Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 155, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 July 1914 — LONG HELD IN HONOR [ARTICLE]

LONG HELD IN HONOR

BEAMAN'S MAGAZINE OF ANCIENT HISTORY.

Claims to Be the Oldest Religious Publication of its Kind in America —Famous for Introduction of Hymn That Lives. Oldest of all religious magazines in America is the Sailors* Magazine, Jt published by the American Friend socieity, New York. Started in 1828, it has appeared without interruption ever since. Its monthly issue has been printed by the same family from father to son for twenty-five or twen-ty-eight years. For 60 yedrs its cover was unaltered. ' In this magazine appeared for the first time the world-famous “Jesus, Saviour, Pilot Me.” It was '* written by E. Hopper, then pastor of - the little old Church of the Sea and Land, its edifice still standing, but almost unknown to this generation of New Yorkers. Colonel Roosevelt’s first speech, made when he was a boy, is also recorded here. Romances are traceable through its pages—true stories of adventure, heroism and tragedy that make up the life of the sea. One such story is behind the brief account of the loan libraries sent to sea by the dowager duchess of Aber,deen after her visit to America. The present earl of Aberdeen, lord lieutenant of Ireland, had a brother. This brother was the real heir to the title, but long years ago he'came to this country from England, and shipped from here as a common sailor under the name of Gordon. He rose to the position of mate, but shortly after that was drowned at Sea. Hi's mother came here and gave in his memory the libraries that today are multiplied and sent over the ocean to as great a number as the funds of the society permit. The magazine incarnates also a history of the change in the usage of English. It is a most valuable account of the moral tone of the past. One of the chaplains of the United States navy says in an article which the old issues hold, that he wishes “they would flog the men forward, instead of aft” for the reason that it disturbed his evening meditations. ( Probably the first account of the ' free churches in Sweden was published in the magazine. These churches are now grown to be rivals of the State church there. It was started, this brave little herald of the sailors’ life, with 250 subscribers, all in New York city. At the end of the first year, 1829, it had gathered, in Boston, Philadelphia and Charleston, S. C., 1,200. Its oldest subscriber today is Asher Sheldon of New Haven, Conn., who has Just celebrated his one hundredth birthday. He has been on the lists of the Seamen’s society for 40 years.