CHAPTER XIX

A WIDER HORIZON:   1857-1875

" When I ceased my active connection with the mission, I felt, and I had occa¬
sion frequently to say, that I looked upon the twenty years of my service there as
the most profitable of any work in which I had been engaged. I doubt if there is
any work in this city which bears larger or more satisfactory fruit than this."—
John E. Parsons, from an address in "The Story of the Christ Church Work," pp.
43 A

"Behold, I have set before thee an open door."—Revelation 3 : 8.

OF all that was accomplished during Dr. Mur¬
ray's pastorate nothing can be compared in
importance with the opening in 1867, of the
Brick Church Mission Chapel. The work for which
this building was provided has already been several
times alluded to in this history, for it had been started
ten years before the date just mentioned. We must
now turn back to trace its progress through those
earlier years. It is fortunately possible to tell the
story almost entirely in the words of those who were
themselves the foremost workers in the enterprise. *

* An address of Mr. John E. Parsons, first superintendent of the Brick
Church Branch Sunday-school, delivered November 27th, 1905, and pub¬
lished in "The Story of the Christ Church Work," N. Y., 1906. Also a
minute of the Brick Church session in 1866, on the origin of the mission,
printed in the same pamphlet. It was signed by Dr. Murray as pastor,
Mr. John E. Parsons, whose controUing influence in the work will be made
abundantly evident in the succeeding narrative, and Mr. George de Forest
Lord, another devoted laborer in the school " who taught the boy's Bible
class," says Mr. Parsons, " I think down to the time of his death, certainly
down to the time when I ceased to be superintendent [1877], and toward
whom, during all his life, I entertained feehngs of the warmest and most
affectionate regard."

338