Kirk, Edward Norris. The Church Essential to the Republic: A Sermon in behalf of the American Home Missionary Society. Preached in the Cities of New-York and Brooklyn, May, 1848. New-York: Printed for the American Home Missionary Society, by Leavitt, Trow & Co., 1848. First Edition. [10970]
Blue printed wrapper, 9 x 5 3/4 inches, two small institutional stamps, 23 clean pp., slight edge-wear. Good. Pamphlet.
A sermon on the text Matthew 5:13, "Ye are the salt of the earth."
This sermon extols the blessings and benefits of the United States and her civil government, states that Christianity is the driving and conserving force of the nation, and compares the American Republic with papal nations that have never had the liberties enjoyed by Americans. Kirk then argues for the evangelization of the Western states and territories, in part, to counter the movement of Roman Catholics into those areas.
Dr. Edward Norris Kirk (1802-1874), educated at Princeton Seminary under Archibald Alexander, pastor of Presbyterian & Congregational churches, active in revivals, established a training school for evangelists with Dr. Nathan S. S. Beman of Troy, NY. He served for some thirty years as pastor of the Mount Vernon Congregational Church now the Old South Church) in Boston, and it was under his preaching that the evangelist Dwight L. Moody was converted.
