CHAPTER XVI

THE MOVE  TO  MURRAY HILL: 1855-1858

*' So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shout¬
ing, and with the sound of the trumpet. . . . And they brought in the ark of
the Lord, and set it in his place, in the midst of the tabernacle that David had
pitched for it."—2 Samuel 6 : 15, 17.

" We have lived to see the top stone of this edifice laid, and its doors open to us.
We have nothing to ask in the external and material arrangements of this house.
It is not a gorgeous edifice; it has no decorated walls and arches, and no splendid
magnificence. Yet there are stability and comfort and tasteful architecture, which
do honor to the genius and fidelity of those employed in projecting, erecting, and
embellishing it. 'Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.'"—Gardiner Spring,
1858, "The Brick Church Memorial," p. 71.

A PERIOD of fifty years in the life of a city
does not seem very long, but when we realize
the changes that have taken place in New
York in the last half century, we cannot but realize
that, counted by results, it may be a very long time
indeed. It is, in truth, hard to picture to ourselves
the city that existed on Manhattan Island in 1855,
when the Brick Church first definitely began to look
at new sites. One is almost inclined to doubt that
Thirty-fourth Street, which to-day is fast becoming
the centre of the retail shopping district, was then al¬
most at the northern limit of the built-up part of the
city, with open fields beyond, and indeed many unoc¬
cupied spaces below it; but such was, indeed, the fact.
An extract from some unpublished reminiscences
of New York in the forties and fifties * will serve to

* By the author's mother.

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