The Children, The Church, and The Communion Two Simple Messages to Children, from One who Loves Them ... by Hall, Charles Cuthbert - 1895

Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Co.. Very Good. 1895. First Edition; First Printing. Hardcover. 55 pages; Publisher's medium green polished linen, title and front cover lettered in gilt, with edges of the covers and a decorative central medalion stamped in gilt -- deep maroon endpapers. Minor rubbing, oval stamp in ink of the U.S. Copyright Office, dated, on the title page. There is evidence of the removal of a paper label from the slender spine, and top-edge remains of a strip of paper once mounted to the rear paste-down endpaper -- [we did not effect either of these removals]. A volume devoted to Sermons delivered to and for children during "Children's Service, Sunday eventide" at the First Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn. The author of this slender book, Charles Cuthbert Hall, was a distinguished theologian and pastor -- who only gave up his pulpit at the First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn in 1897 to assume the Presidency of the Union Theological Seminary. Previously, he had graducated from Williams College at age twenty, then studied at New York's Union Theological Seminary for two years, followed by a year studying in London and Edinburgh. Upon his return to the U.S. Hall spent two years as pastor of the Union Presbyterian Church of Newburgh, New York, up the Hudson River from New York City. He spent the next twenty years in the pulpit of the influential First Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn -- also lecturing and writing several popular books on religious subjects. Two years after the present volume was published, he assumed the Presidency of Union Theological Seminary in 1897. Over the years, Hall earned three Doctor of Divinity degrees -- [New York University (1890; Harvard (1897) and Yale (1901)]. As President of that institution, he was awarded an LL.D. from Union Theological Seminary in 1905. Several of his books went into multiple printings, including the two mentioned on the leaf of ads facing the title page. We can state with unusual and complete confidence that our copy is a specimen of the first printing of the first edition, since it is a Deposit Copy from the U. S. Copyright office -- so stamped on the title page and dated within the oval ink stamp " April 10, 1895." During our early time in the trade we acquired a small number of these Copyright Deposit copies, the ultimate exemplars of documentary bibliography for American books. These were all transmited through a long-closed program of the Library of Congress's Division of Gift and Exchange. A handsome volume, printed at the Riverside Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The text is interesting as an example of an attempt by a noted and accomplished theologian to communicate to children without condescencion or watering down his message. .