TO THE
Mount Morris Baptist Church
FROM
W. C. BITTING
PASTOR, JANUARY 1, 1884—OCTOBER 31, 1905
†
JOSEPH J. LAFETRA
PRINTER
104-106 East 126th Street
New York City
| FOREWORD. |
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I want to leave this little pamphlet with my friends in the Mount Morris Baptist Church and congregation. The simple words it contains will not bring to mind anything else than the heart from which they came. No cloud has ever been in our church sky while we have lived together under it, and never was it so bright as now. What I leave is all I care to leave. My sermons are not in print but are in your lives. Those of them that are not there were not worthy of such a place. At least these pages will show what I have tried to he, how I have lived, and a very little of what I have done. Forgive my failures, forget my mistakes, remember my aims, and prove by your lives that my ministry has been from God. This is all I ask. We will see one another again at no long intervals, I hope. But heaven will surely be happy to me partly because I have known and loved you here. God bless you, every one. |
| October 29th, 1905. |
To the Mount Morris Baptist Church and Congregation:— |
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My very Dear Friends:— |
| AN OUTLINE STORY. |
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Twenty-two years ago this month I stood in your pulpit for two Sundays. My visit had no designs upon your pastorate. I did not come as a candidate. Such a way of forming pastoral relations is distasteful to me beyond words. It is belittling to the man who consents to it, and to the church that suggests it. You asked me to live with you and to lead you. On January 1, 1884, I began the work that has proved so perennially pleasant. The few persons now with us who greeted me then, will agree that the gladness, courage, trust in God, and consecration that opened and have sustained our union can never be forgotten. |
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Our present house of worship has been erected and renovated , and in its beauty and strength is one monument to our work. |
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During these years 778 have been baptized, 945 have been received by letter, 49 have been added by experience. and 16 by restoration, a total of 1,788 persons. We have lost by death 203, by letter 593, by dropping 206, by exclusion 24, a total of 1,031. Our net gain in spite of these losses has been 757. There were 253 names on the roll when this pastorate began, there are now 1,010. |
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Financially the showing is notably fine for a congregation no wealthier than ours. We have contributed for benevolences, and self-support, including the erection of this building, a total of over $400,000. I cannot too strongly and tenderly express my gratitude to the noble hearts that have made these figures possible. While many other churches exceed them, few have made such a splendid ratio between ability and achievement. |
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Figures, however, are not the only or the most genuine indication of real church success. The enlargement of life, the development of character, the direction of energy, the widening of personal horizons, the alteration of ideals and tendencies are eternal works that defy arithmetic. For thousands this his been done. The church has come to have a standing in our neighborhood, our city, and denomination, and in the Christian world that is high and enviable. The members are united in feeling and purpose, intelligent to all unusual degree, possess abundant energy, have financial ability adequate for their problems, and are loyal to the church. These results refuse to he stated in figures because they belong to the soul. |
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For all that has been done we give the praise to God. His power alone has wrought it. In so far as human instrumentalities deserve praise let me in all sincerity give the entire credit for the results indicated to those clear heads, warm hearts, and open hands that have been at the service of a leadership all too conscious of its defects. All of the factors in our growth are not now in our membership. Some are in heaven, and some have moved from our city. Many of the noblest and most fruitful are vet in our fellowship. To them I here pay the honest debt of my heartiest thanks for a loyalty to me both personal and official that will be a memory of eternal delight. |
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This is no time for words about shortcomings. The one who leaves you has looked within his own soul so deeply that he has no criticism to make upon others. What might have been is vain speculation. What is, can cause only gratitude. Let us all, confessing that we are unprofitable servants, even where we have done all that was commanded, seek in the future to give our-selves utterly to Him who gave Himself for us. |
| SOME IDEALS. |
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I can only sketch some ideals that have been dominant in my work. A true minister of Christ must have before himself daily the example of his Lord. This I have tried to keep in mind. My record must speak for itself here, as it will when I see my Master face to face. I have no words to say about it. If any blame, I shall not defend it. If any praise, I shall give glory to God. The story of your life and mine is written not in words we use about ourselves, but in the undying traits of our souls, and in the deeds done in the body. Each of us must give an account of himself to God. The same responsibility to Christ that I have so often tried to preach from this pulpit, I have sought to practice. He alone is Lord, and we can well afford to disregard all judgments but His. |
| CHURCH LIFE. |
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Only one word is needed to describe the life that has been coveted for our church. That word is love. Within our fold this has been the ruling thought. All laws have been summed up in that, all regulations have melted away into that single syllable. That has been enough. Anything else or more would not have been of the gospel. It is this ideal that has made our church life more like that of a happy family than of an ecclesiastical organization. That it has been perfectly realized, no one will claim. We can not make a perfect organism of imperfect members. Yet in a rich measure this sweet fruit of the Spirit has been in our hearts. Never was a church, not even in the apostolic age, more free from troubles of any sort. Varieties of opinion there have been, but each one in love has spoken the truth he seemed to see. There has been gracious yielding, tender, mutual regard. and not a little of that honor that prefers one another. |
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The same word describes the mind of the church towards the kingdom of God. Love has flowered into service. Persistently the truth has been proclaimed that a church of Christ does not exist for itself but for me sake of the kingdom of God. Your money, your personal energies, and your manifold abilities have been besought for the welfare of mankind. In this church there has been no effort to retain members who have moved so far from its work that participation was impossible. All such have lovingly been told that the true aim of a Christian was not personal privilege. nor ease, but service to the kingdom of God. In many other churches there are strong and useful members, who have gone out from us under the inspiration of this ideal. Any other spirit than this would he alien to the mind of Christ. |
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In our relation to the world the same word could be used of our attitude. Worldliness is not a matter of externals, but of inner spirit. Our ideal has been precisely that of Jesus, social contact with spiritual separation. We are not at all ashamed of the high places that so many of our congregation hold in social, civic, political. educational, commercial and industrial life. Mixing with men in all normal realms of life is a religious duty. Such weaving of Christly men and women into the warp and woof of human society is exactly the plan of God for uplifting mankind. In the experience of many of us a sane, healthy, self-commending life has been a vast power to mould the lives of others. The Christian life is the normal exercise of all our native human powers. Godward, manward, selfward, Jesus being the norm. |
| PASTORAL IDEALS. |
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Let me now become more personal, and take you into my own soul. I speak now for myself alone, and lay bare the secrets of my own service. I have already said that responsibility to Christ is the explanation of my effort. Alas ! that attainment has been so far below even what it might have been. |
| PERSONAL. |
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I have sought to make my ministry personal. No vague official relation has for a moment deceived me into thinking that anything else than the gift of myself in every possible form of service could please Christ, or be just to you. The sweetest times I have spent have not been those in this glorious spot where I have had the priceless joy of speaking for God, but those holier moments when my heart has been one with another's in hearing a burden, or in leading some soul from darkness to light. There is a glamour in facing a crowd, however serious one's message may be. There is a thrill of conscious oneness with Christ when a personal ministry to a single soul is undertaken. Those experiences, holy, confidential , and rapturous cannot be forgotten. Among the many letters I have been glad to receive, none have touched me more than those from the poor, the friendless, the discouraged, the sin-burdened, the limited, whom I have been able to help. It is this personal ministry that has made me really a member of every family in our Congregation, and that makes our parting so full of pain. You are not, and never have been my “people.” That is too abstract a term. You have been, and forever will be my personal friends. |
| FRATERNAL. |
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With fellow Christians of all names we should be most brotherly. The spirit of unity has been marked in this neighborhood. Our union Thanksgiving services, union summer services, exchanges of pulpits, mingling in meetings of many kinds, and our cordial personal regard for one another have made all Christians in Harlem feel like members of one family. This great gain has more than rewarded us and all others, for any losses of individual prestige that any church may have suffered through this fraternal union. I thank God daily for my fellowship with brother pastors here. They are a true, noble, godly fraternity. I rejoice more than I can tell you in that larger parish of thousands of lives in other communions to whom God has let me minister. Their love comes next to yours in value to my heart just now. To be an intelligent Baptist is a great thing. To be a true disciple of Christ is yet greater. Both are possible for one person, and the genuine lover of Christ will love all whom God loves. |
| EXTENSIVE. |
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No minister of Christ has a right to shut him-self up to the care of any church, however important it may be. He belonged to the kingdom of God before he became the servant of any body of persons in that kingdom. His duties are to the neighborhood in which his church is located, to the city, the country, the world of which his field is a part. Everything that makes for the growth of the kingdom claims his interest. The christian pastor is not, and never should consent to be a mere employee of any group of people. Rather, he is the incarnation of their interest in the moral welfare of the world. Nothing could be more shortsighted in any man or church than the failure to share in every enterprise that makes for righteousness. Sowing such an interest, the man and the church reap a manifold harvest for themselves. Wide service in the world brings returns that are beyond estimate. “Give and it shall be given unto you” expresses a truth that applies to all forms of energy and love as well as to money. With this conception I have entered into many duties outside those binding me as your pastor. The position of our church in the Christian world is largely due to this service, and to your consent to, and participation in it. |
| EDUCATIONAL. |
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The function of a teacher cannot be separated from that of a pastor. Our love is to abound in all knowledge and discernment. All truth is God’s truth. The unity of all the sciences and of all religious truths is in Him. In these days ignorant disciples are a disgrace to any pastor. His hearers should grow not only in grace, but in the knowledge of the truth. Accordingly my chief passion as your teacher has been to arouse your interest in the Holy Scriptures. Remorselessly I have pressed upon you the claims of the Bible. Whatever else this pulpit has lacked, it has not been wanting in enthusiasm for the Book. Every message has been only its truth uttered in terms of our present thought and speech. I have tried to maintain a holy scorn for mechanical, allegorical and fantastic methods of interpretation. These are superlatively irreverent. They also shame common honesty. The historical method of Bible study has claimed my utter allegiance as the only true way of discovering the divine truth in the Book. In pulpit, in Bible School work, in midweek services, in pastor’s Bible classes, in personal conversations this has been insisted upon. Those who have responded to my call have felt a new joy, and the real power of the word of God has come into their lives. I make bold to say that the Bible is a new and more glorious and precious library to many of you. |
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In theological attitude there his been no less a development. The great verities of God, the Holy Spirit, our Saviour Jesus Christ, and the real work of these in the heart of man have been most strenuously affirmed. Traditional forms of expression have been avoided, because they have lost meaning to men of our day, and because the eternal realities that underlie any form of statement must needs be spoken to each age and place in its own forms of speech. Further, a changed conception of the universe in the last half century dominating every school worthy of the name, from kindergarten to university, compels the modern preacher, if he would influence those who think at all, to present Christian truth in such a way as conforms to present thinking. How supremely foolish to send our sons and daughters to be trained in schools wholly surrendered to this new and true idea of the physical universe and of human history, while we insist that the religious teachers shall hold on to antique and outgrown statements of truths needed by all hearts. Every age, every generation. every person must think through the eternal realities in terms of current mentality. Nothing is sweeter to me than the assurance from our young men and women who have had the advantages of educational experiences that their religious conceptions and feelings have been so co-ordinated with their purely intellectual training, that faith in God and trust in our Saviour have been not only unshaken, but have become firmer and stronger. To such our swift transitions now bring no fear. Most precious to me are also the memories of the gratitude of perplexed minds and hearts whom I have been able to lead out of tangled doubts into clear and bright certainty of soul. And these in turn have become helpers of others. |
| EVANGELISTIC. |
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But all ideals have been summed up in one great longing to lead men into personal fellowship with God. Early was the discovery made that there was no truth that did not have its appeal to the human heart as such. The seed and the soil were made for each other. The ministry personal, fraternal, extensive, educational has had this one motive, to bring every one into the normal life of a childlike relation to a heavenly Father. Vain and empty is every ministry that does not spring from this desire. I have preached no sermon for many years that has not bad its appeal to men to enter into the life that is life indeed. The great gift of God through Jesus Christ has been offered to and pressed upon every human being who has come within these walls. That it has been despised by any has been my keenest grief. I am innocent of the blood of all such. The myriad motives for peace with God through our Lord have been urged in all aspects and allurements known to me. To share with all others my happy experiences has been my deepest desire. Oh ! that my own life could have been nobler, and that all whom I have known could have been partners in my joy. |
| OUR FUTURE. |
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What will be our future in this world, only God knows. For you, my beloved church, I have no fear. If a brave and consecrated few more than a score of years ago, burdened with a discouraging history, were not afraid to face coming years under the leadership of an untried young man, why should this splendid body of men and women, so plentifully endowed with every ability that a church could have, fear any experience that awaits you ? Over against the conditions of 1884 you now have a commanding place in the world, a noble record for the last twenty-two years, capacity of a rare order, endowments of all possible varieties, and the manifest tokens of God’s smile. My unwavering confidence is that the usefulness that lies before you will be far greater than that of the past, and that you are to enter upon a new stage of church life higher and more beneficent to the world, and more honoring to God than that through which He has led you heretofore. I know you love me. Countless evidences of that have been my constant joy, and in these latter days have been the only cause of my unutterable pain. Now I call on you, every one of you, to show your love for me, and yet more for Christ, by giving yourselves anew and wholly to Him, and to this church. My heart’s blood has been poured out here. This church is too unspeakably precious to me to think that these years of service with it shall count for nothing permanent. I have tried to join you to Christ, not to myself. Whether I have succeeded will be revealed by your steadfast devotion to our Lord and to this work. No pain could so crush me as that of the vision of your indifference to our Saviour and to the interests of Mount Morris. I believe you will be loyal, and that the time will come when we shall every one see that through this path of pain we now tread together God is working out His own blessed will. |
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As for myself, what awaits me I know not. To testify the good news of the grace of God shall be my one purpose. A strange environment is before me. But God is the same. May be I shall often be homesick for this place and for you. It would be a miracle if I were not. Yet there is one place that is our real home, the heart of God. There we shall meet daily in that all-en-folding love. |
| ADIEU ! |
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What more can I say ? For all the stream of love that has flowed so steadily and refreshingly from your hearts I cannot find words to thank you. The splendid lives and fidelity that have made possible my work here are beyond all praise. I know of no enemies. If there were any I would love them. My friends are legion. Among them are thousands not of this church, nor of any church. I am overwhelmed by the words that have been spoken. True love is imperishable both with them and with myself. |
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To those who are followers of Christ I say, hold oh to Hun. Forget every word I have ever uttered, every thought that has been born within you because of my ministry, if these cloud your sight of Him. Remember me only as one who has tried to make Him known to you in all the glory of His Lordship and Saviourhood. I have miserably failed unless this has been done. Enjoy the boundlessness of His relations to your lives in every realm. Let no one rob you of the sense of His beneficent rule in every region of your being. Daily cling to Him as the Life of your life. |
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To those whose hearts yet hold out against Christ’s claims, to whom I have appealed seemingly in vain, or who cherish a secret trust which my efforts have failed to make open, I say, may God’s Spirit, through some other voice than mine, by some means of which I have not been the master, bring you to a manly and public stand for Jesus. I love you. and all the more is my pain that I must leave you, not indeed where I found you, but with harder hearts. Would that the sweet fellowship we have in so many ways, had ripened into that sweetest of all relations, our oneness in Christ. My joy shall be great when I hear that you too have entered into the service of my Lord. |
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Some day we shall all be together again, and with us our precious dead whom we miss today. Then my joy and yours will be in the consciousness that we have tried to do God’s will. Some whom we have brought to Christ will be our eternal delight. Thousands of words and deeds and thoughts will then come leaping back to us bearing with them a mighty blessing. Then we shall never be parted. And best of all, we shall serve in heaven’s own perfect and growing way the Christ who has been our Lord and Saviour here. What other hope is worth a second’s thought ! What other aim could compare with this ! I will not say “farewell.” A few miles of God’s earth, and a few hours of His time can make no change in love. Personally you will still be mine, and I will still be yours, and all of us will forever be Christ’s. |
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Yours affectionately, |
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W.C. BITTING. |
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posted 5/27/98