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The organization was completed by the election of James Burke to the office of Ruling Elder.

On the 14th of April, 1839, the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was administered to twenty-five communicants. This was the first celebration of this sacrament in Houston, most probably the first in Texas.

After organizing the church, Rev. W. Y. Allen continued to minister to it until the spring of 1842, when he resigned and returned to Kentucky, and was succeeded by

REV. J. M. ATKINSON,

then on a visit to Texas. He received a unanimous call to become pastor of the church. Finding his health unfitted him for the labors of the office, he declined the call, and left the State early in 1843, having served the church about one year.

In the spring of 1843, application was made to the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, in the United States, which commissioned the Rev. J. W. Miller as a missionary to this field.

REV. J. W. MILLER

arrived December, 1844, and entered on the discharge of his duties. He received a unanimous call to the pastorate, and was installed November 21, 1847. His health failing, he resigned the charge in January, 1850, having been five years over the congregation, during which time seventy members were admitted to the church.

REV. L. S. GIBSON,

being in the city, received a unanimous call from the church and congregation. His health failed under two severe bilious attacks, in 1850 and 1851, which caused him to cease preaching. He died in Philadelphia, in

May, 1853, while in attendance on the General Assembly, as commissioner from the presbytery of Brazos.

On December 31, 1851, an invitation to supply the pulpit for one year, was made to

REV. ALEX. FAIRBAIRN.

In 1853, he received a call for his services as pastor, and was installed in February of that year. He resigned his charge in December, 1854, and moved to Huntsville,

REV. JEROME TWICHELL

was installed as pastor of the church in April, 1855, and was lost on the "Nautilus," in the Gulf, during the storm of August 10, 1856.

REV. R. H. BYERS

was called on June 20, 1857, and entered on his ministration in the following September.

In November, 1859, he accepted the financial agency of Austin College, by which the pulpit again became vacant. He was succeeded by

REV. THOS. CASTLETON,

called in April, 1860, and installed April, 1861; he filled the pulpit during the greater part of the war.

On October 25, 1862, the church, a frame building, fronting on Main-street, was destroyed by fire. Under the exertions of Mr. Castleton, plans were speedily matured to replace it by a brick structure, which he was not permitted to see completed. In October, 1864, his relations with the church were dissolved by presbytery. In 1865 with his wife-he embarked on the "Shibboleth" for New York, and is supposed to have been lost at sea, as that vessel was not heard of any more after leaving Galveston.

After the fire, worship was conducted in the Court House, until it was taken for barracks, when Turner's Hall was obtained by

REV. J. R. HUTCHISON, D. D.,

who preached every Sabbath morning until June, 1865, when the hall had to be given up.

The New Building was dedicated on Sabbath, July 7, 1867, by Rev. R. H. Byers, D. D., assisted by Rev. S. A. King and Mr. Moore. On April 1, 1868,

REV. WM. SOMERVILLE

was invited to supply the pulpit one year, when the regular services of the church, after a long interruption, were resumed. He was installed pastor of the church in May, 1869, and resigned in October, 1870. On September, 1871,

REV. JNO. J. READ,

a licentiate of the presbytery of Mississippi, received the unanimous call of the church and congregation to become pastor thereof, having accepted the same, he was dismissed to the care of the presbytery of Brazos.

After having sustained a satisfactory examination, the presbytery proceeded on Sabbath, December 10, to ordain him to the full work of the Gospel ministry, the Moderator, Rev. R. F. Bunting, D.D., presiding. The Rev. J. R. Hutchison, D.D., was appointed to preach the Ordination Sermon; Rev. J. W. Miller, D. D., to deliver a charge to the congregation, and Rev. R. F. Bunting, D. D., a charge to the pastor.

THE SABBATH.

Preached at Hempstead, Texas, October, 1869.

"Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy."-Exodus 20:8. The observance of the Sabbath is essential to the spread of Christianity, and to its transmission from one age to another. The Sabbath is the centre of the system, the keystone of the arch. Without it, the Gospel would have no opportunity of exerting its benign influences upon the masses, of giving forth, in public assemblies, its loud and solemn utterances of warning and instruction. For how could mankind retain a knowledge of the great doctrines of the Cross, unless they were plainly and publicly taught them? And how could they be publicly taught them, unless there were a specific day on which, by common consent, they might assemble for the purpose?

The necessity and importance, therefore, of the Sabbath, as a day of religious instruction and meditation, the honor which it confers on God, the peace and quiet which it brings to man, the rest it imparts to the body, the solemn pause it secures to all the secularities of life —these, with other most weighty considerations, combine in enforcing the command of the Decalogue, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy."

It has, however, been contended by some that the Sabbath day is a Jewish institution, and being merely national and ceremonial in its character, is not of perpetual and universal obligation. But can it not be

shown that the Sabbath was instituted long before the Jewish nation existed, and although incorporated into the civil and ecclesiastical polity of that people, it never exclusively belonged to them, but is binding, in all its force, upon the people of every country and every age?

Our first argument is drawn from its great antiquity. The Sabbath was instituted two thousand years before the Jewish nation existed. It is as old as the creation. It was given by God to the first man, Adam. It is then binding on us; because Adam was a public character, and acted in a public capacity. Adam was not merely our great progenitor; he was also our federal head and representative. Adam negotiated with the court of heaven, not only for himself, but for all his posterity. This is one of the plainest doctrines of the Bible. Consequently, according to the laws of imputation and representation, all Adam's acts become our acts, all Adam's institutions become our institutions. If, then, the institution of the Sabbath was observed by Adam, it must be observed by us, for the same reason that we observe the institution of marriage.

Where, then, is the evidence that the Sabbath was known to our great representative? It is found in the book of Genesis, second chapter, second and third verses: "On the seventh day God ended His work which He had made, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that on it He had rested from all His work which God created and made." Adam was created on the sixth day; the next day was the sacred day of rest. Hence the first rising sun which Adam ever saw, ushered in the hallowed rest of the new-born Sabbath.

But we have other evidence that the Sabbath is as old as the creation. We find traces of its existence and

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