James Hall was pastor of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York City, from 1867 until his death in Bangor, Northern Ireland.
Background
James Hall was born on July 31, 1829, in County Armagh, Ireland, the eldest child of William Hall and Rachel McGowan. His father was a farmer, a man of scrupulous honor, an elder in the Presbyterian Church, and both parents were earnestly religious. There were eight other children in the family.
Education
Hall attended the village school, then a classical school some miles distant, and at twelve entered the college at Belfast, graduating in arts in 1846, and in theology in 1849. He helped support himself by teaching in a girls' school.
Then Hall completed his theological course.
Later John Hall also received Doctor of Divinity degree and Doctor of Law degree.
Career
Upon completing his theological course, Hall was sent as a missionary to Connaught, and served among a wild and poverty-stricken people as school-teacher, pastor, and itinerant preacher.
His reputation as a preacher spread rapidly, and in 1852 Hall was called to the First Church of Armagh, a leading congregation in North Ireland. In Armagh, Hall exercised a vast influence. His congregation, composed both of townsfolk and of farmers from the surrounding district, found him a compelling and moving preacher and a pastor of amazing zeal and fidelity. He toiled indefatigably, writing in prose and verse for various papers, speaking on behalf of temperance and missions, and was recognized as an outstanding figure in the Irish pulpit.
In 1858 Hall was called to Dublin as colleague to Doctor Kirkpatrick in Mary's Abbey, the chief Presbyterian Church at the capital. His ministry drew a large congregation and led to the erection of a new edifice in Rutland Square. He founded and edited a monthly paper, the Evangelical Witness, and threw himself into the cause of national unsectarian education. In this he was ahead of most of the leaders of the Irish Presbyterian Church. The government in 1860 appointed him one of the three commissioners of education.
In 1867 Hall was sent to the United States on a deputation from the Irish Church, and this visit led to his call to the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York City, then located at Nineteenth Street and Fifth Avenue. The new minister at once became a foremost figure in the religious life of the country. He drew crowded congregations Sunday morning and afternoon, and usually preached in some other pulpit at night. He wrote for the New York Ledger, edited by his friend and supporter Robert Bonner, and for many religious publications. He continued to serve the cause of education by becoming chancellor of the University of the City of New York (1881 - 1891), then in a precarious plight. He served on many boards, lectured at various colleges, and was sought after to preach on special occasions. With these numerous outside activities he devoted himself to his own people, and for thirty years he built up and held the largest Protestant congregation in the city. To accommodate this company of many hundreds a new church was built at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-fifth Street. His people venerated him with awed affection.
Hall never modified the message of his earliest ministry. The Bible was God's Word and the Shorter Catechism was "an excellent compendium of scriptural truth. " He applied it with skill and sympathy to men's needs. He hated sensationalism; he relied little on organization; he had no professional helpers - not even a secretary; but by his preaching and pastoral visitation he drew in, trained in his view of the Christian life, and permanently molded the most influential congregation in the New York of that time. John Hall died on September 17, 1898, while on a visit to Ireland, at Bangor, County Down.
Achievements
Religion
A tide of deep religious feeling was flowing both in Scotland and among the Scotch-Irish in Ulster. Young Hall came under the influence of Doctor Henry Cooke, the leader of the Irish Presbyterian Church, popularly known as "the Cock of the North, " and accepted cordially his slightly modified Calvinism with a strict theory of Biblical inspiration - a theology which was the basis of his message ever after. The divinity of that age and place was polemical: Presbyterians battled with Romanism, and with the High Church wing of Episcopacy in the Church of Ireland. John Hall became a lifelong militant, evangelical Protestant.
Finding drink an economic and moral menace, Hall became an ardent advocate of temperance.
Personality
His tall and commanding presence, his soft rich voice, his solemn and tender manner, his aptness in homely illustration, his conviction of the truth of his Gospel, and his utter devotion to his task made him a force.
Quotes from others about the person
Beecher spoke of him as "the young Irishman with the golden mouth. "
Connections
In 1852, John Hall married a young widow, Mrs. Emily Irwin (Bolton), the mother of three little boys, and of this marriage there were four sons and one daughter.