The patriarch of one hundred years

I rejoice to meet you here to-day, my brethren in the Lord. I rejoice that I am privileged to see the wonderful progress of the work of the Lord through our land. I rejoice that I am permitted to see such an assemblage here to-day. The first time I passed through this place there was no town here. That was in 1809, with the venerable Bishop Asbury. There were sand-banks, and so on, here then, but no houses—except the ferry-house, I think. Blessed be God for his wonderful work throughout our land! Yes, where we passed through wildernesses and solitary places, they are now inhabited, and churches have arisen, where a numerous and enlightened people worship and praise the Lord. Thanks be to his name! I cannot speak very long. I will commit the subject of my experience and travels to my “venerable” Brother Atkinson, who will read you some facts appropriate to this occasion.

I was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, on June 8, 1775, one hundred years ago this day. I was one year a subject of King George, as it was not until I had attained that age that the American people renounced their allegiance to the British Government by proclaiming the Declaration of Independence. The noise of the battles of Concord and Lexington had scarcely died away when I drew my first breath, so that my history includes nearly the whole of the period of the Revolutionary War. I was a contemporary of the fathers and founders of the Republic, and have lived under the administration of all the Presidents of the United States. I clearly remember the days of Washington’s presidency, and I cast my first vote for his successor, John Adams, in 1796. I lived through almost a quarter of the last century, and have lived thus far through the present one, and I have witnessed with my own eyes the rise, progress, and present grand development of the United States of America.

The changes and progress of the country within my recollection have been so vast and overwhelming I scarcely know how to speak of them. When I became a man there was only thirteen States. Early in this century Ohio became a member of the Federal Union, and then the star of our empire moved westward until it shone upon the waves of the Pacific Ocean. I witnessed the system of slavery in the Southern States, and I have been permitted to see it swept from the land, and the banner of impartial freedom waving triumphantly over every State. Bless the Lord! I well remember the days when the steamboat was unknown, and the railroad unthought of. The winds of heaven wafted our commerce, and horses furnished our swiftest means of travel by land. I, myself, have traveled over a hundred thousand miles on horseback.

I have witnessed the progress of the nation in population and wealth to a degree that seems incredible to have been attained in one man’s life-time. I have seen the increase of the oldest cities, and the founding and wonderful growth of newer ones. I have observed the advancement of our people from a comparatively rude and pioneer condition to their present high status of intelligence, wealth, and refinement. When, in 1809, I first stood upon the site of the city in which we are this day assembled, I think there were no buildings upon it except the ferry-house and the barn-houses which here and there dotted it. To-day its streets and buildings cover a territory many miles in circumference, and its population exceeds one hundred thousand souls. Then the city of New York only reached to Canal-street, and Brooklyn was a very small town. Cincinnati had then only commenced its history, and Chicago was yet to be.

I have seen wonderful progress in the religious world in my time. I was born nine years after the introduction of Methodism in New York by Barbara Heck and Philip Embury, and nine years before the organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the election of its first bishops, Coke and Asbury. When my life began there were, probably, scarcely a half score of Methodist houses of worship on this continent, and there were only 3,148 members and 19 traveling preachers. When I commenced my public life Methodism was small, both numerically and financially. There were very few commodious churches except in the large cities, such as St. George’s, in Philadelphia, Light-street, in Baltimore, and John-street, in New York.

Our best churches of that day were very inferior compared with those of the present. Our meetings were mostly held, at the time I began to preach, in private houses, in barns, and wherever we could obtain shelter. There was much opposition shown toward us, and I have had stones hurled at me while preaching.

I joined the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1797, in Boehm’s Chapel, being at that time twenty-two years of age. My father, Martin Boehm, was many years a minister among the United Brethren, and was a bishop in that Church. He was for a long time a warm personal friend of Bishop Asbury, and toward the close of his life he united with our Church. Boehm’s Chapel is still standing in good condition, and is now the church of the neighborhood where it stands. My father’s influence contributed much toward its erection. Bishop Whatcoat furnished the plan of the edifice. It was built in 1791, was the first Methodist church in Lancaster County, and it was one of the early fortresses of American Methodism.

I was licensed to preach January 6, 1800, by Rev. Thomas Ware, who was then presiding elder on the Chesapeake District, and who at the same time appointed me to travel Dorchester Circuit, on the eastern shore of Maryland. Therefore I was never a local preacher, though I have been a witness of the great usefulness of that numerous and honored class of Gospel heralds, whose unremunerated and zealous labors have done so much for the evangelization of this nation. In the days of my effective ministry the local ministry was an indispensable adjunct of our itinerant system.

About four months after I was licensed to preach I attended the General Conference of 1800, in Baltimore. I was present at Richard Whatcoat’s ordination as bishop, in the presence of that body, in Light-street Church, and heard Dr. Coke’s sermon on that occasion. I also was a witness of, and participant in, the wonderful revival which prevailed in Baltimore during that General Conference. People fell under the mighty influence that rested upon them as they walked the streets. After the General Conference closed I attended the Philadelphia Conference at Smyrna, (then Duck Creek,) where the revival work went forward with great power. It extended, in fact, over the whole Peninsula. When I traveled Annamessex Circuit, in 1801, with William Colbert, we received eight hundred persons into the Church in that Circuit alone.

Methodism was very prosperous on the Peninsula in that day, and included among its members many of the first people of that section. Dr. White, Harry Ennalls, Governor Bassett, of Delaware, an eminent lawyer, a judge, and a member of Congress in 1787, Dr. Sellers, and others, gave influence and strength to the denomination in those early times. The social position of our Church has hardly been relatively higher anywhere in this country, at any time in its history, than it was in the Peninsula in the beginning of this century. That region furnished many of our best and most successful preachers in the days when there were giants among us, for truly there were giants in those days. Among the great men of that period was Dr. Chandler, a man of commanding intellect, of large executive capacity, a powerful preacher, a mighty evangelist, greatly successful in winning souls. Jesse Lee, one of the Church’s noblest and brightest names, was then in his ripe maturity, and lost the bishopric by only one vote at the first General Conference I attended. I was with him in his last hours, heard his rapturous and triumphant utterances as he met his final foe, and, at his own request, I closed his eyes after the great soul departed. William Colbert, one of my early colleagues was a man of low stature, but of high usefulness, indefatigable in labor, and among the first in success.

That portion of my life in which I was the traveling companion of bishop Asbury has probably the most public interest, because I was in that capacity the representative of the denomination at large, and was the most intimate and daily associate of a man, the purity and greatness of whose character, and the vastness and value of whose work, must forever place him among the foremost servants of God and mankind.

Bishop Asbury chose me to be his traveling companion in the spring of 1808—which choice the Philadelphia Conference ratified—and I ceased traveling with him at the conference of 1813, when he appointed me presiding elder of the Schuylkill District, which comprised the whole territory from Wilmington to Stroudsburgh, between the Susquehanna and the Delaware. My first tour with Bishop Asbury was from a point between Baltimore and Fredericktown, Maryland—a spot historic in Methodism, where Strawbridge built his log church; thence westward. We crossed the Alleghany Mountains on our way, and the ascent occupied thirty-nine hours. I have since crossed the Alleghanies several times in express trains in a much shorter time. I had previously accompanied Asbury to the Alleghanies in 1803, where I left him to pursue his westward journey, while I returned to my work. Having passed the mountains, we made our way to Wheeling; thence through Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee; thence pursued a southerly course, visiting the conferences in the Southern States. During the western portion of this tour we visited the territory of Indiana, which was a vast wilderness. We traveled in it thirty-six miles, and saw in all that distance only six human habitations. Among the noted and worthy laymen whose acquaintance I formed, and by whom I was entertained on this my first journey with Bishop Asbury, were Governor Tiffin and Governor Worthington, both of Ohio, who were exemplary and devoted members and representatives of our Church. During our progress through Tennessee we were joined by Bishop M’Kendree, who had just been elected a bishop at Baltimore, and who was on his first episcopal tour. He accompanied us through the South, presiding with Asbury over the Southern conferences.

I became acquainted with the Southern Methodist preachers at that time. Lovick Pierce, but a few years my junior, was then conspicuous for the purity and beauty of his character, and his popular talents as a preacher, and he yet lingers, with me, behind our beloved early colaborers who have gone on before. William Capers, beautiful in person and eloquent in speech, was at that time received on trial by the conference. He was afterward one of the most distinguished men in our connection, and became a bishop of the Church South after we were divided. The Southern Methodists at that time were remarkable for their spiritual fervor, and Christian friendliness and hospitality. There were among them many noble examples of the great virtues produced by our faith. I learned to love the South, and I have now fond memories of my friends whom I once cherished there.

I knew the South when there was but one Methodism in America. I wept when, in 1844, we were rent asunder, and now, as I stand amid the thronging memories of a century, I plead and pray that Methodism, North and South, may become one again. I am, in some sense, at least, a representative of the fathers of the Church—of the preachers and bishops who toiled and sacrificed to lay strong the foundations of our beautiful Zion, and I am sure I do not misrepresent them when, in their name, and as almost their sole survivor, I plead for a united Methodism throughout this great land. This desire and prayer leaps strong and warm out of my heart, which, after beating for a hundred years, still beats as true and strong as ever for the welfare of the Church to which its best love and zeal have been given.

During this first tour with Bishop Asbury I saw the Virginia Conference. It was composed of a fine body of men. There was one striking fact connected with it. Of the eighty-four members of the body, the two bishops, and the traveling companion of the bishops, all were bachelors except three. Our early preachers were compelled to deny themselves largely of the pleasures and endearments of domestic life, in order that they might do the work of evangelists and make full proof of their ministry. At this time I made the acquaintance of, and was entertained by, Edward Lee, at Petersburgh, Va. He was a brother of Jesse Lee, and father of Rev. Dr. Leroy M. Lee, now, and for a long time, a distinguished representative of Southern Methodism.

From the Virginia Conference we proceeded over the Blue Ridge to Harrisonburgh, where we attended the Baltimore Conference; thence to the Philadelphia Conference, in St. George’s, Philadelphia, Bishops Asbury and M’Kendree alternately presiding. Though attending all the conferences, I was a member of this conference, and was home again with my brethren. When my name was called in conference the brethren said: “None but the bishop can tell whether there is any thing against Brother Boehm.” The bishop rose and said, with much gravity: “Nothing against Brother Boehm.” This conference has given many noble and illustrious ministers and laymen to the Church.

After the Philadelphia Conference, we proceeded onward through New Jersey, which Bishop Asbury had not visited for twenty-five years, and we missed our way in the Pines, and reaching a church where the bishop had an appointment to preach, we found that, as a result of our delay, the services had been commenced by the preacher in charge of the circuit. The house was crowded. Bishop Asbury immediately entered the pulpit, and, after talking a brief time, he stepped backward and said: “I cannot preach; Henry, you must get up and preach.” I immediately arose, and the passage came to my mind, “And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children.” If the passage had not come to my mind I should have been dumb, but as it was I preached from it, and had a good time. After I finished the bishop arose and delivered a warm exhortation. This was in the coast region of South Jersey in 1809.

Proceeding toward New York, we were joined by bishop M’Kendree again at Elizabeth, and at Elizabethport we saw for the first time a steamboat. It excited our curiosity. We passed on to Paulus’ Hook, now Jersey City. Here for the first time I saw the noble Hudson, and crossed it to New York, where we met the conference in John-street Church. Bishop M’Kendree was then first introduced to the New York Conference. I traveled many hundreds of miles with M’Kendree during my five years’ sojournings with Asbury, and heard him preach, probably, at least a hundred times. He was a very powerful preacher. He often preached great sermons, and seldom preached a poor one.

From the New York Conference we proceeded to New England, attending the only conference in that section, after which we proceeded again on our western and southern tour. But it is impossible for me on this occasion to recount the many scenes and events I witnessed during my long journeys with that great man, whose memory is ever green in my heart.

It was my office to attend upon and minister to him for five years. I frequently lifted him upon his horse, and helped him to alight. I gave him medicine when he was sick, and watched with him at night. It was my privilege to attend Bishop Whatcoat in his last illness, at Governor Bassett’s, in Delaware, in 1806. I have been personally acquainted with all our bishops, from Coke to Peck, but to none have I been so endeared as to Bishop Asbury. I guarded him in his journeys when it was unsafe for him to be without a companion, and I shared with him the perils of the wilderness.

In North Carolina, coming on from Wilmington toward Newbern, Bishop Asbury’s horse became frightened and ran away. He was in the sulky, and I was on horseback. I suffered great apprehension of mind, not knowing what to do. I did not dare to pursue after him lest I should increase the horse’s fright, and so add to the bishop’s peril. I began to pray, and if ever I prayed I prayed then, that God would deliver the bishop from the destruction with which he was threatened. Suddenly the horse stopped, and became quiet and docile, and I rode up to the bishop, and found him in much trepidation, but safe and thankful.

“The Lord is good: a stronghold in the day of trouble, and he knoweth them that trust in him.” As I attended and guarded and nursed Asbury, so am I attended, nursed, and tenderly cared for by my beloved daughter in my weakness and age. My hope is bright, and I expect soon to meet my colaborers on high.

The last of my dear friends who have preceded me was Rev. Dr. Wakeley, my intimate associate for many years. He was to me a true and loving friend. He was with me on my last birthday, and participated in the service when I preached my centennial sermon at the last session of the Newark Conference. He then expected to be here to-day; but he is not here—he has gone on before. I shall see him soon, and Asbury, and others dear to me,

Martin Boehm’s, Aug. 10, 1811.

My Dear Brother: We have need of great grace to make and keep us what we ought to be as Christian men and Gospel ministers. Alas for poor.... They are well kept whom the Lord keepeth, and they only. I have been looking many years for a general spread, not only of Methodism, but religion, in Jersey. There, I fear, we shall grow so like other societies that there will be but little difference. I have this morning opened about a dozen letters from the South—growing prospects still; living and dying witnesses; camp-meetings moving on; thirty or forty souls coming out, boldly declaring what the Lord hath done for them. It is of consequence to have scaffolding—I mean houses—for the service of God. I have many times felt with Eli for the ark of God in forty years when I view our prosperity—200,000 members; two or three millions of annual hearers; between 2,000 and 3,000 local and traveling preachers; that we minute almost 700 in eight conferences. Satan, the world, carnal Churches—more so than ourselves—envy us, and wish our fall; but let us watch, and fast, and pray. The Lord will direct. Children and great grandchildren may forget old fathers. I shall keep close to children whether the ship should be in storm, or calm, or fresh breeze; near the helm, if permitted, or before the mast. I cannot leave them or cast them off. Let my traveling so many thousand miles in pain, in lameness, in hunger, in thirst, in all seasons, witness, that I wish to stand clear of a party or policy. I must speak and write as a plain, open man, as you have always found me. Your request to know the names of the delegates is what any one in your standing might reasonably wish, and the names are on the cover of my Characteristic Book. Brother Boehm knoweth the delegates; he may give them in this letter. I may be censured if I do it; nothing is hid. I conclude. Let us be plain, peaceable, praying men; the Lord will direct us all. I hope for the best. You will recollect how restless two young men were in the last General Conference. It was but a little while they had to feel the rod or staff of the bishops. I am most affectionately, as ever, yours,

F. Asbury.

At my Father’s, Aug. 11.

Dear Brother: Through a kind and gracious Providence my life and peace are perpetuated to the present moment. I desire to exercise greater confidence in the Lord as regards myself and the Church of God.

H. Boehm.

New York, May 8, 1875.

Rev. A. J. Palmer, Dear Sir: I thank the committee for inviting me to be present at the one hundredth birthday of Rev. Henry Boehm. I should regard it as a very high honor, and it would be a very great pleasure, to participate in the services of that very unusual occasion were it practicable for me to do so consistently with engagements made previous to the reception of your invitation. My engagements in the West will not allow me to return in time to enjoy the occasion. Permit me, through you, to extend to Father Boehm my warm congratulations and affectionate greetings. I am sure one who has lived so long and intimately with God on earth will live with him forever in heaven. May all who unite in celebrating his centennial share with him his immortality!

Yours in Christian love,

E. S. Janes.

Chicago, June 1, 1875.

Dear Father Boehm: As neither my colleagues nor myself can be present at your centennial anniversary, we beg to assure you that our absence does not in the least indicate any loss of respect or affection for you. Your pure Christian character and holy life, as well as your long and valuable services to the Church, have given you a warm place in our hearts. We are glad and thankful that a kind Providence has spared you to us so long, and that you are permitted to enjoy so comfortable and happy an old age. It would give us great pleasure to be present on the occasion referred to, and participate in the interesting and memorable services connected with it. But as other duties will not allow this, we hereby send our hearty congratulations and Christian greetings, and most devoutly pray that God’s blessings may abound toward you, and that, when the end shall have come, the light of your cheerful and beautiful life may, without a cloud or a shadow, melt away into the glory of heaven.

Yours affectionately,

Thomas Bowman,
By order of the Board of Bishops.

Philadelphia, June 7, 1875.

Dear Brother Palmer: I regret that I cannot be present at Father Boehm’s anniversary. At our recent meeting I was appointed to hold the German Conference and to visit our missions in Italy and Scandinavia, and I expect to sail this week. Please present to Father Boehm my sincere congratulations that God has spared him so long to the Church and the world. Few men have seen their hundredth anniversary. Very few ministers have ever approximated such an age. His experience, too, has been so rich and joyous. He has seen the Church of his youth rise from infancy to maturity. He has witnessed the development of all its agencies, and the enlargement of its borders. We rejoice still to have his presence with us, and his blessing upon us. May his last days be unusually full of gracious enjoyments, and may he finally be crowned in holy triumph in our Father’s kingdom. With thanks to the committee for their courtesy, and with regret at my unavoidable absence,

I am yours, truly,

M. Simpson.

Piqua, O., June 5, 1875.

Rev. Henry Boehm:

My Dear Brother: I see by the “Western Advocate” that you expect to celebrate your hundredth anniversary, which will be next Tuesday, and I should be glad were it in my power to meet you on that occasion. But as this cannot be, I must praise the Lord, and shake hands with you in my heart. In 1822 I stopped at your house in Lancaster, Pa., on my way to Reading, where Methodism was soon after planted in that wicked town, which was on your circuit, and where you were likely to be drowned by swimming the Schuylkill to get to your appointment there, and where your books and clothes were well soaked in the water, and where I took you to my house and had you dried and comforted as best I could. It was in 1822 that you gave me my first license, which I still have to look at. It was also in 1822, at Churchtown camp-meeting, that you took into Society Ellen Righter, who has been my wife over fifty years, and who has never been too tired to rise up and make the preachers comfortable at our house, and who is known to most of the preachers of the Cincinnati Conference, and whose praise is in all the Churches.

You will remember Brother Kimber, who was my fellow-laborer at Reading in the Church, and helped greatly in the work of the Lord. He still lives in Urbana, Ohio, and he and I are now both in our seventy-ninth year, and, by the grace of God, walking by the same rule, and minding the same thing. I thank my God for my acquaintance with you, and for the long life with which my heavenly Father has favored you, and pray that your sun may grow brighter and broader at its setting, and bring a pleasing day in glory.

Samuel Pettit.

P. S.—If you ever feel like writing me a line I should be very happy to receive it. You will remember that I met you about ten years ago at your friend’s below Dayton, where we spent two or three days together. I may write to you some day again, if I know your post-office.

S. P.

Williamsport, Ind., June 4, 1875.

A. J. Palmer, Jersey City, N. J.:—

Dear Sir: Please read the following at your meeting on the 8th, as my congratulating contribution for the occasion. In 1811 Asbury and Boehm came to my father’s, in the State of Ohio. (See “Asbury’s Journal,” vol. iii, page 317.) I was then nine years old, and received from the bishop a catechism. Boehm will remember the visit. But there is a fact that I give of importance, learned from my mother. Her maiden name was Mary Con, of York, Pa., and when a child, under the preaching and teaching of Martin Boehm gave her heart to her Saviour. I am the oldest of five sons of that mother, and am now seventy-three, and in the fifty-third year of my itinerancy. I have met H. Boehm in New York, in Xenia, and Philadelphia, and he will remember

Yours, respectfully,

Aaron Wood.

Reflections on the extent of personal influence:—

1. Martin Boehm, the Mennonite from Germany.

2. Mary Con Wood, the Methodist mother of preachers.

3. A. Wood, a young preacher in Indiana, preaching in a cabin in Knox County.

4. Isaac Owen, brought to Christ, and made missionary to California.

And who knows but four more would reach around the world? If God leaves me here in this sound body twenty-seven years more, I may learn the names of persons who, from Owen in China, and so on around to Bohemia or Bulgaria, carried the same Gospel which has saved me. Glory be to God! Amen.

A. W.

Camden, S. C., Dec. 23, 1811.

My Very Dear Brother: I received yours a few days ago, and was made glad with its contents, particularly on finding that you enjoyed good health of body, and, above all, are warring a good warfare. It is so: great and good men may sometimes be at least the accidental cause of leading us into inexpedient steps, and if such a step or steps should be of such a nature and relation that we cannot step backward for life, it behooves us to consider well, especially as itinerant ministers of the ever blessed Gospel of Jesus Christ. The rewards of grace and glory are suspended on self-denial and taking up the cross. But, my dear brother, how liable we are to lose sight of the spiritual prize! for it must be received by faith. My mind is satisfied that nothing can reconcile a young man to move on as though he cared for nothing of a temporal or domestic nature but the power of grace, and the perpetual exercise of the same.

No doubt you would be glad to hear some account of our tour. We traveled extensively through the State of Ohio previous to the Western Conference, at which we had a good time, both in conference and in the congregations. Some conversions. Things were very promising as to the perpetuation of peace, order, and discipline among preachers and people. Upward of three thousand increase. One hundred and one preachers stationed. From there we traveled rapidly to the west of Georgia, over into the New Purchase, down to Savannah, back to Augusta, Columbia, to this town—upward of eleven hundred miles since we left Cincinnati.

There has been a gracious work of God, in many parts, within the bounds of this conference. The increase, in all probability, will be considerable. It would do you good to see the peace, order, and love which appear to be prominent features of this conference.

My health is as usual, and I have reason to believe that my soul is advancing in humility and love. O, why is not my whole soul swallowed up in the goodness of God! May the great Head of the Church be your wisdom, comfort, and strength! Father Asbury has lately been considerably afflicted with a rheumatic touch in one of his knees, but is at present nearly well.

I am, dear brother, yours, etc.,

H. Boehm.

Camden, S. C., Dec. 23, 1811.

My Dear Son: O what graces and grace we need to conduct ourselves as sons of God, without rebuke! Great grace we need to guide men of murmuring minds, and called, justified, sanctified, ministers of Jesus. This year with us is begun in the West and Southern conferences. The day of God, the day of glory, is begun. Near seven thousand added this year, besides the numbers triumphantly gone to join the Church above. Thus the wastage is more filled up. These two conferences would be a great field for the poor supernumerary superintendent, but we must wander through the new world.

We have recommended the first Friday in May as a day of humiliation and fasting, that if we must have some radical changes, (as some say,) and the transfer of some of the appointing power to the principal officers in our Church government, the change may be of God, and not of men, who have partially for years been their own bishops. Pray; watch; flee youthful desires; follow after every grace.

Yours, etc.,

Francis Asbury.

I have great pleasure, Father Boehm, to meet you again in the presence of this large assembly. I suppose there is no person present, perhaps, who has so continuous a recollection of you for so long a term of years as myself. I do not recollect the time, but I doubt not you do, when in my infancy, at the request of my now departed and sainted parents, you baptized me in the name of the Holy Trinity. When you came to the Delaware District, which, I think, was in 1820—’19 or ’20—

Father Boehm—Thereabouts.

Dr. Porter—I was then a member of the Church, a lad about or nearly fifteen years of age, and I recollect it was you who gave me the first book I ever felt sufficient interest in to read from the beginning to the end. I suppose that book of religious letters is now out of print, but I recollect my heart was warmed in reading those letters directed to Bishop Asbury, I think chiefly from laborers in different parts of the field. From that time it has been my privilege to know your personal history as to age and service in the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and I think what Bishop Asbury said when he was called upon to say whether there was any thing against Henry Boehm, may well have been said from year to year from that time till now. God be praised, by whose grace you have been thus preserved!

Your brethren, sir, desire to present to you some substantial token of their respect for you, their interest in you, and their affection for you in the evening of your life; and although it was not so determined by the Newark Conference, yet the Newark Conference was pleased to appoint a committee to take this matter in charge—the celebration of your centennial—and they have been pleased to issue circulars and to obtain from different quarters something of what Kossuth, I believe, used to call “material aid.” I have something from those who love you to present to you on this occasion, and I am happy to say that one hundred and fifty dollars of this subscription comes from the Philadelphia brethren. I was present at their preachers’ meeting, and when I told them we were going to celebrate your centennial, and suggested that they take the matter in hand, (for I thought they would consider it a privilege to participate in this celebration,) they very cordially appointed a committee of three to represent them here, and they also have collected that amount of money, and those three brethren—Brothers Todd, Chaplain, and Robinson, together with Brother Fernley, have come here to show their interest in this matter.

It is not possible for us to say, Father Boehm, how much the amount of this testimonial will yet be. I have just been told, however, that a friend will make it up to the sum of five hundred dollars, and I have no doubt there are other friends who desire to add to it, and I hope it will not stop at that figure. I know that other friends will be glad, when the subject is presented to them, to participate in the movement. I hope, so far as the “material aid” is concerned, that it may be of comfort to you—not that the sum is so considerable, but that you cannot, I know you cannot, but feel in your heart to rejoice that God raises up these friends for you. With this substantial token of our regard for you [handing Father Boehm a purse] I close my remarks, rejoicing that it is my privilege to sit at your feet, and hoping to join you in the heavenly land.

Dr. Porter: Little did Father Boehm suppose, when he took you in his arms and baptized you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that you would greet him on the one hundredth anniversary of his birth with this token of the appreciation of his younger brethren.

I am requested by Father Boehm to return through you, to all who have taken part in this occasion, whether from the Philadelphia, New York, or other conferences, and particularly to the members of the Newark Conference, with which he has been connected during these later years of his life, his thanks for this renewed testimonial of affection.

All these brethren have a warm place in his heart. He looks upon them not as his brethren only, but with all the tenderness with which a father looks upon his sons, and with a heart whose warmth a hundred years have not chilled he returns you his gratitude. He receives this gift for the evidence it gives of your confidence and esteem.

Father Boehm gives thanks to God to-day that although he has been preaching the Gospel since the year 1800 with an average salary of less than two hundred dollars a year, and in many instances he has given that to the Church of Christ, yet now, standing at the end of a century, he can confirm by experience the truth of the Divine promise to the righteous: “Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.” For one hundred years he has not wanted any good thing. Loving hearts have cared for him, and gentle hands have ministered to him, through all these years until this hour. If it were proper, it would be the wish of Father Boehm that I should express on this occasion, to those of his own immediate circle who have cared for him so long, his high appreciation of their love, or, to use his own words, they have been to him “better than good.” But this is a sacred precinct within which I dare not intrude. Let it suffice to say, that although for many years he has had no son of his own, Providence has so arranged that he has not felt the lack, and he has not wanted for the loving attentions either of son or daughter.

It is well known to those intimate with Father Boehm that he has always had a deep interest in young men, especially in young ministers. In the true spirit of the fathers he has hailed with joy every institution which proposed their improvement. It is his desire that when he can no longer preach the Gospel himself, he may preach it through others, so that he may still speak for Christ on earth when he has passed to heaven. I am commissioned by Father Boehm to say, also, that he gratefully receives this gift of his brethren; that he will deposit it where it may be at hand in case of need; and hoping, as he does, that he may never need it, having always had his wants supplied in the past, it is his purpose in that event, and also that of those most intimately connected with him, that this shall be employed as a fund to aid young men in preparing for the ministry in Drew Theological Seminary.

Again, in Father Boehm’s behalf, I thank you, and give to you, in his name, his centennial blessing, in the language of the patriarch Jacob to his son Joseph: “God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.”

But, venerable father, I have another mission besides the one with which you have so kindly honored me. The purse is but an incident in the exercises of this occasion. We are here also to greet you on this the one hundredth anniversary of your birth, to assure you of our love and confidence, to pray unitedly for the continuance of your health and strength, and to hear from your lips such words as you may choose to speak, and to receive your blessing. I am asked to extend to you, on this your centennial anniversary, the cordial salutations of the younger members of the Newark Conference. I despair of being able in any adequate sense to represent them. Their voices are so many, and their sympathies with this occasion are so deep, that I can scarcely attempt, much less hope to accomplish, such a task. Whatever the difference in the respective ages of those who are gathered here, we are alike in this, that by the side of you, Father Boehm, we are all young men to-day. I seem to myself like a sapling addressing an oak that has withstood the storms of a century; like a child, scarcely able to speak, addressing an ancestor whose life began so long ago as to make his history bear, almost, the aspect of mythology.

We congratulate you on having lived to be one hundred years old; an age to which we young men can scarcely hope to attain. I say hope to attain, for we do not depreciate the grandeur and glory of old age, especially when, like yours, it is found in the way of righteousness. I have been informed that there is a statistician in England who denies that men live to be so old. If he were here to-day we would point him to you, and show that in America it does occur. You have lived one hundred years—twelve hundred months—thirty-six thousand four hundred days—eight hundred and seventy-six thousand hours, and minutes almost innumerable. But time is rightly measured not so much by the minutes on the dial, as by the work achieved and the events that have transpired. It has been well said that many of the greatest events of modern times have taken place during your life. Your centennial comes in the midst of American centennials, and no history of our country will be complete without your name.

It is not merely to the hundred years that you have lived that we pay our tribute to-day, but to the fact that you have lived them so well. We pay our homage to a century of character—to the Christian virtues which have adorned your active life—a century in which, neither by word or deed, have you brought a stain upon the Church with which you have been identified, or upon the Christ whose Gospel you have proclaimed.

On the 31st of August, 1799, Bishop Asbury wrote in his journal: “I had a comfortable time at Boehm’s Church.... Martin Boehm is upon wings and springs since the Lord has blessed his grandchildren. His son Henry is greatly led out in public exercises.” This was the bishop’s earliest public testimonial to your Christian character.

In the year 1809, in the Philadelphia Conference, after you had been Bishop Asbury’s traveling companion for one year, the question was asked, “Is there any thing against Henry Boehm?” and the bishop gravely answered, “Nothing against Brother Boehm.” Again, in 1813, after five years’ traveling with him, the bishop returned the same answer to the same question, and added, referring to you, “For five years he has been my constant companion. He served me as a son; he served me as a brother; he served me as a servant; he served me as a slave.” At the last session of the Newark Conference, in your hundredth year, the same question was asked, and the answer was, “Nothing against Father Boehm.”

I am sure, sir, if you should live a hundred years more the same answer would be given. And when, at last, you shall be called to enter the better world, the answer will still be, “Nothing against Henry Boehm;” not because of any merit of your own, but because you have been washed in the blood of the Lamb, and because you have “fought the good fight, you have finished your course, you have kept the faith.”

I have wondered that art has never paid that tribute to age to which it is entitled. Art has embalmed the human frame in its grandest physical vigor, and it fairly revels in the flowers of youthful beauty. Even the muscles of Hercules have been preserved by the sculptor’s chisel or the painter’s brush, but so far as my own observation has gone, (and I confess it has not been extensive,) I have seen but little of art in the embalmment of the proportions of old men. But the men whom the world would recall from the past in hours of conflict are not the physically strong, but the ripe, intellectually noble old men. It is not Hercules, but Nestor. You remember that the greatest of epics written by the greatest of poets opens with a quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles, the rival Grecian chieftains, in the midst of which an old man, Nestor by name, who had lived through two generations, and was now ruling over the third, and whose words are described as “sweeter than honey,” arose and demanded a hearing by the rival chiefs by declaring his age and contemporaries:—

And it is of the old man, and not of the warrior, that the poet adds:—

You, sir, are older than Nestor of Homeric fame. Three generations have fully passed while you have lived, and you are now dwelling among the fourth. You have seen the seventh generation in your own family. How much more should your words be heard, and your portrait preserved! We take your portrait to-day, not in verse, not in marble, not on canvas, but on the tablets of our hearts, and we will preserve it there while life and memory last, as an inspiration and joy.

We congratulate you, also, because you have lived in the heroic age of the Church to which we belong. You have been an actor in the great religious movements which led to the firm establishment of our Church. You were born nine years after its introduction into America; you have seen all our great institutions rise and flourish: you have helped to fight the great battles of Methodism.

You have had great contemporaries, who will be more fully named by others. It is a great thing to live in a great age with great men, and to bear your part among them. Your history has been almost identical with American Methodism. I had almost said your history is American Methodism. You have seen our bishops ordained. You yourself were ordained by Whatcoat, who was ordained by Wesley, and are in the true apostolic succession. You have helped them in their work, you have smoothed their passage to the tomb; you helped to lay Whatcoat in the grave.

On the 4th of July, 1815, you went home to visit your mother. Bishop Asbury, referring to that visit, wrote in his journal: “Happy at Mother Boehm’s. A pleasing Providence, according to my wishes, had brought Henry in a few moments before.” After a two days’ visit with him there in the old home, where he had been a visitor for thirty years, and when, after his last episcopal tour, he had bid your aged mother good-bye, you accompanied him to Lancaster, when he embraced you in his arms, pressed you to his bosom, gave you his last kiss and benediction, and you gazed on him till he was lost from your view. The parting is not forever. You shall see him again in the land where there are no separations.

You can now look upon a Church whose missions encircle the globe, founded not only on great institutions of benevolence and learning, but on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone—a sure pledge that her history and triumphs have but just begun.

I have no doubt it would be pleasing for you to know, on this your centennial anniversary, how the younger members of our Conference feel on vital matters pertaining to the Church of your and their choice, and in which you have been a minister for three quarters of a century. I think I may safely say that they are loyal to the great doctrines of the Bible as maintained by the Church during the hundred years you have lived. They maintain the Bible as the only infallible standard of Christian faith and practice. They believe and preach the doctrines of depravity, atonement, regeneration, witness of the Spirit, adoption, sanctification, eternal salvation for the finally holy, and eternal punishment for the finally impenitent. While they hold with tenacity to the doctrines of their own Church, they are not narrow or bigoted, but with broad Christian hearts they repeat the Apostle’s Creed with the whole Church of Christ, and gladly co-operate with Christians of every name for the salvation of men. They hold fast to the great working forces of the Church as they have inherited them from you and your colaborers. They believe in revivals of religion having their inspiration in God’s Spirit, the class and prayer meeting, and the recognized instrumentalities of the Church for carrying on her work. If they criticise, it is not to destroy, but to maintain and upbuild the Church of their choice. They believe that the great mission of the Church is the one announced by our fathers, “To spread scriptural holiness over these lands.” Whatever differences may exist among them on definitions, I believe they are one in carrying out the spirit of her early mission, which, I trust, will continue to be her mission until the world shall be redeemed to God. They do not fear, but welcome, the highest culture and the deepest, broadest learning, but they would make it all tributary to the spread of scriptural holiness.

They are loyal to the fathers of the Church; they reverence our old men; they are proud of them; they would as soon be seen striking a blow at their own earthly parents as at the fathers of Methodism; they hold them highly in esteem for their characters’ sake, for the work’s sake, for the Church’s sake to which they have given their best days and their noblest powers. Every gray hair on your head, and every wrinkle on that time-scarred brow, they love and reverence. They are marks of beauty which they would not exchange for the brightest bloom of youth. In the esteem they hold you, they desire to express that which they hold toward all their fathers in the ministry. But in your presence, and in view of the exercises that are to follow, I dare not detain you. Your example forbids me to speak longer. To you may fitly be applied the epigrammatic eulogy once applied to the philosopher and patriot of America, Benjamin Franklin: “He never spoke a word too soon, he never spoke a word too late; he never spoke a word too much, he never failed to speak the right word at the right season.”

And now, venerable father, accept again our heartiest congratulations. We do not say to-day, “My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!” for our Elijah is not yet going. We trust the time is yet distant ere you depart for heaven. Though, like Paul, to depart and be with Christ is better for you, yet for you to abide in the flesh is more needful for us. When the time comes, you will die grandly and serenely, as an old man and a Christian should die. Cicero, the greatest of Roman orators, said: “Young men seem to me to die just as when the violence of flame is extinguished by a flood of water; whereas old men die as the exhausted fire goes out—spontaneously—without the exertion of any force: and as fruits, when they are green, are plucked by force from the trees, but when ripe or mellow drop off, so violence takes away their lives from youths—maturity from old men; a state which to me, indeed, is so delightful, that the nearer I approach to death the more I seem, as it were, to be getting sight of land, and at length, after a long voyage, to be coming into harbor.” But Cicero lived but sixty-three years, and old Cato, into whose mouth he put these words, is represented as but eighty-four; but, sir, they were boys by the side of you. You have lived a hundred years! You are a Christian, too, and a bright vision is before you. As the traveler in a region of mountains ascends a distant summit, and when he has reached it finds another before him and ascends that, and another, and another, and each time finds that the topmost point is still distant, so you climbed to childhood, then to youth, then to manhood, then to middle age, then to old age, and since then you have been climbing through steps for which our language has no single word, until now you have reached an age when we can call you our centenarian, and soon you will reach the summit, when you will greet, not the distant peaks of earth, but the mountains of glory, where you shall go on forever, and, with Paul, exclaim with rapture, “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”