Wilton Merle-Smith

When Dr. Wilton Merle-Smith received the call to the Central Presbyterian Church in New York City in 1889, he was thirty-three years old and was doing very effective work as Associate Pastor of the Old Stone Church in Cleveland; a strong, sound organization. His succession to the full pastorate of that church would have been assured by the quality of the work which he had done and by the warm affection both of the senior pastor and of the whole congregation. He had, indeed, many personal misgivings in regard to the wisdom of leaving that work and undertaking the task of building up in New York City a church whose activities had declined and which was believed to be in debt. Dr. Merle-Smith faced the problem, however, with clear courage, strong sense of duty and steady faith that “some things can be done as well as others.”

How admirably he succeeded in the task, all New Yorkers know. He never spared himself, but went at his work with the same vigor and high spirit with which he had played his position on the University baseball team while an undergraduate at Princeton. He was emphatically an advocate of the practical type of Christianity and he always took the liberal side in doctrinal disputes.

Closely devoted as he was to his professional work, Dr. Merle-Smith always kept in touch with what went on in the world about him. Sincere and intrepid in his personal convictions, he was none the less ready to learn from other men, and was tolerant of the convictions of others—always provided they were not colored by the bigotry which he hated.

Alexander Dana Noyes
1924 Century Association Yearbook