Peculiarities of American Cities. Willard W. GlazierЧитать онлайн книгу.
Aurora, New York, on January tenth, 1822, and preached in Market street church, in New York City, from 1853 to 1860. The church edifice where he now ministers is one of the most spacious and complete, in all its arrangements, in either New York or Brooklyn, having seats for two thousand people, while the Sabbath-school hall will accommodate one thousand.
Dr. Cuyler, during the thirty-seven years of his ministry, has delivered five thousand three hundred and forty discourses, and a multitude of platform addresses. He has received four thousand and forty-one persons into church membership, of whom about one-half have been on confession of faith. He has published several volumes and over two thousand articles in the leading religious newspapers. The present membership of the Lafayette Avenue Church is nineteen hundred and twenty persons. His congregations are very large on every Sunday, and he is an untiring pastor, especially zealous for temperance. He preaches the old orthodox gospel, with no "modern improvements." His discourses are able and eloquent, while his chief aim in the pulpit is to reach the heart.
Justin D. Fulton, D.D., is still another eminent clergyman of Brooklyn. He was born in 1828, in Sherburne, Madison County, New York, and literally worked his way through college and to the ministry. He began his public life in St. Louis, where he was engaged as editor of the Gospel Banner. Preaching in the Tabernacle Baptist Church of that city, he delivered the first Free-state sermon ever heard in St. Louis. He also put his anti-slavery sentiments into his paper, and was shortly deposed from his position as editor because he would not believe slavery to be right and defend it. From St. Louis he went to Sandusky, Ohio, preaching there a short period; and from thence, in 1859, to Albany, New York, where he became pastor of the Tabernacle Church. In 1863 he received a call from the Tremont Temple Church of Boston, and labored with that church for ten years, increasing its membership from fifty to one thousand. In 1873, he became pastor of the Hanson Place Church, of Brooklyn, leaving it, however, in 1875, to organize the Centennial Baptist Church, in the same city. His popularity as a preacher became so great that it was presently found necessary to seek a larger place of worship. Therefore, in 1879, the Rink was purchased, for much less than its original cost, and was consecrated as a People's Church. The Rink is an immense edifice, capable of seating nearly six thousand persons.
Dr. Fulton is an able writer, having published a number of volumes, the most prominent among which is "The Roman Catholic Element in America." In the old days of slavery he was a most able and eloquent anti-slavery advocate, and as such created strong prejudice against himself in certain quarters. He preached the funeral sermon of Colonel Ellsworth, in Tweddle Hall, Albany, in which he said that the war must go on until the musket should be put in the hands of the black man, and he was permitted to prove his manhood on the battle field. This drew down upon him the denunciation of the conservative press; but he was appointed Chaplain of Governor Morgan's staff, and served in hospital and camp. He is no less famous as an advocate of temperance, and devotes much of his energies to work in this field.
In person, Dr. Fulton is tall, stout, finely formed, with black whiskers and moustache, and a somewhat bald forehead. His manner in the pulpit is full of earnestness and impetuosity. He sometimes overwhelms his audience with a whirlwind of words. He has strong magnetic and nervous power, while he impresses his listeners with his sincerity and candor. He makes frequent and expressive gestures, and combines in his oratory the carefulness of art with the fire of genius. In belief he is thoroughly orthodox, having no leanings toward the so-called "liberality" of many popular clergymen.
R. S. Storrs, D.D., is pastor of the Church of the Pilgrims, at the corner of Remsen and Henry streets. He is one of the most noted clergymen of the city, and was selected to assist in the opening of the New York and Brooklyn Suspension Bridge, making one of the addresses of the occasion.
The Unitarian Church of the Saviour, at the corner of Pierrepont street and Monroe Place, is an elaborate Gothic edifice, as is also St. Ann's Episcopal Church, at the corner of Clinton and Livingston streets. The Roman Catholic Church of St. Charles Borromeo, in Sidney Place, is famous for its music. The Dutch Reformed Church, in Pierrepont street, is of brown stone, in the richest Corinthian style, and the interior elaborately finished.
The United States Navy Yard is one of the features of Brooklyn, and is the chief naval station of the country. It is on the south shore of Wallabout Bay, and contains forty-five acres. The yard is inclosed by a high brick wall, and contains numerous foundries, workshops and storehouses. Vessels of every kind used by the navy may be seen at almost any time at the yard, and it has also a large and varied collection of trophies taken in war and relics of earlier times, which prove of interest to the visitor.
At the other extremity of Brooklyn, a mile below South Ferry, is the Atlantic Dock, which covers an area of forty-two and one-half acres, and deserves special attention. It is surrounded by piers of solid granite, upon which are spacious warehouses.
In the heart of the city, a little south of the Navy Yard, between Myrtle and DeKalb avenues, is Washington Park, or old Fort Greene. It is on an elevated plateau, contains thirty acres, and commands extensive views. Its name of Fort Greene dates back to the time of the Revolution, when it was the seat of extensive fortifications.
The special pride of Brooklyn is Prospect Park, one of the finest in America, where art and the landscape gardener have assisted rather than thwarted nature in her efforts to produce beauty. It is situated on an elevated ridge on the southeastern borders of the city, and from certain localities commands broad views of Brooklyn, New York, the inner and outer harbor, and the Jersey shore. It contains five hundred and fifty acres, which embrace broad, green lawns, grassy slopes, groves, wooded hills, beautiful with ferns and wild flowers, lakes and rocky dells. It contains eight miles of drives, four miles of bridle paths, and eleven miles of walks. At the main entrance, on Flatbush avenue, is a large, circular open place known as the Plaza, paved with stone and bordered by grassy mounds. A fountain of novel design furnishes the welcome sound of splashing, trickling water, and not far distant from it is a bronze statue of President Lincoln. Within the Park, on an eminence overlooking the cottages and dell, is a monument, erected in 1877, to the memory of John Howard Payne, author of "Home, Sweet Home."
On Gowanus Heights, overlooking Gowanus Bay, in the southern portion of Brooklyn, is situated Greenwood Cemetery, one of the most beautiful "cities of the dead" in the world. It was laid out in 1842, and contains over five hundred acres. At least two hundred thousand interments have been made in it. It is a perfect wilderness of beauty. The surface of the ground is uneven, and hills and valleys, grassy slopes, beautiful little lakes with fountains playing in their midst, overshadowing trees, a profusion of brilliant flowers, and the white or gray gleam of a thousand monuments, varied and beautiful in design, all unite in forming an exquisite spot for the resting place of the dead, which is a fitting embodiment and expression of the loving remembrance in which they continue to be held by the living. Among the many elegant and expensive monuments which this cemetery contains, not one will attract more attention for its beauty and elaborateness than that erected to Charlotte Canda, a young French girl, whose fortune was expended in the marble pile above her grave. The main entrance to Greenwood, near Fifth Avenue and Twenty-third street, has a magnificent gateway in the pointed Gothic style, and opens upon a most enchanting landscape. On an elevation to the right of this entrance, within this cemetery, is obtained an extensive view of Brooklyn and the bay. The cemetery contains nineteen miles of carriage roads, and seventeen miles of footpaths.
Four miles to the eastward of Greenwood are the cemeteries of the Evergreen and Cypress Hills, both beautiful spots, and the latter especially celebrated as containing the grave of a large number of soldiers of the late war.
Radiating from Brooklyn, in almost every direction, are routes leading to some of the most frequented pleasure resorts of the country. On the southern coast of Long Island, just east of the Narrows, is Coney Island, four and a half miles long, with a firm, gently-sloping beach. The island is divided into four distinct places of resort: Coney Island Point, or Morton's, at the west end, the oldest of the four; West Brighton Beach, or Cable's, where there is an iron pier one thousand feet long, extending out into the ocean, and an observatory three hundred feet high; Brighton Beach, connecting with West Brighton by a wide drive and promenade, known as the Concourse; and Manhattan Beach, the most fashionable resort on the island. At the latter place are two vast hotels, and an amphitheatre,