ng of the Session, from the records of the Tabernacle:

"In regard to the payment of the floating debt of this church and
congregation, the Session adopted the following resolution, viz.:--

"In view of the manifest instance that God has heard the supplications
of this people regarding the floating debt of the Church, and so
directed their hearts as to accomplish the object, it is therefore
resolved that we set apart next Wednesday evening as a special season of
religious thanksgiving to God for his great goodness to us as a Church,
in granting unto us this deliverance."

I reverently and solemnly believe the new Tabernacle was built by
prayer.

My congregation with great munificence provided for all my wants, and so
I can speak without any embarrassment on the subject while I denounce
the niggardliness of many of the churches of Jesus Christ, keeping some
men, who are very apostles for piety and consecration, in circumstances
where they are always apologetic, and have not that courage which they
would have could they stand in the presence of people whom they knew
were faithful in the discharge of their financial duties to the
Christian Church. Alas, for those men of whom the world is not worthy!
In the United States to-day the salary of ministers averages less than
six hundred dollars, and when you consider that some of the salaries are
very large, see to what straits many of God's noblest servants are this
day reduced! A live church will look after all its financial interests
and be as prompt in the meeting of those obligations as any bank in any
city.

My church in Brooklyn prospered because it was a soul-saving church. It
has always been the ambition of my own church that it should be a
soul-saving church. Pardon for all sin! Comfort for all trouble! Eternal
life for all the dead!

Moral conditions in the cities of New York and Brooklyn were deplorably
bad during the first few years I went there to preach. There was an
onslaught of bad literature and stage immorality. For instance, there
was a lady who came forth as an authoress under the assumed name of
George Sand. She smoked cigars. She dressed like a man. She wrote in
style ardent and eloquent, mighty in its gloom, terrible in its
unchastity, vivid in its portraiture, damnable in its influence, putting
forth an evil which has never relaxed, but has hundreds of copyists. Yet
so much worse were many French books that came to America than anything
George San