ar Madison
Street. It was duly organized on Wednesday, May 28, 1819.

The seal of the church is an open Bible, and the words _Holy Bible_ upon
it, with the inscription surrounding it: "_Allen Street Presbyterian
Church_."

The location of the place of worship was changed to Allen Street in
1823.

The Rev. Ward Stafford was appointed by the New York Female Missionary
Society, who nobly toiled, and was succeeded by the Rev. William Gray.
During the first year of its history, twenty-one members were added to
the church-roll, and as an expression of her unfeigned gratitude to God
for this mark of kindness she became the mother of the same number of
ministers of the Gospel, who were called and commissioned, and who have
courageously proclaimed the unsearchable riches of Christ, in distant
parts of the country. Among them was the present pastor of the Church
of Sea and Land, Rev. Dr. Hopper. It is worthy of observation that this
church has been able to pay its running expenses by voluntary
contributions.

In a historical discourse delivered by Rev. George O. Phelps, he says:

"It is a source of untold satisfaction in this day of presumptuous
spires or burdensome church debts, that the Allen Street Presbyterian
Church has no such encumbrance--not one dollar of mortgage rests upon
it; that at the close of each fiscal year, by means of the voluntary
system, and the kindly aid of friends interested in the prosperity of
the church, and the maintenance of the preached word in this part of
the city, all obligations are fully discharged.

"For this, we most heartily thank our God to-day, whose favor is thus
constant.

"True as it is, that this church can be regarded at no period as among
the affluent--as there are those to-day who expend more for church
music than our entire congregational expenses, so there have ever been
those who could drop into the treasury of a single board, in a single
year, more than all our contributions to benevolent objects during
fifty years, we hope it may be equally true that we have been most
definitely, spiritually pronounced.

"Whatever may be said of her ecclesiastical loyalty, the evidences are
numerous of fervent loyalty to Christ, in doctrine, in the word
preached, in influence exerted, in means used for the extension of His
kingdom, and of consequent fidelity to man touching questions of social
and of national importance.

"A not unimportant element of influence and success, next to a