Sermon on the Tenth Anniversary of His Pastorate, 1873

Note: Dr. Herrold delivered the Annual Address at the dinner of the Cumberland County Historical Society on October 17, 2000. The address was principally the Reverend Mr. Ault's sermon of 1873, which contained an historical account of the Reformed Church in Pennsylvania and the Cumberland Valley. It is reprinted here from the original manuscript in possession of St. Paul's United Church of Christ, Mechanicsburg.

On April 30, 1865 Mr. Ault delivered a Discourse on the Assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. It was immediately published at Mechanicsburg and may be reprinted, by permission of Dr. Herrold, in a future issue of Cumberland County History.

Dr. Herrold's Address

Let me take this opportunity to thank you for your invitation to make this presentation tonight. I, the twentieth pastor of St. Paul's Church in Mechanicsburg, have been able to become acquainted with its first pastor. With his understanding of ecclesiology and theology, I truly believe that John Ault and I would have been close colleagues had we lived in the same century. Your invitation allowed the years between us to melt away, and for that I am grateful.

* * * * *

The Rev. John Ault was born at Annville, Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, on April 1, 1836. In 1853, he entered the freshman class of Franklin and Marshall College, where he took a full course and graduated with honors in 1857. In his book, The Reformed Church Fathers in Europe and America, the Rev. Mr. Henry Harbaugh writes,

At this period he passed through a struggle of which but few of his friends had the slightest conception. His personal appearance and manners were so attractive that he was everywhere a welcome guest, and the world sought in many ways to win him for her own. The struggle was short but decisive. When he determined to study for the ministry it required no small sacrifice of personal inclinations, but it was made without reservation. From that time he felt that he belonged entirely to the service of the Savior, and nothing could ever tempt him to wander from the chosen path.

Mr. Ault in 1857 entered the theological seminary at Mercersburg, where he remained one year. He married his wife, Sarah Isabella Wagner of Carlisle, on July 29, 1859. After serving churches at the Sulphur Springs charge, Carlisle, the Fort Loudon and St. Thomas charge in Franklin County, and performing duty as a chaplain in the Union Army from December 1862 to May 1863, he moved to Mechanicsburg in that year, where he remained for ten years. In 1873 he accepted a call from the Christ Church charge in and near Littlestown, Adams County, where he stayed until the end of his life.

Mr. Ault was in no sense fanatical. He had no love for new doctrines or for new methods. His great ingatherings were not the result of special seasons of extraordinary excitement, but rather the fruit of earnest, faithful, unremitting labor.

Harbaugh writes,

There can be no doubt but that our brother was worn out by the excess of labor which he imposed upon himself. He had several warnings that his strength was failing, but seems not to have fully appreciated their meaning. His active spirit could take no rest, and at the last, like the sword of Damascus, it cut through its perishable sheath. Our brother's final illness lasted about ten days. The disease was pronounced typhoid fever, which in his debilitated condition, his system was unable to resist. He remained conscious almost to the end; and on the day of his death, he prayed most earnestly for his beloved congregations, as well as for his wife and the five dear children whom the Lord had given him. He died on Monday, July 26'", 1880, aged 44 years, 3 months, and 26 days. He was buried in the Christ Church burial ground, outside of Littlestown. Sermon preached in the Reformed Church of Mechanicsburg, PA, on Sunday, the 20'" day of April, 1873, by Rev. John Ault, being the tenth anniversary of his pastorate in the Mechanicsburg charge. 

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