Perseverance Taylor-Made for US

Galatians 6:7-10

 190 years ago the United States had its first banking crisis, the Panic of 1819. That same year Supreme Court Justice John Marshall said, “The power to tax is the power to destroy." Thomas Jefferson started the University of Virginia. The first stretch of the Erie Canal opened. The stethoscope was invented. And the First Associate Reformed Church of Madrid was chartered with Rev. William Taylor as the first pastor.

 190 years later we have another financial crisis. In 1819 early Scotch settlers must have learned a lot from Rev. William Taylor and in the years that he preached in this community. In 2009, we still have a lot to learn from him and his wife, Mary. They persevered through some very difficult situations. We can’t find better examples to guide our own response to difficulties and stewardship.

Galatians 6:7-10 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

 Let’s take a journey to see the events in William Taylor’s life that called for perseverance as he sought to please the Spirit.

  William was born in Scotland on January 31, 1768, just eight years before our Declaration of Independence was signed. He parents John and Elizabeth Gardner Taylor were farmers in the Parish of Falkirk in Scotland.  It was a time of great social and religious turmoil. William’s family belonged to the secessionist group that objected to any government official having control of the clergy. Our congregation was made up of likeminded Scottish families.

 We know nothing about William’s childhood except that he had an older brother, John.  In 1790, at 22 he enrolled in the University of Glasgow. His logic professor was George Jardine “who disciplined the faculties of his students for active and decided usefulness.”[1] Three important events occurred in the next three years:

· 1793 – Graduated

· 1794 – Married Mary McKeown. He was 25 or 26. She  

was 16 or 17.

· 1795 – Their first child Eliza was born.

Two years later he completed studies at Selkirk Divinity Hall studying under Dr. George Lawson and was licensed to preach. They must have been very excited. He and Mary are ready. They are devoted to God. He is educated and trained and eager to get started.

 His first church is the Paterson Church at Stonehouse, Lanarkshire, Scotland. On December 4, 1798, at the age of thirty he was ordained as their first pastor. What an exciting beginning. There were 72 members and 32 adherents. His stipend was 60 pounds with a house and garden. In the first dozen years he and Mary had more children. Then in 1815, four years after the birth of their 7^th child, the church built a new manse. 

But two years later he resigned (January 28^th, 1817). What happened to the promising beginning? During his pastorate the annual income of the church was less than the amount agreed upon for his stipend. To try to make ends meet he also took a job teaching at a subscription school.

According to one historian, after eighteen years of Rev. Taylor’s ministry, there was little progress.[2]  Little progress! That must have broken their hearts, but the Taylor’s were not yet weary of trying to do good. Despite their own destitute situation another historian reported that Rev. Taylor’s attention was directed to the destitute condition of Canada with respect to the ordinances of religion. So he let the synod know he was willing to proceed as a minister to Canada.[3]

Four months after his resignation (April 15, 1817), he and the family boarded the Rothiemurchus, a five-year-old vessel loaded with dynamite. The Rothiemurchus was not built for passengers but for hauling lumber from the Americas. For this passage, carpenters laid temporary wooden planking over the crossbeams built two tiers of temporary bed-births. Passengers supplied their own bedding.

Making the voyage with the Taylors was Rev. William Bell and his family for a total of 105 emigrants and 15 members of the crew. Captain G. Watson had promised them a partition in the stern, but he did not deliver. The Captain was usually drunk all day every day.

Bell described the first night liked this: The crying of the children, the swearing of the sailors, and the scolding of the women who had not got the beds they wanted, produced concert in which is was difficult to discover any harmony.[4]

He didn’t know it but that first night was a breeze compared to what was to follow. Bell wrote: The weather was cold and boisterous, and the sea running like mountains high. We now suffered excessively, both from sickness and the rolling of the ship. No ease was to be obtained, either in bed or out of it; and we were often dashed from the one side to the other with the greatest violence. (ibid, p. 11).

The provisions provided no relief.  The Captain admitted that the bread was over a year old and the beef even older. The water was dirty and vile. The oatmeal was excellent though. One passenger said, “The soup was stinking water, in which stinking beef had been boiled, which no dog would taste unless he was starving (ibid. p. 31.”

 The Taylors and their seven children endured the terror and seasickness, the lack of privacy and nourishment and being drenched by waves for eight weeks. But even during that hellish voyage, Rev. Taylor sewed to please the spirit.

He and Rev. Bell conducted a worship service every morning and evening when they weren’t in danger of being tossed over board. The worship consisted of a few verses of a hymn or psalm being read out and sung by the whole assembly; a portion of the scripture read and prayer by one of the clergy. And on Sunday they each had a sermon. Bell was particularly pleased that the crew attended and that they had some success in getting them to stop swearing (ibid. p 5).

  When they arrived in Canada he described them as looking like skeletons. But despite deplorable conditions, Rev. Taylor had been willing to take advantage of opportunity he had do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers (10).

In Canada, Rev. Taylor served at two churches, a Dutch one in Osnabruck and one in Williamsburg both near Cornwall in Upper Canada. It was a difficult assignment. Rev. Bell who faced similar circumstances in Perth described it like this:

New countries are generally settled by adventurers, with whom religion is not a primary consideration. They will find the profanation of the Sabbath, and the neglect of religion, quite congenial to their unrenewed minds; and, if this is the case when they first settle in the woods, what can we expect when they have lived a number of years without religious instruction? May we not expect that depraved passions will be indulged; that vices will be practiced with avidity, and that the future world will be neglected amidst the clamorous demands of the present?

 But Rev. Taylor had come to Canada to serve God not to take a vacation, so he and Mary, Eliza, William, Ann, David, Mary, James and Margaret moved into their new home. One of the historians reported that the nine of them were cooped up in a log-hut of one apartment measuring 16’x16’.[5]  With a stipend of only about $300[6] there wasn’t much hope of putting on an addition. No children were born in Canada! But Rev. Taylor along with three other pastors formed Canada’s first presbytery (July 9, 1818).

 He wasn’t ready to give up.

  There is no specific record, but Scottish Presbyterians in Pennsylvania and New York did contact Scotland and Novia Scotia for pastors. There was also a connection between the Associate Reformed Synod in Scotland and the one in the United States.[7] Whether through this network or some other means, Rev. Taylor resigned from the two Canadian churches and began doing missionary work in New York.

 Rev. Bell reported Rev. Taylor’s departure. He said his successor’s enterprising disposition was more suited to those congregations and that he thought Rev. Taylor would do better among his own countrymen. He also said that after laboring for two years there was little success. Little Success! Again the Taylor’s must have been heartbroken, but they were still not weary of well doing, not yet ready to give up. Once again they packed up and moved to a new country.

 This time Rev. Taylor’s personal information form had four words: Little progress; little success. But they crossed the St. Lawrence River to yet another country, their third. Here they became connected with a group of spiritually minded Scottish settlers.

 In a series of meetings in September and October of 1819, he met with 37 charter members and became the stated supply of the First Associate Reformed Congregation of Madrid. They met in Richard Rutherford’s barn and celebrated their beginning with refreshments and the Lord’s Supper. Then they sang a hymn and everyone went home.  

Can you imagine the conversation William and Mary had that night. So far in their 25 years of marriage, they’ve had seven children, a church with little progress, one horrifying ocean voyage and another pastorate with little success. One of them might have said, “Here we go again.” Or “Let’s go back to home to Scotland and farm.”

But knowing them better than that, their conversation probably went more like this:

  Mary quoting a verse from 1Timothy said: Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee (1Timothy 4:16).

  William quoting a verse from Hebrews said: For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise (Hebrews 10:36).

Early church records are not available, but given Rev. Taylor’s background and the name they chose for the church, they were probably received into the Associate Reformed Synod of America.

  After sailing on the Rothiemurchus and living with seven children and teenagers in a 256 square feet log hut, meeting in a barn probably seemed luxurious to the Taylors. But in a short time the members built a frame church on the Scotch Ridge Road near the Ridge Schoolhouse.

 The Taylors were evidently content with their new situation because on March 13, 1820, they bought an 80-acre farm in the Town of Madrid from Joshua Waddington for $348.41. The approximate location is the same as Cheryl and Jeff Dominy’s farm.

 The following year (1821) they had their eighth child, Agnes. William was 53 and Mary was 44. But before the baby was even two months old, Mary died. The exact date of the baby’s birth is unknown, but perhaps Mary, weakened by travels and hardships, died of complications related to the pregnancy.

 On her tombstone, Rev. Taylor had them inscribe these words reminiscent of the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley:

 Swifter than I, she ran her race

and now has reached the throne.

She sees her savior face to face

While I but follow on.

A year after he buried Mary in the Scotch Cemetery, he and the church transferred to the Ogdensburg Presbytery, Synod of Albany, Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.

In 1822, the minutes of the Synod of Albany reported that in the wake of Charles Finney’s preaching, eighty in the congregation at Madrid have been made subjects of renewing grace. Rev. Taylor had his hands full and a growing church.

In the next few years: Mary Oliver, his first grandchild was born. He married Mary Armstrong and they had a child in 1826. Thomas was Rev. Taylor’s 8^th child. And in that same year he joined the Associate Reformed Presbytery of Washington, Synod of New York, Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. The Madrid church was taken under care of the Presbytery.

Rev. Taylor was active in the Presbytery and concurred with their wishes that he be officially installed as pastor on May 6, 1829. His colleagues called him our venerable Father Taylor.

In addition to the Finney revival, the local church historian said that every new arrival from Scotland added to the strength of the church and filled the pews to capacity.

As Rev. Taylor grew older discontent also began to grow.

In 1835, a dispute grew over his pay. The Trustees agreed that Rev. Taylor could examine the books and he agreed that he wouldn’t prosecute anyone.

Two years later the Presbytery received two communications: one was a complaint against Rev. Taylor and one was a defense of Rev. Taylor. After meeting with both parties the Presbytery voted unanimously to have the complainers withdraw their complaint.

Later that year, (1837) Rev. Taylor notified Presbytery that he wished to be dismissed as the pastor of the First Associate Reformed Church of Madrid, but they didn’t think it was necessary.

Rev. Taylor was getting his affairs in order.

On December 19, 1837, he registered as an Alien and on the same trip to Canton he had the Deed to his land recorded. Two weeks later he signed his Last Will and Testament. A year and a half later on July 25, 1839, the church again switched presbyteries. This time to the Missionary Presbytery of the Canadas. Whereupon it was resolved to answer the prayer of Mr. Taylor to dissolve the Pastoral relations between him and the congregation of Madrid.

He had been pastor for almost 20 years. Less than a year later he died and was buried in the Scotch cemetery next to his wife. His oldest daughter Eliza and her husband, George Oliver share a common gravestone with the Taylors.

Rev. William Taylor never wearied of doing good to please the Spirit. He never gave up. But what of the promised harvest?

In a letter to the Presbytery, Rev. John Morrison, the second pastor reported that the membership of the congregation as of December 31^st, 1841 was 315 and that the number of souls belonging to the congregation was upwards of 1,000. The majority of those were the fruits of Rev. Taylor’s ministry.

Rev. Taylor had his harvest and it continues to this day. So as we face our own difficulties let’s remember his example and these words from his seminary professor that summarizes the action of God in the Taylor’s lives and their response to him through the trials.

We need our corrections. The time is coming (or rather now is, if we know our heart), when we will see that we needed very powerful but painful means to keep alive the impression that God alone must be our portion. What are the brittle cisterns to the fountain of living waters![8]