year of
affiliation.

Committees of prominent clergymen visited the church and were "warmly"
welcomed. It was suggested that Sea and Land unite with other churches,
but it is a singular fact that, as when the Reformed church disbanded,
so now, not a single church is in existence that was then mentioned for
a refuge. A case in point is the Allen Street Presbyterian church. They
had sold their building near Grand Street and for a time worshipt in the
Market Street church. But in spite of earnest solicitation they erected
an unfortunate structure in an unfortunate location in Forsyth Street.
After a short existence there they united with the Fourteenth Street
church, and that church is no more!

Even the strong Madison Square church no longer preserves its identity.

Meanwhile work went on, at first in desultory fashion, two or three
times the young men had to conduct services. But thru it all Dr. A. F.
Schauffler, of the New York City Mission Society, was the church's
consistent friend. His order to the city missionaries at the church to
stay until the doors were shut was the one heartening feature of a time
when the officers ordered the blue church flag raised and "no one from
Sea and Land will ever take it down."

The Women's Branch always ably seconded these efforts under Mrs. Lucy S.
Bainbridge and later Miss Edith N. White.

[Illustration: Old Church Flag]

Instead of slowly dying out the work of the church gained momentum
from day to day: Lodging house meetings, Sunday afternoon teas, free
concerts, addresses by Gompers, McGlynn, Henry George, Parkhurst and
others, sermons "against thugs in politics," and so on.

A permanent accomplishment of the nine months' intense regime of
Alexander F. Irvine was the starting of _The Sea and Land Monthly_, the
first number of which appeared in October, 1893. With characteristic
impetuosity Mr. Irvine launched it, and it has been afloat for more than
a quarter century.

The _Monthly_ has been a great storehouse: not only did it give from
month to month the happenings at the church, but it brought to later
generations an appreciation of the goodly heritage of years that had
gone before.

The vital events in the congregation's history were recorded, but so was
the personal history of its people. The coming of little messengers to
the homes, their baptism, their reception into the church, their
marriage, their death. Then began another cycle like unto the first.

And th