On February 9, 1890, I preached my first sermon since my return from the Holy Land in the Academy of Music.  It was expected that I would preach about the country of sacred memories that I had visited, but I was impressed with what I had found on my return in religious history of a more modern purpose.  They had been fixing up the creeds while I was abroad, tracing the footsteps of divine law, and I felt the importance of this fact.  So I chose the text in Joshua vi. 23, “And the young men that were spies went in and brought out Rahab, and her father and her mother, and her brethren, and all that she had.”

I did not read the newspapers while I was away so I was not familiar with all the discussion.  I understood, however, that they were revising the creed.  You might as well try to patch up your grandfather’s overcoat.  It will be much better to get a new one.  The recent sessions of the Presbytery had been divided into two parties.  One was in favour of patching up the old overcoat, the other in favour of a new one.  Dr. Briggs had pointed out the torn places—­at least five of them.  He had revealed it, shabby and somewhat threadbare.  Presbyterians had practically discarded the garment.  Why should they want to flaunt any of its shreds?  So I agreed with Dr. Briggs, that we had better get a new one.

The laying of the corner stone of the new Tabernacle took place on the afternoon of February 11, 1890.  It was a modest ceremony because it was considered wise to defer the festivities for the dedication services that were to occur in the church itself in the spring.  The two tin boxes placed in the corner stone contained the records of the church organisation from 1854 to 1873, a copy of the Bible, coins of 1873, newspaper accounts of the dedication of the old Tabernacle, copies of the Brooklyn and New York newspapers, photographs of the trustees, a 25-cent gold piece from the Philadelphia mint with the Lord’s Prayer engraved on one side, drawing and plans of the new Tabernacle, and some Colonial money dated 1759, 1771, 1773, 1774.  During my trip in the Holy Land I had secured two stones, one from Mount Calvary and one from Mount Sinai, which were to be placed in the Tabernacle later.

The “Tabernacle Rabble,” as the Philistines of Clinton Avenue called us, continued to meet in the Academy of Music with renewed vigour.  My own duties became more exacting because of the additional work I had undertaken, of an editorial nature, on two periodicals.

Of course my critics were always with me.  What man or thing on earth is without these stimulants of one’s energy.  They were fair and unfair.  I did not care so much for my serious critics as my humorous ones.  Solemnity when sustained by malice or bigotry is a bore.  Some call it hypocrisy, but that is too clever for the tiresome critic.  Frequently, in my scrap book, I kept the funny comments about myself.

Here is one from the “Chicago American,” published in 1890:—­