Today was the day we “did” Philadelphia (if this is Sunday it must be Philadelphia!). In the morning we had fellowship with the folk at Mount Laurel Evangelical Presbyterian Church (http://www.evpchurch.org). The pastor (who is two days younger than Marianne) was away on vacation, so instead we had the ministry of Dr George Fuller, formerly of Westminster Theological Seminary (http://www.wts.edu/faculty/faculty-emeritus.html#fuller) speaking on the errors of ageism within the church. With the baby boomer generation starting to reach 60 there is going to be a massive increase in the elderly population. What is the church going to do to cope with this changed situation?

We mentioned to him our plans for the afternoon—a visit to the Princeton Cemetery and then a visit to central Philadelphia. Not possible, he said. And you must not come here in the evening, you must go to Tenth Presbyterian (www.tenth.org) at 17th and Spruce and you’d never get back in time for the evening meeting. In fact, we could have made it back there in time, but for a wrong turning (I’ve so inverted to driving on the right that when the signs say turn left I tend to go right and vice versa) and a traffic jam on I-95 for road works.

We got to central Philadelphia and parked and walked down to the heart of American independence. We found the new home of the Liberty Bell, opposite the old court house where the first Continental Congress met, and where (I think) the Declaration of Independence was drawn up and signed. I also think in its former life as a court-house, it was the building from whose balcony Whitefield preached on his first visit to Philadelphia. Benjamin Franklin had read of the vast crowds (up to 50,000) that heard Whitefield in England. Franklin didn’t believe this was possible. So when he heard Whitefield preach, he walked away from the court house towards Market Street where he could no longer hear. He then computed the area within which Whitefield could be heard, allowed a square yard per person and realised that 50,000 people could hear Whitefield preach. He became Whitefield’s American publisher and a close friend, but never responded to Whitefield’s pleas to him to repent and believe the Gospel.

With everything closing up at 5.30 and realizing we wouldn’t get back to Mount Laurel in time, we walked up to Tenth Presbyterian and joined with the believers there. In terms of grandeur the building is on a par with Westminster Chapel. The church there was previously pastored by Donald Barnhouse and James Montgomery Boice. This evening the message was by Aaron Messner, the second message on elders, based on Titus 1. A good exposition and application. They have a student from Northern Ireland working with them who is studying at Westminster Theological Seminary. He said how nice it was to hear more familiar accents (the Americans just LURVE British accents, and when they hear them ask where we’re from)!