by the Rev. C. W. Baird, of Rye, N. Y." :
, In all the scenes of childhood's day
That memory paints, as years recede,
The beauty of a blessed deed
Is last to fade away.
The guileless love that lasted long,
The zeal of piety unfeigned,
The courage of a heart unstained
That only feared the wrong,
The lingering prayer put up at night
Low bending by my mother's knee,
The tear of pity, and the glee
Of innocent delight, —
These are the memories that she brings,
Kind guardian of mine earlier days,
These are the nightly thoughts that raise
Mine eyes to holier things.
The recognition and appreciative praise of such emi-
nent authorities in hymnology and sacred song justify
and emphasize the hope we would fain express that
something will be done to preserve the poetic produc-
tions of a gifted and saintly mind.
44 MEMORIAL SERVICE AND ADDRESSES.
In the year 1846 the Evangelical Alliance was formed
in England. Dr. Baird, Sr., was an active and honored
participant in its establishment and deliberations. In
185 1, largely through his efforts, the " American Branch,"
which had been previously formed, but did not prosper,
was renewed and permanently established. But during
the years '48, '49, and '50 the interests of the Alliance
movement here had been fostered by The Christian
Union and Religious Memorial, a valuable periodical
which was published every month, and which became
eventually the organ of the American Alliance. This
was under the editorial supervision of the father, " but
the principal portion of the editorial labors devolved
upon his son." Occasionally contributing original arti-
cles, both prose and poetical, Dr. Baird's work in this was
largely that of compilation and translation, but necessi-
tating throughout untiring labor and care, and calling in
his wide familiarity with religious literature and the im-
portant movements of the day. Now also, in connection
with the Rev. Benjamin N. Martin, D.D., a professor in
the New York University, he wrote the greater part of
" The Christian Retrospect and Register," published in
185 1 — "a volume devoted to a review of the world's
progress in the first half of the nineteenth century, which
was issued under Dr. Baird's [the father's] auspices."
In this way the year after his college graduation was
filled with literary labors of great worth. In the fall of
1849 ne entered the Union Theological Seminary. One
who was a student with him, and is now an honored pro-
fessor there, remembers him then as " a quiet, modest,
refined, scholarly man, deeply serious in all his work and
ways. Peculiarly patient and thorough as a student,
whatever he did, he did well." In 1886 he was elected
MEMORIAL SERVICE AND ADDRESSES. 45
a Director of the Seminary. For five years before his
death he had been the Necrologist of the Alumni Associ-
ation. All who knew his spirit can understand how that
"he rendered, in that relation, admirable service." . . .
Licensed to preach the gospel, in 1852, he assumed the
charge of the American Chapel in Rome, where he con-
tinued to labor until near the close of 1854, when he re-
turned to this country. Up to 1859 there appears here a
gap in his ministerial life. But the period is especially
marked, in his literary activity, as the time when his well-
known liturgical works appeared. Brought up amid the
surroundings of Paris and Geneva, attracted by his innate
love of " order " to a study of the liturgies of the Reformed
Churches, probably knowing more about these than any
other man on this side of the Atlantic, it had occurred to
him, as to Dr. Samuel Miller, " even to doubt whether
the well-known doctrine of our beloved Church with re-
gard to liturgies may not have been so rigidly interpreted
and so unskilfully applied as to lead to practical misap-
prehension and mischief in regard to the devotional part
of the services of our sanctuaries." Deeply moved by
the inadequacy, not to say irregularity, which is still
often to be lamented in such services, he felt " that by
so much as the public worship of God may be rendered
attractive, may awaken interest, and excite and sustain
devotional feeling, by so much have we lost power and
influence as a Church." Maintaining and always exem-
plifying the simplicity and integrity of his Church, Dr.
Baird had peculiar honor and love for her traditions.
So, disavowing any " voice of authority," he entered upon
a purely historical discussion of the true theory and nor-
mal practice of our Church in this regard. The result of
this appeared in his " Eutaxia." The book was published
46 MEMORIAL SERVICE AND ADDRESSES.
anonymously in 1855, and afterwards reprinted in London
under the editorship of the Rev. Thomas Binney. It
must be regarded as one of the pioneer books in the re-
vival of interest in liturgical studies. Avoiding the two
extremes — on the one hand, that certain forms alone
should be used ; on the other, that no forms should be
admitted — Dr. Baird maintained the theory of an optional
use of a liturgy which should have the sanction of an-
tiquity and of Church authority. In about a year this
was followed by " A Book of Public Prayer, Compiled
from the Authorized Formularies of Worship of the Pres-
byterian Church, as Prepared by the Reformers, Calvin,
Knox, and Others." Whatever his view of the question
involved, the student of ecclesiastical history will not fail
to note his indebtedness to Dr. Baird for the very com-
plete and careful resume of the liturgies of the Reformed
Churches, and for the very accurate review of their rela-
tions to one another and to all other liturgical forms,
which he has given in these admirable volumes. " Our
Church possesses a devotional literature of her own, rich
and copious." And grateful to our brother for u making
known the forgotten worship of our fathers — the prayers
that have nourished the faith of generations, that have
breathed from the lips of martyrs, that have hallowed
the caves and deserts of persecution," there are many
who share in what was his hope, that the day is not far
distant when, in our common use of the wisdom and piety
of other ages, new dignity and solemnity and impressive-
ness shall be associated, among us, with the strength and
beauty that belong to God's house. . . .
On the day of national thanksgiving in 1865, in which
year the two hundredth anniversary of the town of Rye
had occurred, the pastor delivered a discourse, which gave
MEMORIAL SERVICE AND ADDRESSES. 47
not only a history of the Presbyterian church there, but
an outline of the history of the town itself. A request
from many of his parishioners that the address should be
published, led to his elaborate " History of Rye," which
appeared in 1871 ; and which in its preparation had
" occupied many of the leisure hours " of the six years
that had preceded. To the valuable " History of West-
chester County" published last year, under the editorial
supervision of Dr. J. T. Scharf, he contributed the two
chapters, which give the histories of Rye and Harrison.
Because of his rare power of accumulation and retention
and discriminating judgment of events, he was " the his-
torian of our Presbytery." To him we are indebted for
the very complete " Historical Account of Presbyterian-
ism in the Field Embraced by t?he Presbytery." In 1879
there appeared in the Magazine of American History,
and afterwards in pamphlet form, his " Civil Status of
the Presbyterians in the Province of New York." In
1881 was published his " History of Bedford Church,"
which had in that year celebrated the two hundredth
anniversary of its founding. " One practical and helpful
result of his history has been the deepening of this
people's love for their church."
At the time he commenced his " History of Rye," Dr.
Baird had no thought of taking up his greatest work,
which was also to be his last. His mother was one whose
ancestors had been driven from their native country by
the persecuting fury of Louis XIV ; he had himself been
reared amid scenes which had led him, while yet a lad, to
compose a poem, "The Massacre of Bartholomew" ; he
was married to a descendant of a Huguenot family. And
one might naturally expect to find in such circumstances
the moving cause to his writing a Huguenot history.
48 MEMORIAL SERVICE AND ADDRESSES.
But these facts were the little streams which came
together as he prepared the history of the town in which
he lived. His brother, the Rev. Professor Henry M.
Baird, had for eight or nine years been engaged on his
" Rise of the Huguenots of France." Patiently and
laboriously examining records and collecting facts for his
local history, Dr. Charles had met with the names of
many of Huguenot descent, whose family lines he had
traced. A new theme was thus brought into the inter-
course of the brothers; and out of this Dr. Baird was
induced to take up the study of " The Huguenot Emi-
gration to America." It was all one of those striking
illustrations of the way in which, through a beautiful
harmony and association, He who rules over all makes
the events of a life work together and the lines of differ-
ent lives converge, so that His way is made known among
the people. " God is in history " — in the recording of it
as well as in the making of it.
It will be remembered as one of the unique and valu-
able characteristics of this work of Dr. Baird, that it con-
nects the families and even the individuals of whom it tells,
with the places whence they came. Charmed with the
vivid interest which these biographies of individual
refugees have given to the narrative, we who read can
form little conception of the amount of severe and
exhaustive labor they entailed. From widely scattered
sources, manuscript as well as printed ; from documents,
wills, letters, church and family records; many of which
were reached only with difficulty ; many of which had
never been known by their custodians to be called for or
examined before — were these facts gathered. Not only
were the records in the cities of our own country dili-
gently searched ; but, as England was the halting-place of
MEMORIAL SERVICE AND ADDRESSES. 49
so many of the exiles, before they set out to the New
World, Dr. Baird went there, and spent time in indefatiga-
ble researches in the Library of the British Museum, in
that of Lambeth Palace, in the British State-Paper Office
under care of the Master of the Rolls ; and, by cor-
respondence, among the archives in the capital of France.
Such labors, extending through a half-score of years, have
placed under deep obligation to the name of Charles
W. Baird, all in this country who can boast of Hugue-
not blood. A very Thesaurus of family lore, there is
hardly a Huguenot name known here, of whose history,
this work does not give some new and curious fact. But
Dr. Baird did something more than write a book of
domestic genealogy. His was the first systematic and
detailed history of an emigration which brought into the
growth of the colonies of America, an element of sterling
worth quite out of proportion to its numbers, and which
is still felt for good. A truly patriotic work, therefore,
this enters as a valuable contribution into the history of
our country.
It was in the spring of '85 that the two volumes
appeared. On May 13th of the same year, Dr. Baird was
made an " Honorary Fellow " of the Huguenot Society
in London. Last year he received an application from
the Society for the Publication of Religious Books in
Toulouse for permission to translate his work into the
French. Yielding all rights in the matter, consent was
freely extended. Last January, about one month before
he died, there came from the publishing house in France,
two copies of the translated work. And in them the
honored author seemed to take more delight than he had
been able to allow himself in connection with the original
publication here.
50 MEMORIAL SERVICE AND ADDRESSES.
Telling the story of the Huguenot settlement in New
England in these two volumes, it was our brother's pur-
pose to carry his survey farther south, into the Middle
and Southern States, for future volumes. But this was not
to be. The standard-bearer fainted. The pen of the ready
writer ceased. Yet it is only when their work is done that
God calls his servants to their eternal reward. This labor-
er s life-work was completed. And it is a blessing for
which we devoutly thank our God that the workman was
spared and enabled to finish what we think he above all
others was fitted to accomplish. Having served his
generation — and served it well — according to the will of
God, he fell asleep. His was a pure and useful life that
has won the praise of men and the approbation of God.
His face shone, but he wist it not. The Lord make us all
more like him, for of us all he was most like our Lord !
REMARKS OF REV. R. H. P. VAIL, D.D.
After so much has been said, and so well said, it would
be superfluous for me to detain you long. Dr. Baird's
memory is enthroned in the hearts of us all. We shall
carry it with us to our dying day. We need no formal
resolutions, no words from human lips, to insure his name
perpetual place in our hearts. His character was many-
sided. Indeed, he had so many graces that, were each of
his characteristics to be spoken of, how many of us would
to-day find texts for discourse ? I would dwell upon a
single one which was so marked that we all were im-
proved by it. His Christian urbanity was so winning.
He was one of the most urbane of men. At once a
Christian and a gentleman, he won us all. Many gentle-
men are not Christians, and many Christians are so
MEMORIAL SERVICE AND ADDRESSES. 5 I
undeveloped that they are not always gentlemen. He
was always a Christian, and always a gentleman. One
could not be in his presence without realizing this. Dr.
Hodge, meeting him in a foreign country, and for the
first time, was immediately impressed with his winning
urbanity. It has been said that manners make the man.
Rather should it be said that manners reveal the man.
They unbosom the spirit within.
Gracious manners are exponents of the inner graces.
Because his inner spirit was so gracious, his manners
were gracious. He was like Stephen, in that he had the
face of an angel. Not that the light from without smote
his face ; but that the light from within, with its charm-
ing and saintly qualities, became revealed in an angel's
face. He was always so pure, so gentle, so loving. His
goodness shone not only in his face, but round about
him, in his walk from day to day. We speak of an " angel
in the house." Dear friends, many of us have had the
pleasure of welcoming this angel in our homes. When
Dr. Baird came to visit us we felt that there was an angel
in our midst.
Dr. Guthrie once said of a friend who was remarkable
for his saintly qualities, that it seemed as if holiness
was written on the walls, and on the chairs, and on the
table, when he had been there. And so it was with
Dr. Baird when he walked up and down among the
homes of Rye, leaving a benediction on each as he
passed.
Dear friends, with what affability he conducted him-
self ! Oh, how he charmed us ! He took us each one by
the hand, with a graceful, gentle, kind grasp. Now he
has gone on in advance, to await our coming into that
general and risen assembly of saints.
MEMORIAL SERMON.
On Sunday morning, March 27, 1887, the Rev. Dwight
M. Seward, D.D., former pastor of the First Presbyterian
Church of Yonkers, preached in the Presbyterian Church
of Rye, taking for the text of his sermon James iv. 14 :
" For what is your life ? It is even a vapor that appeareth
for a little time, and then vanisheth away." He con-
cluded with a beautiful tribute to Dr. Baird, which is
here given entire. He said :
The life that was lived among you and has just closed,
the life that gave its strength and energy and all its rich
resources to your best welfare ; that for a quarter of a
century filled your temple-halls with the messages of the
cross : this life, by its godliness, its fruitfulness, its har-
mony, gave the true answer to the question that we have
studied this morning, " What is your life ? "
The lessons of this life ! They have appealed to you
in these last weeks more vividly than before the life
ended ; you have sadly yet thankfully looked again and
again upon them, and pondered them with a deepening
sense of great and irreparable loss.
These lessons were so fully set before you in the stern
and solemn hours of the funeral service, that I have
abstained from devoting the entire message of the morn-
ing, as my heart moved me to do, to memorial utter-
52
MEMORIAL SERMON. 53
ances. Yet I cannot close this service without giving
expression to some thoughts concerning this just-closed
pastorate, and this just-ended life, that would not be
likely to find their way into other commemorative ser-
vices. I trust that I may be permitted to speak with the
familiarity and freedom of a long friendship. Dr. Baird
took a leading part in the celebration of our Silver-Wed-
ding service at Yonkers in 1861, and read a poem of
exceeding fitness and beauty, which he had written for
the anniversary.
By the special request of my children, he presided at
our Golden-Wedding commemoration a year ago, and
wrote for it an appropriate hymn, and conducted a most
impressive service of responses, which he had prepared
for the occasion.
I was about asking him if he would kindly perform the
final service at our departure, for I had not even thought
that the summons to the other world could come first to
him.
It is only a little more than a year since I was called to
address you on the Sabbath in the stead of your pastor,
who was suddenly disabled for his accustomed service ;
— disabled, it seems to me, by an attack that was the
herald of the severer blow, that brought his work to an
abrupt close, and sternly summoned him away from us.
He said to me then with entire calmness that his sickness,
he was thoroughly aware, was not without the peril of a
fatal issue. I plainly perceived that death could not sur-
prise or terrify him, come when and how it might.
I was present at his installation more than twenty-five
years ago, and I must be pardoned for an allusion that
illustrates the lenient generosity of your pastor's judg-
ments. I came as a friend, for I was not a member of the
54 MEMORIAL SERMON.
ecclesiastical body that installed him. But the member
of Presbytery to whom was assigned the giving of the
charge to the people, was unable to be present. So at
your pastor's suggestion I was pressed into the service,
and most imperfectly prepared the charge while the ser-
vices that preceded it were going on, and delivered it in
its turn.
I can remember as though it were yesterday, how
delicately your pastor relieved my sense of shame for the
imperfection of my effort, and how kindly and charitably
he spoke of my crude and hasty service.
Dr. Baird was a member of my congregation for a
decade of years. I should hardly be speaking figuratively,
if I were to say that he was my colleague. In every pos-
sible way he was my helper. When I was overtaxed with
duties, he would take a portion of them for my relief.
As he was universally beloved and respected by my
people, his co-operation was most serviceable and wel-
come.
He aided me in the pulpit and out of it. He was highly
active and efficient in a powerful revival of religion that
prevailed while he was with us, and was clearly instru-
mental in winning souls to Christ, and in building them
up in the true faith. I cannot doubt that he was then
in unconscious training for his long term of effective and
successful service in his pastorate with you.
Dr. Baird had an hereditary right to the finest qualities
of character. His father, the Rev. Dr. Robert Baird, had
a world-wide reputation for the breadth and correctness
of his knowledge of men and of events ; of the manifold
signs of the times, and the fields of labor to which they
pointed. His friends among the clergy and laity of Eng-
land and Scotland often assured him that he was more
MEMORIAL SERMON. 55
thoroughly acquainted with the state of morals and
religion on the Continent than themselves. Some of you
know with what eminent talent for the knowledge and
teaching of history he was endowed. His memory was
highly exceptional for the infinite number of facts and
events which it easily held, and for its unimpeachable
accuracy of dates. Your pastor inherited that historic
gift, that marvellous power of accumulation and retention
and arrangement. His literary labors began in his very
boyhood, and he was an unceasing, indefatigable student,
to the time of his death.
The mother of your pastor! — Well, if the wise man
who wrote the book of Ecclesiastes had met with such an
one as she was, he would not have made that record,
" A woman among them all have I not found ! " I used
to think that her character had every one of the sterling
virtues and the Christian graces in it. It was her refined
soul, her warm heart, her deep sympathies, her unselfish
spirit, her fine taste, with her intelligence and ripe culture
that shaped and moulded her simple, genial, elegant, fas-
cinating manners. You will allow me to make this allu-
sion, for I believe that it was largely from that saintly and
now sainted mother that your pastor derived that
exquisite delicacy, that indescribable grace, that ever
present refinement, that magnetic sympathy, which im-
parted such a peculiar charm to his personal intercourse,
and inspired in all who knew him both affection and
admiration. I suppose that you know how deeply he
loved you — his holy flock. He regarded you as a most
true and loyal people. I suppose that you know better
than I do what a genuine affection he felt for these chil-
dren and youth, and what a guardian interest he cherished
for the Seminary represented in this sanctuary, and how
56 MEMORIAL SERMON.
he looked upon it as the crown and ornament of your
delightful village. In a letter received from him not long
ago, he observed incidentally that his home here would
not be what it was, without the presence and influence of
this Institution.
I am not here to-day to draw the portrait of your pastor's
character, nor to name the chief labors of his life. That
genial duty is fittingly assigned to his literary associates
and to his co-presbyters. Nor will I trust myself to dwell
upon the greatness of your loss. If we could commune
with him, he would not consent to have me draw a dis-
heartening picture of your sore bereavement. Let me
speak rather of the benediction which this ministry has
left you. For it seems to me that the length, and
the harmony, and the success of this pastorate are pro-
phetic, and should make you not only grateful for the
past, but hopeful for the future.
It may seem a small thing to allude to, but upon the
sad and memorable day of the funeral services, I was
confident that you would bless Him who giveth and who
taketh away, for the lifelike naturalness of your lamented
pastor in his burial-raiment. Sickness had not enstamped
its scars, and death had not graven the marks of its
scourge.
The placid brow, the speaking lips, the radiant face,
the angelic expression, suggested the profound, the sweet
and blissful rest which remaineth to all such as he was,
and to which his liberated soul had fled. I was reminded
of the words of the hero of one of Shakespeare's tragedies
over the sleeping, and, as he believed, the dead body of
the heroine.
" Death that hath sucked the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty ;
MEMORIAL SERMON. 57
Thou art not conquered ; beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson on thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And death's pale flag is not advanced there."
Your pastor is summoned away from you, but he will
be with you still. You will be conscious of his power and
influence through all your mortal lives. You remember
the story of the Moabites casting a dead man hastily into
the sepulchre of Elisha, and how when he was let down
and touched the bones of the prophet, he sprang back to
life and revived and stood upon his feet.
That incident suggests the power of a godly man, and
a gifted man, after his departure. You will tell your chil-
dren, and they will tell their children, of the rare worth, of
the ripe attainments, of the beautiful and Christ-like
character, of the active and laborious life of this honored
servant of God.
Dull lethargic souls will be quickened into interest and
enthusiasm as they come into contact with the tokens of