The words, etched into a stone tablet 184 years ago, today provide a dust-covered lesson about a historic Walnut Hills church with roots in the abolitionist movement.

        “Without me ye can do nothing.” — John 15.5.

        The topic was faith in 1818. It could have been written about money in 2002 as a wrecking ball awaits. Faith never ran out. The money did.

        The tablet graces a corner wall of the stone building at Gilbert and Taft avenues, which is set for a March 4 demolition unless its owner, the Rev. Donald Jordan, finds the money to continue renovating the former Walnut Hills Presbyterian Church.

        “I've tried every source I know,” he said. “There's always a chance, but it's going to take money.”

        The Rev. Mr. Jordan plans to raze the historic structure and build a smaller catering hall and chapel to work in conjunction with his next-door funeral home, Thompson Hall & Jordan Funeral Homes.

        The pastor of Allen Temple AME envisioned a community meeting place, flower shop, print shop and possibly a gospel recording studio when he bought the building in 1998.

        But public money never materialized. The Cincinnati Preservation Association board voted to help on a 25 percent tax credit, which the reverend, despite being grateful for the gesture, said is insufficient.

        “He's skeptical, we know that,” Paul Muller, CPA president, said Monday. “But his best course is to renovate. It'll be a historical loss on a proportion that Cincinnati hasn't seen in decades.”

        The church, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, was built in 1885 by affiliates of the Lane Theological Seminary, a key player in the pre-Civil War push to abolish slavery.

        The Rev. Mr. Jordan said he needs about $1.9 million to finish renovation, having paid $325,000 for the building and $500,000 for renovations so far. Its 60-foot arching ceiling is restored, but stained-glass windows cast a colorful hue on dilapidated walls and the debris of halted renovation.

        Outside, litter collects. There's an apparent bullet hole in one stained-glass window overlooking Gilbert Avenue.

        Mr. Muller said that the $1 million it might cost to demolish the church could be put to renovations that would be sufficient — if not a cure-all.

        The father of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, was a president of Lane about a decade after the stone tablet was installed over the doorway at the original Lane church. The tablet was installed at the Gilbert Avenue building in 1920. Nine years later, the First Presbyterian Church became the first congregation in Cincinnati to broadcast its service, on WKRC radio. In its first 100 years, ending with the centennial celebration of 1918, membership grew from eight to 886.

        But shifting demographics hastened a decline in numbers in recent years.

        Leslie Isaiah Gaines Jr., the former Hamilton County Municipal Court judge who now preaches at Everybody's Tabernacle, held the last events there last year.

        It's become an eyesore to some residents, with its lower-level windows broken and boarded up.

        “If it's viable, I'm all for keeping it,” said Cheryl Brown, who for 10 years has owned a home on Melrose Avenue behind the church. “But now, I just see people loitering.”

        She said the high rate of renters in the neighborhood has fueled indifference to the building. Homeowners, she said, have more of a stake in their surroundings.

        Her friend, Larry Bryant of Silverton, thought for a second before summarizing the church's plight.

        “As much as we feel an affinity for the landmark value of it,” he said, “it's a capitalistic society.”

        Neighbor Antonio Oden, 35, sat at the bus stop across from the church Monday with his son Darius, 6. The father of five said he and many other residents were unaware of the building's plight. But he favors renovation to demolition.

        “If it's historic,” he said, “they could use it for a place for senior citizens and the youth to go.”

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