Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 January 1898 — RESIGNATION OF DR. HALL. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

RESIGNATION OF DR. HALL.

Surprise Over the Wealthy-Minister's Retirement Is General. The Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York is the richest Presbyterian congregation in America. It has 1,200 members and the church usually contains 2,000 auditors at the principal service Sunday morning. Its spiritualizing influence is felt all over the mighty metropolis. Just now public attention ij drawn to it by the resignation of its {fitstor, Rev. Dr. John Hall, who has served it thirty years and whose forceful utterances and zealous labors are known to the world. On a recent Sunday ho announced his resignation

and the congregation was deeply moved by the thought of severing the pnsfornl relations which had existed for so many yen rs. I>r. Hall is the fifth pastor of this church, which is ninety years old. He is all Irishman by birth, lairn in Armagh in 18211, and is of -Scotch ancestry. He has tilled three pastorates- at Armagh, St. Mary's Abbey in Dublin amk the Fifth Avenue charge. His salary is $15,000 and the other emoluments bring it üb, to $30,000. The splendid temple in which Dr. Hall lias exercised his talents so effectually is one of the linest on Fifth avenue. It is five blocks below Central Park on a cor nor, where its commanding proportions are set off to fine advantage, and is a favorite haunt of sightseers to the metropolis/ Its grandeur can be outlined when it is known that more than $1,000,000 was spout in its construction. Two boys applied a match to a spray of nil issuing froyi a small aperture hi the Standard Oil Company's pipe line from Sisterville and Mannington to Morgantown, W. Yn. Fifty acres of forest and field were soon ablaze, and all the oil in ten miles of six-inch pipe, nearly 2,000 barrels, was consumed. Three men were seriously and two fatally burned as the result of a boiler explosion In the Ferncllffe distillery at LouisVillc, Ky. The fatally injured are: John Kenny and Phil Ivirb.

REV. DR. JOHN HALL.