My earliest remembrances of the first church edifice on Broad street, except the grand pulpit and a general glory of galleries and chandeliers, are rather dim. The auditorium seemed to be a vast and awful place, where a little boy would not like to be left alone in the twilight or the darkness. Nevertheless all my daylight memories of it are of the most genial sort. The great middle aisle, so well-fitted for a marriage or wedding parade, but which afterwards, when as a preacher, from the marble memorial pulpit, I looked down into its sheer length and emptiness, I considered as a tunnel of waste space, was carpeted red. The enamel-white pew-doors, with white porcelain number plates, bright red pew facings and cushions, and the lines of black silk hats of the gentlemen, laid just outside the pew doors, made a morning picture in which color was not lacking. In the afternoons, the aisles, occupied by eager hearers, were crowded with settees and chairs, so the silk hats of pew owners had to be kept, literally, indoors. On week nights I was often a witness of the ceremonies, in which several of the twenty-five hundred or more couples which were yoked in wedlock by John Chambers during his pastorate, received the nuptial benediction, and the bride the pastor's kiss.
At the orient end of the aisle, before the enlargement of 1853, rose the great mahogany pulpit, which swelled out in its capacious center and then rounded out with a still more generous curve at either end, from which rose two short pillars, as imposing to my youthful mind as those of Hercules. I remember how much I wondered, my infantile[71] intellect being confused, when my father pointed out the "pillars" on the Spanish silver dollars, that two things so different, coin marks and pulpit ornaments should be called by the same name. On the top of these pillars at first was a globe lamp filled with oil, though in the march of progress, wick and chimney gave way to gas burners. Even to this day, my mental associations of the "lamps", in the parable of the ten virgins, are those of my boyhood's days in Chambers Church. Great crimson velvet curtains hung from near the ceilings, and shining brass bands on the carpet of the pulpit stairs are also in my recollection.
My next impression of the dear old house of worship was in 1853, when not quite ten years old, and living on Girard avenue, in the northern part of the city, I was taken "down town" to the sacred edifice when it was undergoing a process of enlargement and change. The fashions of 1831 were to give way to those of 1853. There was another great curtain, this time not of velvet, but, if I remember right, of coarse canvas, which separated from, but also allowed a partial view into a space in which masons, plasterers and carpenters were at that time more familiar than were sitters and worshippers.
In the twenty-one years of its history, the large building erected in 1831 had become too strait. By resolution of the annual meeting in April, 1853, the old pulpit had been taken away, the eastern wall knocked out, and the whole edifice changed in appearance by making an oriental extension of fifteen feet, while in front, on Broad street, the portico, with its imposing platforms, pillars and pediment were added. During the interim, when homeless, the congregation worshipped in Concert Hall, on Chestnut street. When I saw again the old church home, simplicity had given away to luxury. It was like the exchange from Ben Franklin's[72] two-penny earthen porringer and pewter spoon for china and silver.
The enlargement at both ends gave fifty-four additional pews in the audience chamber and more abundant space in the new Sunday School room, which, though a basement, was well lighted through plenty of windows on three sides. There was also a large "infant school" room, or primary department, over which my mother presided for several years, besides the large committee room, afterwards used for meetings of the Session, and also as a Bible class conducted during many years by Mr. Rudolph S. Walton. These rooms fronted on Sansom Street. On the north side, lighted from the alley, straatje, or little street, as the Dutch would say, were the library rooms.
In a word, the building had been modernized, with improved furnaces and gas lighting apparatus, new carpets, new cushions and large galleries, etc., so that when again I saw the edifice some months later it seemed not only a new and more gorgeous house of worship, with the glory as of the second temple, but everything was so shining and and clean, that it struck me as being an unusual sin to do what the small boy is so tempted to do,—to scratch the varnish on the pew backs. It is true that the very brightness of that varnish challenged the average urchin to see if he had not about him a pin, or the nib of a broken steel pen, to make his initials visible, or possibly some music. No carpet, or terry, or pew cushions ever seen on earth before, as I imagined, could be of a richer red, and beside the white enamelled front of the pulpit platform, nothing ever appeared whiter or glossier. The pulpit itself was carved in foliations, all as glistening white as if, though in reality wood, it were polished marble. In later years this altar-like pulpit gave way to a square structure of more massive[73] dimensions, Doric in outline and simplicity, that extended across the whole space between the columns.
That end of the sacred edifice to which our eyes first turned and longest dwelt, seemed to have passed through a veritable transfiguration. My boyish fancy, struck by the biblical phrase, suggested its shining whiteness as having been blanched by "fuller's earth"—to me an entirely unknown and mystic substance. As for the red velvet, on which the big Bible lay open, nothing before or since seemed to have richer gloss or texture, or more strikingly huge tassels. Two fluted white marble Ionic columns rose from the pulpit floor space to the ceiling. Back against the wall, instead of the old sofa, ten or twelve feet long, of veneered mahogany, with cushions covered with horse hair cloth, was a modern and more jauntily carved article of half the old length and apparently less comfortable. But what has comfort to say, as against fashion? Hanging beside the sofa, against the wall, on a white porcelain knob, was the very large oval fan of crow feathers, which, while to the ungodly it represented a rather narrow handled ace of spades, was then the thoroughly orthodox ornament of a pulpit, with which the preacher was expected to cool his brow without chilling his zeal on hot days in summer. Indeed there were some very hot days, when, glued to the overheated cushion, the small boy envied "the freedom of irreligion of the flies." As to the physical activity of the pastor, while preaching it was very vigorous, but it was too graceful to approach closely the reputed ideal of Abraham Lincoln, who liked to have a parson discourse "as if he were fighting bees". Nevertheless the fan, at restful moments, when he was seated, came into requisition as often as did the historic white handkerchief in time of oratorical action.
To the right and left of the pulpit were two high windows, with panes of colored glass. Rather long and narrow, each[74] consisted of two upright sashes or divisions, like casements, which could be easily opened in summer for ventilation. So much color, even to frivolity in the eyes of some, looked positively gay and suggested modern luxury more than ancestral simplicity.
Above the level of the floor and middle aisle was a large platform two steps high and probably six or eight feet wide, on which was marshalled the range of chairs for the pastor and his elders, who had ample room on it, even with the communion table set about the middle of the stage. At either end of this platform was a line of pews, five or six in number, at right angles with the eastern wall and entered from the west. In later years, these gave way to a screen of white painted wood and ground glass, covering stairways into the lower room. As for the ceiling, it was truly imposing in its great central countersunk rotunda and depressed squares, which showed how grandly the architect had treated this portion of the edifice.
The cost of the improvements was nearly fifteen thousand dollars, but the number of pews became 242 and the capacity, including the galleries, had increased so as to seat fifteen hundred persons. Nevertheless, for many years, it was not uncommon, as I clearly remember, to pack together under the one roof twenty-five hundred auditors. This was done by sitting and standing, by stowing away the children upon laps and down on hassocks, filling the aisles with seats, having rows of human wall flowers blooming upright all along the gallery, aisles, passage ways, and steps, and by cramming the vestibule, which was often completely occupied by settees or with a standing crowd. Happily no fire broke out or panic ensued during these dangerous jams. After the benediction the trustees, church officers, and boys and men were only too glad to volunteer as ushers, sextons, or labor[75]ers. "Amen, Jacob, carry out the benches", was less a jest than a reality which we boys liked. Give a boy some muscular as well as spiritual occupation and he can stand the long services.
The most impressive scenes in the regular church services were those of the last Sundays in March, June, September, and December, when the memorial supper of the Lord, as instituted by Him, was enjoyed. This celebration of Holy Communion was an intensely dramatic as well as a moving scene. Indeed, sometimes, on the highly wrought imagination, and under the melting appeals of the man who saw, felt, and lived the truth, it was powerfully remindful of the ultimate division between the sheep and the goats. All the lower part of the church was reserved for and occupied by the communicants. In addition, as I remember seeing more than once, the aisles were thronged even to the pulpit stairs. Of the thirteen hundred and more members the overwhelming majority was likely to be present at communion seasons. The gallery was reserved and usually filled, yes, often packed, with the "sinners", to whom, in the course of the services, with streaming eyes and imploring hands, John Chambers would make intensely personal and moving appeals, which, perhaps in hundreds of cases, wrought decision. To this day "the galleries" in any edifice have to me a suggestion of impenitence about them. Nevertheless how, and particularly why, as I read, the king was "held captive in the galleries" (Song vii., 5), was utterly beyond my boyish comprehension.
One of these seasons, which marked my own first participation in the sacrament, I well remember, being but fourteen years old, the number uniting at this time being about forty-four. We made two lines along the pew fronts on either side of the aisle.
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Another famous occasion was that of June, 1858, in the time of the great revival which swept over the land, and especially Philadelphia. Of seventy new members added, twenty-seven were baptized by the pastor. Of the seventy, sixty-seven were received on first confession of faith after examination and three by letter.
A writer in the Christian Observer of Philadelphia describing the scene, remarks: "The pastor administered the ordinance of baptism. The charges he gave them severally, as he baptized them into the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, were various, scriptural, appropriate—words of hallowed counsel, touching the great end of life—are never to be forgotten. As the seventy stood before that immense audience, professing their faith in Christ, their e............