feel that way. He told us that our Brooklyn debt was $17,000,000, with a
tax area of only three million and a half acres. It was disturbing. But
we had prospects, energies. We had to depend in this predicament upon
the quickened prosperity of our property holders, upon future examiners
to be scrupulous at the ballot box, on the increase of our population,
which would help to carry our burdens, and on the revenue from our great
bridge. These were local affairs of interest to us all, but in December,
1879, we had a more serious problem of our own to consider. This
concerned the future of the new Tabernacle.

In consequence of perpetual and long-continued outrages committed by
neighbouring clergymen against the peace of our church, the Board of
Trustees of the Tabernacle addressed a letter to the congregation
suggesting our withdrawal from the denomination. I regretted this,
because I felt that the time would soon come when all denominations
should be helpful to each other. There would be enough people in
Brooklyn, I was sure, when all the churches could be crowded. I
positively refused to believe the things that my fellow ministers said
about me, or to notice them. I was perfectly satisfied with the
Christian outlook of our church. I urged the same spirit of calm upon my
church neighbours, by example and precept. It was a long while before
they realised the value of this advice. In the spring of 1879 my friend
Dr. Crosby, pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church at the corner of
Clinton and Fulton Streets, was undergoing an ecclesiastical trial, and
an enterprising newsboy invaded the steps of the church, as the most
interested market for the sale of the last news about the trial. He was
ignominiously pushed off the church steps by the church officers. I was
indignant about it. (I saw it from a distance, as I was coming down the
street.) I thought it was a row between Brooklyn ministers, however, and
turned the corner to avoid such a shocking sight. My suspicions were not