deeds of yet more desperate valor, they may convert dis- 
 aster into victory. And if this church shall be stirred 
 up, by the removal of one who has for so many years 
 spoken to you the word of God, to pay more earnest 
 heed to those counsels which you shall hear from his 
 lips no more, maintain a closer walk with God and be 
 more active in doing his will, he will not have died in 
 vain. 
 
 And if my brother, the successor of this man of God 
 in ministering in these sacred courts, shall catch the 
 inspiration which such nearness to eternity should give; 
 and if the ministerial associates of our venerated father 
 in this town, in the presbytery and elsewhere, shall heed 
 the providential warning, which calls them to greater 
 diligence, as the day is waning fast, it will be as when 
 Elijah was caught up in the chariot of fire, but a double 
 portion of his spirit rested on him who was left behind. 
 
 And when men of God are falling thus on the right 
 hand and the left; when fathers and brethren beloved 
 and honored are summoned away from their work to 
 their reward ; when the intelligence comes, with start- 
 ling frequency, of missionaries abroad and ministers at 
 home dropping into their graves, while the Macedonian 
 cry from a perishing world waxes louder and louder, 
 are there none to spring to the rescue ? none who will 
 volunteer to swell the thinning ranks of the soldiers of 
 
12 
 
 tlie cross, and, animated by love for Christ and love for 
 dying men, will consecrate themselves upon the altar of 
 Grod to the work of winning souls for Jesus ? Who is 
 there here that will be baptized for the dead ? "Who 
 will fill the breach that the fell shaft of the destroyer 
 has made ? Who will say, Lord, here am I, send me ? 
 
 Or, once more, the constant draft which death is 
 making upon the materials and resources of the church 
 might awaken less anxiety, if any natural means existed 
 or could be devised of providing a fresh supply, adequate 
 to meet or overcome it. This is, in fact, the normal 
 condition of organic life. The composition of all living 
 organisms is subjected to a constant process of excretion 
 and incorporation. There is no part of our bodies but 
 is undergoing continual change. Xot a moment passes 
 that this process of waste and repair is not going for- 
 ward. Every beat of the heart, every breath marks a 
 fresh removal of the old, a fresh accession of the new. 
 Stop this process, and life is destroyed. Stagnation is 
 death. To suj^ply this constant waste, inseparable from 
 vitality in material organizations, nature has appointed 
 food. For each has been provided an. abundant sup- 
 ply of its own a23j)i'opriate nutriment. We accordingly 
 see without alarm that every organ, every member of 
 our bodies is momentarily losing, or casting away the 
 substance of which it is composed ; that their present 
 constituents are wasting with the rapidity and certainty 
 of sands dropping through the hour-glass, because we 
 have in the food within our reach the means of their con- 
 stant and ample repair. Dej)rive us of our needed 
 aliment, and we must die of inanition. 
 
 And so with organizations of men. The individuals 
 of which they are composed are removed by death ; but 
 if they are founded on a principle which makes its 
 
13 
 
 secure appeal to the native passions and propensities of 
 men, they possess an inherent force which will gather 
 others around them, and thus perpetuate themselves 
 from age to age. Empires founded on force, by inflam- 
 ing the ambition of rulers and the popular love of 
 glory, may continue to extend their conquests and 
 to strengthen their dominion generation after genera- 
 tion. Governments intrenched in the affections of the 
 people may grow in power as time advances. False 
 religions, which offer the semblance of satisfaction to 
 man's inward cravings, while they impose no restraint 
 upon the evil passions of the heart, may maintain a 
 lasting sway. 
 
 But the religion of the Gospel meets no such 
 response from the corrupt nature of man. It is 
 just what he needs; but it is not what he loves. 
 The natural heart arrays itself against it. It is a 
 hard saying to be required to forsake the world, to 
 deny one's self and take up the cross, to crucify the 
 flesh with its affections and lusts. Some, as they hear 
 it, are filled with bitterness ; others go away sorrowful. 
 With all the light and truth and glory of the Gospel, 
 not a human soul would ever be won to it by his native 
 inclinations. The corrupt heart can not of itself rise to 
 God. There is no inward force that can counteract its 
 gravitation downward. Human nature can not reform 
 itself The notion that it can, involves the self contradic- 
 tion of the perpetual motion. A weight can not lift itself, 
 nor a machine be self-propelled. The forces of nature 
 can not rise above nature, nor impart a life, the elements 
 of which it does not contain. No man can convert 
 himself; nor can any agencies or methods, which man 
 can originate or devise, quicken liim who is dead in tres- 
 passes and sins. 
 
14 
 
 What is there, then, to prevent the church from 
 dying out in a generation ? And when the Lord's 
 prophets die, and good men are taken away, must not 
 each departure be the presage of approaching dissolu- 
 tion to the body of which they have been a part ? a 
 fresh breach in an already tottering wall, that must 
 soon and inevitably crumble to its base ? 
 
 The answer is found in the immediate context of 
 the passage before us : ^' Your fathers, where are they ? 
 and the prophets, do they live forever ? But my 
 words and my statutes, which I commanded my ser- 
 vants the prophets, did they not take hold of your 
 fathers?" The prophets die, but the word of the 
 Lord endureth forever. And that word has an undy- 
 ing, unfailing efficacy. It took hold of your fathers, 
 and it took hold of you, as it was proclaimed by God's 
 servant now gone to his rest. It shall take hold of 
 every successive generation till time shall be no more. 
 All shall exemplify or experience its almighty energy. 
 There is a power attending the word of God and its 
 faithful proclamation to achieve the mightiest results. 
 
 The devoted minister of Christ wields an influence 
 among his fellow-men, the contemplation of which fills 
 me with awe. It is not to be measured by any ordi- 
 nary standard. It can not be adequately estimated by 
 computing his effectiveness in public discourse, his fac- 
 ulty of instructing, persuading, impressing, convincing 
 his hearers ; nor by recounting his qualities as a man, 
 the excellence of his character with the moral weight 
 thence derived, or those personal traits which give in- 
 fluence over others. All these gather their chief im- 
 portance in his case from their subordination to some- 
 thing vastly higher, from their being taken into the 
 service and made the vehicles of that which is the 
 
15 
 
 errand distinction of the sacred office. The minister 
 of Christ is the ambassador of God to men, beseeching 
 them in his Master's name to be reconciled to Him, treat- 
 ing with them on matters of infinite concern. And he 
 is not only thus commissioned from above to expound 
 the will of God by uttering the words which the Lord 
 has put in his mouth, but his is the awful, the myste- 
 rious prerogative of being an organ through whom 
 God exerts his almighty power, a medium of the com- 
 munication of divine, supernatural grace. 
 
 Superstition has clothed the ministers of religion 
 with mysterious powers, and ignorantly fancied them to 
 possess prerogatives never intrusted to mortal hands. 
 And yet all that superstition has been able to invent, 
 instead of exaggerating, falls below the greatness of 
 the reality. They are instruments in the hand of 
 Christ, which Christ employs, through which Christ 
 acts in achieving the salvation of men. Their minis- 
 trations in public and in private are means of grace, 
 channels through which the gracious power of God 
 flows down to men. Their words of warning, or of 
 entreaty, or of consolation, or of instruction are accom- 
 panied by the energy of the Holy Ghost, and by him 
 made effectual to the conviction and conversion of sin- 
 ners and to the edification of them that truly believe. 
 It is theirs instrumentally to bring men to the know- 
 ledge of God and reconciliation with him, to lead them 
 to the forgiveness of sins, to communion and a holy 
 walk with their Creator and Redeemer, and to the 
 immortal bliss of heaven^ 
 
 This omnipotent, saving energy is imparted in con- 
 nection with the ordinances of religion. It is not put 
 forth apart from the divinely instituted means of grace, 
 and is chiefly joined with their administration by the 
 
16 
 
 living ministry. It is by the foolishness of preaching 
 God saves them that believe. Even the written word 
 apart from preaching produces comparatively small 
 results. It is the Gospel as preached that is princi- 
 pally made efficacious to the salvation of men. It is 
 the preaching of the Gospel that is the main hope of 
 the church and of the world. This it is, which, by the 
 attendant power of God and his converting grace, must 
 preserve the church from extinction, when those who 
 now constitute its membership are laid low. This it 
 is, which shall ultimately make the Gospel every- 
 where triumphant and accomplish the conversion of 
 the world. 
 
 The Lord's prophets do not live for ever, but the 
 fruit w^hich they bring forth shall remain, of souls re- 
 deemed from death, of the institutions of religion 
 planted and sustained, of agencies for good set in 
 operation, whose influence shall widen and increase 
 until the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the 
 Lord, as the waters covers the sea. 
 
 I say again, my thoughts are filled with awe as I 
 reflect upon the greatness of the power committed to 
 the minister of Christ, and the mao-nitude of the func- 
 tions with w^hich he is intrusted. I am struck with 
 awe as I reflect upon what is comprehended in that 
 ministry of four-and-foi-ty years, which has been so 
 recently terminated. What results have flowed from 
 it for time and for eternity ! What interests connected 
 with the kingdom of Christ were bound up in it ! 
 Who can tell the bearings aaid the issues of such a 
 ministry, or estimate them at their real worth ? Forty- 
 four years spent in regularly preaching the word of 
 God week by week in this place ! How many minds 
 were brought permanently or occasionally under its 
 
17 
 
 influence, whose course in life, wliose destiny through- 
 out eternity has been moulded by it ? How many 
 souls converted of which the books of this church con- 
 tain no record ? How many sorrowing hearts have 
 here been comforted, the hesitating confirmed, the 
 straying led back to the path of piety and peace, the 
 timid encouraged, the despairing relieved, the tempted 
 set free from- Satan's snares ? How many have been 
 stimulated to a more active faith and a more devoted 
 "life ? How many have come dejected and cast down 
 to these sacred courts, have here recovered strength, 
 and have gone away rejoicing in hope ? How many 
 have there been, whose hearts have burned within 
 them during the breaking of bread or the exposition 
 of the Scriptures ? How many are now in heaven who 
 look back with inexpressible emotions upon impres- 
 sions received or sanctuary privileges enjoyed in the 
 course of this ministry of almost half a century ? Eter- 
 nity alone can disclose it. The experiences of eternity 
 alone can enable us to comprehend its magnitude or 
 its worth. 
 
 Kev. JoHis- Geay, D.D., was born December, 1798, 
 in the County of Monaghan, in the north of Ireland. 
 Deprived of a mother's care at an early age, he was 
 taken to the residence of his maternal grandfather, 
 who lived near the beautiful and romantic village of 
 Clontiberit. Here he was kindly cared for by a pious 
 and devoted Christian grandmother, and received, to- 
 gether with religious training, as good an education as 
 the little village school could afford. He afterward 
 attended the grammar school taught by the Rev. Mr. 
 Stewart, who subsequently removed to this coimtry 
 and died in Philadelphia several years ago. When 
 prepared for college, he was sent to the University of 
 
 2 
 
18 
 
 Glasgow, in which celebrated seat of learning he re- 
 mained for some time. Subsequently he attended the 
 theological lectures of the distinguished Dr. John Dick. 
 
 While still young, Mr. Gray was licensed by the 
 Presbytery of Monaghan, and preached as a proba- 
 tioner in various vacant congregations. But provi- 
 dentially meeting with the Eev. Duncan Dunbar, an 
 agent of a missionary society in the province of New- 
 Brunswick, a new direction was given to his thoughts, 
 and he was induced to emigrate to America. He was 
 married on the 8th day of October, 1820, and on the 
 day following, accompanied by his bride, he bade 
 adieu to his native land forever. They sailed from 
 Londonderry in the ill-fated Halifax, Captain Craig, 
 bound for New- York, which port she never reached. 
 For more than six long months they were tossed about 
 on the bosom of the stormy Atlantic. They suffered 
 hunger and cold, sickness, the fear of death, and the 
 dread of mutiny among the crew. At length, after 
 narrowly escaping shipwreck, they were safely landed 
 upon the island of Bermuda. Here they remained 
 three weeks, when they once more embarked and again 
 encountered storms. By the good providence of God, 
 however, they arrived in the province of New-Bruns- 
 wick, where Mr. Gray preached for about eighteen 
 months. But finding the climate too cold, he left for 
 the United States. Upon arriving in New- York, he 
 joined himself to the Seceder Church, which was just 
 about uniting with the Presbyterian body, and came 
 over with it into the denomination in which he labored 
 and died. 
 
 By a series of events, apparently fortuitous, he was 
 led to this place, where he spent the remainder of his 
 life. Easton was at that time a comparatively small 
 
19 
 
 town. The Presbyterian Cliurcli had been organized 
 about ten years before by the Presbytery of New- 
 Brunswick. The number of its members had increased 
 from thirty to seventy, in connection with the faithful 
 labors of Rev. Mr. Boyer and Rev. David Bishop, who 
 were successively stationed here as stated supplies. 
 They had originally worshipped in the old court-house, 
 which used to stand in the square in the centre of the 
 town. From that they removed to this building, w^hich 
 was at first a small structure, but has since, by three 
 successive enlargements, grown to its present dimen- 
 sions. The weekly evening lectures were held in the 
 academy, until, upon the first enlargement of the church, 
 they were transferred to its basement, where they con- 
 tinued until the erection of the separate and commo- 
 dious building now in use for that purpose. The only 
 other churches then in the town were the Episcopal 
 and the German Reformed, the latter being occupied 
 by both the German Reformed and Lutheran congre- 
 gations. 
 
 Dr. Gray was invited to preach in Easton in the 
 month of September, 1822, and was ordained on the 
 3d of the following December by the Presbytery of 
 Newton. After ministering to the congregation for 
 six years as stated supply, he received a unanimous 
 call to be their pastor, and was installed on the 8th of 
 October, 1828. Few pastorates have been so prolonged 
 as this was. During his residence here every church 
 in this place, not excepting those most recently estab- 
 lished, have changed their pastors, some of them sev- 
 eral times. He ministered to this congregation in all 
 forty-four years and four months, during Avhich period 
 he admitted to the church eleven hundred and sixty- 
 one members, baptized nine hundred and fifty-three 
 
persons, and married ^ve liuudred and nineteen 
 couples. 
 
 It had been his cherished desire to die with his 
 harness on in the active discharge of his ministerial 
 duties. His health became so enfeebled, however, in 
 the spring of 1866, as to disable him from the full per- 
 formance of his parochial functions, and Rev. M. A. 
 Depue was appointed his assistant. Upon the re- 
 moval of the latter to Boston, Dr. Gray, whose health 
 continued to decline, felt himself constrained, by his 
 growing infirmities, to resign his office as pastor of the 
 church. He took final leave of the people of his charge 
 on the first Sabbath of April, 1867, in a very solemn 
 and affecting communication, from which I can not for- 
 bear makino; the followino; extract : 
 
 ^^ As pastor and people we shall never meet again, 
 and if, in my long pastorate, I have said an unwise 
 word, or done a work which was not meet, I recall the 
 one and regret the other, and it shall be my effort and 
 prayer to bring all that has been amiss in word and 
 work, and lay them beneath the drippings of the spear 
 and the nails and the thorns, asking nothing from you 
 while living but Christ, and when this frail body shall 
 be prepared by death for my burial, that, like Stephen 
 of old, the devout men that I have taught, may bear 
 me to earth's last resting-place. 
 
 " Brethren, friends, farewell ! Meet me at the judg- 
 ment-seat, for I may no more meet you at this mercy- 
 seat, much as we might desire it." To that judgment- 
 seat he has now gone, and you must shortly follow. 
 May there be none who have heard the word of life 
 and of salvation from his lips, against whom he shall 
 be obliged to appear as a swift witness on that day, 
 and whose shall be a dreadful doom, aggravated by the 
 
21 
 
 neglect of privileges here so long and so abundantly 
 enjoyed. 
 
 " What family in this congregation," he adds, " have 
 I not rejoiced with in their joy, and mourned with 
 in their sorrow?" I can well imagine the response 
 which appeals like these must awaken in the breasts 
 of those who are here present. For I am a sharer in 
 your grief. I, too, have sat in these pews and listened 
 Sabbath after Sabbath to that voice now hushed in 
 death — nay, rather, which is vocal with praises before 
 the throne. Here my grandparents worshipped. This 
 sainted man of God joined my father and my mother 
 in marriage and gave them his blessing. He baptized 
 me. Under his ministry I first, as I trusted, gave my 
 heart to the Redeemer of lost sinners. Here, in front 
 of this sacred desk, I first uttered the solemn vow, in 
 the presence of the Lord's people, that I would live 
 for God. From his hands I have received the symbols 
 of a dying Saviour's body and blood. He has coun- 
 selled me and prayed with me. I have seen him in 
 the house of affliction. He has ministered at the burial 
 of those whom I cherished and loved. I can well im- 
 agine, then, the ties which were ruptured, and the 
 shock which was experienced in this church, and in 
 this community, when the fact was known that Dr. 
 Gray was no more. 
 
 His solicitude for this beloved church never ceased 
 while he lived. Its welfare had been the one care and 
 labor of his life. It lay upon his heart to the last. 
 He could scarcely talk of any thing else, and he often 
 spoke of it with tears. The unanimity with which his 
 successor was chosen, and the cordial welcome extended 
 to him, was a source of great gratification, to which he 
 frequently referred. He said, not long before his death. 
 
22 
 
 that he had often prayed that he might see the church 
 united and harmoniously settled, and since this prayer 
 had been answered, he could say with aged Simeon, 
 " Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace." 
 The period covered by the life of your venerated 
 pastor, is one marked by rapid progress and by great 
 events in the church and in the world. It covers the 
 rise of the great benevolent agencies and mission en- 
 terprises of Protestantism and of this country — Bible 
 societies, tract societies, and missionary societies. It 
 embraces almost the entire life of this nation, from the 
 formation of the American Constitution, with the won- 
 derful development of this country in population, re- 
 sources, and power. It is the period, too, of the growth 
 of the American churches. The minutes of the Gene- 
 ral Assembly in 1822, re]Dort seven dollars as the 
 total amount of the contributions made by this church 
 during the year to the cause of missions. You know 
 how that compares with what you have been doing 
 since, and what you are doing now. The cause of 
 education has taken immense strides. Institutions of 
 learning are multiplying, becoming more amply en- 
 dowed, and provided with more numerous and effi- 
 cient corps of instructors. Your own college, of which 
 Dr. Gray was for thirteen years a trustee, and in whose 
 recent prosperity none rejoiced more heartily than he, 
 is an example before your eyes, with its rapidly swell- 
 ing, though still uncompleted endowment, its expanding 
 dimensions, its enlarged faculty, and its growing num- 
 ber of students. Facilities of intercommunication by 
 steam and telegraph, traversing the continents and belt- 
 ing the oceans, are preparing the way for the more rapid 
 and vigorous spread of the Gospel by setting Christen- 
 dom in tnore efficient contact with the unevangelized 
 
world. Gospel principles of freedom have been mak- 
 ing their way over the earth, leavening the nations, 
 upheaving the masses, breaking down prescriptive privi- 
 leges, and undermining venerable systems of falsehood 
 and error. Slavery has fallen with a crash, from the 
 shock and dust of which we have not yet recovered. 
 The hearts of God's people are yearning for a closer 
 unity of organization, and increased harmony of action 
 and effort, of Avhich we have recently had some most 
 surprising and delightful manifestations. When we 
 review what has occurred in the last seventy years, it 
 seems impossible to persuade ourselves that all this 
 can have taken place within the compass of a single 
 human life. What the next seventy years may bring 
 forth it would be vain to conjecture. Some of those 
 who have waited on the ministry of this revered man 
 of God, may be spared to see more wonderful changes 
 yet than this, which shall betoken yet more clearly 
 the triumphs of the Prince of Peace and the establish- 
 ment of the kingdoiji of heaven amongst men. 
 
 God led his aged servant peacefully and gently 
 down to his final rest. The closing scene was peace, 
 perfect peace. There was not a struggle, not a groan, 
 not one parting pang, but softly, sweetly, calmly, he 
 fell asleep, and so passed away to heaven. The change 
 for which he had been tranquilly waiting and submis- 
 sively longing, came at length, as he had prayed that 
 it might, in the bosom of his own family and in a most 
 merciful form. On the evening of Thursday, the 9th 
 of January^ he retired to his rest apparently as usual. 
 But from that sleep, though peaceful as the slumber 
 of a babe upon its mother's breast, he scarcely again 
 awoke. During the few moments that he was roused 
 to consciousness, portions of the Psalms were read to 
 
24 
 
 liim by different members of bis family, and be seemed 
 to be trying to articulate, in broken accents, tbe prom- 
 ises of tbe word of God. Tbe last coberent words 
 tbat be uttered were, " Tbe Lord is my salvation." At 
 ten minutes before tbree o'clock on Sabbatb afternoon, 
 January 12tb, be breatbed bis last. Let me die tbe 
 deatb of tbe rigbteous, and let my last end be like bis.