The Lutherans of New York Part 5

Immigration from Lutheran lands continued to increase and reached its high water mark in this period.

Prior to 1867 there were few Swedes in New York. In 1870 they numbered less than 3,000. The immigrants were chiefly farmers who settled in the West. In 1883 large numbers began to come from the cities of Sweden and these settled in the cities of the East. In 1900 the census credited New York with 29,000 Swedes. In 1910, including the children, there were 57,464, of which 56,766 were Protestants.

The first Swedish Lutheran church was organized in 1865 by Pastor Andreen who had been sent here for this purpose by the Augustana Synod.

Among the first trustees was Captain John Ericsson, the inventor of the Monitor. Its first pastor was Axel Waetter, a cultured minister of the Swedish National Church.

At present there are fourteen Swedish Lutheran churches in New York reporting a membership of 8,626 souls.

An Immigrant House in Manhattan, a Home for the Aged and an Orphans'

Home in Brooklyn, and Upsala College in Kenilworth, N. J., represent the inst.i.tutional work of the Swedish Lutherans.

To Pastor Lauritz La.r.s.en I am indebted for the following sketch of our Norwegian churches:

"The Norwegians have always been a sea-faring people and a people looking for fields of labor all over the World. The real immigration begins about 1849, but there were Scandinavians on Manhattan Island in the Sixteenth Century. The Bronx is named after a Danish farmer, Jonas Bronck.

"I believe that the first Norwegian Lutheran Church in New York was organized by Lauritz La.r.s.en, then Norwegian Professor in Theology at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, who stopped here for a while on his way to and from Norway in the early sixties. The first resident pastor was Ole Juul, who came to New York in 1866 and labored here until 1876, when he was succeeded by Pastor Everson, who was actively engaged as pastor in New York and Brooklyn from 1873, until 1917, when failing health compelled him to retire.

"At present, the Norwegian Lutheran churches of Greater New York are carrying on an active and aggressive work. Their total membership is not as large as it might be. Partly because the Norwegians coming here from the State Church do not at once realize the importance or necessity of becoming members of local congregations, but have the idea that as long as they attend services, have their children baptized and confirmed, and so forth, they are members of the church. The report of the membership of the churches is therefore, hardly a correct indication of the number of people reached or even the strength of the Norwegian Lutherans in the Metropolis.

"The language question is one of great difficulty. Many of our people live, as it were, with one foot in Norway and one in America; and are thinking of returning to the old country at some time or other. There is also a constant influx of new people from Norway which makes it imperative to have Norwegian services constantly. On the other hand, the young people are rapidly Americanized and prefer to use the language of the country, which necessitates English work, and where this demand is made, the young people are, generally speaking, quite loyal to their church, but it is no easy matter to satisfy both elements and to keep the old and the young together in the same church.

"The Norwegians have been very active in Inner Mission and Social Service work. As witness: the organization of the Norwegian Lutheran Deaconesses' Home and Hospital about thirty years ago. This inst.i.tution has now grown to be the largest Norwegian charitable inst.i.tution in the country and has a splendidly equipped modern hospital and an excellent Sisters' Home, which together represent a value of $500,000. It is not owned by a church, but is owned and controlled by a corporation of Norwegian Lutherans.

"The churches have directly been engaged in Inner Mission work for a number of years, and now have three city missionaries constantly at work. The inst.i.tutions conducted by this branch of the service are the Bethesda Rescue Mission at Woodhull St., Brooklyn, the Day Nursery at 46th St., Brooklyn, and an extensive industrial plant also in Brooklyn.

Besides the Inner Mission has purchased land on Staten Island and erected a cottage there for a summer colony for poor children. The Norwegians of New York have also built a modern Children's Home at d.y.k.er Heights, Brooklyn. Although this is not owned by the church, but by a corporation of Norwegians, its const.i.tution provides that the religious instruction should be based upon Luther's Small Catechism. The Home is now taking care of sixty children, and is in charge of a Deaconess from the local mother house mentioned above. A new Inner Mission Agency was started two years ago when the late C. M. Eger bequeathed a large sum of money for the establishment of the Old People's Home in connection with Our Saviour's Lutheran Church. At present it is located in his former home, 112 Pulaski Street, and will, no doubt, be of great importance for our church work in the future."

The statistics of the Scandinavian churches are presented in part in the following table. The figures of the first and second lines are taken from the United States Census of 1910. They include the children where one or both parents are of foreign descent. Those of the third line are obtained by deducting 10 per cent. from the number of Protestants, in the second line. The number of "souls," fourth line, is the aggregate number of baptized persons, old or young, connected with or related to the respective congregations.

Swedes Norwegians Danes Finns Total 1. Population 53,464 34,733 13,197 10,304 116,698 2. Protestants 56,766 33,344 11,996 10,304 112,410 3. Lutherans 51,090 30,010 10,797 9,274 101,171 4. Souls 8,365 10,433 950 2,540 22,288 5. Communicants 3,829 2,152 422 840 7,643 6. No. of Churches 13 12 3 3 31

Prior to 1871 Germans were a negligible quant.i.ty in the political history of Europe. Divided into a mult.i.tude of tribes, with divergent interests, for centuries they had no political standing and were the football of the nations around them. From Louis XIV to the Corsican invader, except during the reign of Frederick the Great, their history was one of political incohesion and economic poverty.

Even in New York they were looked upon as aliens in the city which they had helped to found and where in three centuries their sons had stood in the forefront of the battle for freedom. The names of Jacob Leisler, of the seventeenth century, Peter Zenger of the eighteenth century, Franz Lieber and Karl Schurz of the nineteenth century are indelibly inscribed among the champions of freedom in America. Yet fifty years ago "Dutch"

in New York had almost the same evaluation that "Sheeny" and "Dago" have today.

In 1871 the divergent fragments of the German people, after many futile experiments in their history, at last attained national unity. The Germans of New York celebrated the event with a procession which made a deep impression upon the city. From that day forward they were no longer held below par in popular estimation. This became manifest in the success of their efforts in the field of social and religious work.

Thirty German churches were added to the roll before the close of the century.

The completion of the Elevated Lines in 1879 and the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883 changed the course of history for our Lutheran congregations. For decades the ever-increasing hosts of immigrants had been interned in unwholesome tenements on a narrow island. Now ways of escape were found.

Wide thoroughfares led in every direction. The churches in Brooklyn and Bronx grew rapidly in numbers and in strength.

It was hard for those of us who still held the fort on Manhattan Island to see the congregations we had gathered with painstaking effort scattering in every direction, especially to lose the children and the grandchildren of our faithful families. But when we saw them in the comfortable homes and open s.p.a.ces of the suburbs, who could wish them to return to the hopeless atmosphere of the tenements? From this time forward the churches of the surrounding boroughs grew rapidly, largely at the expense, however, of the churches of Manhattan.

From 1881 to the close of the century Bronx added nine churches, Richmond five, Brooklyn and Queens thirty-two to the roll. Manhattan, it is true, also added eleven churches, but they were all above Forty-second Street, most of them far uptown.

The tenth of November, 1883, was a red letter day in our calendar. It was the quadricentennial of Luther's birthday. The preparations for the celebration met with a hearty response in the city. The large dailies gave much s.p.a.ce to the occasion. Dr. Seiss delivered a memorable address in Steinway Hall. Under the auspices of the Evangelical Alliance a distinguished company gathered in the Academy of Music and heard William Taylor and Phillips Brooks deliver orations of majestic eloquence.

The celebration gave a marked impulse to our church work. Our congregations increased in numbers and in influence. Its chief value was in its efeet [sic] upon the young people. Hitherto they hardly comprehended the significance of their church. Its services were conducted in a language which they understood with difficulty. As they grew up and established new homes in the suburbs where there were few churches of their faith, they easily drifted out of their communion. A great change came over them at this time. They began to take an active interest in church questions and in church extension. As they followed the inevitable trend to the suburbs they connected themselves with churches of their faith or organized new ones and became active workers in them. The remarkable increase of congregations in the entire Metropolitan District was to a large extent owing to the impulse derived from the quadricentennial of 1883.

When Lutherans of various churches and synods were thus brought together there was one thing that puzzled them. They could not understand why there should be so many kinds of Lutherans and why they should have so little to do with one another. This feeling soon found expression in the organization of societies of men interested in the larger mission of the Church.

In 1883 the Martin Luther Society was organized by such laymen as Arnold J. D. Wedemeyer, Jacob F. Miller, John H. Tietjen, Jacob A.

Geissenhainer, George P. Ockerhausen, Charles A. Schieren, John H.

Boschen and others, originally for the purpose of preparing a suitable celebration of the Luther Quadricentennial. In this effort they were successful. In addition to their local work in the interest of the celebration they secured the erection of a bronze statue of Luther in Washington.

But the chief reason for the organization of the Society was indicated in a letter sent to the pastors and church councils of the Lutheran churches of New York and vicinity which read in part as follows:

"In view of the efforts made all around us to bring about a closer and more harmonious relation between the various Protestant denominations, the Martin Luther Society of the City of New York respectfully begs you to consider whether the time has not come to make an effort to bring about, if not a union, at least a better understanding and more fraternal intercourse between the Lutherans themselves. We all deplore the divisions that separate us; we believe that the reasons for these divisions are more imaginary than real, and we are persuaded that a free and frank interchange of opinions will materially help to remove whatever obstacles may be in the way.

"We surely recognize the fact that our Lutheran Church does not command that influence or maintain that position in this city and vicinity which its history, purity of doctrine and conservative policy ent.i.tles it to; and we may be sure that just so long as our divisions continue, loss of membership and prestige, increasing weakness, and final disaster, will be our lot.

"Brethren, in unity is strength. Earnestly desiring to do what we can to bring it about, we ask the pastors of our Church and their church officers to take this important matter into consideration, and to take steps to partic.i.p.ate in a meeting in this behalf which the Martin Luther Society proposes to hold on Tuesday evening, January 22d, 1889, in the hall of the Academy of Medicine, No. 12 West 31st Street, in this city."

The annual banquet of the Martin Luther Society was an important function. Distinguished speakers lifted high the banner of Lutheranism, and good fellowship began to be cultivated among the representatives of churches and synods. .h.i.therto unacquainted with each other. Nearly all of its members have pa.s.sed on and the Society is only a memory among a few survivors of those who shared its genial hospitality and recall the kindly fellowship of its meetings. The Martin Luther Society blazed the trail for the wider path on which we are walking today, and it deserves to be held in honored remembrance.

A few years later, in 1888, the younger men caught the inspiration and established The Luther League. The organization soon extended to other parts of the State and subsequently to the entire country. It has splendidly attained its objective, that of rallying and training the young people in the support and service of the church. Its official organ, The Luther League Review, is published in this city under the editorship of the Hon. Edward F. Eilert. Eleven hundred members are enrolled in the local Leagues of New York City.

The first practical attempt of the ministers to get together was in the organization of "Koinonia." This took place in the home of the writer in 1896. The society meets once a month for the purpose of discussing the papers which each member in his turn is required to read. Representing as it does Lutherans of all kinds, species and varieties, it serves as a clearing house for the theological output of the members. It has been helpful in removing some of the misunderstandings that are liable to arise among men of positive convictions.

On the third Sunday in Advent, 1898, Sister Emma Steen, of Richmond, Indiana, the first Lutheran deaconess to engage in parish work in New York, was installed in Christ Church. She had received her preparation for this ministry in the motherhouse at Kaiserswerth on the Rhine, and was one of the first six sisters to enter the motherhouse of the General Synod in Baltimore. After four years of faithful service she was succeeded by Sister Regena Bowe who has now for fifteen years by her devoted work ill.u.s.trated the value of the female diaconate in the work of our churches in New York. Deaconeses are now laboring in seven of our churches. They are needed in a hundred congregations.

The revival of this office is due to the genius and zeal of Pastor Fliedner who established the first motherhouse at Kaiserswerth on the Rhine in 1833. In America there are eight motherhouses with an enrollment of 378 sisters.*

*In 1885 the author was appointed chairman of a committee of the General Synod to report on the practicability of establishing the office of deaconess in the parish work of our American churches. In pursuit of information he visited the princ.i.p.al Deaconess Houses of Europe. His reports were published in the Minutes of the Synod from 1887 to 1897 and contributed to the introduction of the office into the Synod's scheme of church work.

The years under review, the closing period of the nineteenth century, were years of stress and storm in our synodical relations. But the questions that divided us did not stop the practical work of the synods.

Under the stimulus of a generous rivalry some things were accomplished and foundations were laid for still larger work in the new century.

In the Twentieth Century 1900-1918

Our churches entered the twentieth century with hope and cheer. With an enrollment of 94 congregations in the greater city and an advance patrol of many more in the Metropolitan District, it had become an army of respectable size among the forces striving for the Christian uplift of our city.

What a contrast between this picture and that of our church at the beginning of the nineteenth century! Then two moribund congregations were feebly holding the fort. One of these soon surrendered, "on account of the present embarra.s.sment of finances." Now a compact army had already been a.s.sembled, while new races and languages were beginning to reinforce our ranks. Even the English contingent, which had so long maintained an unequal fight, was securely entrenched in four boroughs with seventeen congregations on its roll.

At this writing, in May, 1918, we number in Greater New York 160 churches with an enrollment of sixty thousand communicant members. At the close of the nineteenth century, in 1898, we had 90 churches with 43,691 communicants. The rate of increase in twenty years was 35 per cent., not very large but sufficiently so to awaken favorable comment from Dr. Laidlaw, an expert observer of church conditions in this city.

In 1904, in an article in "Federation," on "Oldest New York," he wrote as follows:

"There are now over fifty Christian bodies in this city, and "Oldest New York's" history shows the fatuity of expecting that the heterogeneous population of the present city will all worship in the same way within the lifetime of its youngest religious worker. Man's thoughts have not been G.o.d's thoughts, nor man's ways G.o.d's ways, in the mingling of races and religions on this island. The Lutheranism that so sorely struggled for a foothold in the early days is now the second Protestant communion in numbers, and its recent increment throughout Greater New York, contributed to by German, Scandinavian, Finnish and many English Lutheran churches, has exceeded that of any other Protestant body."

The causes which contributed to our progress in the latter part of the nineteenth century were still effective. The consolidation of Greater New York, bringing together into one metropolis the scattered boroughs, marked the advent of a Greater Lutheran Church in New York. The bridges and the subways, the telephone and the Catskill Aqueduct, public works of unprecedented magnitude, were among the material foundations of the new growth of our churches.

We were beginning to reap in the second and third generations the fruits of the vast immigration of the nineteenth century.

A new era began for the use of the English language. There had been a demand for English services as early as 1750, but in the eighteenth and the greater part of the nineteenth centuries it had not been met. Fifty years ago, with its two churches, and even twenty-five years ago with four churches, English was a forlorn hope. The advance began in the last decade of the 19th century when twelve English churches were organized.

In 1900 there were seventeeen English churches on the roll. Since then 32 have been added, five in Bronx, fifteen in Brooklyn, eleven in Queens, one in Richmond. Besides these forty-nine churches in which the English language is used exclusively, almost all of the so-called foreign churches use English to a greater or less extent as the needs of the people may require.

But there was a deeper reason for the growth of our church. Ever since the Luther Centennial of 1883 the young people of our churches had begun to understand not only the denominational significance of their church but also something of its inner characteristics and life. In various groups, in Manhattan, Bronx and Brooklyn, they got together and organized English congregations in which an intelligent Lutheran consciousness prevailed.

The Home Mission and Church Exension Boards of the General Synod recognized the importance of the moment in the metropolis of America and gave their effective aid. In Brooklyn and Queens the work received large support from Charles A. Schieren and the Missionary Society with which he co-operated. Sixteen churches were established through the aid of this Society. Schieren was a native of Germany but he early saw the importance of reaching the people in the language which they could best understand. As a citizen he was public spirited and progressive. From 1894 to 1895 he was mayor of Brooklyn.