y 
 
 
®Itc (Connection of Conflict with Resting 
 
 A 
 
 DISCOURSE 
 
 DELIVERED IN WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, BUFEALO, 
 APRIL 10, 1864, 
 
 THE SABBATH NEXT AFTER THE BURIAL OF 
 
 AARON RUMSEY, Esq. 
 
 BY JOEL F. BINGHAM, 
 
 PASTOR OF THE CONGREGATION. 
 
 “ For as a Prince hast thou power with God and with men and hast prevailed." 
 
 BUFFALO: 
 
 FRANKLIN STEAM PRINTING HOUSE. 
 
 THOMAS, TYPOGRAPHER. 
 
 1864. 
 

 B ' 
 
 
 
 
 
At a meeting of the Session of Westminster Church, Buf- 
 falo, held April 11th, 1864, the following resolutions were 
 adopted : 
 
 Whereas , It has pleased our Heavenly Father to remove from this 
 world, as we trust, to a better our greatly honored and beloved 
 associate, Aaron Rumsey, Esq., therefore, in token of our respect and 
 affection for his memory and our gratitude for his fidelity aud great 
 services to this church and people, 
 
 Resolved , That we desire to record our unspeakable sorrow at 
 this afflictive event, by which this Session is deprived of the sym- 
 pathy and counsels of an amiable, pious and influential member, by 
 which this church loses one of her strongest pillars and the cause of 
 Christ at large and this whole community is sensibly bereaved. 
 
 Resolved , That we trust, however, the wisdom and goodness of 
 that Providence whose dispensations cannot err and gratefully own 
 our debt to Divine mercy for the gift of such a man and for 
 continuing him a blessing among us for so many years. 
 
 Resolved, That while we shall fondly cherish his memory in our 
 hearts as an incomparable friend and a mighty man in affairs, we 
 shall be comforted by the confidence that our loss is his immeasur- 
 able gain and that while we miss his presence and labors here 
 below, he is doing nobler service in the presence of his Lord on 
 high. 
 
 Resolved, That we tender our most affectionate condolence to the 
 bereaved family, praying that the God of all comfort may solace 
 them in this day of trial and lead them gently and safely on to a 
 glorious meeting with the husband and father who has gone before. 
 
 Resolved, That the discourse of our Pastor preached yesterday 
 afternoon bearing reference to the life and struggles of the deceased 
 is a truthful delineation of his character and a deserved tribute to 
 his great worth; that it has comforted us in our bereavement; that 
 we deem it calculated to do good by inspiring others to imitate 
 such an example; and that with the permission of its author it be 
 printed for private distribution. 
 
 Resolved, That these resolutions be entered on our records; that 
 they be printed in connection with the funeral discourse; and that 
 a copy be presented to the family of the deceased. 
 
 H. PARMELEE, 
 
 Clerk of Session. 
 
 f 31280 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/connectionofconfOObing 
 
DISCOURSE. 
 
 I HAVE FOUGHT A GOOD FIGHT. — II. TIMOTHY, IV. 7 . 
 
 The necessity to fight even in behalf of a 
 good cause cannot be, in itself considered, the 
 best condition of existence. We instinctively 
 feel that quiet possession and peaceful enjoy- 
 ment are essential constituents of a state of 
 complete ideal good. Then, too, the most jus- 
 tifiable struggle may be conducted in such a 
 way as to become a wretched and dishonora- 
 ble encounter. But if the conflict is inevita- 
 ble, if the struggle must come, then, the fight 
 becomes good according to the manner in which 
 it is pursued and the results which it is com- 
 petent to attain. Prowess, skill and especially 
 success make of the inevitable conflict a good 
 fight. Under these circumstances, it becomes 
 
6 
 
 at least a deliverance from defeat and from 
 danger ; and it may become the strait yet feli- 
 citous entrance upon a superior field of exist- 
 ence and one that is worth more than the toil 
 which it cost. The life-long conflict of Saint 
 Paul was in all respects such a conflict. 
 Whether we look at the cause for which 
 he struggled, or the zeal with which he con- 
 tended, or the results which he had already 
 gained and still more those which will eter- 
 nally follow, we feel that he had a right to 
 say, “I have fought a good fight” 
 
 It is true that Saint Paul was called to a vari- 
 ety of struggles from which the great majori- 
 ties of Christian men are now exempt. There 
 is less fierceness and terror to be encountered 
 now in u contending for the faith once deliv- 
 ered to the saints;” or, at least, the forms of 
 resistance have been greatly modified, since the 
 day when he and his brethren met the persecu- 
 tions of the wicked and fought the good fight, 
 “resisting even unto blood.” 
 
 But there are three great aspects still in 
 which this triumphant declaration was no more 
 true of Saint Paul, than it will be found true, or 
 fail to be found true, in the case of every 
 
human life. For there are three great, inevi- 
 table battle-fields upon which every man, espe- 
 cially every Christian man, is brought, where 
 he is put to the hazard of defeat and at the 
 same time presented with the opportunity of 
 winning a victory and entering into a posses- 
 sion of its honorable rewards. 
 
 T. To begin at the beginning, physical life 
 itself is one protracted battle with death . Ex- 
 istence here below we hold as a kind of dis- 
 puted possession which is ours only while we 
 are able successfully to defend the frail cita- 
 del of mortality and to keep at bay the 
 besieging forces of the enemy. All our years 
 and all our health we clutch, as it were, a tem- 
 porary conquest, wrested from an army of 
 fleshly ills and maintained against the steadily 
 advancing tread of time. But while it is un- 
 alterably true that we come into the world in 
 bodies of mortality and are put at once upon 
 the struggle against terrible odds, yet the 
 space and the value of the activity which is 
 even thus proposed to us does not stand alto- 
 gether unalterable. It is true that the day of 
 physical surrender must come ; but, feeble and 
 straitened as the resources of human infirmity 
 
8 
 
 look, and really are, it is not true that no 
 efforts of wisdom, or resolution, will avail to 
 enlarge the boundaries of effective existence. 
 It is not true that all the actual sufferings and 
 incapacities of our damaged race are the inev- 
 itable result of a hopeless, iron-handed mor- 
 tality. It is not true that the diseases and 
 catastrophies which sweep multitudes into pre- 
 mature graves are the helpless victories of an 
 irresistible destiny, overriding all possible resist- 
 ance and eluding every possible precaution. 
 It is not true that the entire multitude of lives 
 which are protracted in languishing and anguish, 
 useless to the world and almost worthless to 
 the possessors, are the irreclaimable trophies of 
 certain malign forces of destruction which no 
 human strength, or foresight, can restrain. The 
 truth is that the race is unfaithful to itself. 
 Men are traitors against their own lives. It is 
 amazing how universally the obvious means of 
 protection are abandoned through a shrinking 
 from the cost of exertion, or a recoil from the 
 sacrifice of self-restraint. How far need you 
 walk on any frequented street to fall in with 
 a youthful voluptuary, a gay young man, so 
 called? His step is buoyant, his pulse bounds, 
 
9 
 
 the unspent energies of opening manhood 
 promise every fair and honorable and useful 
 development. But these days of excitement, 
 these nights of debauchery — how long do they 
 precede exhausted vitality, acute disease, pre- 
 mature death — a life thrown away ? How far 
 need you walk on that street of sumptuous 
 dwellings, or how many of those sumptuous 
 dwellings need you enter to find an example 
 of youthful womanhood enfeebled, by indo- 
 lence, or fevered and prostrated by an over- 
 strained pursuit of gaiety and fashion ? How 
 far need you prosecute the search to discover 
 sensibilities damaged, nerves disordered, morbid 
 tastes, discomfort, discontent, disease laying a 
 short stairway into the grave. If you turn 
 from the haunts of luxury and look over the 
 fields of toil, the money and advantages which 
 the former class use to aid them in throwing 
 away their lives the latter throw away their 
 lives to gain. The coveted possession, for the 
 most part, is gold and its fascinating equiva- 
 lents, houses, lands, equipage, stocks, bonds, 
 goods. It may be social position and influ- 
 ence, it may be pleasure. To secure the daz- 
 zling bauble, of whatever variety it be, a man 
 
10 
 
 will subject his body without stint to every 
 extreme of fatigue and of danger. He will 
 brave the heat of the tropics, the frosts of the 
 pole, the malaria of the wilderness. One 
 imprisons himself in his counting-room and, 
 without rest, or abatement, drives on his hur- 
 ried schemes of traffic and adventure, relent- 
 lessly, but no more relentlessly, than the days 
 and months and years are wearing away the 
 possibility of those hopes which he is staking 
 all to realize. The frenzy of enterprise which 
 rages within him steadily strains and proceeds 
 to uproot the foundations of life. Another, as 
 madly bent on an immortality in politics, arts, 
 or letters, wears himself out in superhuman 
 struggles, anxieties, or studies. Another, for 
 gain, or glory, undertakes amazing and per- 
 ilous feats of physical strength, or dexterity, 
 and carelessly sports with the fearful stake. 
 Another, from some temporal, or spiritual 
 whim, denies to his body her necessary com- 
 forts and nourishments and, though it is never 
 spoken, actually dies by self-inflicted cruelty 
 and starvation. Here and there another, from 
 whatever motive, applies the knife, the pistol, 
 the poison, casting away life at a fling, and is 
 
11 
 
 called a suicide. But how much less suicides 
 and criminals are they who, under any pretext, 
 damage, or enfeeble, the body in which God 
 has drafted them to the battle-field of life ! 
 How extensively, then, do the majorities of men 
 prove traitorous to their physical lives ! How 
 feebly, how ignominiously the multitudes of the 
 race fight the battle of life in the body! Yet 
 our bodies are the Lord’s. Our bodies consti- 
 tute the visible soldiery of God on earth with 
 which He proposes to conquer the forces of 
 sin and to alleviate human misery. Our vital 
 energy He condescends to make the recepta- 
 cle of the Holy Ghost, while He commands 
 our strength and directs our efforts. He has 
 employment for every muscle. Every iota of 
 our bodily capacity is needed and summoned 
 to this sacred military service of our Lord. 
 The conflict and the service which He proposes 
 even to this mortal energy is to be rewarded 
 in a world of immortality. So little, therefore, 
 is it a thing to be despised, or neglected, 
 much less to be damaged, or trifled with, till 
 the last blow has been struck for God, the 
 last duty rendered to His cause and the order 
 of discharge has translated the soldier to his 
 
12 
 
 eternal pension in the skies. Nobly did Saint 
 Paul struggle in the flesh, while enduring with 
 an amazing vigor his prodigious exposures ! 
 Every beat of his pulse was husbanded to 
 strike, or to endure, some new blow for the 
 Cross. When he came to take up his martyr 
 crown, an old man, at the end of a long hard 
 service for Christ, yet able still to endure 
 hardness as a good soldier, surely it was no 
 mean triumph of the body for God. 
 
 II. In the next place, it is patent upon the 
 face of society everywhere that character , po- 
 sition, wealth , influence are obtained among 
 men by a struggle and, come as the spoils of 
 a conquest. There is something, it is true, of 
 all this which may come and does come un- 
 sought to a few by the necessary conditions of 
 society and by the sovereign hand of Provi- 
 dence. But there is also much which does not 
 and cannot come in this way. That which 
 comes as an inheritance, or a legacy, wholly 
 from an exterior source and unearned, while it 
 may be solid and brilliant, cannot possibly be 
 so assimilated to the person of its possessor, 
 nor can it possibly constitute a personal quality 
 of the same efficiency and vigor as that which 
 
13 
 
 is, as it were, the very outgrowth of his own 
 life and springs from the peculiar properties of 
 his own individuality. The man whose influ- 
 ence, in whatever sphere, actually exerts the 
 most effective power upon men will not be 
 found to be one who has received his position 
 by birth, or accident, alone, but it is he who 
 has won his place, or, at least, has ratified again 
 his title thereto, by the prowess of his own 
 activity and who assumes it as a conquest 
 which he himself has won. 
 
 Now that differences of station and influence, 
 however acquired, are in any considerable de- 
 gree fraught with equal differences of advan- 
 tage and happiness we do not believe ; nor 
 will we attempt to determine whether it be 
 really better, or more noble, in itself considered, 
 when the springs of sentiment are equally pure 
 and the motives to action are equally earnest, 
 to stand high and strong and to be ever ascend- 
 ing in name and power, than it were to stand 
 upon a lower footing and to move ever evenly 
 forward on the same more humble level. But 
 it is certain, we think, that a temper which is 
 voluntarily satisfied with mediocrity is not the 
 foundation for the best and noblest type of 
 
14 
 
 character, when considered in respect to those 
 relations which are outward and public, and 
 least of all, for a Christian character. It lies in 
 the very nature of martial struggles to foster 
 aspirations to excel; and the Christian life is 
 pre-eminently a moral warfare. It needs the 
 energy, the endurance, the quickening spirit of 
 a sanctified ambition. An ingenuous, aspiring 
 instinct has always been the principle which 
 has led men on to the great, useful, heroic 
 doings of the world — doings to which men of 
 lowlier impulses, however excellent and amiable, 
 could never have risen and which they would 
 never have attempted. The whole life of Saint 
 Paul is one unbroken story of his struggles 
 for superiority. He counsels his brethren to 
 “covet earnestly the best gifts;” and for him- 
 self he could not be content to stand u a whit 
 behind the very chiefest apostles ” and would 
 not be robbed of the pre-eminence of having 
 “labored more abundantly than they all.” It 
 is understood, of course, that all possessions 
 and all attainments must be consecrated to the 
 glory of Christ and the putting forward His 
 cause. But this being assumed and given, we 
 cannot but feel that the battle of life will be 
 
15 
 
 rendered the most glorious by the widest scope 
 and the nearest imitation of this Pauline ambi- 
 tion ; because thus mankind will be the most 
 benefited, piety in the world the most advanced 
 and God and the Redeemer the most glorified. 
 
 III. Finally, every believer in Christ is 
 called to a struggle for the attainment of holi- 
 ness as a preparation for immortality. For 
 though the essential change of temper which 
 translates a man from the kingdom of sin and 
 darkness into that disposition of penitence, piety 
 and prayer which is called the kingdom of God 
 is a work of supernatural grace to which no 
 human struggles, however painful, however pro- 
 tracted, could ever attain ; though regeneration 
 is doubtless the miraculous work of a moment 
 and the conflict between the human will and 
 the Divine may culminate in an instantaneous 
 conversion to God ; though peace of conscience 
 may enter the soul from that blessed moment 
 and flow on unbroken like the river of God ; 
 yet peace of conscience is not identical with a 
 cessation of hostilities in the soul ; and it does 
 not imply that the natural dispositions are 
 completely pacified and subjugated. On the 
 contrary, the good work of grace, however 
 
1G 
 
 genuine, however powerful and controling in 
 the favored soul, is never finished and never 
 brought to a consummation of triumphant re- 
 pose here below ; but the order which Divine 
 mercy has laid down for our spiritual deliver- 
 ance is one of gradual conquest which contem- 
 plates no completion till the soul herself passes 
 into the world of light. In cases like that of 
 the penitent thief on the third cross of Calvary 
 and here and there a death-bed conversion 
 now, the campaign indeed is short ; but we 
 must add, too, it is one of doubtful glory, 
 little to be envied, still less to be hazarded. 
 Our little ones whose brief career has flitted 
 across our -pathway and vanished like a dream 
 have happily escaped the terror and turmoil of 
 this conflict in the soul. They have been ran- 
 somed by blood Divine, while the opportunity of 
 damning unbelief has never been offered them. 
 Hurried away to the arms of that Saviour 
 whom they have never distrusted, or grieved, 
 they have anticipated conversion, outrun the bat- 
 tle of life and entered early into an appointed, 
 peculiar, glorified rest. But while the assurance 
 of their undoubted bliss is a precious solace 
 to the pang of our parental bereavement, it 
 
17 
 
 is a dispensation which stands widely apart 
 from that established course of human renewal 
 which is coupled with a progressive return 
 toward God. The good man’s soul continues 
 to be the theatre of conflicting forces whose 
 varying successes cause for him a burden of 
 constant care and startle him with many an 
 anxious alarm even up to the moment when 
 he closes his eyes on a deceitful world and 
 opens them on the safe, eternal realities of 
 heaven. It is a conflict, we say, from which 
 there is no escape, but that of shameful surren- 
 der and perdition. It is a war in the members 
 from which there is no discharge, but the final 
 dissolution of the body from the soul: Saint Paul 
 has taxed the extremity of language to express 
 the magnitude and intensity of his struggles in 
 the spiritual life. “ I am carnal,” exclaims he, 
 “sold under sin.” “What I would that do I 
 not, but what I hate that do I.” “When I 
 would do good, evil is present with me.” “ I 
 delight in the law of God after the inward 
 man, but I see another law in my members 
 warring against the law of my mind and bring- 
 ing me into captivity to the law of sin which 
 
 is in my members. 0 wretched man that I 
 2 
 
18 
 
 am! who shall deliver me from the body of 
 this death ? ” Even in his later days, in view 
 of the amazing spiritual conquests which had 
 been already won within him, he would only 
 exclaim, u Brethren, I count not myself to have 
 apprehended that for which I have been appre- 
 hended of Christ ; but all I am able to do is 
 to forget that which is behind and give myself 
 wholly to the strife and the hopes of the 
 future. 1 ’ This risk and this struggle, then, are 
 the price of a victor’s joy. “ To him that 
 overcometh,” saith the Master, “ to him that 
 overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of 
 life which is in the midst of the paradise of 
 God.” u He shall not be hurt of the second 
 death.” “I will give him to eat of the hidden 
 manna.” u He shall be clothed with white rai- 
 ment.” “I will give him a white stone and 
 in the stone a new name written which no 
 man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.” “I 
 will make him a pillar in the temple of my 
 God and he shall go no more out ; and I will 
 write upon him the name of my God and the 
 name of the city of my God ; and I will write 
 upon him my new name.” “ He shall inherit 
 all things, I will be his God and he shall be 
 
19 
 
 my son.” “I will grant to him to sit with me 
 in my throne, even as I also overcame and am 
 set down with my Father in his throne.” Oh, 
 who would covet, even the sweet, swift career 
 of the infant of days, in comparison with the 
 scarred conqueror’s eternal reward ? 
 
 The view of life which we have now made 
 to pass before you has been designed to be 
 introductory to what we wish to say of the 
 venerable Christian citizen and officer in this 
 church whose recent departure from this life 
 to a better has left a painful vacancy here and 
 spread a pall over the hearts of this whole 
 community. For every one of you, we think, 
 who has enjoyed the privilege of an acquaint- 
 ance with him must have felt, during the pro- 
 gress of these remarks, how truthfully and ap- 
 propriately our departed friend might have 
 said with the apostle, as he stepped from the 
 stage, u I have fought a good fight.” 
 
 Mr. Rumsey, being among the number of 
 our oldest citizens, of course, was not a native 
 here. When he first opened his eyes upon the 
 world, this city had no existence and this 
 whole vicinity was a wilderness. His first 
 breath was the air of New England; and 
 
20 
 
 there in the midst of its mountains, its morality 
 and its thrift, his early youth was passed. 
 He was born of pious parents, who were in 
 connection with the Baptist denomination, at 
 Hubbardton, Rutland County, Vermont, May 
 6th, 1797, being the eighth of ten children, 
 five sons and five daughters. Two of the 
 younger children, a son and a daughter, died 
 in youth, while the remaining eight, of whom 
 he was the youngest son, all lived to mature 
 years, all became heads of families, all proved 
 decided Christians and all at different times 
 removed from Vermont and settled for life in 
 various parts of this State. 
 
 His father was a tanner and farmer of mod- 
 erate pecuniary means, yet possessed of great 
 simplicity and force of character; and though 
 he could give to his children but little worldly 
 substance for their start in life, he gave them 
 what was better than wealth, and what actu- 
 ally brought more than one of them to wealth, 
 habits of assiduous industry, of a provident 
 thrift and of the strictest honesty. He was a 
 parent after the rigid model of the Pilgrims. 
 If he was somewhat stern and driving and 
 held his family to labor a little more strictly 
 
21 
 
 than necessity seemed to require, it was be- 
 cause he regarded labor as the great safe-guard 
 of virtue, because he was anxious that his 
 children should become habituated to constant 
 and useful employment and was determined, 
 if discipline would do it, that their young 
 energies should be consolidated into the per- 
 petual habit of an active, honest, well-aimed life. 
 This was the type of character which was im- 
 pressed on Mr. Rumsey during his whole child- 
 hood with all the force of a father’s precept, 
 example and authority. 
 
 His mother, too, though she appears to have 
 possessed less of the nerve and fire which was 
 often found in the matrons of those early and 
 hardy times, yet, in the aspect of piety, was a 
 very remarkable woman — remarkable alike for 
 the depth of her religious convictions and for 
 her fidelity in pressing the claims of religion 
 upon the attention of her children. Not only 
 did she set before them the constant example 
 of one who was manifestly living for the ser- 
 vice of God and living more for eternity than 
 for time, but her lips were perpetually drop- 
 ping upon their heads fitly spoken words 
 of warning, exhortation and prayer. To see 
 
22 
 
 them converted to God and to be assured that 
 they would lead lives of religion and useful- 
 ness in the world was the unceasing burden of 
 her soul. It might with truth and emphasis be 
 said that she “travailed in birth again with them 
 daily until Christ should be formed in them.” 
 It is doubtful if a day ever passed in which 
 each of them did not receive from her some 
 word which was designed to draw their hearts 
 from the world and to win them to Christ; 
 and it was an ordinary occurrence with her, 
 taking them one by one, to kneel at her 
 fireside and commend them to God, pleading 
 over them the promises of His grace. How 
 could we expect anything else, but the early 
 conversion and decided Christian character of 
 children who were thus warned and wooed 
 and nurtured for God? 
 
 Mr. Rumsey’s boyhood was thoroughly con- 
 versant with toil. His early years were passed 
 in assisting at his father’s business and in at- 
 tending the district school during three months 
 of the winter. Everywhere his physical prowess 
 was great. In the sports of the school-boys his 
 superior strength coupled with a perpetual flow 
 of exuberant spirits made him always a leader 
 
23 
 
 there, while at home, in the manual employ- 
 ments at which he was engaged with his 
 father’s workmen, he was always facile pr in- 
 ceps at every sort of labor. It is related 
 that his frequent manner was to obtain from 
 his father a certain task, as his portion of the 
 labor in hand, and then turn it off so speedily, 
 as to gain a whole day for himself which 
 he would spend in assisting some neighbor, 
 earning wages for his private purse. Labor 
 was his element, he excelled in it, he enjoyed 
 it and his heart was always as light as the 
 lark’s. 
 
 At the age of twenty, with no other capital 
 than his character and a thorough knowledge 
 of the hereditary trade of his family, he turned 
 his thoughts westward and determined to set- 
 tle at Warsaw, Wyoming County, in this State. 
 The journey of more than four hundred miles 
 he accomplished on foot. Starting from his 
 father’s home, in the month of June, 1817, 
 with a small bundle in his hand which com- 
 prised his whole property, in a little less than 
 three weeks, he arrived, weary and foot-sore, at 
 his destination. On the last day of that jour- 
 ney, an incident occurred which he never for- 
 
24 
 
 got and which, as he often declared, oper- 
 ated throughout his life to render him more 
 thoughtfully gentle and obliging toward the 
 young and the dependent. When but a few 
 miles remained, the thought of finishing his 
 long and tedious travels having excited him 
 to push on with unusual speed, as the day 
 drew to a close, he found himself almost 
 prostrated by fatigue. Just then, a man of 
 respectable appearance and alone happened 
 to be driving past him on the road. The 
 temptation was too strong to be resisted and 
 he asked the favor of a ride, or at least 
 that his bundle might be carried, to a certain 
 place in the next town. But his appearance 
 was against him. He was covered with dust ; 
 he carried his bundle slung from a stick 
 over his shoulder ; his hat was jammed ; 
 and he was staggering with the soreness of 
 his feet and with fatigue. Both his requests 
 were peremptorily and harshly refused. In 
 reciting the story, he has told me that none 
 of his later losses and disappointments, though 
 sometimes involving tens of thousands, have 
 ever affected him with such a pang of morti- 
 fication and discouragement as then smote his 
 
25 
 
 young heart. The stranger, however, was not 
 always to continue a stranger to the dusty, 
 tired lad whom he had so cruelly slighted. 
 He lived to know him, and often to meet 
 him, as one of our leading merchants and 
 wealthiest citizens. The memory of that act, 
 one cannot but believe, brought to its author 
 many an unpleasant reflection, while it inspired 
 the object of it to that life-long vigilance in 
 which we have admired him lending his ever 
 ready sympathy and aid to the needy and the 
 friendless. 
 
 He soon entered into a business partnership 
 with an older brother who had settled in 
 Warsaw several years before. The business 
 was prosecuted successfully here and his affairs 
 began to prosper. Early in the summer of 
 1827, having some years before become united 
 in marriage to the lady who now survives 
 him and having already acquired some worldly 
 substance, he removed his family and his 
 business to Westfield, Chatauqua County, in 
 this State, where pecuniary success still attended 
 him and he steadily accumulated property. It 
 was here that God met him with the irresistible 
 power of His grace. Some time in the winter 
 
26 
 
 of 1830, the Rev. Samuel G. Orton, a man 
 full of faith and prayer who has since become 
 so extensively known in this region and whom 
 so many regard as their spiritual father, labor- 
 ing at that time in the vicinity as an evan- 
 gelist, came to Westfield, while a series of 
 daily religious meetings were in progress there. 
 Discovering, in some way, that Mr. Rumsey 
 was in a state of religious anxiety, he fol- 
 lowed him one evening from the meeting 
 to his house, and, late in the night, conversing 
 with him affectionately and faithfully, became 
 the apparent instrument of bringing him to 
 Christ. His change, from the first, was great 
 and decided. He had passed through at least 
 three powerful revivals in his native town 
 without apparent concern ; during his residence 
 at Warsaw, he had been brought more or 
 less into contact with a revived state of reli- 
 gious feeling without receiving any obvious 
 spiritual impulse ; but, now, God laid hold on 
 him with a power which he could neither evade 
 nor withstand. At the age of thirty-two, he 
 came out for the first time as the friend of 
 Jesus, but he came out prominently, at once, 
 and continued ever after an eminently active 
 
27 
 
 Christian man. While he cherished a life-long 
 sentiment of gratitude toward Mr. Orton, of 
 whom he often spoke and for whom he felt to 
 the last a strong personal affection, he greatly 
 disliked to be called the convert of any man, or 
 to hear any man’s converts spoken of. “I hope,” 
 he would say, “I am a convert of the Lord.” 
 
 He came to reside in this city in 1834, con- 
 necting himself, also, the same year, with the 
 First Presbyterian Church, then under the pas- 
 toral care of Dr. Hopkins. He was always to 
 be found at the week-day lectures and meet- 
 ings for prayer, was always engaged in the 
 Sunday School and, everywhere, was a parti- 
 cipant in every good word and work ; and 
 these qualities, taken in connection with his 
 now large and constantly increasing pecuniary 
 ability, soon made him one of the pillars in that 
 congregation. 
 
 In the autumn of 1835, the declining health 
 of his wife induced him to visit the Southern 
 States of the Union. Here he passed the ensu- 
 ing winter in traveling, for the most part, within 
 the limits of Mississippi and Louisiana, and, in 
 his migratory stay, had much intercourse with 
 the planters. He also spent the winter of 
 
28 
 
 1858-59, for a similar reason, in South Carolina. 
 We think it worthy of notice — and the more so 
 because it has sometimes proved otherwise with 
 Northern men — that his sentiments in the mat- 
 ter of slavery underwent no essential change 
 by coming into the closest contact with it 
 and observing it in its most peculiar home. 
 He hated and dreaded it before, he hated and 
 dreaded it still. 
 
 His worldly prosperity, though on the whole 
 it was very remarkable through life, yet did 
 not suffer him to escape unscathed by great 
 reverses. During his first visit to the South, a 
 great commercial crisis swept over the land; 
 and he came home to find himself with thou- 
 sands of others financially a ruined man. But 
 his courage was undaunted. He had now 
 passed the prime of middle life, yet he earnestly 
 began anew. Providence smiled upon him 
 more bountifully than ever before, within a very 
 few years his fortune was more than repaired 
 and he has long stood again among the 
 wealthiest of our citizens. 
 
 During the years 1831-32, a church edifice 
 was built on Lafayette street, fronting upon the 
 north side of the Park ; and, soon after, a 
 
Christian society was organized there, under the 
 name of the Free Church. The experiment of 
 free pews, however, failed ; and a new organiza- 
 tion was formed, in 1839, under the name of the 
 Park Presbyterian Church. When this second 
 effort was put forward there, yielding to a 
 sentiment of duty and in company with about 
 thirty others, he transferred his church relations 
 thither. Here he was elected, for the first time, 
 to the eldership of the church and was or- 
 dained in 1840. The new enterprise, however, 
 through some unforeseen hindrances, proving 
 unsuccessful at that time, he and nearly all who 
 came with him returned, after about four years, 
 to their former connection with the First Church. 
 In 1852, he was elected to the eldership there 
 and continued to do active and large Chris- 
 tian service in that congregation, until the 
 removal of his residence from Swan to Delaware 
 street brought him near to a younger church 
 which needed him, when he again broke away 
 from the cherished Christian bonds which had 
 been growing for a quarter of a century and 
 united himself here, September 13th, 1857. In 
 December, of the same year, he was elected to 
 the eldership of this church ; and it would not 
 
30 
 
 be easy to tell how it were possible for a man 
 to show himself to be more deeply interested in 
 the welfare of a congregation, or more con- 
 scientiously faithful to the duties of his of- 
 fice, than he has shown himself to be among 
 us, from that day forward to the close of 
 his career. That he was a tower of strength 
 here you need not be told. This house is his 
 monument, in the sense that he not only con- 
 tributed toward the cost of its erection double 
 the amount of any other donor, with one muni- 
 ficent exception, but, when the subscription had 
 flagged and seemed ready to fail at about half 
 the necessary amount, he seized the paper and, 
 devoting some days to the work, by dint of 
 his peculiar vigor, skill and personal influence, 
 brought the figures up to a point at which it 
 was deemed safe to go forward ; and, eventu- 
 ally, he assumed a conditional responsibility for 
 the remainder. He was elected to the board 
 of trustees of this society in 1857, was soon 
 after made president of the board and con- 
 tinued in this position till his decease. 
 
 In the spring of 1862, one of his sons, in 
 the hope of deriving benefit to a state of health 
 which had become seriously impaired, deter- 
 
mined upon journeying abroad with his family. 
 More from anxiety for the result of the experi- 
 ment upon his son and from a desire to be 
 near him, than from any other motive, he 
 decided to be one of the company and, on 
 the ninth of April, sailed from New York for 
 Liverpool. The summer was spent in traveling 
 in England and on the continent. Though now 
 nearly seventy years old, he climbed mountains 
 and waded up through the volcanic ashes of 
 Vesuvius with the youngest and the halest. 
 Under the excitement of the time, the fire of 
 youth seemed to return and nothing could 
 exceed the zest with which he threw himself 
 into the exhilarations of foreign travel. The 
 health of his son improving and being himself 
 sated with sight-seeing, he left the rest of the 
 party to continue their travels and returned 
 home in the following autumn. He never 
 acknowledged the consciousness of any incon- 
 venience as arising from his travels abroad ; 
 yet to a familiar eye it was plain that he had 
 brought back much less vigor than he carried 
 away. He seemed during those months of 
 absence to have grown old by years ; and his 
 accustomed elasticity of nerve and muscle never 
 
returned. From this time, his descent, though 
 almost imperceptible, was steady and sure. 
 Within a few swift months, he reached the 
 shore of the shoreless sea and departed from 
 our sight on his last and best journey, at early 
 dawn of the sixth day of April, 1864. 
 
 In the meeting for social worship, as nearly 
 as I can remember, the last in which he was 
 present, he spoke and prayed in a most remark- 
 able manner. We always expected from him 
 earnestness and fervor. We always expected 
 him to draw upon the most solemn verities of 
 religion and to deal with the deepest emotions 
 of our hearts. But, on that evening, he seemed 
 to have received a new anointing. His mind 
 was wonderfully clarified and quickened and his 
 heart was stirred to its lowest depths. With 
 moistened eyes and a manner of abasement 
 in the dust before God, he brought before us, 
 out of the manifest sincerity of a full heart, 
 the emptiness of this world, the great and tran- 
 sient privilege of doing good, the brevity of 
 life, the preciousness of the Christian’s hope and 
 the claims of perishing souls on our sympathy, 
 prayers and efforts; and then, he poured out 
 his soul in prayer with a tenderness, a copious- 
 
33 
 
 ness and a power which seemed to bring heaven 
 near to that room of prayer. I was touched 
 and could not forbear to speak of it to a friend, 
 as we left the place ; but little did we dream 
 that his spirit was, even then, pluming her 
 pinions for the everlasting flight. 
 
 His disease, at first, laid a gentle hand upon 
 him and confined him to his parlor. Here, 
 though none of us then apprehended an ap- 
 proaching dissolution, he conversed with me, 
 often, upon personal religion ; and he seemed 
 never to be quite satisfied until the conversation 
 had turned upon some aspect of the great reali- 
 ties of existence. “ I have been thinking,” said 
 he to me one afternoon, u I have been thinking, 
 all the morning, whether I would be put back 
 again into youth, if I could, and start as a young 
 man again, even if I could keep my experi- 
 ence, some of which I bought very dear, and 
 could avoid what I have found to be mistakes. 
 At first I thought I would, but, on reflection, 
 I wouldn’t. I have tried a great many condi- 
 tions in life ; I have seen its dark sides and 
 its bright sides ; I have felt its ups and downs ; 
 I have been gratified and I have been disap- 
 pointed ; I have failed and I have succeeded ; 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 and I am satisfied that one experience of life 
 is sufficient. I have had enough of it. Its 
 best successes will not pay — will not pay for 
 the necessary struggle — will not pay for the 
 temptation and risk of character — will not pay 
 a man who is prepared to die for staying away 
 from a better world.” 
 
 When his disease had at length forced him 
 down upon the bed from which he never rose, 
 often, in my daily visits, I still received the 
 most precious assurance that the Saviour was 
 leading His trusting servant, gently and com- 
 fortably down, into the thickening shades of the 
 dark valley. His faith and Christian peace 
 seemed never for a moment to waver. At one 
 time, having silently entered the room, I sat at 
 his bed-side hardly expecting that he would 
 rouse to recognize me, from the deep lethargy 
 into which he had sunk, when he opened his 
 eyes and seeing me there said with an effort 
 to smile, “Oh, is it you? God bless you in 
 your work ! It is uncertain if I shall ever do 
 much more, but I pray God to bless His word.” 
 At another time, it was a Sabbath morning, as 
 he opened his drowsy eyes and saw me sitting 
 there, he said, “ I know you have a message for 
 
35 
 
 the people to-day, yon must go and deliver it 
 and my prayers go with you.” At another 
 time, in reply to my inquiry whether he could 
 now leave himself and all with confidence and 
 comfort in the hands of the Saviour, he said, in 
 a slow and feeble voice, but with an emphasis 
 which I shall never forget, for he seemed to 
 weigh the meaning of every word, u I think I 
 can truly say I know that my Redeemer liveth.” 
 All his later utterances, indeed, have been such 
 as Christian solicitude is ever eager at such a 
 time to secure and have been all that Christian 
 affection could desire. But we needed no such 
 last words to tell us where his hope and his 
 treasure lay. 
 
 The first aspect of Mr. Rumsey’s character 
 which would probably arrest the notice of a 
 stranger and one which would continue to 
 grow upon the attention of every observer, 
 the longer an acquaintance continued, was 
 his all-conquering energy. You could not be a 
 half hour in his company, though it were for 
 the first time, without gaining the impression 
 that he was a mighty man ; and you could not 
 have made your acquaintance so extended, or 
 have been admitted to a familiarity so intimate, 
 
as ever to bring you to cease from wondering 
 at the prodigious forces of being which were 
 combined in his character. While there was 
 not a vestige of asperity, or of censoriousness, 
 in his nature, which was as gentle and loving 
 as a lamb, yet his heart was a lion-heart and 
 his hand, a hand of iron. So dominant and 
 pervading was this energetic element as to 
 stamp itself in a distinct and distinguishing 
 feature upon the current of his whole life, 
 physical, social, religious. 
 
 His bodily frame was cast in a mould of 
 strength. His stature rose a good way above 
 the ordinary height, his whole figure was suit- 
 ably proportioned upon the same large scale 
 and the first glance impressed you with the 
 idea of physical power. During almost a score 
 of years after that period of life when the ma- 
 jority of men sensibly feel the weight of years 
 and exhibit evident signs of growing infirmity, 
 the elasticity of his step and the easy activity of 
 his limbs made you wonder still at the endur- 
 ance and vigor of that giant frame. His vital 
 forces had never been hoarded by avoiding 
 the exhaustion of labor, exposure, or anxiety; 
 for few men are called to severer struggles of 
 
37 
 
 every sort, than was he, especially in his 
 younger life ; but he inherited a firm constitu- 
 tion which was well fostered by the pure air 
 and frugal culture of his early home; and his 
 life-long habits of temperance, industry and 
 severe regularity produced that perfection of 
 health and that extraordinary power of exer- 
 tion which remained unimpaired, until the vital 
 force itself was spent and only relaxed its hold 
 on material things before the inevitable law of 
 nature. But though the body must sink, at 
 last, it is certainly felicitous, it is enviable, it is 
 grand, thus to live this mortal life in the flesh, 
 thus to wrest from disease and infirmity fruit- 
 ful years of strength and labor; and, while the 
 majority of men are wasting so much of their 
 earthly existence in pain and idleness, to redeem 
 a strong, whole life to useful activity and the 
 service of God. Surely such an one, and he 
 was eminently such an one, may justly and tri- 
 umphantly say, “ By the grace of God, even 
 with the energies of my mortal body, I have 
 fought a good fight.” 
 
 Socially — in every sphere of outward life 
 and influence — the energy of his character was 
 as obvious, as the results were abundant and 
 
38 
 
 honorable. Wherever practical projects were 
 to be wrought out, wherever business was to 
 be transacted, wherever men were to be dealt 
 with, while perfect integrity and fairness always 
 ruled the hour, yet nothing which vigor, 
 promptness and rapidity could accomplish, ever 
 failed in his hands. Some such project was per- 
 petually under his attention. He could not be 
 idle for an hour ; nor could he be contentedly 
 occupied with anything which did not directly 
 contribute to some desired and useful end. 
 If, as is often said, circumstances alone force 
 some men into wealth, standing and influence, 
 the remark bears no application to him. What- 
 ever he was, whatever he had, whatever he 
 accomplished was reached, obtained, wrought 
 out, under a favoring Providence, by the nerve 
 of his own arm and the courage and kindness 
 of his own heart; and every one, who knows 
 anything of the rush and turmoil of worldly 
 affairs, knows that these ascending grades, espe- 
 cially in the path of commercial enterprise, are 
 not to be trod by mediocrity, or sloth, but are 
 accomplished, if at all, by a series of con- 
 quests over difficulties and in the face of oppo- 
 sitions of the most stern and trying sort. In 
 
39 
 
 these struggles of men, in sagacity, skill and 
 labor, as well as in those smoother and more 
 benign exertions which he was ever making in 
 the interest of morality and religion, friend- 
 ship and benevolence, he always wrought with 
 the arm of a giant and with the ardent enthu- 
 siasm of one who was doing with his might 
 what his hand found to do. Oh, what a cloud of 
 witnesses might be summoned before you, here, 
 to-day, to testify how his delicate attentions of 
 friendship and his bountiful acts of benevo- 
 lence were perpetually carried forward with the 
 same assiduity and the same whole-heartedness, 
 as the strictest and most profitable transactions 
 of commerce ! It is true that such qualities 
 and such exertions do not always succeed, in 
 the obvious results of the present existence. 
 Possessing exactly the same qualities and mak- 
 ing the same exertions, he might have been less 
 successful, less appreciated, loved and honored, 
 had God been pleased to thwart his plans and 
 defeat his exertions, as the Infinite One often 
 sees fit to do with the wisest human plans and 
 the most vigorous human exertions. But he 
 was not defeated. A favoring Providence was 
 pleased to crown his struggles with final and 
 
40 
 
 great success; and, as he passed away to a 
 nobler life, what less could his thankful, con- 
 tented spirit say, than this, “By the grace of 
 God, I have fought a good fight , even in respect 
 to the sordid collisions of time?” 
 
 These aspects of life, while they seem worthy 
 and profitable to be noted, when appearing so 
 conspicuous as they appeared in the subject of 
 these remarks, yet fade into insignificance, in 
 comparison with that view which is religious, 
 spiritual, eternal. But then, the religious life 
 is essentially an invisible development. It is 
 of necessity an inner, hidden, unseen process. 
 We are left mainly to judge by external signs 
 of what has been accomplished in secret. We 
 may see evident results, but the inward pro- 
 cesses lie beyond the sphere of observation. 
 These results we have indeed perceived in him 
 of whom we here speak, these fruits have been 
 obvious in his visible life; and, though the 
 actual strife of the spirit with depravity, the 
 flesh and the world was a conflict which no 
 fellow-creature could see and a thing which he 
 seldom, or never, reported, we needed not to 
 be told that these victories never come to a 
 sinful nature, except through the hard, long, 
 
41 
 
 persistent battle in the soul ; we needed not to 
 be told that the world cannot be trodden un- 
 der foot by mortal man without a struggle. 
 It is impossible here to go into details ; and it 
 is unnecessary. In the case before us we need 
 only refer to a single instance. Take the dead- 
 ening ‘power of riches upon the soul ; because 
 this was his greatest peril and because the 
 subjugation of that involves the subjugation 
 of every other opposing influence. Look into 
 the book of God and find it written, “How 
 hardly shall they that have riches enter into 
 the kingdom of God ! It is easier for a camel 
 to go through the eye of a needle, than for a 
 rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” 
 Consider, from your own experience and from 
 your observation of the world, how hard it is 
 for the moderately successful in the things of 
 time and sense to put property second to religion 
 and lay their possessions at the feet of Jesus. 
 Consider with what greater difficulty the rich 
 man casts off his bags of gold and breaks 
 away from his connections with the strong, the 
 brilliant and the merry to join himself with the 
 poor, the obscure, the sorrowful and in true 
 simplicity to enter the low and narrow gate 
 
42 
 
 which leads to the spiritual life. You will then 
 be prepared to estimate for yourselves what 
 forces of the enemy he was compelled to face 
 and to decide whether his undoubted, triumph- 
 ant victory, through grace Divine, does not 
 sufficiently proclaim what must have been his 
 experience of inward fightings and what was 
 his claim to say, as he laid down the armor of 
 . spiritual conflict, U I have fought a good fight.” 
 
 The warrior has gone to his rest. His fight- 
 ing is over, his battles are won, he is discharged 
 into the joy of his Lord. Friendship must 
 weep. Affection must bleed. His home must 
 be solitary. Silence must succeed there to his 
 pleasant, inspiring voice. His active form must 
 be missed from the street, his influence from 
 the walks of commerce, his cheerful face and 
 kindly word from the circles of social inter- 
 course, his venerable head from the sanctuary, 
 his earnest petitions and impassioned appeals 
 from the meeting for prayer. His family must 
 lose him. Society must lose him. The poor 
 must lose him. Struggling young men must 
 lose him. The church militant must lose him. 
 Allow me to add, his pastor must lose him, with 
 the anguish of an unspeakable personal loss. 
 
43 
 
 But what a memory he has left to this 
 bereaved family ! Tell me, stricken ones, heavy 
 as is the blow, whose lot of similar bereave- 
 ment would you exchange for yours? Tell 
 me how the merciful Heavenly Father could 
 have tempered more mildly the inevitable 
 stroke ? Is it nothing to possess the imperish- 
 able recollections of such a life ? Is it nothing 
 that his earthly existence was a triumph in 
 every sense of that word; and, though he de- 
 parted in the strength of his years, that he had 
 accomplished an extraordinary work for you, 
 for society, for the church of Christ — enough to 
 satisfy the sanctified ambition of any man — and 
 left behind him nothing, but the eternal cause 
 of his Master, unfinished ? Is it nothing that 
 he goes with the benediction of thousands 
 upon his head ; and that his memory will 
 be embalmed, in their inmost heart, forever? 
 Above all, is it nothing to be able with rational 
 confidence to follow the track of his liberated 
 spirit and see him take his seat among the 
 blest company of the redeemed above ? Is it 
 nothing to know just where you may find him, 
 while you need only prepare your own robes, 
 to meet him at the marriage of the Lamb ? 
 
44 
 
 Oh remember that he now awaits each of you, 
 with solicitous affection ! One by one you will 
 pass through the gate which he has just en- 
 tered. His sainted daughter is already at his 
 side. May God permit him to gather you all, 
 as you arrive ; and when the last of you is 
 passed within the vail, to lead you before the 
 Saviour, there, and say, Here am I and the 
 dear ones Thou hast given me. 
 
 Men of business and care ! here is a lesson 
 for you, from the experience of one of your 
 most successful associates. In the full view of 
 his life which has just been revived in your 
 recollections, can you believe that a greater 
 engrossment in the things of time is necessary 
 to successful accumulation, than is compatible 
 with that weaning from the world and that 
 heavenly mind which religion professes and 
 evidently demands ? In the face of his life, 
 will you ever say, again, that a man cannot 
 make money, who holds it, nevertheless, as a 
 thing second to his religion and who has set 
 out in earnest to secure, at all events, the 
 riches of eternity? Has not such a life, as it 
 progressed for thirty years under your obser- 
 vation, been sufficient to demonstrate that such 
 
 / 
 
45 
 
 a sentiment is an egregious, a tremendous mis- 
 take ? He walked always, in equal step with 
 the foremost, in the front rank of worldly 
 enterprise and worldly success, yet he was, 
 also, always endeavoring to walk with his God 
 and to be laying up a better treasure in 
 heaven. But if the one, or the other, must be 
 sacrificed, how think you would he counsel 
 you to choose to-day ? Do you imagine that 
 his opinion has changed, under the scenes into 
 which he has passed ? How think you does 
 he regard the eternal riches, in comparison 
 with those of earth, to-day ? Of how much 
 account is an earthly fortune, in the world to 
 which he has so suddenly flown ? I know that 
 I speak what his own lips would dictate, when 
 I press upon your attention that caution of 
 Holy Writ, “Seek first,” at all risks, “seek first 
 the kingdom of heaven.” 
 
 Brethren and friends of this bereaved con- 
 gregation, a mighty man has fallen among us. 
 A pillar is broken in God’s house. We are 
 shaken by the shock of the stroke. But turn 
 to the Scriptures and read, that “ no strange 
 thing has occurred and no trial has overtaken 
 us, but such as is common to man.*” It is 
 
46 
 
 God who has called His servant away. The 
 time of his departure, therefore, is right. Let 
 us gird us anew for the work of the Lord ! 
 Hearing a voice from heaven saying to us, 
 “ Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his 
 nostrils,” let us manfully yield him to his 
 Saviour and his reward ! 
 
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