:l.C

u^W

er

t •WW**'
V.b

t Ciig's ®rois, anb tft* CfeMMfe'* Wm^.

A DISCOURSE

FOR.

CITY MISSIONS.

EEV. THEODOKE L. JAILER,
PASTOR OP MARKET ST. REF. DUTCH CHURCH.

DELIVERED AT THE LAFAYETTE PLACE CHURCH.
SABBATH EVENING, MAY 28, 1854.

38en>~Uork :
PRINTED BY JOHN A. GRAY, 95 & 97 CLIFF STREET.

1854.

G§[Rffl®K]0

" Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? Not one." — Job 14 : i.
Nothing strikes a stranger more vividly on his
entrance into New-York than the broad and startling
contrasts. There is such a prodigious diversity between
its different portions and its different people, that he
might well wonder how they all belonged to one com
munity. He passes up the great artery of our metro
polis — perhaps the most brilliant street in the civilized
world. The children of luxury and rank roll by him
in the varied tintsvof the rainbow. Well-housed, well-
fed, well-educated, and well-provided, as they are, they
do not know what it is to suffer lack of any thing need
ful to their comfort. They walk life's sunny side in
" silver-slippers." To many of .them existence is as
merry as a marriage-bell.
But let that stranger turn suddenly out of that mag
nificent street when he gets abreast of that world-
known region of wretchedness, the " Five Points." The
whole view changes in an instant ! He has entered a
new world ! He has gone apparently a score of leagues ;
so wide is the contrast between the " clean" and the

4 THE CITY'S WANTS,
"unclean." The street into which he has turned, takes
him down at one swift descent through a dozen distinct
layers of society. Every grade of existence, as he
advances, becomes darker, filthier, fouler, and more
degraded, until he reaches the very dregs. Sickening
odors come up from open cellars. Startling oaths ring
out from subterranean dens. Children that have no
sunshine on their brows — children that are mere itiner
ant piles of rags — children that never heard a mother
pray, but only swear — the children that will yet occupy
prisons, poor-houses, and brothels, (unless rescued in
time,) are thronging the filthy sidewalks. Let us fol
low that stranger on his tour of exploration into some
one of the rotting " rookeries" that overhang the pave
ment. As we enter, the broken door hangs by a single
hinge. We grope up rickety stairways, amid strange
sounds and stifling odors. We open one of the doors,
behind which oaths and wild songs are ringing, and, at
first sight, it seems as if a hut of New-Zealand savages
has been revealed to us — or that a cage of wild animals
has been opened by its keeper. Every square foot of
filthy floor has some occupant. Upon it are stretched
the wretched in their rags, and the drunken in their
debauches. The old and the young, the black and the
white, the sick and the sinning, all herd together as in
a promiscuous sty. Hither the foot-pad brings his
plunder — the beggar brings his refuse food — the poor,
shameless daughter of sin brings her booty, purchased
by the price of her character, and of her. immortal
soul ! Here they crouch down to sleep ; here they
grovel ; here they drug their consciences with stupefy-

AND THE CHURCH'S WORK. 5
ing draughts of adulterated liquors ; here they spend
their only lives on earth; and when the abused, dis
eased, and corrupted frame can bear up no longer, here
they die, all in the dark, and the pauper's grave receives
their last loathsome relics !
And all this is to be witnessed every day within
sound of New- York's one hundred church bells ! All
this within five minutes' walk of the great thoroughfare
through which the wealth and refinement of this metro
polis are constantly pouring. All this within reach of
our abounding schools, with their open doors and daily
teachings. Ah ! we must not dream, however, that all
these children of want and vice are growing up without
education. They are not. They go to school, and are
apt learners. The Devil has his free-schools for them,
plentiful in number, and thorough in their instructions.
He has his schools in the corner dram-shops, the gam
ing-house, the theatre, the brothel, and the very asso
ciations of every child with every other like itself.
Those whom Christianity does not provide for, Satan
takes care of. From his free-schools he graduates
thieves for the prison, gamblers for the " dens," paupers
for the almshouse, harlots for the pest-house, and ruined
souls for perdition ! What other graduates could we
expect ? For " who can bring a clean thing out of an
unclean ? not one."
This leads us to the practical discussion of the theme
before us to-night, which is, ihe City's wants and ihe
ChwohJs work. And first, let us apply it to the exter
nals of city life. Let us look for a moment at the
" whereabouts" of a large portion of our population,

6 # THE CITY'S WANTS,
the places where they live, and where many of them
are dying off by inches. Of the people of New-York
it is ascertained that eighteen thousand live under
ground. They are the occupants of cellars, and many
of these cellars are little better than vaults. Damp,
impure, and loathsome, they are only the first grave,
from which the hapless occupant is soon carried off by
the undertaker to his second grave. These cellars have
no ventilation, and the air, with all its oxygen breathed
out, becomes rank poison, instead of being the food of
life. The poor lodgers in such caverns, for want of
oxygen in the air to stimulate their systems, have
recourse, all the sooner, to the bottle and the dram
shop. This is one of the fruitful sources of intemper
ance among us. Alcohol is sought as a stimulant to
arouse and sustain the bodily systems that have been
prostrated by want of healthful diet and the healthful
oxygen of pure, wholesome air. Do you not see, my
hearers, how directly the physical condition of the poor
affects their moral condition and welfare ? The dwell
ing of the body affects the body, which is the dwelling-
place of the soul. If a human being is immured in a
foul, pestilential cellar, deprived of wholesome food, and
fresh air — if his raiment is filthy and his whole system
enervated and disordered, do you not see that it is
almost impossible that his life should be any thing else
than grovelling and debased ? It will be a miracle if
he do not sink into a pauper and a sot. For " who can
bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? not one."
In one neglected quarter of this huge city is a single
lodging-room or den. in which one hundred outcasts,

AND THE CHURCH'S WORE. 7
of both sexes, herd together indiscriminately every
night! They fling themselves upon the floor in the
same tattered rags in which they have prowled the
streets and wharves during the day. The policeman,
with his lantern, must step cautiously as he treads his
way among the breathing heaps of rags, huddled side
by side, all through that dismal chamber. Oh ! my
brethren, how can Christianity lie down so quietly on
its pillows of down, while these thousands of outcast
humanity stretch themselves on the hard, bare floor, or
else have not. where to lay their weary heads ?
And how can we look for the moral elevation of the
human beings who spend their existence in such sties
of uncleanness ? How can we expect a clean heart
and a clean life to come out of such putrid impurity ?
Who of us would not sink to the level of the brute
when placed in such brutish circumstances ? If the
occupants of these haunts stealwhen in pinching want
of bread — if they drink alcohol when in want of fresh
air — if they swear and break the Sabbath, and practice
a full-grown heathenism when in want of Christian care
and teachings, must we not pity them quite as much as
we censure them ? And when the censure falls, let it
not all fall upon them. They are guilty ; but so are
we. Their sins of commission are awful ; but our sins
of omission are the unquestionable source of a portion
of this depravity and wretchedness. As we hang over
the abyss in which they lie, and shudder at their
degradation, each one of us may well say, " I am verily
guilty concerning my brother !"

8 THE CITY'S WANTS,
II. Having laid down this principle, that where the
outward circumstances are so debased and corrupting,
it is almost idle to look for cleanliness of life, I go on
to my next position. It is this : Where the heart is
left impure, it is impossible to expect any healthful
moral issues to flow from such a heart. If the " foun
tain" within the breast be like a stagnant fen, the out
flow must of necessity be like the ooze of the marsh,
fetid and corrupting. For " out of the heart are the
issues of the life."
I do not suppose that the hearts of the neglected
poor in our alleys, or of the Popish emigrants that pour
upon us from the steerage, are one whit more depraved
by nature than yours or mine. But all the moral influ
ences that have surrounded them from infancy have
been as bad as possible. They have had bad training,
bad homes, bad examples, and bad ideas ingrained into
their souls ever since they had a being. Most of the
" religion " they have ever attained to has been degrad
ing superstition — the mummery of the mass-house, or
the slavery of the confessional.
From hearts so corrupted, and so saturated with evil, -
we can not look for healthful issues. From the hea
thenized souls of the pauper-cellar, and the emigrant-
garret, and the brothel, no sane man will expect the
" peaceable fruits of righteousness." Shall lips that
have been taught only the dialect of hell sing the
praises of God ? Will a " cage of unclean birds" send
forth the fruits of the Spirit, which are love, and virtue,
and' meekness, and temperance, and godliness, and bro
therly-kindness, and charity ? Will Satan turn suicide ?•

AND THE CHURCH'S WORK. 9
Will sin destroy itself of its own accord? Will a de
praved soul become, at its own bidding, a meet temple
of the Holy Ghost ? Can such " clean" results come,
of themselves, from sources so hideously " unclean" ?
When the sewers of New-York begin to furnish a
cool, sparkling Croton for our tables ; when the loath
some ward of a cholera hospital begins to afford health
to those who enter its polluted atmosphere, then, and
not before, may we look for sobriety and religion to
come forth unbidden from such haunts and hearts as I
have been depicting to-night.
III. By this time you may inquire — where is the
remedy ? what can we do ? To these inquiries we
would reply, that, as no clean result can come from an
unclean source, the primal remedy is to purify the
sources themselves. This work is a double one. It
must be applied both to the body and to the soul.
The external man and the internal man should both be
reformed. Each one of these processes is essential.
The second is by far the most important ; but in order
to reach it, the first one must not be neglected. For it
is no easy work to Christianize a ragged outcast, with a
half-dozen layers of filth all over his frame, and no
bread in his mouth but what he gets by begging or
stealing. It is no easy task to Christianize a child by
two hours of Sabbath-school teaching, while the devil
has undisputed control over that child through all the
hours of all the other six days of the week. It is no easy
matter to make a vagrant girl obey either the seventh
or the eighth commandment, if absolute want. is driving

10
her to theft or to the sale of her womanhood to buy
her bread. The soul must be cared for, and the physi
cal condition, too. The Bible and the tract should be
given to these outcasts ; but a preliminary step is to do
all we can to provide for them a clean face and a clean
dress, and a better chance to live without crime. Let
us endeavor to give them employment — tb help them
into places of livelihood. Let them learn to be, not
paupers, but producers — not mendicants and plunder
ers, but self-respecting self-supporters. And then with
this care for the perishing body let us give them the
Gospel. Not as a cold abstraction or a theologie
dogma do they need it, but as a plain, simple method of
salvation, and as a practical rule of life.' Let them
have it free, and warm, and loving — -just as it burst
from Heaven in its fullness, just as it breathed from
Calvary in its tenderness. Let it come to them in
every possible channel — through the teacher, through
the tract visitor, through the school, through the mis
sion church, and through the efforts of private Christ
ians ; for all the disciples of Christ should covet a
place in practical philanthropy.
Among the feasible schemes of Christian benevolence
in this direction are Magged Schools and " Houses of
Industry." The great aim of these institutions is to
reach down to the most degraded strata, and elevate
to the atmosphere of Gospel influence. In them child
ren are taught to read the Bible — are instructed in
useful trades in order to self-support— -and are, in, many
ways, brought under the effective power of Christ
ianity. Among the million dwellers in London this

AND THE CHURCH'S WORK. 11
class of institutions were set on foot ; under the auspices
of Lord Shaftesbury in that city, and of the lamented
Chalmers in Edinburgh, they have already achieved
most admirable results.
[Mr. Cuyler here gave an outline of one of these
institutions, which had met with great success in Lon
don.] Thus much for schools. Now, when we come to talk
of churches, and the preaching of the word, the sad
fact stares us in the face, that there are not houses of
worship sufficient to accommodate more than one half
the population of this island ! Some one may inquire,
if there has not been already an expenditure of money
on church edifices fully equal to a supply of the whole
population, provided that each building had cost no
more than was ppsitively needful for comfort ? That
is doubtless true. But we say to such an inquirer, the
houses of worship in this city were not built by a gov
ernmental church, but by voluntary contributions, and
in such style as the liberal givers preferred to erect
them. N Let not the costly churches, then, be razed to the
ground. Let them stand as the goodliest ornaments of
our proud metropolis ; but let the favored classes who
occupy them see to it that the poor are not left with
out the sanctuary and the bread of life. Every well-
established, evangelical church should sustain, in whole
or in part, a mission among our home heathen. Every
church should bear its part in maintaining an industrial
school for vagrant children.
This subject of civic evangelization is complicated
still farther by the enormous emigration from abroad.

12 4 THE CITY'S WANTS,
The population of a small provincial city is landed on
our wharves every week ! Last Friday, when the fogs
cleared away from our harbor, and an eastern breeze
sprung up, an emigrant fleet bearing 12,000 souls came
up the bay, and added to our population within six
hours a larger number than the country lost during the
whole war of 1812. Among these new-comers from
Old- World superstitions, the City Missionary Society is
doing its most effective work. During the last year
we have sustained missionaries of Christ who have pro
claimed the Gospel in that same tongue with which
Martin Luther aroused Europe from the slumber of
centuries. Jesus has been preached, too, by them in the
rich, mellifluous tones of the language of Holland — that
honored land of our fathers, which we once heard the
Scotch Carlyle pronounce the " home of. the bravest
Protestant nation of the globe." Among the foreign
population of New- York this Society should be enabled
to enlarge its operations at least ten-fold. For our only
effective method of checking the Bomanist is to out
work, and out-pray, and out-preach him. Wherever
he comes, let him find the church already built and the
school already established. Abuse will but disgust
him ; ridicule will irritate him ; persecution will but
build him up. What he dreads most and yet needs
most is the free Gospel of the cross. The sooner we
put our whole reliance for successful competition with
Borne on the preaching of Christ in truth and love, the
sooner will the good work be accomplished.
IV. As an argument for a thorough prosecution of

AND THE CHURCH'S WORK. 13
city reform and home missions, I might urge upon you
the principle of self-preservation. . It is not the highest
argument indeed, but it is a strong motive. For as a
community we are one. Fifth Avenue is linked to the
Five Points; the dwellers on our elegant squares are
at one with the dwellers in the pauper garrets. The
advancement of each class is the advancement of the
whole ; the degradation of one class imperils all the
rest. When one member suffers, all suffer. The self-
styled " conservative" may wrap himself about with his
own selfishness, and on the gorgeous sofas of his tapes
tried drawing-room may shut his eyes and close his
ears to the wants and woes of the " rabble" multitudes
He may say to us, " Let them alone." But will they let
us alone? Will they let him alone? He may leave
the dram-shop unprohibited, but will the dram-shop
leave his. sons untempted? He may let the gaming
house go unsuppressed, but will the gamblers leave his
clerk or apprentice untouched? He may refuse to
make effort for the rescue of the wretched harlot who
treads the midnight street, but she shall lay snares for
him and his, perhaps to their undoing. He may allow
the courts, and alleys, and cellars of the poor to fester
in pollution and filth, but will the cholera, which they
manufacture, hesitate to invade his lordly threshold ?
But there is a higher argument for Christian hearts
than this. It is the double argument, based on the
moral glory of saving immortal souls, and on the honor
which every such triumph brings to our crucified Mas
ter. Knowest thou, my brother ! the value of that
undying soul encased in one of those ragged outcasts ?

14 THE CITY'S WANTS,
" Behold the midnight glories ofthe heavens !
Worlds on worlds ! amazing pomp !
Redouble this amaze — ten thousand add,
And twice ten thousand more ; then weigh the whole ;
That soul outweighs them all, and calls
The astonishing magnificence of suns and planets
Poor indeed !"
Each saved soul is a new trophy of the cross of
Christ. Every ransomed soul is a new jewel in the
diadem of his glory. Every tongue taught to sing his
praise shall swell the hallelujah-anthems of his celestial
temples ! I leave this argument for your consciences
ajid your closets.
And now, as we take leave of this discussion, the one
great question rolls back again upon us — How shall the
portentous necessities of this vast city be met ? How
can it be Christianized ? I know of but one sufficient
answer, and that is, Let ihe whole evangelical Church of
New - York become one extended City Mission. Let
every one labor, in every direction, by every scriptural
method of reform. To leave this stupendous work to a
handful of ordained missionaries would be as prepos
terous as for the Sultan to send out a single regiment
of Janizaries to conquer the colossal empire of the Czar.
It would be as dishonoring to the Church, as it would
be for a congregation to require their pastor to do all
their praying, and a church choir to do all their prais
ing. The Christians of this city need this work for theii
own spiritual growth, and the work needs all of them
to secure its accomplishment.
Do you ask, " What can I do ?" Study the Christ-like

AND THE CHURCH'S WORK. 15
biographies of Harlan Page and Isabella Graham ; and
find there an answer. Have you not lips to speak for
Christ? Have you not hands to work for Christ?
Have you not a purse on which you can inscribe, " Ho
liness to the Lord" ? Have you not a heart to pray for
dying humanity ? Can you not teach in the Sabbath-
school? Can you not bear a part in the Kagged-
school? Can you not go out into personal visitation
and personal relief of the wretched, and the ignorant,
and the friendless ? To-night I ask another good office
at your hands. I entreat you to give cheerfully and
largely to the support of our own City Missions. This
work belongs to us, as the descendants' of those who
brought the doctrines of the Synod of Dort to the tem
ples and the altars of this young republic. Let us
prove that the Dutch Church has not only wealth but
works, not only ancestry but activity, not only pru
dence but- progress, not only good doctrines but good
deeds of philanthropy and love.
But our Master will not let us compound with him
by giving of our substance to sustain others in lieu of
giving our own exertions. He requires personal effort.
Growth in grace requires personal effort. Every one of
us can be a missionary of some description. " Let him
that would be greatest among you become servant of
all." The truest method of elevating our own souls is
to elevate the souls of others. Why is it that so many
professed Christians " feel above" (as the phrase goes)
undertaking labors of love and duty ? Did the Lamb
of God " feel above" the woes of Gethsemane for us, or
the unutterable agonies of Calvary ? Some are unwill-

16 THE CITY'S 'WANTS, AND THE CHURCH'S WORK.
ing to take a part in the Sabbath-school, or the Ragged*
school, strangely forgetting that the Redeemer was a
teacher, and that little children were the peculiar
objects of his loving care. Some will not consent to
distribute bread or Bibles among the needy and
unclean, not remembering that their Divine Master
" went about doing good" — that he was himself a col
porteur and a missionary. Others seem to regard the
prayer-meeting a place of humiliation ; and so it ought
to be in one sense, but not in the sense in which they
understand it. Have such never learned that the post
of honor is the post of usefulness ?
" My seat in. the Sabbath-school," said our beloved
and honored Frelinghuysen, "is higher than my seat in
the Senate." The pulpit is loftier in God's sight than
an imperial throne. A missionary is greater than a
monarch. Let him who serves the most faithfully and
saves the most successfully be accounted worthy of the
starry crown !
For lo ! in accents sweet and strong,
Sounds in our ears the word —
" More laborers for the harvest now,
More reapers for the Lord ! "
Wafll rally to the call — no more
In selfish dreams to lie ; .
But, girded for the Saviour's work,
Go forth beneath the sky !
. Into thy vineyard, blessed God,
To do thy will we come,
Thrust in our sickles at thy word,
Till we shout our Harvest-Home !

YALE UNIVERSITY L

3 9002 08867 9056