Edward Norris Kirk was an American clergyman and author. He served as a pastor of the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Albany, New York from 1829 to 1837 and as the first pastor of Mount Vernon Congregational Church in Boston from 1842 to 1871.
Background
Edward Norris Kirk was born on August 14, 1802 in New York City, New York, United States. His father, George, a Scotchman, came to that city when eighteen years old, and married for his second wife Mary Norris, of Welsh and Irish ancestry, daughter of Thomas and Mary (Wade) Norris of Princeton, New Jersey. Edward was the third of her four children, and her only son. The head of the family was a storekeeper, without much ambition, but displaying all the stubbornness and piety commonly attributed to his race. After he was ten years old, Edward made his home with an uncle and aunt at Princeton, Robert and Sarah (Norris) Voorhees, the former a merchant of some means.
Education
At fifteen Kirk was enrolled in the sophomore class of the College of New Jersey, and after his graduation in 1820 entered a New York law office. He had not been particularly studious at college, and lived a carefree life until his conversion in 1822. Thereafter the spiritual welfare of his fellow men absorbed him utterly. He immediately entered the Princeton Theological Seminary, where he spent four years, and in June 1826 was licensed to preach.
Career
After two years' service in the Middle and Southern states as agent of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Kirk accepted an invitation to supply the Second Presbyterian Church, Albany, New York, during the ill health of its pastor, Dr. John Chester. Intensely evangelistic, plain-spoken, sometimes denunciatory, always uncompromising, his preaching was not acceptable to a fashionable congregation which included Martin Van Buren, Benjamin F. Butler, and William L. Marcy, and he was soon summarily dismissed. Some of his sympathizers then organized the Fourth Presbyterian Church of which he was installed pastor on April 21, 1829, having been ordained in the Second Presbyterian Church, New York, October 24, 1828
In the eight years that followed the new church grew rapidly. He also prepared young men for the ministry, uniting his class with that of Dr. Nathaniel S. S. Beman of Troy in 1833 and establishing the Troy and Albany Theological School, first located at Port Schuyler, later at Troy, and discontinued in 1837, when Kirk resigned his pastorate.
From April 1837 until September 1839 he was in Europe, studying conditions there and frequently preaching and lecturing. Upon his return he became secretary of the Foreign Evangelical Society (American and Foreign Christian Union) and helped to conduct revivals in the principal cities of the East, attracting crowds wherever he spoke. Calls to pastorates came to him from many places, and in 1842 he consented to settle in Boston where a Mount Vernon Congregational church was organized for him. In 1857 he was sent to Paris by the American and Foreign Christian Union to establish an American chapel there, a mission which he successfully performed. Besides scores of sermons and addresses which appeared in periodicals or in pamphlet form, he published: Sermons Delivered in England and America (1840); Theopneusty, or the Plenary Inspiration of the Holy Scripture (1842) and other works. He also edited and compiled Songs for Social and Public Worship (1868). His Lectures on Revivals, edited by D. O. Mears, appeared in 1875.
Views
Throughout the Civil War Kirk was a fiery supporter of the Union.
Membership
In 1865 Kirk was elected the president of American Missionary Association.
