strengthening,
and I have heard of instances where the pastoral relation continued
twenty years, thirty years, forty years, and all the time the confidence
and the love were on the increase. So it was with the pastorate of old
Dr. Spencer, so it was with the pastorate of old Dr. Gardiner Spring, so
it was with the pastorate of a great many of those old ministers of
Jesus Christ, of whom the world was not worthy.

I saw an opportunity to establish in Brooklyn just such a church as I
had in my mind's eye--a Tabernacle, where all the people who wanted to
hear the Gospel preached could come in and be comfortable. I projected,
designed, and successfully established the Brooklyn Tabernacle within a
little over a year after preaching my first sermon in Brooklyn. The
church seated 3,500 people, and yet we were compelled to use the old
church to take care of all our active Christian work besides.

The first Brooklyn Tabernacle was, I believe, the most buoyant
expression of my work that I ever enjoyed. It drew upon all my energies
and resources, and as the sacred walls grew up towards the skies, I
prayed God that I might have the strength and spiritual energy to grow
with it.

Prayer always meets the emergency, no matter how difficult it may be.

That was the substantial backing of the first Brooklyn
Tabernacle--prayer. Prayer furnished the means as well as the faith that
was behind them. I was merely the promoter, the agent, of a company
organised in Heaven to perpetuate the Gospel of Christ. It was
considered a great thing to have done, and many were the reasons
whispered by the worldly and the envious and the orthodox, for its
success. Some said it was due to magnetism.

As a cord or rope can bind bodies together, there may be an invisible
cord binding souls. A magnetic man throws it over others as a hunter
throws a lasso. Some men are surcharged with this influence, and have
employed it for patriotism and Christianity and elevated purposes.

It is always a surprise to a great majority of people how churches are
built, how money for which the world has so many other uses can be
obtained to build churches. There are names of men and women whom I have
only to mention and they suggest at once not only great wealth, but
religion, generosity, philanthropy, such as Amos Laurence, James Lennox,
Peter Cooper, William E. Dodge, Miss Wolfe, Mrs. William Astor. A good
moral character can be accompanied by affluent circumstances.