God's new messages to us if we fail of being true to God's teachings to our fathers." *

This day, seventy-five years ago, September 20, 1820, gave birth to the event known as the organization of the Claysville Presbyterian Church. At the time it took its place in the world's history that epoch of the history of our National Union known as the era of good feeling was running its course under the direction of James Monroe, the fifth President of the United States. The First Gentleman of Europe, George the Fourth, sat upon the throne of England. The great Napoleon was languishing in St. Helena. The British nation was aflame with the trial of Queen Caroline. The present Queen Victoria was the babe, little more than a year old, who was known as the heir apparent of the British throne. The literary world was guessing at the author of Waverley as the home circles of the day turned the fresh pages of the "Bride of Lammermoor" and "Ivanhoe." As to poetry, the mention of Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel," of Byron's "Childe Harold," of Keat's "Endymion"; as to biography, the mention of Boswell's "Johnson"; as to criticism, the mention of Francis Jeffrey; as to theology, the mention of Thomas Chalmers, will suffice to show that literature, seventy-five years ago, spread a rich feast before our fathers and mothers. In connection with the institution of the National Road, it is interesting to know that Macadam's theory of road-making had been published only the year before. Thomas Patterson represented this dis*H. Clay Trumbull: Sunday School Times, August 24, 1895.

trict in the National House of Representatives. Isaac Weaver was State senator, and Joseph Lawrence, Thomas McCall, Dickerson Roberts, and John Reed were members of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The Claysville of 1820 was composed of men who still linger in the memory of the present generation, and are called up as I speak of George Wilson, whose business energy and public spirit were a large factor in the growth and prosperity of this portion of Washington County; as I mention Alexander Chapman, who appeared to me as a child the model of preciseness; as I recall Joseph Bryant, then the first blacksmith of the village, but afterward the man of leisure who, while respected by our fathers, was the terror of every frolicsome boy; as I can see this very moment that family physician in general, Dr. James Kerr, whirling his cane and fighting the tobacco tempter through the incessant mastication of a pine splinter; as I recollect James Noble, cabinet-maker and undertaker, who, for the period of fifty-four years, was known as the funeral conductor of this community; as I read over the names which appear in the list of subscribers to a fund for the establishment of a school and the erection of a schoolhouse. In the light of the succeeding years the Claysville citizenship of 1820 filled their limited stage of action with the spirit of those who, two hundred years before, made Plymouth Rock the germ of the free men, the free speech, and the free soil of this American Republic.

But the setting of our picture would not be complete without a glance at the men who constituted the Presbytery of Washington when it organized the Claysville

Presbyterian Church. John Chrysostom, "the man
of the golden mouth," of the ancient church, was link-
ing himself with Western Pennsylvania Christianity in
the silver-tongued Marques, of Cross Creek. Paul's
workman "that needeth not to be ashamed was
showing himself in George M. Scott, of Mill Creek, the
grandfather of Mrs. Benjamin Harrison, who, as a
President's wife, dignified her station as the first
lady of the land. Scotland, in the person of Thomas
Chalmers, on account of a little book on Faith,"
" had

raised to the rank of a master in theology, both in thought and expression, John Anderson, of Upper Buffalo. When succeeding generations cease to reap the fruits of the wonderful, the genuine revivals which cradled Western Pennsylvania Presbyterianism, then the recording angel will strike from Church History the name of that flaming evangelist, Elisha Macurdy, of Cross Roads and Three Springs. The first and only time that I saw Joseph Stevenson, of West Alexander, was at the turning point of my history which made me a college graduate. I remember distinctly the venerable man who responded when Dr. Scott, the president of Washington College, announced that Father Stevenson, of Bellefontaine, Ohio, would lead in prayer. Indeed this church was, in a measure, a colony from the flock of Father Stevenson, who, being dead, yet speaketh in this part of the Lord's heritage. Cephas Dodd, the good physician who made everybody think of the Great Physician, was doing his faithful work at Lower Ten Mile. As a little boy, I have heard my elders speak of the grand, great sermons of Andrew Wylie. No name appears more frequently on the rolls