n Cemiiry i mm ^ IClUftlltlll tihvaxy of €he CKeolo^ical ^tmimvy PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY PRESENTED BY Rufus H. LeFevre .4. M42. r (i) I Bishop William uttki Bishop Maktin Boehi ADDRESSES delivered at the Centennial Celebration of the Founding of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ Edited by G. M. MATHEWS, D.D. U. B. Publishing House, Dayton, O IQOI Copyright, 1901 By the U. B. Publishing House All rights reserved Ttx tlTB ^^mcrg xif ?'lTtIip William ©tt^trtoin and First ^islTops xxf tlr^ ©ImrrlT of IItb ^nit:eil ^r^tlrr^ti in Qvlrrist, anil tlrcir (Ifl-lab0«rs tttlTO, in litxmt faitlr and s^If -sacrificing IoM:e laid tlT;e foundations of onr looed i^inn This ttoIttttiK is grstBf nllg tlsilicat^ri TABLE OF CONTENTS. Introduction vii PART I. The Making of Our Denomination. Otterbei n and His Colaborers. Prof. A. VV. Drury, D.D 9 Mysticism in the Origin and Growth of the United Brethren in Christ. Bishop J. S. Mills, D.D., LL.D 18 Historic Places and Epochs. Rev. C. I. B, Brane, A.M 37 PART II. Church Evangelism and Extension. The Heroism of Our Fathers. Bishop J. W. Hott, D.D., LL.D 49 The Church an Agency for the Spiritual Regeneration of Man. Rev. R. J. White, A.M 59 The Concentration of Our Church Forces. Rev. W. M. Weekley (57 The Next Step in Sunday-School Progress. H. A. Thompson, D.D., LL.D 74 PART III. The Church and Education. The History and Development of Education in Our Church. Bishop E. B. Kephart, D.D., LL.D 8.5 The Imperative Need of a Cultured Ministj-y. G. A. Funkhouser, D.D. 93 The Mission of the Denominational College. Rev. T. J. Sanders, Ph.D. 101 The Future of Our Colleges. L. Bookwalter, D.D 112 PART IV. The Nineteenth Century as a Preparation FOR THE Twentieth. The Relation of Our Publishing Interests to the Life and Growth of Our Denomination. W. R. Funk, D.D 121 The Outlook for Missions After a Century. William M. Bell, D.D 127 The Adaptation and Equipment of the Church of the Twentieth Cen- tury. I. L. Kephart, D.D 139 PART V. Jubilee Celebration at Otterbein Church, Baltimore, Md., May 4, 1901. Opening Address. Bishop N. Castle, D.D 147 Address of Welcome. Rev. A. Schmidt 152 Centenary Poem. Mrs. L. K. Miller 156 The Power and Influence of a Single Life. W. J. Shuey, D.D 160 Points to be Emphasized by the Children of Otterbein. Rev. H. S. Gabel 166 Our Young People in the New Century. Prof. J. P. Landis, D.D 171 At the Tomb of Otterbein. G. M. Mathews, D.D 179 PART VI. Bishops' Quadrennial Address 183 v LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 1. "We are Brethren." Frontispiece, 2. Bishop William Otterbein. 3. Bishop Martin Boehm. 4. Isaac Long's Barn. 5. The Deaner Home. 6. Rev. John Hershey's Home. 7. Bishop John Russell's House. 8. Bishop John Russell's Barn. 9. Benjamin Neidig's Home. 10. George Adam Guething's Home. 11. Rocky Spring Schoolhouse. 12. Otterbein Church, Baltimore, Maryland. 13. Scene at the Opening of the Centennial Jubilee Services. 14. The Parsonage of Otterbein Church, Baltimore, Maryland. 15. Consecration Services at the Tomb of Otterbein. 16. Close of the Consecration Services. 17. The Bishops at the Tomb of Otterbein. 18. Pilgrims at the Tomb of Otterbein. 19. The Pilgrimage to the Peter Kemp Home. 20. A Group of Pilgrims at the Kemp Home. 21. Peter Kemp's Home, Where the First Conference Was Held. 22. Room in the Kemp Home, Where Otterbein Was Elected Bishop. 23. Preparing to Leave the Kemp Home. 24. Homeward Bound. 25. The Old Cemetery at the Kemp Home. 26. The Barn at the Peter Kemp Home. 27. Rocky Spring, on the Kemp Farm. 28. The General Conference in Session at Frederick, Maryland. 29. A View from the Center of the Stage. 30. A View Looking to the Right. 31. A View Looking toward the Left. 32. Delegates and Visitors after the Afternoon Session. 33. The Monument to Francis Scott Key. 34. Barbara Frietchie. 35. Barbara Frietchie's Flag. 36. The Grave of Barbara Frietchie. 37. The Street Down Which General Jackson Led His Army. 38. The Reformed Church, Frederick, Maryland. rf M ^ y INTRODUCTION, The centennial feature of the General Conference of the United Brethren Church, which convened in Frederick, Mary- land, May, 1901, proved to be of such importance, and awak- ened such interest, as to demand the publication of the ad- dresses delivered on that occasion, so that they might be pre- served in permanent form, and thus be put into the hands of the entire membership of the Church for their instruction and inspiration. The history of the celebration of our Church centenary clearly indicates the value of such observance to the life and spirit of the denomination. If we do not cherish the memory of the pioneer fathers and pay high tribute of honor to their character, toils, hardships, and achievements in laying the foundations of our Zion, how can we expect to perpetuate the distinctive principles and spirit with which our denomina- tional life began. The forces of aggressive evangelism and the fires of piety and missionary zeal which characterized the origin of our Church will best be kept burning upon the altar of our own hearts by occasionally meeting on historic ground, made sacred by the memory of the faith, heroism, tears, and sacrifices of our fathers in holding spiritual com- munion with their God and our God. We do not believe in hero-worship, nor do we desire to bow in reverence at any earthly shrine; but a worthy, grateful remembrance of the past will give us a higher appreciation of the present and a more vigorous inspiration for the work of the future. As inheritors of the achievements of our fathers, we should take advantage of all that is worthy in the past to perpetuate and increase our inheritance by preserving, en- larging, and intensifying our denominational life. vii viji Introduction This purpose and thought led the General Conference of 1897, at Toledo, Iowa, to take official action authorizing a centennial celebration, fixing the period of it beginning Sep- tember 25, 1900, and closing with the General Conference in May, 1901. Accordingly a standing committee was appointed to make all the arrangements for this centenary. A special committee was also selected by this general committee to prepare a detailed program of themes and speakers for the centennial celebration, to be observed in connection with the General Conference at Frederick, Maryland, in May, 1901. This program contained a variety of themes covering the en- tire field of our Church origin, history, characteristic features, growth, needs, activities, and future outlook. Some of the ablest representative men and women of the denomina- tion, of wide experience in their respective departments of church work, discussed questions of ecclesiastical and evan- gelistic importance in a manner, it is thought, that assisted the General Conference, then in session in the enactment of wholesome laws and measures which shall strengthen every arm of the Church and advance the cause of our Lord Jesus Christ. The centennial services proper, consumed parts of five con- secutive days from the opening exercise, and were in every particular worthy of the denomination under whose auspices they were held and the historic events they celebrated. The themes treated are all intensely practical, and are presented in such a manner as to interest and instruct the reader, as well as to enrich the life of our denomination. The book, it is believed, will prove a real blessing to the homes of our I)eople throughout our Zion. G. M. Mathews. Dayton, Ohio. PART 1. THE MAKING OF OUR DENOMINATION. OTTERBEIN AND HIS COLABOEERS. Prof. A. W. Drury, D. D. The results of men's labors and their consequent title to honor depend largely on the consciousness with which they perform their part. Says Guizot: "Whenever the event has been greater than the design, whenever there is an appearance of ignorance of the first principles and results of an action, there has always remained a degree of incompleteness, inconsis- tency, and narrowness of view which has placed the victors in a state of rational and philosophical inferiority, the influence of which has sometimes been apparent in the course of events.'^ Did the fathers of our Church recognize the nature and results of their work? Did they see this day and yet better days to come? Let us at this time look back to them largely from this point of view. OTTERBEIN. "The Lord has been pleased graciously to satisfy me fully that the work will abide." No other words of Otterbein have greater significance to us at this hour than these. At the time when they were spoken, sixty years of toil in America had passed. That, indeed, the labor of Otterbein and his asso- ciates was not to be in vain, the accumulated results of now ninety years succeeding the utterance of these confident words abundantly testify. The labors were begun with a sublime un- consciousness of the part that was to be performed, but they 10 A Century were not permitted to continue long without a conscious partic- ipation in a divine plan, or to come to a close without the satisfying prevision of abiding fruits. I shall not attempt to repeat much of what all who are here assuredly know, or of what I attempted, with whatever suc- cess, to set forth in another form nearly twenty years ago. Let it suffice with reference to Otterbein and his chief colaborers, first, to indicate something of their early struggles under provi- dential leading, with only the firm conviction that they stood with God, and then to show their conscious share in the divine plan, whether in contributing to its advancement or in joyful anticipation of abiding results. How the past embraced or contained within itself the future, may be seen through a few events. The home life and the posi- tion in church and school of the Otterbein family were a prepa- ration and prophecy of no ordinary or uncertain kind. One who received influence from Melanchthon, Olevianus, Vitringa, and Spener could not put dogma before life, or polity before serv- ice. Teachers such as Schramm, Arnold, and Eau could not but foster a spirit which should embrace the uttermost parts of the earth. It was no ordinary mother who could say, "My William will have to be a missionary, he is so frank, so open, so natural, so prophet-like"; and again, "Go; the Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord cause his face to shine upon thee and with much grace direct thy steps. On earth I may not see thy face again — but go." Thus equipped and sent forth, Philip William Otterbein en- tered upon his long and laborious work as a minister and evan- gelist among the Germans of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. The Germans, largely from Switzerland and the Palatinate, were to have a place scarcely second to that of the preponderating English population in the civil and religious history of the United States. The Christian missionary among them, therefore, was a builder of destiny. The marked spiritual experience of Otterbein while at Lan- caster,— you may call it conversion if you have reference to the bringing in of all the elements of a full evangelical expe- Otterbeia and His Colaborers 11 rience, — fitted him for the John-the-Baptist work and the truly apostolic labors that awaited him. His introduction of social meetings while at Tulpehocken, his wider evangelism while at Frederick, his cooperation with Mennonites and other denomi- nations while at York, represented successive advances and new elements of preparation. His going to Baltimore and taking charge of an independent congregation gave to him full free- dom in dealing with his own congregation, and in carrying out systematically his work as an evangelist among the Germans. Said Otterbein: "It is true, brethren, the German work is a hard work; yet faint not and in due season you shall reap. The Lord has greatly blessed our labors and stood by us." Twenty- five years pass in which Otterbein, besides ministering to his own congregation, preaches widely as an evangelist, forms societies, establishes Sunday schools, calls to his assistance preachers, over all of which work he is the recognized superin- tendent. Then comes the memorable conference of 1800, whose one hundredth anniversary we now celebrate. Otterbein's congre- gation had been independent from the beginning; henceforth his independence of the German Reformed Church as a minis- ter, and his commitment to the new community of like-minded believers as a distinct part of the church of Christ are clearly manifest. He had hoped to see all his desires accomplished through an association of ministers in the German Reformed Church, then through special societies of his converts with provision of ministerial service for the time; but already for more than ten years preceding the year 1800 church character had been developing, and now it was considerately and finally adopted. That Otterbein not only had a providential part assigned him, but that as time passed he was led consciously to recognize its nature and future significance, is sufficiently evident and assuring to all who give the subject thought. In 1785 the rules of Otterbein's congregation declared, "No preacher can stay among us who will not to the best of his ability care for the various societies in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, 12 A Century which societies, under the superintendence of William Otter- bein, stand in fraternal unity with us." In 1800 he permitted himself formally to be chosen Bishop, and in 1813 he formally conferred ordination on those of the ministers raised up by him, and just before his death, the same year, declared his vis- ion of abiding results. Thus lived and wrought Otterbein, the apostle to the Ger- inans, in the formative period of both church and state in our country. His great modesty only heightens the honor that men, yea, God, would bestow. One who could serve in charity work on a committee with the Koman Catholic Carroll, after- ward archbishop, who could assist in the consecration to the episcopal office of Asbury, who had distinguished friends in the ministry of the Lutheran and Episcopal churches, and whose refraining from censoriousness and whose continued cordiality cause him yet to be prized and even claimed by the Keformed Church, cannot be the exclusive possession of any one body of Christians. Yet his peculiar value to the Church of which he is the recognized founder is evident in various ways. His scholarship forestalls captious criticism of human culture and furnishes a ready argument for education. His soundness of doctrine and healthful ethical spirit allow no place to license or fanaticism. His care for the distressed and his attention to children and the home anticipated what is most prominent and hopeful in the thought and effort of our times. His absorbing devotion to the welfare of undying souls, and his faithfulness to his divine Master are still a pillar of fire for the guidance of his spiritual children. BOEHM. Martin Boehm, the cofounder with Otterbein of the United Brethren Church, in like manner as was Otterbein, was called to a prophet's task and given a prophet's vision. When he stepped forward to draw the lot which destined him for the ministry, he said within himself, "Lord, not me"; but a few years later, after his entrance into a new spiritual experience, he had, as he loved to express it in the closing days of his life. Otterbein and His Colaborers 13 *'an impression or a presentiment that God would visit his peo- ple and grant them repentance unto life." In addition to the moral virtues characteri'^ing the Mennonite people of his day, he attained unto a glowing evangelical experience, and was constrained to publish abroad in all of the German communi- ties the truth that came with such authority and hallowed in- fluence to himself. Otterbein represented an honored church of the Reforma- tion; Boehm represented a persecuted sect whose noblest re- venge was the thought of its own superior sanctity. After a half score of years devoted largely to evangelistic work and the win- ning of many converts, the educated Reformed pastor and the zealous Mennonite preacher are brought together. What need here of a description of the meeting at Isaac Long's? What need of dwelling on the memorable words of Otterbein, "We are brethren" ? The Church itself is a monument to this meet- ing and to these words. During the more than forty years fol- lowing this coming together till these two fathers were called to their reward, Boehm supplied well his part in promoting what, from the time of the Isaac Long meeting, was a distinct- ly marked and advancing revival movement, due account to be taken, however, of the interruption caused by the war of the Revolution. He was elected Bishop in 1800, and was present until his death, in 1812, at every conference session except those of 1806, 1808, 1810, and 1811. His nominal connection with the local Methodist class in 1802, and his warm-hearted associa- tion with the pioneer Methodist preachers through a term of years, do not disturb the fact of his continuing to be, down to his death, a faithful representative and trusted leader of the newly constituted United Brethren Church. A significant feature of the work of Martin Boehm is that he represented the Mennonite society and other sects as well, which at the first and increasingly with the lapse of years furnished so large a proportion of the membership of the United Brethren Church. Bishop Asbury preached his funeral sermon from the text, "Behold an Israelite indeed in whom there is no 14 A Century guile." In the course of his noble eulogy he said, "His mind was strong and well stored with the learning necessary for one whose aim is to preach Christ with apostolic zeal and sim- plicity." GEETING. At this moment and at this place the name of George A. Geeting has a special significance. He was one of the first products of the revival movements, and was among the first in welcoming and promoting the formation of a new religious de- nomination. His home was on the Little Antietam in Wash- ington County, Maryland, and from this center he extended his labors over a wide area. Here, before there was a United Brethren Church, the first class was formed, and here the first house of worship was erected by the adherents of the new movement. Mr. Geeting a little later came near being the pas- tor of the first congregation outside of Baltimore established in a town; namely, Hagerstown. The idea, however, of a traveling ministry prevented this. Due to him is the fact that there is handed down to us a rec- ord of the annual conference from its first regular session in 1800, to the time of his death in 1812. He kept the minutes on separate sheets and recorded the same a short time before his death in a permanent record, which is the most important historical treasure posessed by the Church. He prefaced his record with the words: "Sanctify them through thy truth; thy Word is truth. Do it, Lord Jesus, for the sake of thy suf- fering and death. Amen." In the last minutes recorded by him he writes : "O Lord, thou Almighty God, bless thy work. Give to all thy servants who preach among us thy Holy Spirit. Fill us all with thy pure love and with power and with understand- ing to preach thy word, and to lead a good, upright life, and to honor thee, O God, from the depths of our hearts." Well did the succeeding conference declare of him, "He was, as a preacher and teacher, an awakening voice to warn sleeping sinners, a comforter and cnide of the weak and sorrowing, a father to all around him." As the friend of Otterbein, as an Otterbein and His Colaborem 15 eloquent preacher, as an untiring worker, as including in his prevision the larger things to come, we honor him this day. NEWCOMER. The last one on whose individual place and work I must dwell is Christian Newcomer. His unequaled foresight and long-continued labors made him the transmitter and guardian of the evangelical treasures and beginnings of organic life already sketched. He was the child of the hour, bom to every requirement of the occasion. He needed not to assume his position or to act a part. Tall in stature, of rugged constitu- tion, strong and active mentally, of a quick and responsive social nature, and not dependent on his ministry for support, he filled a necessary place in making the transient permanent, in making the local general, and in developing a suitable order and structure for the outburst of a new spiritual life. Under his influence, largely, the so-called "unsectarian" were to be- come a denomination, and the so-called "society" was more fully to develop the character of a church. His own progressive views and the reluctant advance of the new society are plainly seen in an entry in his journal for May 10, 1809. He wrote : "This day the session of our conference commenced. . . . My wish and desire were to have better order and discipline established in our society, and some of my brethren were of the opinion that this was unnecessary, that the Word of God alone was all-sufficient, and were therefore opposed to all discipline. I could plainly see that this opposi- tion originated in prejudice; therefore I sincerely and fervent- ly prayed for the illumination of the Holy Spirit. The Lord answered my prayer when I almost despaired of success and had nearly determined to leave and withdraw from the so- ciety." Opposition to any decided advance still manifested itself in local communities, in annual conferences, even in the General Conference sessions ; but the enlarged view, single aim» and unremitted effort of Newcomer more and more prevailed. He early formed classes, with his own hands stitched the first class-book, assisted in preparing a manuscript discipline, which 16 A Century is still preserved, presided in the formation of the new confer- ence in Ohio in 1810, was elected active Bishop in 1813, again elected Bishop in 1814, and with the formation of the General Conference in 1815 was five times successively reelected. He gathered the first missionary money, and was noted for the number of young men that he introduced into the ministry. He preached, for the most part, in German, but also in En- glish. He opened the way for a larger fellowship with kindred denominations, laboring even for an organic union of the L'nited Brethren and the Evangelical Association. Beginning with 1810 he annually, with the exception of the year 1811, journeyed on horseback from his home in Mary- land, through Pennsylvania, to Ohio, and sometimes to In- diana, in discharge of his duties as a minister and Bishop, making his nineteenth journey in 1829, the year preceding his death, when he was already past eighty years of age. In the course of his labors he also visited Kentucky, New York, and Canada. Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, however, con- stituted his special field. Through his ordination by Otterbein in 1813, ordination has been given to all who have held the office of Bishop in the Church, Bishop Hoffman, who was or- dained with him excepted, and thus the hand of Christian Newcomer has been laid upon the heads of all of the ministers of the Church. No picture of this Church father has been handed down, and no living person knows the exact spot in the cemetery near his Maryland home where his dust sleeps waiting the resurrection of the just. Beyond this quaternion of noble names, time will not permit more than a mention of Schwope, Otterbein's predecessor in Baltimore; of Weidner, Baker, and Herr, among the first to pass from labo^ to reward ; of Crider, Schaffer, Grosch, Lehman, Neidig, Peter Kemp, the two Krums, and the three Hersheys; of Senseny and Nisewander in Virginia; of Troxel and Ber- ger, whose labors were bestowed in western Pennsylvania; of Hoffman, Baulus, and Benedum, pioneers in Ohio; and of Pfrimmer, the pioneer in Indiana. Their names are cher- ished on earth, and their labors still bear fruit. Many whose Otterbein and His Colaborers 17 ^names are no longer spoken by men have long been enjoying 'their full reward and honor on high. Of Otterbein and his immediate colaborers, it may be said that they were by nature and grace well fitted and equipped for their work of laying foundations and guiding and guarding the beginnings of denominational life. They gave such promi- nence to the experimental and practical that a lasting defect and constant peril would have attached to their work had they not equally held to biblical authority, time-approved doctrine, and unfettered intellectual freedom. Doctrinal peculiarity, emotional one-sidedness, and ethical laxness did not present themselves, or were held firmly in check by elements that con- stituted a just counterpoise. They fulfilled the requirement of the maxim, to pray as if all depended on God and to labor as if all depended on man. May we fulfill the requirements of our day as they fulfilled the requirements of theirs. As God graciously granted them prevision in their important work of foundation laying, may he grant us vision of the character and triumph of the work assigned to us. MYSTICISM IN THE OKIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE UNITED BRETHREN IN CHRIST. Bishop J. S. Mills, D. D., LL. D. With one class of persons, whatever is dark, misty, incom- prehensible, mysterious, is called mysticism. But this is not the sense in which I use the term. By another class, whatever belongs to the manifestations of the subconscious mind, such as dreams, visions, trances, ecstacies, etc., is called mysticism, but this is not the sense in which the term is here used. There is a mystic element in both Christianity as a system and in Christian experiences. Mysticism, as related to a sys- tem of doctrines, is the warm life-blood as contrasted with a dry skeleton ; as related to mere forms and ceremonies it is the living spirit as contrasted with a dead body. The Saviour said, "My words are spirit and life," and Paul declares, "The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." I do not depreciate either doctrines or ceremonies when I say that, apart from the vital mystic element of religion they are like the man who has no love — "a sounding brass, or a clanking cymbal." With the wonder-working mystic of Romanism, or with the mere speculative mystic of either ancient or mediaeval times, or with the hysterical or ecstatic mystic, we have, on this occa- sion, nothing to do. We limit our attention to evangelical mys- ticism, which is the very life and spirit of the religion of the Christ. It may be defined as the life of God in the soul of man, making man conscious of his divine sonship, or, as a conscious union between God and the soul of man, or, as a pure, loving heart filled with the Holy Spirit. To the mystic, the life of Christ is the type of his own life. Christ is not only a real historic person, but that person is the principle of the whole of the "new creation." The late Dr. Dorner, whose life was the noblest illustration, and his teach- 18 Mysticism in the Origin and Growth 19 ings the wisest expositions of evangelical mysticism, says : "In the Son of Man the Holy Spirit obtains the primitive scene of his perfect realization in the world. The Son of Man is the point in which humanity has returned into God — the firstborn of true humanity united with God. At first he is still alone. But since he has the Spirit without measure, he is able to bap- tize with fire and the Holy Spirit, and a race of many brethren may be born to him. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ. As the Spirit of Christ, he refers back to Christ and carries in himself the power to diffuse the divine-human life, in order to carry on the union of the human with the divine. Such power of union is the regeneration of the human spirit and nature, in virtue of the absolute union of the two accomplished in Christ. The Holy Spirit does not, after Christ, begin to unite the divine and human again de novo; but in fixing historical continuity, the divine-human personal unity, which in Christ is incorporated with humanity, is employed for the purpose of propagating the life of the God-man. Through him sons of God are begotten — a race whose progenitor is Christ. "He is not content with the existence in himself of the full- ness of spiritual life, into which his people are absorbed by faith. Believers are themselves to live and love as free person- alities. Therefore, Christ's redeeming purpose is directed to the creation by the Holy Spirit, whom he sends, of new person- alities, in whom Christ gains a settled, established being. But by this very means God exists in them after a new manner, new not merely because the power of redemption and consumma- tion inheres only in God's being in Christ, but now also because, although Christ remains the principle of the life, this life shapes itself in freedom and distinctness from Christ, and unfolds its light and grace and love in man, as a living treas- ure of salvation. Thus the Holy Spirit produces a new person, of a new volition, knowledge, feeling, a new self-conscious- ness. The new personality is formed in inner resemblance to the second Adam, of the same family type. "Now, although God thus establishes, through the Holy Spirit, a new world of light, of divine peace, and divinely or- 20 A Century dered life, in place of the old, chaotic world, it is still certain that the Holy Spirit takes of that which is Christ's, his office being to introduce into the heart the revelation objectively per- fected in Christ. This revelation, to which he leads men, is the blessing which he seeks to make a subjective possession. He seeks to glorify Christ by disclosing his mind, imprinting his image on the heart, and thus uniting with him. He makes the all-sufficient fullness that is in Christ the possession of the human personality. Thus the things that are in Christ for the redeemed race, the new creation, are made the conscious possession of each saved individual.'^ Pascal, a noble mystic, taught as one of the great principles of Christianity "that everything tliat happened to Jesus Christ should come to pass in the soul and in the body of each Chris- tian." Was Christ conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit ? So is the believer born of God. Did Christ receive the Spirit without measure? So the believer is to be "filled with the Spirit," even all the "fullness of God." Was Christ led into the wilderness to be tested ? So every believer is tested in some wilderness. Did Christ bear witness to the presence of the Spirit in him by a life of prayer and humility before God and helpfulness and sympathy for his fellow-men? The believer lives the same life of faith and service for God and man, through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. Did Christ have seasons of transfigured fellowship with God? So has every believer joy, peace, and comfort in the Holy Spirit. Was Christ despised by Pharisees and worldly men? No believer is above his Lord. Did Jesus have his Gethsemane, in which the sin and sorrow of the world almost crushed out life ? Every believer will have fellowship with him in his sufferings. Was Christ crucified, dead, and buried ? Every believer is crucified to the world, dead, and buried with him. Was Christ raised again by the power of God ? Every believer is risen with him. Did Christ ascend to heaven, and is set down at the right hand of the Father? Every believer is made to sit with him in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. Is Christ the light of the world? Ye are the light of the world in him. Is Christ the eternal life ? Mysticism in the Origin and Growth 21 Ye have eternal life through faith in him. Is Christ the head of the new race ? Ye are his body and members in particular. Is Christ the true vine ? Ye are the branches thereof. Is Christ the Son of God ? Every believer is a son of God. Has Christ sat down on his Father's throne ? He that overcometh is to sit down on his throne, even as he sits on his Father's throne. Does Christ share his Father's glory ? "The glory thou gavest me I have given unto them." Does Christ share his Father's nature ? So are we made "partakers of the divine nature." Thus Christ is the second Adam, the head of a new order of beings, the type of the new creation — the kingdom of God. John says, "As he is, even so are we in this world." This does not deny or degrade the divinity of our Lord, but it exalts re- deemed man. From this viewpoint we have a clear definition of Christian experience. It is "making true or real in us what is already true for us in Christ Jesus," "to be transformed into the same image, from glory unto glory, as by the Lord, the Spirit." The mystic is fond of those passages in St. Paul's letters which speak of being "filled with all the fulness of God," "the mystery which was hid from all ages and generations, but which is now manifested to his saints, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory," "So that I no longer live, but Christ lives in me," "Christ is my life." But John's Gospel and letters are his special delight, where he learns to abide in Christ as the branch is in the vine; where he also reads, "That they aU may be one, even as thou. Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one, that the world may believe that thou didst send me." John was the mystic among the disciples. Through the power of love he learned more of the spiritual things of Christ than any one ever knew. He is the best illus- tration of a true mysticism — union with God as a conscious experience. Jesus said of John, "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ? follow thou me." In men of like mystic nature and loving devotion to the Master John has been present in every age of the church, but frequently in retirement and ob- 22 A Century scurity, but always teaching the same doctrine — love to God and man as the fulfillment of the law and the prophets. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Augustine, as revealed in his "Confessions" and lectures on John's Gospel and John's first letter, Hugo and Kichard of Saint Victor, Saint Bernard of Clairveaux, and Saint Francis of Assisi are the greatest of this class of men in the church from the beginning of the third century down to the middle of the thirteenth century. These were leaders in the struggle for spiritual life, followed by a multitude of men and women, who, amid the darkness sur- rounding them, loved God and worked righteousness. But as it is from the German mystics that our Church has received, under God, its noblest heredity of faith and life, we turn to consider them. It is safe to predict that when we, as a church, come to a consciousness of our heredity, we will fol- low our German ancestry in our theology. Our Church has always been German at heart. Master Eckart, one of the great- est minds of the middle ages, was born at Strassburg in 1260, and died in 1329. He is regarded as the father of German mysticism. Of this school, Professor Fisher, of Yale, says ("History of Doctrines," page 264) : "The mystics of the four- teenth century and their disciples, especially the German school of mystics, did pave the way for the Reformation, by inculcat- ing, by precept and example, the inwardness of true religion, and by making the value of the doctrines to consist in their relation to practical piety. Among the most eminent of these later mystics are Master Eckart, Henry Suso, John Tauler, Euysbroek, Thomas a Kempis, and the anonymous author of the German theology. The mystics did not undervalue an ac- tive life of duty, a life of faithful labor in one's vocation. Along with it they placed the contemplative life, the blissful communion with God, as the object of aspiration. The path to this experience was through purification, inward illumina- tion, and union with God." While both Eckart and Suso used language which savored of pantheism, Fisher says, "Eckart, in his deep, practical convic- Mysticism in the Origin and Growth 23 tions, was a theist," and, "The language of Suso is pantheistic, but this is not its real intent." Eckart taught that "God is alike near to all creatures. I have a power in my soul which enables me to see God. I am as certain as that I live that nothing is so near to me as God. He is nearer to me than I am to myself. God is in all things and places alike, and is every ready to give himself to us in as far as we are able to receive him. He knows God aright who sees him in all things." (Allen, "Continuity of Christian Thought," pages 261-2.) Again, he says : "God is a pure God in himself, therefore he will dwell only in a pure soul. There he may pour himself out ; into that he can wholly flow. What is purity ? It is that man should have turned himself away from all creatures and have set his heart so entirely on the pure good, that no creature is to him a comfort, that he has no desire for aught creaturely, save so far as he may apprehend therein the pure good which is God. And as little as the bright eye can endure aught foreign in it, so little can the pure soul bear anything in it, any stain, aught between it and God. To it all creatures are pure to enjoy, for it enjoyeth all creatures in God, and God in all creatures. Yea, so pure is that soul that she seeth through herself, she needeth not seek God afar off, she findeth him in herself, when she hath flowed out into the pure Godhead, and thus is she in God and God in her." (Vaughn, "Hours with the Mystics," Vol. I., page 193.) Eckart was the philosopher of this group, one of the greatest thinkers in the middle ages, who anticipated many of the best thoughts of Hegel and Fichte in modern speculation. He was at the same time a humble, devout Christian. Ruysbroek was Eckart's fellow, both in speculation and in practical piety. He teaches: "True penitence is of the heart; bodily suffering is not essential. No one is to think that he is shut out from Christ because he cannot bear the torturing penance some endure. We must never be satisfied with any performance, any virtue. Only in the abyss, the nothingness of humility do we rise beyond all heavens. The desire after 24 A Century God is not kept back by the sense of defect. The longing soul knows only this, that it is bent on God; swallowed up in as- piration, it can take hold of nothing more. "God dwells in the highest part of our soul. He who ascends this height has all things under his feet. We cannot compel God by our love to love us, but he cannot sanctify us unless we freely contribute our effort. The free inspiration of God is the spring of all our spiritual life. God dwells in the heart pure and free from every image. We are one with God, but yet always creature existences distinct from God. But what shall I call this blessedness? It includes peace, inward silence, af- fectionate hanging on the source of joy, sleep in God, contem- plation of the heaven of darkness far above reason." (Vaughn, "Hours with the Mystics," Vol. L, pages 127-9.) Among these "friends of God," Henry Suso was the mystic poet. In the poem, entitled "A New Song," he sings of Jesus : "To thee, Lord, my heart unfoldeth. As the rose to the golden sun ; To thee. Lord, mine arms are clinging. The eternal joy begun. Forever, through endless ages. Thy cross and thy sorrow shall be The glory, the song, and the sweetness, That make heaven heaven for me. Let one in his innocence glory, Another in works he has done — Thy blood is my claim and my title, Beside it, O Lord, I have none. The scorned, the despised, the rejected. Thou hast come to this heart of mine ; In thy robes of eternal glory, Thou welcomest me to thine." In the poem called "The Gospel of the Friends of God," Christ as our life is portrayed : " *To me to live is Christ,' and yet the days Are days of toiling men ; We rise at morn, and tread the beaten ways. And lay us down again. Mysticism in the Origin and Oroiuth 25 "How is it that this base, unsightly life Can yet be Christ alone? Our common need, and weariness and strife, While common days wear on. "Then saw I how before a Master wise A shapeless stone was set ; He said, 'Therein a form of beauty lies, Though none behold it yet. " 'When all beside shall be hewn away, That glorious shape shall stand In beauty of the everlasting day, Of the unsullied land.' "Thus it is with the homely life around. There hidden Christ abides ; Still by the single eye forever found, That seeketh none besides. "WTien hewn and shaped till self no more is found, Self ended at the cross ; The precious freed from all the vile around, No gain, but blessed loss, "Then Christ alone remains — the former things Forever passed away ; • And unto him the heart in gladness sings All through the weary day." Or this, describing the present joy of the hidden life of divine love : 'Lord, thou hast loved me; and, henceforth to me, Earth's noonday is but gloom ; My soul sails forth on the eternal sea, And leaves the shore of doom. 'I pass within the glory even now, Where shapes and words are not, For joy that passeth words, O Lord, art thou, — A bliss that passeth thought. 26 A Century "Heaven now for me — forever Christ and heaven ! The endless now begun ! No promise, but a gift eternal given, Because the work is done." —"The Three Friends of Godr Tauler, after a wonderful experience of divine things, be- came the most noted preacher of these "God-intoxicated" peo- ple, who dwelt about Cologne, Strassburg, and along the Khine. To be appreciated, his sermons must be read and his life studied. Thomas a Kempis's "Imitation of Christ," and the book called "German Theology," a theology of heart religion, have come down to us, after kindling the sacred fire of piety in the hearts of millions for the past five hundred years. Of this latter book, Luther says: "Though it be poor and rude in words, it is so much the richer and more precious in knowledge and divine wisdom. And I will say, though it may be boasting of myself and 'I speak as a fool,' that next to the Bible and Saint Augustine, no book hath ever come into my hands whence I have learned more of what God and Christ and man and all things are." The German Reformation was largely indebted to what Luther learned from the German mystics. On this subject. Professor Fisher says: "We turn now to another class of men who powerfully, though indirectly, paved the way for the Protestant Reformation — the mystics. "Mysticism has developed itself all through the scholastic period, in individuals of profound religious feelings, to whom the dialectic tendency was repugnant. Such men were Saint Bernard, Boneventura, and the school of Saint Victor. The characteristics of the mystics is the life of feeling; the prefer- ence of intuition to logic ; the quest for knowledge through light imparted to feeling, rather than by the processes of the intel- lect; the indwelling of God in the soul, elevated to a holy calm by the consciousness of his presence ; absolute self-renun- ciation and the absorption of the human will into the divine; the ecstatic mood. The mystics were eagerly heard by thou- Mysticism in the OHgin and Growth 27 sands who yearned for a more vital kind of religion than the church had afforded them. "With these pioneers of reform, and not with men like Huss and Wickliffe, the religious training of Luther and his great movement have a direct historical connection." ("History of the Keformation," pages 65-6-7.) Dr. Schaff, in his "History of the German Reformation," speaks of this matter as follows: "There are various types of mysticism, orthodox and heretical, speculative and practical. Luther came in contact with the practical and catholic type through Staupitz and the writings of Saint Augustine, Saint Bernard, and Tauler. It deepened and spiritualized his piety and left permanent traces on his theology. The Lutheran Church, like the Catholic, always had room for mystic ten- dencies. But mysticism alone could not satisfy him, especially after the Reformation began in earnest. It was too passive and sentimental and shrank from conflict. It was a theology of feeling rather than action. Luther was a born fighter, and waxed stronger and stronger in battle. His theology is biblical, such mystic elements as the Bible itself contains." ("History of the German Reformation," pages 142-3.) It is a fact of profound significance that not only the German Reformation, but every great revival of religion is the result of the work of some one or more persons, who enjoyed this mystic union with God, and through whose deep experiences of spiritual truth God could speak to other persons. This life of God in the soul of man is the leaven that leavens the lump of humanity. This is not only the living water that slakes the thirst of the soul, but it is the living energy that throbs in the one in whom it dwells, and infects for good those about him. Good as genuine doctrines may be, noble as forms and cere- monies are, divine as a pure life of charity is, the mystic life of union with God is the vital fact, the divine element in all religious matters. Dr. Charles Hodge quotes Tholuck as saying: "There is a law of seasons in the spiritual, as well as in the physical world, in virtue of which, when the time has come, without any ap- 28 A Century parent connection, similar phenomena reveal themselves in different places. As towards the end of the fifteenth century an ecclesiastical doctrinal reformatory movement passed over the greater part of Europe, in part without apparent connec- tion, so at the end of the seventeenth a mystical and spiritual tendency was almost as extensively manifested. In Germany, it took the form of mysticism and pietism; in England, of Quakerism; in France, of Jansenism and mysticism; and in Spain and Italy, of quietism." Then Dr. Hodge continues: "This movement was in fact what in our day would be called a revival of religion. Not, indeed, in a form free from grievous errors, but nevertheless it was a return to the religion of the heart, as opposed to the religion of forms. The mystics of this period, although they constantly appealed to the mediaeval mys- tics, even to the Areopagite, and although they often used the same forms of expression, yet they adhered much more faith- fully to Scripture doctrines and to the faith of the church. They did not believe in pantheism, nor believe in the absorption of the soul into God. They held, however, that the end to be attained was union with God." (Hodge's "Theology," Vol. I., page 84.) We know who the leaders of this great revival, over the Chris- tian world, were. In Germany, Franke and Spener; in Eng- land, Fox and Penn; in France and Switzerland, De Sales, Madam Guyon, and Fenelon; in Spain and Italy, Molinas — all of the acknowledged type of evangelical mystics. In the eighteenth century, the pietist movement continued in Germany. Zinzendorf wa* brought up in the home of a pietist, and educated in the pietist school at Halle. In the providence of God, he carried this holy fire to his new home, Bethelsdorf, where he gathered about him the refugees who constituted the remnant of the Moravian Church. Under the leadership of Zinzendorf, a great revival was brought about, and a new era in the history of the Moravians was begun, and the fire re- kindled has burned brightly down to the present. A similar revival took place in England and America, which has con- tinued down to our day, with more or less intensity. I refer Mysticism in the Origin and Growth 29 to the Wesleyan revival, under the labors of the Wesleys and their coworkers; and to the New England revival, under the labors of Jonathan Edwards and his associates ; and the revival among the Germans in this country, under the labors of Otter- bein and his colleagues. We all know that John Wesley owed his initiation into a saving knowledge of God to the mystic Moravians, William Law, and the mystic books of the middle ages. Whoever will read Edwards "On the Affections" will find that his torch, also, was lighted at the fire of the mystics. Now, it might be easy to infer that Otterbein was not an exception to the rule that all leaders in great revivals are mys- tics. But in his case we have clear evidence of this fact. Dr. Drury has traced the connection of Otterbein with the pietists. We know that Otterbein's favorite translation of the Scriptures was the Berleherg Bihle — a translation and commentary pre- pared by a coterie of mystics. With all this harmonizes what we know of the experience, preaching, and life of this noble man of God. In the beginning and early history of our Church, the spirit of mysticism, out of which it was born, was a violent reaction against the rationalism and formalism of the prevailing type of religion in America. Reactions always go to the opposite extreme. This is well known. To the student of history, this extreme reaction furnishes the certain key to a number of facts found in our early Church history. For instance, Otterbein held membership in the German Reformed Church to the day of his death, and was at the same time a Bishop in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ; and Boehm was a member of both the Methodist Church and of our own Church at the same time. These matters find a ready explanation in the fact that these men were mystics. The older German mystics held a similar view of the spiritual church, so that it made little difference to them to how many visible organizations each be- longed; to them visible churches were merely matters of con- venience. Tauler and his associates were members of the Roman Church, but at the same time they were more intimately 30 A Century united with the organization known as the "Friends of God," or with the people known as the "Brothers of the Common Life." We also find a modern parallel in the case of John Wesley, who remained in the Episcopal Church to the day of his death, and was the great leader in the Methodist Church at the same time. The same thing was true of Zinzendorf, who was both a member of the Lutheran Church and also the bishop of the Moravian Church. These were all mystics, with whom the inner life of the Spirit was so violent a reaction against all mere forms of the outer life that they did not prize as we do the value of visible churches. The love of God shed abroad in their hearts was greater. The same key explains why Otterbein and his colaborers did not care to organize their converts into a church, or even to number or record their names, until Providence thrust the task upon them. To these men, living in an atmosphere of spiritual convictions and experiences, all else seemed insignifi- cant compared with the divine realities they were enjoying. Another fact, not often thought of, is that the mystic's con- scious relation to God often makes him strongly individualistic. His sense of responsibility to God is so great that he is in- clined to ignore human authority and human fellowship, and to live apart, unless he finds associates of like spirit. This ele- ment makes mysticism a powerful solvent of creeds and cere- monies, and even of church organizations. "Comeouterism" over our land to-day is an illustration of what I mean. The leaders of it are usually one-sided mystics. This is one of the elements of weakness which we inherited from our fathers, otherwise grand and divine men as they were. Yet this lack of cohesiveness and of a just appreciation of our own Church and its members has been a great hindrance to our growth. From this unconscious cause, men in other churches have often been honored and trusted by us, while men in our own Church, of equal culture, ability, experience, and merit, have been passed by simply because they were our own men. But, fortunately and hopefully, we are coming to our Mysticism in the OHgin and Growth 31 majority, in which a wise self-valuation enables us to judge more justly of ourselves as well as of everybody else. Personal communion with God and immediate responsibility to him are true, but not the whole truth. This mystic fact must be supplemented by the social fact of fellowship with men and responsibility to visible organizations. Humility and self- abasement before God are true states of the mind of a Chris- tian, but not the whole truth. They must be counterbalanced by a just appreciation of the self in Christ Jesus, and a wise dignity due to our relations to him. This unconscious influence of certain mystic principles carried to an extreme is undoubt- edly the cause of disintegration, an unwise depreciation of what is our own, and the feeble cohesion of members, as seen in the ease with which many left us to join other churches, under the slightest pretexts. Must we forever remain under the ill effects of this heredity ? Is this extremism a necessary element of a true mysticism, re- garding mysticism as only one element of religion ? I answer. No. In proof of this, I cite the case of others who were mystics without this effect following. Luther was as much a mystic as Otterbein, but he was saved from extremism by his practical spirit. Paul and John both were greater mystics than any modern man, but along with this they held to other elements of religion, which, combining with their mysticism, made it a transcendent power for good in them. Fortunately, we can call attention to a period in our own history when this mystic element, combined with a practical element, wrought wonders in our Church life. I refer to the period from 1845 to 1860. The mystic move- ment during that period of our history was led by our sainted Bishop Edwards. His seeking for an entrance into the experi- ence of union with God is a parallel to that of Otterbein, and also to that of Tauler. He soon after was made editor of the Religious Telescope, through whose columns he urged the doc- trine of a "higher life." In 1849, he was elected a Bishop, and continued such down to his departure in 1876. During this time he both illustrated and earnestly advocated purity of heart 32 A Century and life. During the special period named — 1845 to 1860 — many of our ministers and laymen sought this mystic experi- ence, and obtained it. Did this have a good or a bad effect on our Church during the period named? The facts reveal that this was not only a time of revival of piety among the members of our Church, but it was also the period of the most rapid and solid growth in our history. This was the time when our publishing business began in earnest and took substantial form. This was the time when our edu- cational work had its birth, and five schools were founded, one in each of the States of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michi- gan, and Iowa; also, a ministerial course of study was pro- vided for those who would be ordained to the ministry among us. And further, this was the time when the Missionary So- ciety of our Church was organized, and our foreign mission work begun; and, what is still greater, the membership of our Church advanced, during these fifteen years, from 36,000 to 94,500 — almost multiplied by three. But following this period, the Civil War broke out and di- verted the attention of our people from this higher, but, as shown, eminently practical form of divine life. This was fol- lowed by the unhappy conflict within our Church over the secrecy law and change of Constitution. But through both these agitations, though our zeal for God abated, yet there has remained a mystic element in the thought and life of our Church, as evinced by the books of this char- acter kept in our course of ministerial study, such as Upham's "Life of Faith," "Interior Life," and "Divine Union," "The Imitation of Christ," "Holy Living and Dying," and Murray's and Meyer's books. Further evidence of this divine element in our Church is found in the experience and lives of many who have passed away, and of others now living. Shall we cultivate this element in our Church life and doc- trines? Some are so hasty as to tell us, "This doctrine leads to immortality." Did not Saint John, Saint Catherine of Siena, Madam Guyon, and Otterbein live noble, pure lives? Others tell us such a theory "leads only to spiritual selfishness Bishop Philip Wii.liam Uttekbein. The onginul painting from whicli the above pictuiv was made, is in the Metliodist Hisiorieal Rooms in Baltimore, Md. It is known as tlie cap picture of Bishop Otterl:»cin, and is very highly prized by tiiem. Bishop Martin Boehm. < 2 Mysticism in the Origin and Growth 33 and indolence, regarding not the welfare of others." Were Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Bernard, Tauler, and Luther selfish and indolent men ? Tauler put social service on its true basis. "One can spin," he says, "another can make shoes, and all these are gifts of the Holy Ghost. I tell you, if I were not a priest, I should esteem it a great gift that I was able to make shoes, and I would try to make them so well as to be a pattern for all." The mystic Boehm was a most industrious shoemaker. Still others say, "The doctrine necessarily leads to fanaticism." Was Paul a fanatic when he said, "I no longer live, but Christ lives in me," "For me to live is Christ," or, as Luther translated it, "Christ is my life"? The great mystery is, "Christ in you the hope of glory." No evangelical mystic uses stronger statements than Paul utters. But from a few educated men comes the final objection, "The doctrine is a favorite with ignorant people, and it discourages education." Were not Clement, Origen, Augustine, the Saint Victors, Eckart, Tauler, Luther, Franke, Spener, Wesley, Zinzendorf, Kothe, Schleiermacher, Edwards, and Finney educated men and leading educators of their day ? It is at once seen that these objections are against a false mys- ticism, and have no force against the true one. It is quite easy for the mystic to refer to the evils of dogmatism, ecclesiasti- cism, and formalism, and insist that all churches, creeds, and ceremonies should be abandoned because of their abuses by some people. The false mystic and the formal churchman are equally unwise and unsafe leaders. Eather, let us purify this subjective element, this conscious experience of God in the soul, by enlarging our knowledge of the objective elements of religion as given in the Bible, in Christ, in the experiences of other Christians, in providence, and in nature. Let us balance the rapturous experience of the love of God by a broader, profounder love of our fellow-men. Let us accompany our consecration to God by the devotion of our lives to the welfare of men. Let us unite to our communion with God a broad fellowship with all men. Such a method means for our preachers and laymen and our Church machinery 34 A Century — educational, publishing, missionary, church-erection, Sun- day-school, and Young People's Christian Union— to be filled with God's conscious presence; it means a new springtime in our history. The world has been passing through a period of materialism, during which men have attempted to explain all things on the basis of matter. Material welfare has been made the standard of life. A reaction has set in towards spiritual goods and explana- tions of life. This is seen (1) in the springing up of a false mysticism all over the world, which simply means the swing of the pendulum in this reaction to the opposite extreme from materialism. These manifestations are: A revival of Bud- dhism, theosophy, and other Oriental occultisms, spiritualism, Christian Science, astrology, and kindred symptoms, leading multitudes away from the truth into false paths, into sandy deserts, where, in the end, they will suffer worse than the plagues of Egypt. (2) There is a revival, also, of true and healthful mysticism. It is seen in the best theological literature written or read at this time, as in Germany, Neander, Tholuck, Schleiermacker, Rothe, Miiller, Dorner, and a revived interest in the older Ger- man mystics; in Denmark, Martensen; in Scotland, Principal Caird, Campbell, and Morgan; in England, Browning, Inge, Meyer, Murray, and a revived interest in the Cambridge Pla- tonists and in William Law ; in our country, Professors Fisher and Harris, Jonathan Edwards, Dr. Schaff, A. T. Pierson, A. J. Gordon, and D. L. Moody. The warm life of the Spirit is felt in these and many others of the noblest religious writings of the past and present. This turning of Christian people towards a deeper spirituality is seen also in the increased number of books published relative to the Holy Spirit and his mission, and an ever-increasing anxiety for his presence and power. (3) The concerts of prayer now held in many places in Eng- land, Germany, and Holland, and in our own country are most hopeful omens that the windows of heaven are about to be opened and great spiritual blessings poured out upon God's people. Mysticism in the OHgin and Growth 35 (4) This revival is also evidenced by the Keswick movement in England, and a similar one in Holland, and the Moody schools and other summer schools for Bible study and for the culture of the higher life in this country, and in other Chris- tian lands. The various forms of false mysticism can be suc- cessfully met only by an increase of spiritual life in the Church. Multitudes are hungering for "the Bread of Life." To offer them from the pulpit merely literary or aesthetic or ethical es- says is to give them a stone for bread. Nine-tenths of those who come to church come to get impulse, inspiration, life. Only life can impart life; only divine life can impart divine life. If we invite the people to a feast, and then set before them only empty dishes, fine linen, and beautiful flowers, they will go away hungry, and probably will not return. A mere empty cup, however beautiful and costly, will not satisfy a thirsty man. "My words they are spirit and life." Neander said, "The heart makes the theologian." It surely makes a large element in every effective preacher. Another reason why we should encourage and cultivate this fuller, completer life is found in the fact that the Holy Spirit is the bond of unity between Christians. Christendom will never unite on doctrines nor ceremonials nor church polities; but all may have the conscious indwelling of the Holy Spirit, causing them to cry, "Abba, Father." And the next cry will be, "My brother." "When the Spirit was poured out at Pente- cost he was not only a great power in believers, but he was also the interpreter and bond of unity in them, so that "they all heard the wonderful things of God in their own tongue," and "had all things in common." A great baptism of the Holy Spirit will become the bond of unity in the modern church and in the modern world. In the apostolic age, there was a Jewish- Christian church and a Gentile- Christian church, which threatened to divide permanently the body of Christ. Then came John, with keener intuition and broader sympathy, with not less intellect, but far more heart, and, by his interpreta- tion of Christ as "Spirit," "Life," "Light," and "Love," he united the two elements into one "glorious church." Saint 36 A Century John still tarries for the coming of the Master, and is destined to do for the modern church and the world, by his doctrine of Icve, what he did for the apostolic age. Here only is found the spirit of unity and bond of peace for all men. We should welcome the movement, now abroad in the churches, for the life more abundant, and absorb its spirit as our true tjpe and legitimate heritage; and, both in our inward and outward lives, bear its beautiful fruits, and make the con- sciousness of salvation to the uttermost not a mere luxurious enjoyment, nor a selfish isolation from the sorrows and bur- dens of life, but a glorious inspiration to wise aggressiveness in every righteous movement for individual or social welfare, like Saint Paul, and a tender compassion and love for all men, like Saint John. We shall thus show to the world that, in the experience of salvation, there is neither male nor female, neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither rich nor poor, neither learned nor unlearned, but all are one in Christ Jesus, to whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be glory to the age of ages. HISTOEIC PLACES AND EPOCHS. Rev. C. I. B. Brane, A. M. Speaking figuratively respecting my personal relation to time, I may say that I now live on the western side of life, and from this on the shadows will lengthen to its close; but I hopefully embrace the outline of a beautiful sunset with rare tints of spiritual promise concerning a brighter and a better day, making even the usually "stormy" banks of Jor- dan prospectively calm and peaceful. The older I get the more I enjoy the influences of the home circle; and the longer I live the more affectionately I cling to the scenes and asso- ciations of my childhood. The growing influence of those early instincts will never allow the mere passage of planets across imaginary lines to settle for me the question of age. Every time I think of my old home, nature covers my heart and life with spring blossoms, and I inhale again the fresh- ness and fragrance of those exquisitely bright days over which rot a single shadow fell. Every time I set my feet upon the cobble-stone pavement of this old town, where I was born fifty-two years ago, gladness comes leaping to my heart and lips, and I live over again the days of my childhood — take my old place in an unbroken home circle, climb the hillside for daisies, romp with the boys on the old playground, and recite my Scripture verses in Rockey Springs Sunday school. But, alas, the old home circle is badly broken, the hills I love most I rarely see, the boys with whom I played have nearly all quit the stage; and about all I have left of those hallowed associa- tions are these sweet memories, and the precious Scripture verses I recited in that old schoolhouse. Under the spell of this tender meditation the trend of my thought and feeling is to poetry rather than to philosophy; but history, to which I am committed for twenty minutes, embodies the essence of both. 37 38 A Century With me it is a pleasant task to philosophize on history; to recall the record of the race, or of the nation, or of the church, or of the individual, and reflect upon the cause and character of certain events, especially those for which I have a personal relish — a sort of sub-conscious affinity — and which stand out like mountain-peaks above the range of ordinary affairs, with the light of increasing day streaming over them, making new and more interesting revelations concerning their nature and meaning. No matter from what point of view we make or take our observations, the natural longing of the human heart is for that which has been, for what might have been, and for that which shall he. This triple trend of thought and feeling may symbolize a threefold fact in human experience, namely, conscious loss and desire to repair it, including the hope of ultimate perfection in the life to come. Our longing for that which has been may have remote but vital connection with the state of perfect goodness and satisfaction in which man was originally created, our mournful reflection upon what might have been may be a fragmentary expression of regret over the calamitous effects of the fall, and our ardent antici- pations concerning the future may deeply signify our struc- tural lien on immortality, which is the only satisfactory an- swer to life's withheld completions. At any rate, there is something in this reminiscent mood that sweetly breaks up the monotony of life, freshens the soul-tides of thought and feeling, and opens up new channels for mental and moral in- spiration. Indeed, it seems to me that historic meditation, based upon the recorded facts of the ages, affords the richest inspiration that comes to humanity in the struggles of life, except that which God gives more directly through the agency of his Word and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Historic imagination brings before us men and women who breathe the breath of life, though they have been under the sod for cen- turies. It affords vital and perpetual contact with the remote past — enables one to look through the eyes of a proud Koman, think with the faculties of an intellectual Greek, and dream with the inspired fancy of a Hebrew prophet. On the high- Historic Places and Epochs 39 tide of such inspired reflection the soul finds the sublime in morals, catches the heroism of a holy environment, and re- joices over victories achieved by good men in perilous sea- sons, or under circumstances of great opposition. It makes a man the embodiment of memories which mellow his whole being into a fitness divine, and crowns, his concep- tion of human life, in its highest range of possibilities, with the dignity of an archangel. Under the spell of this inspiration we feel a virtuous pride in our spiritual ancestors, realizing that their godly examples are a blessing to us, and that the results of their labors, upon the enjoyment of which we have entered, constitute an inheri- tance akin to that which is "incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away." Their simple faith, and labor of love, and loyalty to Christ, and self-sacrificing spirit, and soul-saving sermons, have crowded this historic center with tender memories. They look down upon us from yonder stately steeple, practically built by him against whose gracious minis- try the sexton once turned the key; they come to us on balmy southern breezes from the Shenandoah Valley, whose dense forests and fertile fields and growing towns and villages these godly men canvassed for souls a century ago, and finally had born to their spiritual fatherhood Dr. Senseny, Peter White- sel, George Huffman, George A. Shuey, the eloquent Mark- wood, the Ruebushes, the Howes, the Hotts, and the Funk- housers; they touch us on the north from York, and Lancas- ter, and Tulpehocken and Isaac Long's barn, where the Mas- ter's prayer for the oneness of his people was answered and touchingly illustrated when the great evangelical prophet of Dillenburg affectionately fell on the neck of the humble Men- nonite and tenderly said, "Wir Sind Bruder." They come to us on musical sound waves from the sweet chimes of Cham- bersburg, where the Wengers and the Hubers and the Hokes and the Appenzellars and the Dicksons were brought under the spell of a soul-saving ministry and became the nucleus of a spiritual plant which has since developed into the largest 40 A Centurt/ membersliip of any local church in the denomination; they come to us from our Metropolis on the Patapsco, where the first conference was held in 1789, in Otterbein's own study; they come to us from the picturesque Middletown Valley, just back of the Catoctin, where lived the Kemsburgs, the Doubs, the Hoovers, and Rev. Jacob Bowlus, at whose home the con- ference of 1805 was held, and that revolutionary hero. Rev. Lawrence Eberhardt, who rescued Colonel Washington from the clutches of the British, and at whose home the conference of 1806 was held; they come to us from the historic Antietam, whose rippling waters perpetually chant an appropriate re- quiem for the fathers who sweetly sleep on its bank at old Mt. Hebron, where the Snavelys, and Bakers, and Wyands, and Russels, and Deaners, organized the spiritual influence of United Brethrenism and built the first church owned by the denomination in 1775 ; they come to us in the early utterance of the Mountain Messenger, the first periodical published in the denomination, from Hagerstown, where Jacob King, George Martini, John Hershey, and John Jacob Glossbrenner were born into the kingdom and became pillars in the church, the latter one of the sweetest gospel preachers that God ever laid his hand upon; they come to us from Mechanicstown, where Jacob Weller, son of the first settlers of that place, made the first lucifer matches manufactured in America, and opened his pioneer home for the preaching of the gospel by Otterbein and his associates, and became the leader of re- ligious thought in his community; and from Keysville, where John Snook and Francis Scott Key, who gave us our "Star- Spangled Banner," organized the first Sunday school in that community and held prayer-meetings together, the former in charge of the spiritual features of the work while the latter led the singing. Moreover, these memories come to us from the high ridges and wide ranges of the Alleghanies, from Bon- net's sehoolhouse, where the first General Conference was held in 1815, and from Mt. Pleasant, where our first educational institution was located. They come to us from beyond the Historic Places and Epochs 41 Ohio, even in the sweet strains of that song, "Nelly Gray," whose popularity is wider than the continent, whose words and music were written by Bishop Hanby's bright, sweet- spirited boy Ben, and which went hand in hand with "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in doing missionary work for freedom. They come to us from beyond the Mississippi, from beyond the Kocky Mountains, and from the utmost ebb of the Pacific's tide. As to the homes in this vicinity, I may mention those of John Cronise, Peter Shook, Benjamin Nidig, John Staley, Benjamin Brane, Henry Kemp, Peter Kemp, and Valentine Doub. These men and their associates in the work of the Lord have long since quit the field and entered upon their re- ward, but the contribution they made to the spiritual welfare of humanity remains a perpetual benediction, and in the en- joyment of that inheritance we bless God to-day. On a certain occasion the apostle Paul, in setting forth the advantages of the Hebrew nation, especially the spiritual in- heritance which had fallen to them, clinched his argument and climaxed his description of their peculiar religious bless- ings by saying, not interrogatively, but in the form of a posi- tive declaration, "Whose are the fathers," thereby making the privileges derived from the patriarchs and prophets, from whom Christ himself descended, the chief glory of the Jewish legacy. He practically pointed to Abraham, who cleverly pioneered that favored x>eople into a large place, into a land flowing with milk and honey; to Moses, whose system of law still dominates the legislation of the civilized world; to David, who bore the twelve tribes into loftier relations of national harmony and divine fellowship on the wings of his spiritual melodies; to Solomon, who crowned the material prosperity of his remarkably successful administration with the erection of a beautiful house of worship in Jerusalem; to the old prophet of Carmel, who, through the providential min- istry of birds and angels, rescued the nation from Baalism and brought it back to God; to Isaiah, who stirred the hearts of the 42 A Century people throughout the realm with his thrilling visions of the coming kingdom, and substantially said, "These men with all the benediction of their holy lives and labors, belong to us." So we say of the men who laid the foundations of our Church life, and whose godly personalities are largely em- bodied in the doctrines we preach and in the spirit we exem- plify. They gave character and complexion to the various features of our denominational life, including our fraternal spirit, our evangelistic taste and talent, our missionary zeal, our educational enterprise, and the spiritual simplicity of our services. In the development of their individual lives, bap- tized with the spirit of gospel unity and love for souls, they unconsciously laid the lines of organized church-life; and when the conference of 1800 convened, a thousand influences and associations lifted up their voices unitedly and said, "Let this child of Providence be christened." That was the voice of God. He spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast. The conference assumed legislative functions, organized itself and its adhering membership into a church, elected bishops, and planned otherwise for aggressive work under the name of the United Brethren in Christ. That event divides the history of the Church into two epochs, namely, the formative period, beginning with the enlargement of Ot- terbein's spiritual life at Lancaster, which straightway and strangely enough became a matter of offense to many of his ministerial brethren, and ending with the conference of 1800, at which point the period of development began. At Peter Kemp's the formative influences reached the "high-water" mark and culminated in the organized life of the denomination. Lancaster, Frederick, Baltimore, and Isaac Long's barn seem to be more vitally associated with the first epoch of our history, because at those places the germinal forces of the movement took on new life and distinctive features. Historically and doctrinely speaking, Lancaster stands for "the new birth," for there the witnessing Spirit testified to the sonship of our imperial leader, and made him Historic Places and Epochs 43 the conscious recipient of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. In the enjoyment of that blessed assurance he preached the doctrine of experimental regeneration, just as Jesus did to Nicodemus, and thus made it one of the funda- mental features of our faith. Frederick may be called the original missionary center of the movement, for at this place God greatly blessed the labors of our leader, not only in the development of the spiritual and material resources of his congregation, but also in his soul-seeking excursions through other sections. In every di- rection, and for miles around, he generously gave his per- sonal ministry to "the region beyond," preaching sometimes both day and night, and that from Sunday to Sunday. In doing so he found opportunity to stir up the gift of God in his associates, and thus develop and utilize their various resources to the enlargement of this great movement. The unspiritual opposition he encountered only served to emphasize the im- perative need of a soul-saving ministry, and led him to extend his personal influence more v^idely in that direction, recog- nizing as competent coworkers those whom God raised up from among the many who were given as seals to his minis- try. In this way the duplicate of his godly personality was multiplied many times, and the foundations of our denomina- tional life were unconsciously laid, the spiritual lines con- verging on Calvary, and the ecclesiastical influences in the direction of Peter Kemp's home. But our denominational Pentecost occurred at Isaac Long's, near Lancaster, Pa., in 1767. The meeting was appropriately held on Witsuntide, and the gathering of the people and the character of the services were distinctively Pentecostal. People of high and low degree, and representing almost every phase of belief known to the commonwealth of Israel, came from far and near, and sat under the spell of gospel unity in Isaac Long's barn, or else in the overflow meeting in the orchard, where some minister from Virginia preached the word. Martin Boehm was the Peter of that occasion, and 44 A Century preached with such unction and power that souls were swayed like trees in the grasp of a mighty tempest ; and when the ser- mon closed on the high tide of spiritual peace and power, Ot- terbein threw his arms about the preacher before he had time to resume his seat, and tenderly said, "We are brethren." Scores of souls were saved that day, and hundreds wept for joy and praised God aloud. It was the most widely influential meeting that had yet been held; and before the leaders sepa- rated they agreed upon a basis of doctrinal harmony and mu- tual cooperation, and planned for more aggressive work in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Baltimore may be regarded as the focal center of the move- ment from 1775 to 1800. When Otterbein organized an inde- pendent congregation in that city it meant ecclesiastical sepa- ration for him and his associates from the several churches to which they belonged, as well as a completer consecration to the great revival movement upon which they then entered more unitedly. Speaking diplomatically, it was the point from which the leaders planned for the welfare of the work already established, and also for its enlargement in the out- lying districts, and thus pushed the battle to the close of the century. The "Antietam appointment" stands for "home and hospi- tality." Here Otterbein began preaching during his pastorate at Frederick, and won hundreds of souls as seals to his min- istry; and to the Christian homes of that community he con- tinued his visits as long as he was physically able to leave Baltimore, covering a period of about thirty years. The his- torian says that "No spot on earth became dearer to him than Antietam." This place was his headquarters while out of the city; and into the Guething, Snavely, Baker, Russel, and Deaner homes, big with hospitality, bright with social sun- shine, and sweet with spiritual flavor, he frequently repaired for physical and mental rest. Especially after the death of his young wife, it is traditionally intimated, did he enjoy the sacred home influences of the Antietam. His fondness for Historic Places and Epochs 45 that place always makes me think of the Master's visits to Bethany, and also Dr. Morris's "Memories of Galilee." "Each cooing dove and sighing bough That makes the eve so blest to me, Has something far diviner now — It bears me back to Galilee." Hagerstown was the earliest embodiment of pioneer enter- prise in the history of the denomination, and therefore stands for progress and development in every department of church life and labor, spiritually and materially. In this relation to the work of the Church it stands in the foreground of our evolutionary epoch, and began by building a house of worship in 1805, not on the outskirts of the village, but in the very center of the town; and to-day that original society is large and influential, and worships in a beautiful modern church. Some of the charter members of that society were John Her- shey, George Martini, Jacob King, and Brother Middlekauf. The first two were prominent in business circles. John Her- shey was mayor of the town several years, and was one of the chief promoters of the old Hagerstown bank; and in 1824 he was chairman of a committee of one hundred to receive and entertain General Lafayette, who visited Hagerstown in that year. It was chiefly through the influence of the leading lay- men at Hagerstown that the first Preachers' Aid Society of the Church was organized in that place in 1822. George Martini was one of its directors, and John Hershey was its treasurer for many years. Its constitution was printed in Hagerstown in German and English by John Gruber for $9. The first conference organized was called "the Hagerstown Confer- ence," and the first hjTun-book authorized by the Church was compiled by the pastor of that congregation and published there in 1808. On the 27th of June, 1834, the prospectus of the first successful journalistic enterprise in the denomination made its appearance under the management of Rev. William E. Rhinehart. It was called the Mountain Messenger, and was 46 A Ce7itufy subsequently transferred, body and soul, (I mean editor, press, and entire equipment,) to Circleville, Ohio, where it appeared under the auspices of the General Conference as the Religious Telescope, and now has a circulation of over 20,000. Thomas Mittag, one of the first and most skillful printers of Hagers- town, whom I knew well, and finally officiated at his funeral in 1890, told me that he got out the prospectus and "set up" every subsequent number of the Mountain Messenger. Last, but not least, I mention the home of Peter Kemp, which belongs to both epochs of our history, and may be called the Bethlehem of our denomination. It is the most dis- tinctively historic home in our catplogue. Here the Church of the United Brethren in Christ was born ; and from 1790 to 1830, according to the written record, it was the center of home and sanctuary influences for our people. Here the gracious ministry of godly men was blessed to the saving of many souls. Great meetings were held at Peter Kemp's, and distinguished ministers of different denominations broke the bread of life to the perishing, while the shouts of happy saints and new-born souls rose to mingle with the higher notes of re- joicing angels in the upper sanctuary. Among the hundreds who ministered publicly in that place I may mention Bishops Otterbein, Newcomer, Boehm, and Asbury, and Eevs. Gueth- ing, Schaffer, Bowlus, and Lorenzo Dow. In that first con- ference of 1800 with fourteen members, there were no literary lights, and but one distinguished theologian; but they were intelligent, pious men, full of faith and the Holy Ghost, apt to teach and anxious to save souls, the crown princes of God. They found the fields white already to harvest, and, as much precious grain had now been gathered, in order that the out- standing sheaves and shocks might find shelter, they organized the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. As Dr. Pier- son says, "We can understand human history aright only as we come to know that it is His story." I see his hand in the origin and organization of our Church, in the preservation and development of its spirituality, in the evolution and mul- Historic Places and Epochs 47 tiplication of those pure and happy lives which constitute its membership, and in the hopeful outlook with which we enter upon the second century of our life and labor. Instead of being a split or splinter from some other de- nomination, riven and wrested from its rightful relation by eternal strife and contention, as has been the case in too many instances, she came forth like her Master, in the spirit of seeking, saving love, and even "as a root out of a dry ground, without form and comeliness," so barren seemed the soil and itterly unpromising the circumstances of her origin and or- ganization. But secretly and silently she grew from that ancient and invincible stock whence all true believers get their spiritual life and power, and are thereby placed in the line of promotion, not to worldly fame or honor, but to eternal life and glory. The conference of 1800 was composed of four- teen members, one-third of whom had been reared under as many different religious influences; but for years they had been working together for souls independent of ecclesiastical influences, and without organizing their numerous converts into societies, which shows that they had no thought of es- tablishing a new church. From 1780 to 1825 United Brethren ministers canvassed this lovely valley for souls; and in many of its towns and villages, even where the church is unknown to-day, they were the first to break the bread of life to the perishing. Their long rides and toilsome labors and gracious services are now over, and to each and to all the Master has said, "Well done." Life is the day for toil, death is the night for repose; life is the dusty march and the stormy battle, death is the warrior^s welcome home. "Jesus, Jesus," said the dying Otterbein, "I die, but thou livest, and soon I shall live with thee. The conflict is over and past. I begin to feel an unspeakable fullness of love and i)eace divine. Lay my head upon my pillow and be still." With these sweet words he fell asleep. Peace to his ashes ! Blessed be his memory. Thank God and the Church for such men ! ft 5! ii o ^ B o 1,^ ^ Wc"^ ^1 'Tp, *"" <...; ^iH^^^^'- - -*- ■1 i PART II CHURCH EVANGELISM AND EXTENSION. THE HEEOISM OE OUK FATHERS. Bishop J. W. Hott, D. D., LL. D. The world has often looked a hundred years upon the half- neglected tomb of the hero before awaking to the conscious- ness that he was inspired of God. After the folding up of the hours of a century of illustrious struggle and commendable progress a Christian denomination does well to summon itself to a just appreciation of the agencies which the Almighty raised up a while ago for the building of the walls of his spiritual kingdom. To do so is to honor God. It is to know his ways better. It is also to be more largely equipped for the tasks of the century to come. "Our fathers," you ask, "who were they?" We speak of the providential builders of our Zion in all its borders. "Our fathers," do you ask, "where are they?" They, for the most part, are housed in the King's palace of many mansions. They heed not and need not the praises of men. The good have a twofold immortality. In the one they live with God yonder; in the other, men live with them here. We tell over the story and heroism of their lives once lived in the flesh. Our fathers deserve to live in hallowed memory forever. They live in example and influence. None may take that life from the earth. They abide with us in the institutions they founded. The fires they kindled may not be quenched; the currents they set flowing through human ties can no more dry 4 49 50 A Century up. The voices of the angels of good which they chimed out of the sweet heavens can no being hush. They sing in the night. As we are gathered in this Centennial Conference there rises before us the form of an illustrious heroism. Its hal- lowed spirit kisses us on every side. The hosts assembled in this historic conference have come from many lands. Some are from the soil of the sunny South, some from the stormy, sturdy north, and from the dominion beyond the St. Lawrence. Here they hail from the great Eastern and Central States of our country. Some are from the lands of boundless and fertile prairies and from the valleys along the Wabash, the Mississippi, and the Missouri. They are here whose feet come from the slopes of the Rocky Mountains, where God puts on his gorgeous robes of beauty. They are here from the valleys that slope down to the Golden Gate hard by the wet sea, and from the valleys where roll the Columbia, and the Willamette and the Oregon. We greet others from beyond the wide, deep ocean — from the land of Otterbein where flows the classic Rhine; from "dark Africa" where bleeds the "open sore of the world," Africa, made so cruel to us forever by the martyred blood of Rev. I. N. Cain, a member of our General Conference four years ago, who, with his six associates, passed to their coronation through that bap- tism of blood in the tragedy of May, 1898. Let us remember that to these lands, from which we have just come with lightning speed, our fathers once went with the slow tread of a droning civilization. The quickened tramp of our coming is only the echo of the foot-tread of the fathers whose "line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world." In this hath God set a tabernacle for the United Brethren Church "which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run his course." As this august assembly was being gathered there arose be- fore me another scene. I looked upon it through the shining The Heroism of Our Fathers 51 of more than thirty-six thousand noon-day suns. About it hung the curtain of more than five thousand holy Sabbaths. It was the first opening forth of the century plant we see blooming to-day. It was the coming of the fathers for the conference at Peter Kemp's a hundred years ago. "Father Otterbein" rode reverently through Fredericktown, coming from Baltimore, welcomed in love by all as Elijah among the prophets. Boehm came down from Pennsylvania accompanied by his son, Henry. Newcomer, a tall, mighty frame, rode down on horseback from Washington County. Ten other chosen men of God came from Pennsylvania, Mary- land, and Virginia. That conference was a cloud the size of a man's hand, appearing in the morning sky of the nineteenth century which was to empty itself in refreshing rains upon the widening fields where grow God's boundless harvests to the end of time. These fathers prayed and exhorted and testified of the grace of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. So absorbed were they in heavenly things that the secretary forgot to record in the minutes that they named the church God had made "United Brethren in Christ," and so filled were they with the thought and sense of God's leadership that the secretary omitted to record the fact that Otterbein and Boehm were elected Bishops. These two omissions tell a story that charms us. "There were giants in those days." Then genius carved out of their heritage of forest a temple of imperishable fame. They were plain men, stalwart sons of nature, mighty in holy deeds. Otterbein alone was what many in our day would call learned. But he, praise God, had overcome the "advantages" of a scholastic education in Germany. He had been planted in this new soil where American manhood grows. He knew enough of the world's needs and of nature in its native power to hug to the bosom of his holiest love, men who were taught of nature and of God. He knew the value of a man who had learned what men were by being with men, and who had 52 A Century learned what God was by having been with God. These men, with Otterbein, were many great minds and royal hearts. They had not learned second hand from books. They had wisdom at first hands. They got it from nature and from God. There were few books then. There were more think- ers. We do well to kneel at the same fountain once and again. The heroism of our fathers is shown us in : I. The splendid work they wrought, the creation of their genius. This address does not enter the inviting charming field of living history. It may glance only at one or two abiding mon- uments the heroes builded: 1. They gave the world a spiritual Church. They be- queathed us a Church doctrinally free from sacerdotalism, and in worship free from dependence upon ceremonies and forms. They founded a Church which recognized the sover- eignty of God and the sovereignty of man. Their first creed was John 3 : 3. They wrought into the very fiber of the or- ganization, spiritual communion with God, and holy fellow- ship with one another. 2. They created an evangelical Church. They had the piety of an a Kempis without his asceticism. There was not the piety of the cloister and the hermit. Their communion with God made them more intense lovers of men. Their knowledge of the richness of grace gave them a burning sym- pathy with the needs of their fellows. They did not shrink from the world. Spiritually minded and holy hearted, they hated sin in the world and in men. The early fathers had this side the throne of God no stationing committee to ap- point them. They depended on none. They needed none in those days. They had no presiding elder to direct them. There was no church to welcome them and plan a reception and donation. They had an open field, no highway, no hedge, no fingerboard. None had gone before them. They followed The Heroism of Our Fathers 63 ocly God. Men and women who had not before heard of the spiritual life and assurance of the love of God, cried out "/c/t hin verloren" and were pointed to the Lamb of God that tak- eth away the sin of the world. 3. They founded a Church that could grow. It could as- similate a language not its founders'. It could grow into the English language and yet keep its German heart and its ex- alted German type and piety. It could grow out of its old forms and limitations into broader and higher reaches of faith and carry with it all love for the honored symbols given it by the fathers. It could, without friction or the loss of a single element, adopt all the organizations of a great, aggressive church. 4. With these three elements the fathers followed the laws of growth and constant expansion. Societies were organized in private houses, schoolhouses, groves, barns, and mills. Churches rose in their wake. Follow them through the slow century, southward up the Shenandoah, later to Tennessee, into western Virginia and western Pennsylvania, and into Ontario ; across the Ohio into the valley of the Muskingum and the Scioto and the Sandusky and the Miami into the black swamps; then along the Wabash into Indiana and Illinois, on to Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska, Minnesota, Wis- consin, and Colorado. Bands of men and women, by slow caravan travel, took their solitary way across the plains and mountains, and planted the United Brethren Church in the Willamette Valley in Oregon, and the Sacramento Valley in California, and in the Walla Walla Valley in Washington. Even now there comes to us a feeling of homesickness as we think of the loneliness and solitudes and privations through which these heroes passed. Out of a life of beauty and grandeur, the pathos and heroism of which we cannot ade- quately conceive, these fathers have passed to a laraer life immortal, leaving the glorious church of our fathers flourish- ijig as an olive-tree in gardens where they once toiled in the desert alone. 54 A Century ■ II. The difficulties they encountered. No community or creed endures, the foundation stones of which were not laid in sweat and blood. When Dober and Leopold, the first missionaries of the Moravian brethren, went out from Hurnhut, then a colony of six hundred poor exiles sheltered from persecution by Count Zinzendorf, they said publicly that they were willing to go to St. Thomas and sell themselves as slaves, in order that they might have the op- portunity of preaching the gospel to the negroes. Out of such heroism grew the world-famed missionary work of the Morav- ian Church. We cannot now easily understand the conditions and con- flicts of our fathers. A few of these difficulties may be sum- moned before us: 1. The pains of separation from former church fellowship. It has often been said that Ott^rbein and his associates did rot intend to found a new denomination. Why should they? Were they not distinguished members of churches already hoary with honor? Were not these churches the conservators of great doctrinal truth? They were the products of the great Eeformations, to which they stood a hundred years rearer than we of to-day. They held higher church ideas than we. In our present condition, with western ideas, church bonds are not held so sacred as they were in these parts a cen- tury ago in the old churches. Church bonds in those days were made of steel and garnished with gold. They were the churches of ancestors that held the faith and fellowship of the fathers. In these churches they had been nurtured, and they l(.ved them to the last. It is no wonder that Otterbein, though long pastor of an indei)endent church and Bishop of the United Brethren in Christ, like the immortal Wesley, never separated himself from the church of his father and mother. Others held to their old fellowship until they were expelled because of their zeal in their new experience and faith. Others tearfully let drop and die their old church relations and clung to the new organization as it slowly rose into being. Converts The Heroism of Our Fathers 55 under the ministry of the fathers entered the United Breth- ren Church, leaving behind father and mother to follow them later, or to love them and bless them while they always re- mained where they were, or perchance, to disown and disin- herit their children. In any case, the task of our fathers in assuming new church relations, at the cost of the abandon- rcent of the old, was a heroic one. It had a melancholy aspect we can only half comprehend. 2. The 'power of formalism entrenched in strong and state- ly churches. It is a task to go against tide and wind in spirit- ual and ecclesiastical matters. The hero has not been found who can row up Niagara. It requires a creature of heavenly plumage. Historians on all hands concede the destitution of spiritual life and power a century ago in the churches. The formalism of religion and churchliness grew colder still in this Ameri- can soil. Spiritual power is always in the inverse ratio to formalism and ceremony. "The letter killeth." It required a sharp spiritual blade, tempered with love, to cut ecclesiastical ice. Our fathers builded a warm-hearted, spiritual Church in the close of what we may call the glacial period of American churches. In these surroundings they were neither formalists nor fanatics. A grander, steadier, purer, more heroic spiritual current of effort among the masses, made by men of God, from the days of Otterbein down to the times of our fathers, some of whom yet linger with us, has not been witnessed in this eventful century. The fathers kept the Church free from cant and fanaticism on the one hand, and formalism and the chill of doubt on the other. They had the heroism of lofty spiritual impressions and con- victions. 3. They wrought with no church support to sustain them. There was no Church-Erection or Missionary Society or Pub- lishing House behind them to inspire them. They had no church history behind them to ennoble their standing before the public. There had gone before them no fathers whose 56 A Century footsteps were warm with the pressure of a holy zeal. The preacher went out alone. He was carving his way through thick darkness. He was treading a pathless wilderness. He was climbing unsealed mountains and fording unbridged and uncrossed streams. He dwelt and toiled in the solitudes. He sung a new song in a strange land. His prayers were offered from an altar of new stones. This is like a dream to us. I wish I could experience for one-half hour the emotions of Bishop Otterbein as he rode through this city out to Peter Kemp's to the conference of 1800. I wish that my soul might thrill with the sensations that stirred his great nature as he opened that conference with prayer and exhortation. What would we not give to have live in us for one hour the feelings of Bishop Newcomer as he knelt on the summit of the Alle- ghany mountains beside the stone altar he had reared, and, Jacob-like, saw the angels of God going up and coming down before him, then reverently rose and took his lonely way to the opening fields of God in Ohio. What a figure he was as he knelt alone on the banks of a swollen stream in Central Ohio and thanked God with all his soul for delivering him safely across! Behind the fathers were spiritual power and God; before them wilderness and hope. It is a manly man that walks undaunted in the darkness. Our fathers walked and worked in the shadows, shadows of the early morning, fixed their eyes on the cross and the coming day, and made a Church for themselves and their little ones. 4. Inventions and progress had not then vanquished the natural difficulties of a new country. No telephone, tele- graph, railway car, or public improvements were at hand a century ago. Hills and valleys, fertile as a garden of God, bursting the soil with their fullness, invited homes and barns. A sturdy people tilled the soil hand to hand, and hand to hand reaped the grain and gathered it into the barns. The vast domain of our country yet lay unsubdued to husbandry. Where we have highways studded with palatial homes and plentiful barns, schoolhouses, and churches, there was un- The Heroism of Our Fathers 57 trodden desert. Where we have the long lines of railway, with the towns and stations of trade, was lonely wilderness. Where our splendid cities now laugh in the summer sun and send their shouts up to heaven, and their heart-throb around the world, there were prairies for the wild buffalo herd or for- ests for the gentler beasts and wilder redskins. To Otterbein, America was one vast mission field. To those who came after him there arose a vision of the lands beyond the Ohio and the Wabash, and then the new world beyond the "Father of Waters." Into these domains our fathers thrust themselves with undaunted faith and courage. Gathering up all there was of them, they flung themselves against the currents of evil in their new conditions. They caught from heaven, by a matchless and holy genius, new spiritual conditions which they wove around society. They made a new family life in many a home. They created new communities by organizing Christian societies. They builded churches, founded institu- tions of learning, and planted the printing-press. They "sub- dued kingdoms and wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, es- caped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, waxed mighty in war, turned to flight armies of aliens of v/hom the world was not worthy." III. The spirit of their consecration. The fathers were not inspired by ecclesiastical ambitions. There is an enthusiasm kindled by church pride. It was un- known to them. There is a contention for church creeds that has all the fervor and fire of men contending for the truth. Our fathers asked only for a simple creed, enough to tell the world their orthodoxy. They used the Bible and followed the Holy Spirit. There is an enthusiasm that kindles from the heart-throb of a great crowd. Some of our modern great men think they are doing nothing unless they can preach to a vast crowd. They are dull without it. Our fathers worked with the few and the solitary. They followed the example of the Master with Nicodemus, and the woman at the well, and the 58 A Century impotent men at the pool. No earthly emoluments allured them. They asked no marble shaft for their last resting-place. They gave themselves not expecting to receive gains. They gave the world a Church made sacred to us by their prayers and tears and sacrificing toils. Were I permitted, I should 1^'ke here and now to call the long roll of names of these il- lustrious men of God. They would answer from the skies, "Here are we." A few years ago a brother in heart-touching prayer, at the opening of the Ohio German Conference, poured out his soul in words I shall never forget, "Oh, Herr der esste Ohio Deutsche Conferenz ist Himmel." So we may say of the first conference and fathers of the United Brethren Church, "They are in heaven." But they have left to the church they founded and to the world they blessed the pure spirit of a holy courage. There was no murmur in their faith. At times they walked undaunted in flames, but the smell of fire comes not with their garments to us. The rivers they crossed did not overflow them. The study of the history of their toils reveals to us a spirit of love for men and purity and God that charms us. "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and hav- ing confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." "God having foreseen some better things concerning us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect." And such was the heroism of our illustrious fathers. May God^s angels lead us to drink of that fountain where they re- freshed themselves. THE CHURCH AN AGENCY FOR THE SPIRITUAL REGENERATION OF MAN. Rev. R. J. White, A. M. On a business street of any one of our cities you can find a grocery, a meat market, and a tailor shop. These exist to supply certain human needs. Man has a body which must be fed and clothed. The loaf of bread, the beefsteak, and the coat are evidences of man's physical wants. In the same city are book-stores, libraries, and theaters. These satisfy other wants. Men think and dream. They are moved through ideals. They laugh and cry and get angry. The book, the diamond, and the violin meet just as real a demand of men as the pound of butter, the orange, and the yard of broadcloth. Not far away stand the court-house, the police station, and the church. These meet other, but just as real, wants of men as the grocery and the art store. Man is a moral being. A community must provide an insti- tution whose end is to secure the rights of its members and to enforce the discharge of their duties. The altar, the temple, and the cathedral are to be accounted for in the evolution of society. Their history is part of the race history. No account of man is complete without them. My contention is, that man is a spiritual being. The grist-mill was called into existence to meet man's phys- ical needs, the printing-press his intellectual appetite, and the theological seminary his spiritual nature. The baker, the tailor, the printer, the judge, and the preacher are all neces- sary. The same great law has brought to each his occupation. They provide not for the same needs, but all for man's natural wants. The spiritual nature is as natural as the physical. Cli- mate, education, and association have not produced it. The beaver taught man how to dam a stream, but in his well-built home there is no chamber for prayer, no altar for sacrifice. 59 60 A Century Man is brother to the animal in his bodily wants ; in the higher realm the relationship ceases. It might be suggested that not far from the church is the saloon, and that the mission is near neighbor to the brothel and that the gambling dens are more numerous than the chapels. Very true; these all are proofs that man has powers which may be abused. The confessional and the seance as clearly evidence man's spiritual nature as the prayer and the anthem. Man may feed or debauch his body, control his pas- sions or be ruined by them, develop his mind or become an intellectual cipher, rise to the worship of the parent Spirit, the God and Father of all, or sink to communion with devils. The newspaper, the book, the child-like prayer are as real as bread and butter, and meet as actual wants as do beefsteak and potatoes. "Man was born with an interrogation in his brain." He must ask questions. He finds himself part of the present order. He discovers that the order is a true order, hence had a begin- ning; that it is an intelligent order, hence there must be a thinker. He knows it to be a moral order, hence there is a governor. He believes that it is benevolent and devoutly cries, "Our Father." Thought led men to know that the world is round. Trust in our mental faculties induces the astronomer to look for the coming eclipse. In the same way, depending on the same guide, we pray to the ever-present Father, thank him for mercies past, and seek the help needed. We have the power of appreciating humor; we enjoy melody; the work of art delights us; the mother hungers for the love of children; companionship is sweet. The spiritual nature seeks for fellow- ship with God. One man does not read; he has dollars for beer, but not a penny for a book. That does not prove that man has no intellectual nature. One man never prays; others do, and meet the Father. • He makes his face to shine upon them. He leads them into green pastures. They know that they have the faculty for communion with God. It is evident that the spiritual nature is very important. Its neglect and derangement are followed by sad consequences. The Church an Agency 61 Every community can furnish specimens of men who have sunk below the brute. Every morning paper tells the sad story of a shipwrecked life; the police station reveals the vital im- portance to society of cultivating proi)erly the moral nature; the committees appointed by assemblies and Congress to in- vestigate the conduct of the officers betoken the rottenness of society and the unrest and sadness of soul-cry for proper food for starving men and women. Out the tap-root of the plant, it may live for a short period. Society may allow the weeds and grass to grow in the church path, the preachers be left with empty pews, and the Bible be dust-covered; the corruption in private and public life, the bitterness of soul arising from un- satisfied longings, the awfulness of the dark shadow of death will, sooner or later, awaken men to a sense of the vital im- portance of those needs which you cannot satisfy with some- thing weighed on the scales. The higher up you go in our nature the greater the danger from neglect or abuse. It is reasonable to conclude that he who formed us, who gifted us with a spiritual nature, should make provisions to meet its wants. The buried coal, the rich deposits of the Carboniferous Age, the treasured gold, the barreled oil, and hidden diamonds, all show the care of Him who had anticipated the coming man. He knew what we would need. The power of steam, the electric spark, and tumbling mountain stream tell us of his love. Are we to think that it is marvelous that he should open to himself a new and living way? He has made it necessary for us to study long to discover the exact moment of the earth's com- pletion of her trip about the sun. He has written her history in the rocks. We find a whole library of thought in the flow- ers. Has he fed the stomach and mind, clothed the body, and left the soul to starve in wretchedness and shiver in the naked- ness of mere negation? What can supply the demand of our spiritual nature ? What provisions has our Father made? Not philosophy, not art, not a chant, not beautiful forms, not suggestive ceremonies. These may be helpful, and, under certain conditions, necessary. They are only the shadow, the husks, the shell, not the substance. 62 A Century "This is life eternal, to know thee the only true God and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ." Christ is the bread of life. God has given us himself in Jesus Christ. "God was in Christ." "God was manifest in the flesh." "The very image of his substance." What men need is not a metaphysical abstraction, but a Person, with whom communion is possible and who is ever present, restraining, guiding, and comforting. Icebergs have been very useful in the past. God has used the great ice fields to level down the mountains, to scatter the soil and rocks ; they are cold things for comfort. The warm hand of a true friend, the sympathy of a loving heart is what we need. The presence of a holy God alone can check us in the downward race. When there is a coffin in our home, when we go down into the valley of shadows we need the infinite One. Walking with God has ever been a necessary condition for translation, because only as we do so shall we be made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. Christ said to Simon, "Thou shalt be called Peter." He pro- posed to transform the man, to change the fickle Simon into the solid rock. That is what men need now, not development, not conformation, but transformation ; not culture, but hirth — power to become the sons of God. Christ can change the name because he can change the currents of our life, make the tree good. We must be born of the Spirit, then the fruits of the Spirit will be borne by the life. Clothe a goat with wool, but he is not thereby a sheep. Hanging pears on a quince bush will not insure a crop of pears next year. The spiritual regen- eration is not readjustment, but the impartation of new life, a gift; "the gift of God is eternal life." "He that hath the Son hath life." Christ's method of spiritual regeneration was to call men to himself. He said, "Come unto me," "Follow me," "Receive me." Crafty publicans were changed into saints because they followed him. Fishermen left their nets to be- come fishers of men, giving their lives in unselfish devotion to a work of faith at his call. His presence made them heroes. In his absence they were afraid; they discussed the question The Church an Agency 63 of personal supremacy; they failed in an attempt to cast out the evil spirits; they caught no fish. Jesus visited the home of Zaccheus. The rich tax-gatherer became benevolent; he was ready even to restore fourfold. The abandoned, the social outcasts were suddenly started on a new life. The Samaritan woman became a missionary. Nicodemus meets Jesus at night; he never could shake off the effect of that interview. Christ asked men to believe, not a theory, a philosophy, but ''Believe on me." There is one conversion thrice told in the Word related in detail. It is the model conversion. The sub- ject of it is the most prominent personality in the early church. The persecutor is changed into a suffering apostle, the mur- derer of Stephen counts it a joy to suffer for Stephen's Christ. The dynamic in this revolution, the potent force is not the spectacular incidents of the Damascus journey. Saul of Tar- sus met Christ. "Who art thou?" "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest." Years after, Paul loved to recount that last of all Christ "was seen of me also as one born out of due season." The meeting with Jesus wrought the change. In giving the story of his own life, Paul could but explain it by saying, "Christ liveth in me." In the prayer of Jesus in the upper room the secret of the divine method is told. "While I was with them I kept them in thy name" — and I guarded them and not one of them is perished — "I pray not that thou shouldst take them from the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one." For the future dis- ciples he prayed "that they also may be in us" — I in them, thou in me. "That the world may know that thou didst send me." Take the personar pronouns out of that prayer, and it is mean- ingless. How is the church an agency for the spiritual regeneration of man ? First of all, what is the church ? Who are its mem- bers? Four stone walls, with arched roof and carved columns and pealing organ, do not make a church. These cannot cause dead men to live. They might form a good sepulcher; they cannot supply the alchemy of life. Nor is the church an in- describable something, intangible and ethereal, which exists 64 A Century only in the imagination of some dreamers. The Colossian church consisted of "the saints and faithful brei:hren in Christ which are at Colossae." "All the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi" formed another individual church. The churches of Galatia were the brethren who were to walk in the Spirit, having begun in the Spirit. "The church at Corinth with all the saints which are in Achaia," was Paul's corre- spondent, which he describes as follows, "The church of God, even them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be saints with all that call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place." The church at Rome was made up of those who were "beloved of God called to be saints." James writes to the brethren; Peter to those "who have ob- tained a like precious faith with us in the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ." Christ sent messages of warn- ing to the seven churches of Asia. The churches of the New Testament consisted of brethren, not always united, but ex- horted by their leaders to be such. As a denomination, we can at least lay claim to a great deal of scriptural phraseology if we would contend with brethren in Christ. The New Testa- ment churches were composed of persons, saints, believers in Christ. How is a church to be an agency for the spiritual regenera- tion of men? Not by becoming a society for ethical culture. Honesty, fair-dealing, and gentleness are important. To exhort men to be good, to surround them with good influence, to charm them with music and art, — all of these methods have been tried, but alone they are miserable failures. What a poor orphan child needs is a mother, a live, living mother, not a fashion dummy. Not alone by endowing hospitals, in which the sick and wounded poor will be cared for, can the church save the other half. Not by soup houses and diet kitchens will the slums be emptied; the social cancer needs more radical treatment. Drunkards and saloon-keepers are not reformed by lectures of sweet-voiced orators on social economics. The passions and the desires are not to be held captive by the silk ribbons and The Church an Agency 65 flower wreaths of refinement. The upi)er crust is too frequently a crust only, a thin covering for the seething volcanic fires beneath. Suppose the church try education. Let the preacher become a teacher. Substitute catechumens for converts. Kelegate Pauline and pentecostal experiences to the age of the miracu- lous. What then? Guns without powder are harmless, gas without fire cannot dispel darkness. So the church is power- less without a living Christ. The personal factor cannot be eliminated from the mechanical equation; the soldier behind the gun is more important than the stone walls of the fort. What men need is not a book, but a person, not knowledge, but life. What is the Master's method for his church of which he is the head? This the Saviour made very plain, both by his ex- ample and his teaching. When about to leave his disciples, he said, "Ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judaea and Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth." They were to testify of Christ. The apostles so understood their mission. Peter declared to the council, "We are wit- nesses." Philip at Samaria preached Christ unto the people and to the Ethiopian he preached Jesus. Peter presented Christ at Pentecost. A careful study of the New Testament sermons shows that all had determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified. When Paul was in prison at Jerusalem, the Lord stood by him in the night and said, "Be of good cheer, for as thou hast testified concerning me at Jeru- salem so must thou bear witness also at Rome." Christ as- sured his disciples that the Holy Spirit would testify of him. This promise was fulfilled. When the name of Jesus was de- clared, the Holy Spirit was witness to the truth. Peter preached to the Gentiles at Csesarea of Jesus of Nazareth, how God had anointed him. "Him God raised up the third day and gave him to be made manifest, not unto all the people, but unto wit- nesses chosen before of God, even us," and while he spake these words the Holy Ghost fell on them which heard the word. 5 66 A Century Philip is still the model preacher. To Nathanael he said, "We have found him." To the question of prejudice, he an- swered, "Come and see." Hoffman's picture of the Christ has an indescribable charm. A sense of awe comes over the soul when it is studied carefully. It is said that the artist spent a half -hour in prayer each day before he began his work. He found the risen and ever-present Christ. So the church must first know her Lord, and then she can cry, "Come and see." The Master knew, and he promised, "Lo, I am with you alway." "Where two or three are gathered in my name there am I." The spiritual regeneration of men is accomplished by being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, of a spiritual Christ made tangible to thought and capable of clear knowledge through the Word made flesh. The church is an agency to secure this only as she brings men to Jesus. THE CONCENTRATION OF OUR CHURCH FORCES. Rev. W. M. Weekley. No GENERAL vETsed in military tactics would think of divid- ing his army into fragments before engaging a deadly foe. Both reason and experience would oppose such a policy. When that great battle of the Spanish- American War was fought before Santiago, a few summers ago, a large part of our army and navy were concentrated about the doomed city. Every gun pointed to the same spot. General Sherman's famous "march to the sea" through the enemy's country was only possible because he left Chatta- nooga with an organized army of 100,000 men. In all material affairs concentration is the philosophy of strength, and, con- sequently, of success. Premature and unnecessary divisions are sources of weakness, and in proportion as they are multi- plied defeat becomes more certain and disastrous. This prin- ciple applies with greater or less force to every phase of church work planned and carried on by human agency. In the schoolroom, in the mechanic's shop, on the farm, everywhere, we hear the injunction, "What you do, do well." The teacher is supposed to know the capabilities of the child, hence places a limit to the number of its studies. The wise foreman in the factory only requires of his subordinates such service as they are able to perform. The machinery he em- ploys can only do just so much work. To overtax it is dan- gerous and therefore unwise. Abnormal conditions are easily brought about. It is possible for a church to undertake too much work, and thus, in a measure, fail of the ends it seeks to accomplish. This is true, at least to some extent, of the United Brethren Church — a church so dear to us all. But our love for and interest in the Church should not blind us to its weak points, but the rather lead us to discover and remove them. 67 68 A Century We have a providential place among the great Protestant forces of this and other countries. God V70uld have us d^ what we reasonably can. I say "reasonably can," for he does not require unreasonable things of his people. We are sim- ply to improve and multiply the talents entrusted to us. A bare quarter million of numbers cannot, in reason, hope to du- plicate the work of a denomination three or four times as large. I fear this fact has not been properly appreciated by us, hence our vain attempts to go where others have gone and to do what others have done when we lacked in resources, has caused such a dissipation of forces that results, in many in- stances have been far from satisfactory. I am here to plead for such a reorganization and concen- tration of men, money, and energy as will give new impetus to every department of our connectional work, and send us out into the new century with a quickened life and steadier pace. This conservation of forces should obtain : 1. In the management of our foreign missionary work. I do not criticise the occupany of any of our present fields abroad. They are all important and needy; but I sincerely hope no one will talk about another such field for years to come. We all know, and some of us too well, that we are not making the headway in our foreign work that the larger faith of the Church demands, not because our noble mis- sionaries, as a rule, are not doing their duty faithfully, for they are; not because the money appropriated to them is not wisely expended, for it is; but because the funds needed to multiply helpers and to furnish schools and churches are lacking. Not more missions, but better sustained missions should be our motto ; not a further scattering of forces, which are small at best, into many lands, but a concentration of them upon the fields already occupied. 2. This policy should apply to our educational work. I am glad this is being seen more and more. I suppose, however, that if each conference in the church would attempt to build, equip, and run a college, some i)eople would call it progress, IVie Concentration of Our Church Forces 69 and point with pride to such a record on so great a question. P»ut it would really be recklessness. Such a policy would so divide the patronage and funds of the Church as to make one first-class school among us an impossibility. Not more col- leges, but better ones, expresses a thought which, among our business laymen especially, is growing into a positive convic- tion. 3. This same principle should guide in the management of our home mission operations. There is a limit to the ability of every annual conference to do such work. If only one or two city missions can be well sustained at the same time, why undertake a half dozen ? The multiplication of such enterprises, means, in the very nature of things, the employment of men who are not qualified for such work because adequate support cannot be guaranteed. I am not mistaken in this. My asso- ciates on the executive committee for the last four years will bear me out in the statement that appeals are coming in from one quarter or another nearly all the time praying for mis- sionary appropriations in order that good men may be secured. But all cannot be helped. If they were, the Parent Board would have nothing at all for the foreign field, hence they continue the employment of home missionaries who are ut- terly unable to represent the Church, and as the result, in many cases, our cause falls into disrepute. Brethren, if we cannot go into a city or town with some degree of respecta- bility and backing, let us stay out, and not misrepresent the Church. We cannot afford to play at missions. You will understand, brethren, that I do not exempt our people from doing their full duty in aiding the benevolences of the Church. Those who know me best, and have heard me most frequently, will bear testimony to my faithfulness in presenting the money question. Larger giving everywhere is one of the supremest needs of the hour, and should be em- phasized by the pastor in his pulpit ministrations, and by every teacher in the Sabbath school, while our periodicals should fairly throb with living editorials ui>on the subject. I 70 A Century think, however, I have, at least in part, a solution of the financial problem. It is this. If we want our intelligent, de- voted, well-to-do laymen to give more money for the further- ance of our various interests, let us use wisely what they have already put in our hands. They are on the alert all the time, studying the various phases of our work, our methods of operation, together with the progress made. They understand business principles and how those principles must be applied to the material side of church work. They can see when money is scattered until it has no power or value ; hence, I repeat, ifi we want more of their money, more than we have ever had before, let us prove to them by actual dividends in heavenly stock that what they have already entrusted to us is well invested. It is not merely the question of giving that we are discuss- ing, for we all are agreed that "every man should lay by him in store as God has prospered him" for the work of the Church. It is not simply the question of service that is under considera- tion. Who denies that the sons and daughters of Otterbein should lead lives of self -surrender for the good of others? It is not the question of expansion or of aggressiveness that we contemplate, for we are all agreed that the whole world should be taken for Christ. But how may we best use the money we give? how and where may we most wisely spend our time and energies ? how may we most effectually build up and strengthen the kingdom of God with the resources at command ? are ques- tions which challenge our most prayerful considerations. We have just so many effective ministers to employ, and just so much money at our command for local and general purposes; hence the question. How shall we employ these agencies in order to best conserve the real interests of a fallen race? I believe it to be the duty of each conference to carry on all the time one or more general enterprises, according to ability. This is needful not only to help save souls, but to unify our people in effort, and to lift many a congregation out of that sel- fish individualism into which it has fallen, or is liable to fall. I The Concentration of Our Church Forces 71 say every conference should thus do, but here we meet another phase of the same difficulty, to which attention has already been directed. Some of our conferences are so weak, numeri- cally and financially, that they cannot even carry on one such enterprise as I have been talking about. They are next to helpless, so far as aggressive work in the best sense is con- cerned. Brethren, I ask in all candor, why permit such a condition to exist where it may be avoided? Why the cleav- ing of our membership into so many fragments, which in- creases general expenses and renders local work more difficult? I know that fewer conferences would mean a less number of presiding elders, and possibly fewer representatives in the General Conference, though not necessarily so, but what does that signify if, by consolidation, we may increase our useful- ness and the more certainly lay the foundation for enlarge- ment. The process of expansion, a thing we all believe in, is easy and natural with a recognized center as a base of operation. In this way new circuits are formed and new conferences are organized. I have been discussing the policy of a confer- ence. What a local society may do in and of itself is another thing entirely. It takes care of its own interests, supports its own pastor, and pays its own bills without appealing to the conference or church at large for help. We have an illustration of the wisdom of concentration in our Publishing House at Dayton, Ohio. The very thought of it thrills the Church with a feeling of pride and deepest satis- faction. In the commercial world it is rated first-class and gives prestige and prominence to the entire denomination. But sup- pose that, years ago, three or four other similar concerns had been authorized by the General Conference, what, in the very nature of things, would be their condition to-day? It has re- quired the patronage of the whole Church to build up the magnificent institution we have, and nothing short of such patronage yet for many years will keep it great. 72 A Century The Lord Jesus, the greatest of all teachers, laid down, or rather affirmed, a principle which ought to govern every Chris- tian man, whether engaged in church or secular matters. I will put it against all the theorizing possible to the contrary. He says, "For which of you intending to build a tower sitteth not down first and counteth the cost whether he have sufficient to finish it." He speaks of it as a well-understood principle in business. "Sitteth not down first and counteth the cost." This means deliberation. "If there be sufficient," not to begin it, or to half support it, but "to finish it." There are two things to consider in undertaking any kind of Christian work involving an outlay of money; namely, cost and resources. God wants his work well done. If it is not, the effort becomes a hindrance rather than a blessing to his kingdom. It furnishes the unsaved an imperfect conception of the "church of the first born," and thus brings into disre- pute the very cause we want the whole world to love and re- spect. Oh, I plead for the application of business principles in every phase and department of church work. We should not be swayed or governed by impulse, but by the observance of the very same rules which obtain and bring success in all le- gitimate human affairs. But we are often met with this suggestion, "You must have faith in God." I have faith in him, and always have had; and through his abounding grace I will continue to stand upon his promises so long as there is breath in my body ; but to put faith in him over against common business sense has no jus- tification either in scripture or reason. What! do a thing un- warranted and then ask God to perform a miracle in order to carry my project to a successful termination? Never. It is next to a crime to try to bring God into a responsible partner- ship with us when we have in our undertakings overstepped the bounds of reason. God only helps those who work ac- cording to his rules which are so plainly defined by the Sav- iour himself. The Concentration of Our Church Fm^ces 73 Away with that pessimism which sees no good in anything or anybody, and consequently serves only as a break on the wheels of progress. It is skepticism of the rankest sort; but, on the other hand, I am against that kind of optimism which is blind to difficulties, and never sees conditions as they really exist. If God should speak to us audibly when we pray for divine assistance in vindication of our undertakings, I think he would often say, "Exercise your common sense, the intelli- gence with which I endowed you. I gave you eyes with which to see danger. Don't walk into it and then ask me to help you out. I gave you reason with which to plan work. Don't vio- late its plainest dictates and then ask me to interpose and prevent disgrace and ruin." There is a sensible middle ground to occupy between a disheartening pessimism on one hand and an unbridled optimism on the other. It is this. Plan deliberately and wisely. Count the cost carefully, which means, as well, a careful estimate of resources. Bring the whole enterprise within the range of a possible accomplish- ment, and then succeed or die trying. The scattering of money and efforts is a dissipation of forces without excuse, for we must answer, not only at the last day, as we stand in the white light of the throne, but also be- fore the bar of a discriminating public sentiment. I love this dear old Church, having been reared at her al- tars. The very name is sweet and full of music. I want to see the largest possible success achieved under the blessings of God; and because of this I speak plainly as to the policy I think should be pursued ; and, standing as we are, just within the gates of the new century, I would again fling her banners to the breeze with the glorious motto emblazoned thereon, "Better work for the Church ; better service for Christ." THE NEXT STEP IN SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROOKESS. H. A. Thompson, D. D., LL. D. One hundred years ago, in a private house, near the city of Frederick, there gathered together fourteen plain, unlettered men, for the most part "unsectarian" preachers, as they called themselves, and voted that one day each year should be set apart when they would assemble and counsel how they might conduct their office "more and more according to the will of God and according to the mind of God, that the church of God may be built up and sinners converted, so that God in Christ may be honored." A loftier purpose never animated mortal man. We are here to-day to commemorate the work of these God- inspired men, to return thanks for the foundations they were permitted to lay, and the structure which has been reared thereon, and to plan for the enlargement of their work in the years to come. They did not, even in their wildest dreams, have any conception of what you and I see about us to-day. They did not need to know. It is the business of the commander-in- chief, to plan the battle and arrange the forces as he may think best. It was their work, as it is ours, to fill the places in the ranks, so the battle could be won. Bible schools, in the sense of schools for the simple study of God's Word, are said by some to date back as far as the days of Samuel, possibly farther. In the later days of the Jewish nation it is said that to each synagogue was attached a school. It is usual to date the origin of the modern Sabbath school to Eobert Raikes in 1780, who gathered together the poor chil- dren of Gloucester, England, to teach them to read, utilizing the Sabbath as the day when they were not at work. In the earlier history of schools in this country children were taught to spell and read, and the schools were mainly for children who were not well cared for at home. Later, however, the 74 The Next Step in Saiiday- School Frocjress 75 Sunday-school has been almost wholly for scriptural instruc- tion, and has been assigned but a brief portion of the day, not exceeding one and a half hours, so that other religious services might occupy the attention of the members. In its earlier history concerned for the welfare of the children almost ex- clusively, at present none are too young and none too old to become members thereof. Before 1800 numerous schools were established in the United States. In 1824 the American Sunday-School Union was organized. In 1827 the Sunday- School Union of the Methodist Episcopal Church began in New York City. In 1821, the State of Delaware provided by law that twenty cents a scholar should be paid to the teacher of a Sabbath school, provided the school continued for three months or more. This was later amended to forty cents per scholar, and in 1893 fur- ther amended so as to pay fifty cents for each white scholar, the sum annually expended not to exceed $500 for each county. It were fair to suppose that our early fathers one hundred years ago taught their children the truths of the gospel. But at that time they had no departments of church work. It was simply a modest missionary society seeking to reach the Ger- man emigrants who came to this land. So far as we know, no other church at this time had made this a department of church work. It is reported that, in 1820, near Corydon, in southern Indiana, Rev. John Pfrimmer, a minister of this Church, organized and conducted what may be taken as the first United Brethren Sabbath school. In 1842 a song-book suitable for young people appeared. In 1849 the Sunday school is mentioned in our Book of Disci- pline. In 1854 came the Children's Friend for the English pupils and the Young Pilgrim for the German. In 1865 came the Sunday-School Board, with its plan of organizing and help- ing needy schools. Up to this date no statistics of our schools had ever been collected. When the plan of uniform lessons was adopted in 1873, we at once put ourselves in line with the aggressive Sunday- 76 A Century school workers of the nation, and began the publication of our 'Wesson helps," which have helped to give unity and efficiency to the Sunday-school work of the Church. This necessitated better-prepared teachers. The writer of this paper has the honor of having his name enrolled as the first applicant for instruction when the Chautauqua Assembly opened in 1874, at Chautauqua, N. Y. Under the direction of Colonel K. Cow- den we now have over five thousand members enrolled as stu- dents, taking the Bible Normal Course by correspondence. Our first Sunday-school institute was held at Arcanum, Ohio, in 1877, and since that our secretary has held thousands else- v/here. In 1880 the first Children's Day service was held, and annually ever since. With the contributions received we have been able to assist our mission work in Africa, Germany, Japan, China, Porto Rico, as well as mission schools in Ameri- can cities, and on the frontier. But why tarry in these hurried moments to speak of the past ? If the work has been well done God will not forget our labor of love. If not well done, it is now too late to adjust it. The value of this look at the past is to give guidance, direction, and inspiration for the years that are to come. We assume that the work already done, and the growth received, justifies us in believing that the Head of the church has a place for us in the advancing columns of Christian civilization. What, then, is the work before us for the beginning of this twentieth century, as well as this second century of our organized exis- tence ? 1. The Sunday school is the great teaching force of the church. It is the plan of the aggressive workers that every child born into the world should at once be enrolled in the ^'Cradle Roll" of some organized school, the mother promising that as soon as able to do so the child shall personally attend the services. In the olden times the idea was reformation. The key-note of this century is formation. There have lived devoted Christian men who were never able to tell precisely when they accepted the Lord Jesus Christ. Dr. Bushnell be- 2 he Next Step in Sunday-School Progress 77 lieves that when Christian parents live such lives as they should, and train their little ones as they ought, the latter will unconsciously come into the spiritual kingdom. Whether this be true or not, it will be a great blessing to the child and to the church to place him in such surroundings as will very early lead him to love the Master. 2. The Home Department assumes that every adult man and woman should study the Word of God a iwrtion of the Sabbath. "The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple." Whether able to be present or not, on Sabbath they can study the lesson. They may be held at home by family cares, by sickness, or hindered by a variety of causes from attending the Sunday school, but in this way the school can be brought to them, and they taught as others the way of life. If this be vigorously pushed, it would not only make us a church of Bible readers, but the blessed effects would reach those not identified with any church. And why should not every church-member be an enrolled member of the Sabbath school in some department ? How can we grow up into a strong, sturdy Christian life without a knowledge of God's Word, and what better way to get that knowledge than by a systematic study of the Scriptures on the Sabbath, and during the week when possible, under judicious guidance and directors. With the enrollment of our children, from the babe on its mother's knee to the young man and woman ready for life's work, as well as the children of the unconverted who are not cared for at home; with the presence of every member of the church who is able to be present, and the promise of those who cannot come to faithfully study the lesson, the next step is to provide the very best teaching force that is possible. This is the one thing essential to all Sunday-school work. Without this the results will be very meager. Herein has been not only our great weakness, but the weak- ness of other churches. Notwithstanding we have a free open Bible, it is astonishing that there is such great ignorance of 78 A Century Bible knowledge. A few years ag-o, the presi'denti of an Oh,io col- lege asked of some young men coming from some of the best high schools in the land — most of them from Christian fami- lies, many of them members of Christian churches — who had applied for admission to the freshman class, some twenty- five or thirty questions concerning Bible allusions made by literary men in their writings, and not half of them reached fifty per cent, in their answers, and yet the questions all re- ferred to matters concerning which any ordinary boy or girl who was a Bible student should have been well informed. And this is only a specimen of the ignorance concerning Bible truth which exists in so-called intelligent circles. In all successful teaching there are three things that must be known: (1) The nature of the mind to be taught, not only its general, but specific characteristics; (2) the subject mat- ter to be taught; (3) the laws of adaptation whereby the thing taught may be brought in such relation to the mind that it may understand it; take it in and make it a part of its own life, or mental furnishing. Apply the principles to our work and see how woefully defective we have been. Take, for illustration, the field of secular education, and the brightest teachers are at work, and have been for some time, in studying the nature of this thing which we call mind. Thou- sands of experiments have been made on children of different ages and temperaments with a view to find a philosophy of child life. Certain peculiarities are manifest at one period of life and others at another. The wise teachers will develop each in its proper order, if he knows that order, and if he does not, he will work at random, hoping that some good result may come to pass. The Sunday-school teacher must deal with this same mind. How many of them have sat down to study their own mental operations as a means of understanding the operations of otliers? There are perplexities in mental science and many unsolved problems, but the general principles can be under- stood by all. Now, if there is an order of development, and of The Next Step in Sunday- School Progress 79 the presentation of truth in the intellectual realm, is it not just as true in the spiritual? How many pastors can tell from ob- servation and study the difference in the Christian experience of the ten-year-old, the twenty-year-old, and the fifty-year-old ? And yet there is such. The truth is received, the experiences are different, the manifestations are not the same. There are some conceptions of truth which should not be presented to the ten-year-old, for his religious development is not ready for them. The boy beginning arithmetic does not need to be in- structed in the peculiarities of conic sections. Religious facts can come earlier, but the philosophy of the atonement, of God^s decrees, of religion in general, had better be left to later years. Now if there be such an order of religious develop- ment, that is not good teaching which does not recognize it. There must be a study of the subject to be taught. A man cannot teach arithmetic, geology, chemistry not having learned it in some way. We have but one book td teach, but it is all- embracing. We need to become saturated with its biography, its history, its precepts, its spirit. It has changed our lan- guage, has purified human lives, has molded nations, and, to some extent, subdued the world. We want to study it by para- graphs, by subjects, by books, by the relation of its parts: we must know something of what it has done for the lives of men in all ages, what it has done for us, what it will do for others. Having studied the human mind and its different manifes- tations, having made ourselves familiar with our text-book, then we must learn something of the laws of adaptation. It is said the native physician of South Africa gathers up a variety of roots, each of which is good, in his judgment, for some par- ticular disease. Placing them in a pot, boiling and extracting the good qualities of each, he produces a sort of syrup which he places in one bottle, and gives each of his patients a dose out of that, firmly believing that what belongs to each disease will find its way to the injured part and produce health. Some Sabbath-school teachers are imbued with the same faith, and the results are usually the same in both cases. 80 A Century The human mind is not, as a rule, averse to the truths of science, hence in general, if they are presented in a proper way, will receive them. But the human mind is averse to Bible truth as usually presented. It does not want to confess its own sinfulness; it does not want to put aside its pride, and array itself in the garb of Christian humility ; it does not want to lay aside its own will and place itself under the will of another. "The natural mind is at enmity against God." The Sunday- school teacher has a harder task than his brother in the public school to bring to bear the truths of God so as to influence the human heart to receive and obey them. While all this is true, it is also proper to say that God has not left himself without a witness, but that in its best moments the soul cries out for some God as yet to it unknown. We have come to a time where we must more and more use the best methods of our best educational reformers. "We must find out what the child is, must take him as he is, and then proceed to develop him according to the necessities and laws of his being." We must learn that all truth is not equally good for man and child spiritually, just as all food is not good for their bodies. A child cannot, since his nature and needs are different, receive and assimilate and thus be nourished by truth requiring adult conditions for its right reception. What can be done to furnish our schools with more efficient teachers ? 1. We must organize more teachers* meetings. Our statis- tics rei>ort 36,757 teachers and officers enrolled. It is fair to infer that from 25,000 to 30,000 of these are teachers. How is this large army of teachers prepared for their work? We do them no injustice When we say the larger body of them have no other preparation than that which they can pick up from the chance literature that may float their way. Two-thirds of them do not even have a copy of Our Bible Teacher, which is the orsran of the Church designed especially to help these peo- ple. We report 3,658 schools, and we should have that many meetings of teachers for the study of the lesson and methods > O S Ml s?; i •^ — ''■J A — o J^ ^ < $ T ^ Z — a> < J < c3 The Deader Home. HISTORIC PLACES IN MARYLAND. i 1 \ i ^ M - J 1 / V^.'^-^^JB Jul [ KMtaTwt-^^. _£ C -^ ' ^ ^a^ .^^ si 8^^ 9 Rev. John Hekshey's Home. ;»«^^?'?Pfv§J^"~^''""'''^^~- ■^N,/.^ /V^;^ i,^P^^^'* ^ K;x ^^/^ ^^^ c^ ^kiC^ y X^'T s< -r^-' ^>t^"^^ rf' mtM ■ . M Ml \jm^^,:mm ■i iim llM^l--^ ^ This is the house and barn of Bishop Joliii Russell, situated in Maryland. It was here that many nieetings were held, as well as at the Kemp home a centur^ ago. Benjamin Neidig s Home. George Adam Guething's Home. liocK'* Si'j;iN(;s Sriiooi-iiuiSE. The Next Step in Sunday-School Progress 81 of presentation. I shall not venture a guess as to the number actually in existence, for even the smallest number I should select might be far in advance of the real number. Why do we not have them? Not because they are not helpful, not be^ cause they cannot be had, but either because there is no one who knows how to organize and manage them, or no one who is willing to put forth the necessary effort. If Dr. Mark Hop- kins on one end of a log and an inquiring student on the other would constitute a college, and that is probably the kind Paul had, an earnest aggressive superintendent or pastor, and one teacher, would constitute the nucleus of a teachers' meet- ing. 2. Where this is not possible, and even when it is possible, in addition to the teachers' meeting every teacher should be- come a member of the "Bible Normal Union," under the direc- tion of the efficient secretary of the Sunday-School Board, and pursue the course there prescribed. Over five thousand have been enrolled already, with over one thousand graduates, and all have been greatly helped. But the enrollment should be increased to twenty-five thousand before it would exhaust the teachers of the Church. Not only those who are already teach- ers, but those who are likely to be, should get the advantage of this Sunday-school extension course. 3. In every large church where the membership will allow, in every summer school that may be started, in every academy and college of this Church, a normal class should be organized, composed of the best minds in it, and they be taught the ele- mentary principles of mental science, as well as the organiza- tion and management of Sabbath schools. I have tried this, and I know a little of the possibilities of such a course. Soon after the Chautauqua Normal Course was published, I organ- ized such a class at Otterbein University, and for several years, at commencement time, graduated a normal class of from fifteen to twenty-five pupils. These went out into the Church and became active leaders to help others, and their efforts have borne good fruit. Why not do more of this work ? 82 A Century 4. Our Biblical Seminary must come to our help, and give us a class of ministers better adapted to furnish us leaders. Where there is a good school there is usually good leadership. Some one has said, "Put a John Wanamaker into any mob of a school, and in a little time he will evolve order out of chaos." If ministers were intensely enthusiastic for teachers' meet- ings, for normal classes, for the use of modern methods of teaching, would we not have more of them ? Dr. A. T. Schauf- fler, in a late issue of the Sunday School Times, tells us why, in the Congregational Church, there is not more of this work done: "In the seminary from which these ministers came they have heard lectures on the church fathers, and have not learned anything about the church sons. They know a good deal about Tertullian and Origen, but next to nothing about Sam and Jim. Endless lectures are given on the theme of how the church has grown to be what it now is, but few on what to do to make the church more like what it should be." Dr. Schauffler closes his interesting article with this appeal : "What, then, ought to be done in our seminaries to prepare the men for such work as is suggested ? In the first place such work ought to be made prominent. It will not do to have lec- tures on church history and biblical or systematic theology put in the front rank, and practical Sunday-school work relegated to a back seat, and put aside with a few lectures delivered at such odd times as are left. To do this is to stamp the thought cf inferiority and unimportance on this kind of work, and the student will be quick to answer such suggestion. If a hundred and twenty lectures are delivered to prepare the student for his sermonic work, and only half a dozen on the Sunday- school work, is it to be wondered at that the young graduate comes out thinking the Sunday-school part of his work of small value compared with his sermonic efforts ? Now, it being a fact that the average pastor must look more to his Sunday school for new church members than to the outside world, should it not be his effort so to manage that branch of his work as to secure there the best spiritual results ? Not that the pastor need The Next Step in /Sunday- School Progress 83' himself to be the superintendent, but that he should be able to fit the right man to do the work and prepare the teachers to teach in such manner as to secure the largest spiritual results. This, however, will never come to pass, as it should, until our theological seminaries so change the emphasis of their lecture course as to put stress on this side of the work of the future minister. Then, and only then, shall we have a vast army of men fitted to fit others for this grand work of lifting the Sun- day school up to the highest plane that it can occupy." Louis Agassiz, from his earliest years until his death, was thoroughly devoted to scientific pursuits. This man who gloried in writing "teacher" after his name, the highest honor he could receive, Vv^as so busy he had not time to make money, and yet every spare dollar went for the prosecution of his work. So ardent was he that he lived among the specimens he was constantly studying. "It is said a lady asked him at a dinner table to explain the difference between a frog and a toad. The great professor, beaming with pleasure at not being taken una- wares, dived first into his right pocket, and then into his left, produced two living specimens, and then and there made the matter plain to her. One of the Cambridge anecdotes con- cerning him tells (after his second marriage) of his wife's cal- ling in terror from her dressing-room, 'There 's a snake in my shoe,' and of Agassiz's prompt answer, 'One snake; but where zen are ze other six.' " We need men as devoted to Sunday- school progress as Agassiz was to science. Although one of the smallest denominations, we have had for years a representative in the International Lesson Committee. We stand in the estimation of these international workers as among the most aggressive church bodies. We have usually a fair representation at all the State and international gath- erings. We have enrolled on our list 259,925 pupils, and 36,- 757 teachers and officers. This number will rapidly increase as we push our "Cradle Roll" and "Home Department." We already have 53,000 more enrolled than you have enrolled on your Church records. You will stop and think when I tell you 84 A Century the best statistics we can gather tell us that eighty-three per cent, of the members of Christian churches come from the Sab- bath school. Here is the hopeful field for church work. We would not have you lessen a single effort for the seventeen per cent, who are outside of Sunday-school influence, but if you would make a success of the work the Master has committed to you, you must modify your methods of work, and grapple as you have never done before with this new field. Give us well- equipped men who shall lead our teachers and teach our teach- ers, who shall be good organizers and practical helpers as well as good sermonizers, and ere this century will be one-third gone, we shall present to you a well-equipped army of Christian soldiers, that shall be "comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners" (S. of S. 6:4); and "mighty before God to the casting down of strong holds'^ (II. Cor. 10: 4). PART 111. THE CHURCH AND EDUCATION. THE HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATION IN OUR CHURCH. Bishop E. B. Ejephart, D. D., LL. D. Education and religion, properly understood and adjusted, go hand in hand to the solution of the problem of the world's evangelization and civilization. That this problem is yet un- solved is admitted; that the church of Christ is vigorously engaged in its solution is very apparent. These two factors are counterparts of the same agency, employed by our Lord in making effectual his redemptive work for the family of man- kind, and lifting it from paganism into civilization and a knowledge of the true God. To divorce these two potent agencies leads to a narrow re- ligious intolerance and superstition on the one hand, and, on the other, to egotistic materialism and self-poised, irrational conceit. Superstition and religious intolerance have always found their most fertile soil in religious, uneducated ignorance; and egotistic materialism and self-poised, skeptical conceit have found theirs in intellectual culture completely divorced from religion. The founders of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ were aware of this sad dilemma into which the church of Christ had so often slipped; hence, while they clearly saw the utility of intellectual culture, aye, its absolute necessity in their church work, they, at the same time, vigilantly sought to 85 86 A Century avoid its divorcement from the religious life of the Christian ministry. Many good men, both educated and uneducated, fail- ing to recognize this distinction, have charged the fathers of the denomination with being opposed to an educated ministry, and, indeed, to education in general. This, however, is a great mistake. It is hardly necessary to say in this connection that Bishop Otterbein, the father of the denomination, was a man of scholastic learning, having been trained in the universities of the Fatherland. And, while it is true that a number of our Church fathers had not the benefits of collegiate training, yet they were profound thinkers and educated men in their own way, with the anointing of the Spirit of the Lord upon them. While the denomination may have been a little tardy in com- mencing to build institutions of learning, yet the work of edu- cation was encouraged and carried forward in a private way, both among the ministry and laity of the Church ; and Father Spayth puts it well when he says, in the Religious Telescope, Vol. v., p. 336, "Now mark me, literary, scientific, and re- ligious attainments, we, as a church and people, have always respected, admired, and honored." From the beginning, two facts have been adhered to in our educational and religious work; First, that learning is not the primary, but the second- ary means or help in the gospel method of saving and civilizing men; second, that knowledge is not the "Bread of Life." It is rather a surprise, however, that Bishop Otterbein, great scholar as he was, took no step toward establishing a school of learning for his Church. And it was not until almost a third of a century after his death that, in 1845, in Circleville, Ohio, ^he General Conference took the first action toward founding an institution of learning for the denomination. This con- ference, v/hich was composed of twenty-four delegates and three bishops, Henry Kumler, Sr., John Coons, and Henry Kumler, Jr., discussed the subject of education thoroughly, and, after due deliberation, by almost a unanimous vote, passed the two following resolutions : '^Resolved 1. That proper measures be adopted to establish an institution of learning. Histoiy and Developmevt of Education 87 "2. That it be recommended to the attention of the annual conferences, avoiding, however, irredeemable debts." Doubtless, it was the thought of this General Conference that but one school should then be established for the denomi- nation, and when we note the fact that its membership did not number above thirty thousand communicants, it will be seen that the thought was judicious and wise. But the Church at large did not heed the wisdom of this conference; the spirit of college building was contagious. The subject having re- ceived the endorsement of the General Conference, it was at once taken up by the annual conferences, and became a chief topic of discussion in those bodies, and a number of schools were hastily projected. The years 1846 and 1847 were prolific in our history for projecting educational institutions. In 1846, the Miami Conference proposed to unite with the conferences in central and northern Indiana to build a college in Bluffton, Ind. ; the St. Joseph Conference also fell in line with Miami, but the project failed. In the same year, Scioto Conference, while in session in Pickaway County, Ohio, received a delega- tion from the Methodist Episcopal Church with a proposition to transfer Blendon Young Men's Seminary, located at Wester- ville, Ohio, to the conference, if the conference would assume the Seminary's indebtedness, which amounted to $1,300. The conference accepted the proposition, elected a board of trustees, and, by resolution, invited neighboring conferences to cooper- ate. Early in 1847, the Indiana Conference, in session, resolved to build a college either in Dublin or at Washington, in that State, but the college did not materialize. In February of the same year, the Allegheny Conference resolved to build a college in Mt. Pleasant, Pa., or Johnstown, Pa. The resolution was carried into effect. The college was located in Mt. Pleasant, and, in 1850, Mt. Pleasant College opened its doors for the reception of students. In 1849, the Indiana Conference re- solved to open a seminary in Hartsville, Ind. Subsequently, the White Iliver Conference indorsed the project, and later the St. Joseph and Wabash Conferences for a time gave it nom- 88 A Century inal support. This flattering success so inspired the friends of the seminary that they changed the name of the school to Hartsville University. In 1853, the Illinois Conference estab- lished Blandinville Seminary, in Blandinville, 111. Also, about the same time the Michigan Conference accepted a transfer of the Michigan Union College, located at Leoni, Mich., from the Wesleyan Methodist Church. Thus, in quick succession, came the different schools in our early educational beginnings. The location of many of these schools was equally unwise as was their number. In 1855, the Iowa Conference, in session in Muscatine, Iowa, resolved to build a college west of the Mississippi, and, in February, 1856, the trustees located West- ern College in Western, Linn County, Iowa, and, January 1, 1857, its doors were opened to students. Between eleven and twelve o'clock at night, January 1, 1881, the trustees of this college, at a special session, which session had been arranged for at their previous meeting, in June, 1880, relocated the col- lege at Toledo, Iowa, their action to go into effect at the close of the spring term of 1881, and the fall term of the same year to open in Toledo, Iowa, which was carried out to the letter. Westfield College, Westfield, 111., was opened in 1865, and Lane University, Lecompton, Kan., about the same time; also, Leb- anon Valley College, Annville, Pa., in 1866 ; Philomath College, Philomath, Ore., in 1867 ; Avalon College, Avalon, Mo., in 1869, relocated in Trenton, Mo. ; Shenandoah Institute, Dayton, Va., in 1876; Edwards Academy, Greenville, Tenn., in 1877, relo- cated in White Pine, Tenn.; San Joaquin College, Woodbridge, Cal., in 1879; West Virginia Classical and Normal Academy, Buckhannon, W. Va., in 1881; Sugar Grove Seminary, Sugar Grove, Pa., in 1884; and York College, York, Neb., in 1890. Many other schools have been started in our Church, some by private enterprise, and some otherwise. The following is quite a correct list of other institutions, as given by Dr. Berger, in his United Brethren Church history : Eoanoke Seminary, Roa- noke, Ind. ; Green Hill Seminary, Green Hill, Ind.; Fostoria Academy, Fostoria, Ohio; Elroy Institute, Elroy, Wis.; Dover Academy, Dover, 111. ; Ontario Academy, Port Elgin, Ontario ; History and Development of Education 89 Washington Seminary, Huntsville, Wash.; Sublimity College, Oregon; Central College, Kan.; Gould College, Harlan, Kan., now united with Lane University, Lecompton, Kan.; North Manchester College, North Manchester, Ind. ; and the Rufus Clark and Wife Training School, Shengeh, West Africa. While the Church, with a becoming vigor, commenced to build its schools in 1846, yet it was twenty-four years later be- fore any direct action was taken by the denomination to estab- lish a theological school for the special training of her min- isters. The General Conference of 1865 recommended that special Biblical studies be given in the colleges of the Church. But in 1869, at Lebanon, Pa., the General Conference, there assembled, passed the following resolution: "Resolved, That the Board of Education be instructed to devise and adopt a plan for the founding of a biblical institute, to be under the control of the General Conference ; and said board is hereby instructed and empowered to take measures to raise funds and locate said institution, and to proceed with its establishment as soon as practicable." This resolution was, with good cheer, adopted, and a Board of Education elected, as follows: Revs. Lewis Davis, D. D., Daniel Shuck, W. C. Smith, Milton Wright, E. B. Kephart, D. Eberly, S. Weaver, P. B. Lee, W. S. Titus, and E. Light. This committee met in Dayton, Ohio, July 27, 1870, and located Union Biblical Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. In 1871, the board met in Dayton, Ohio, August 2, and elected Dr. Lewis Davis, president of Otterbein University, and Rev. George A. Funkhouser, A. B., as teachers of the Seminary, to open the institution for students in October of the same year. The Executive Committee added to the faculty Rev. J. P. Landis, A. B., shortly after, and the Seminary was opened with three professors as its faculty. This school has done much for the Church, and its growth has been far above what, in reason, could have been expected. Few schools of its character and grade, if any, in our country, have a larger number of students at the present time than Union Biblical Seminary. While it was commenced with nothing in the way of funds or equip- 90 A Century ment, except five acres of ground as a site, it now has an en- dowment of $99,794.39, and a library of about 3,000 volumes. From its list of schools, it will be readily seen that our de- nomination has not been slack in commencing to build insti- tutions of learning. That, in this direction, there has been, at times, more zeal than knowledge manifested will scarcely be questioned by the thoughtful. This grew out of the fact that the Church has not come to a conscious knowledge that de- nominational schools were not money-making institutions, but were, in a sense, charitable. In locating these schools, due con- sideration was greatly lacking, and, as a result of this undue haste, we have scarcely one institution but that at some time a project has been set on foot to relocate the school, or a move made in that direction. Indeed, from the fact of out-of-the- way locations, some of our institutions had to be relocated at much cost to the Church, and others have perished from no other cause than being placed where it was not practicable for the public to reach them. In taking a survey of our education- al work, it would seem to have been a principle, sacred with those who had to do with the locating of our schools, to put them as far away from the masses of the people as they well could, and where access to them would be as difficult as possi- ble. All this can be accounted for in two ways: First, it was peculiar to the age to locate institutions of learning in small towns and away from great thoroughfares; second, the found- ers of our schools were not college men, and they followed in the wake of others. Now, when it is remembered that when we commenced our educational work the men whom we had to place at the head of our institutions, and, for all that, all of our first instructors, were educated and trained in schools not our own, for we had none in which to train them, the growth and development of education in the denomination is really marvelous. It has always been a surprise to me, and now is, not that we have made some mistakes in our educational work, but that we have made so few. As a rule, our institutions are now well located. History and Development of Education 91 It can be said in truth, also, that they never were so well equip- ped and meeting the demands of the Church as now. And, while they are not all free from debt and properly endowed, the Church never was so willing and so able to lift these debts and endow her schools as at the present. The Church is now con- scious that her schools are great centers of spiritual life and power, and the proper place for her sons and daughters to re- ceive their training for life work. In one respect, especially in the beginning of her educational work, our Church took an advance step, and has successfully developed the theory of mixed schools. When she opened her first institution it was alike free to her daughters and to her sons; and so successful has she been in developing that free and broad principle that she has had the good pleasure of seeing the great universities of our country throw open their doors alike to ladies and gentle- men. In all her institutions of learning the sexes have been, and are now, admitted on an equality, and her system of in- struction is on an equality with the best in the land. Men who have not been directly connected with the subject of education in our schools often criticize the management, but it is a fact above question that with the amount of means at their com- mand, our schools have accomplished more accordingly than any class of church schools in our country. At the present we have more students in our institutions than at any previous period in our history, and the work done in these schools is up to the best of like grade anywhere. So rapid and deep has been the development of this subject among our people that even the most humble of our country congregations demand a trained man as their pastor and spiritual advisor. Not only has this development come in literature and science, but in music and art as well, so that at the present it is the voice of our beloved Zion, "Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord." Also, the temper of the mind of our people has undergone a great change in the history and development of education among us, which vitally aifects our ministry. There has been a gradual diminution of the weight of authority of the clergy during this period, and the sources of recognized 92 A Century authority are different from what they were at the opening of our history. The divine right of the clergy among Protestants is as dead as is the divine right of kings in this country. Rant and cant in the pulpit are no longer recognized as weight of authority, or received as evidence of piety. As President Charles W. Eliot has said: "The authority of the minister is now derived from the purity and strength of his character, from the vigor of his intellect and the depth of his learning, and from the power of his speech. Candor, knowledge, wisdom, and love can only give him authority with the people." We stand on the threshold of the twentieth century with our educational, our missionary, yes, all our general and special Church work. God help us to be true. Coming events thicken fast on the dial of time, the rolling wheels of God run swift and high, but never backward. To-day a decade of years is enough to revolutionize the world; the deep, hidden forces of truth now sway the very scaffold erected by its enemies for its execution, and the sound of the goings of God is heard throughout the whole earth. "Signs in the sun and moon ap- pear, the sea and the waves roaring, and the powers of heaven are shaken." The great, seething, surging sea of humanity is to-day as the rushing in of the tide, the nations are running to and fro through the earth, and knowledge is increasing, and all things are replete with change and revolution, that the rub- bish which floated to us from antiquity may give place to the "new heaven and the new earth, in which dwelleth righteous- THE IMPERATIVE NEED OF A CULTURED MINISTRY. G. A. FUNKHOUSER, D. D. "What you are," said Emerson, "speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say." "A sage is the instructor of a hundred ages." A greater than Emerson said, "The life was the light of men." So what the minister speaks cannot be considered apart from what he is in his own personality. What Jesus said and did would long since have fallen to the ground powerless, even as water spilled upon the ground cannot be gathered up, but for the infiniteness of the person back of all he said. So of Paul and of every one who has served men and glorified God — the greatness of the person must be taken into account along with the greatness of the work done. Then, we are agreed in this day and in this intelligent as- sembly, (it was not always so,) that there is not the slightest antagonism between culture and spirituality — the highest cul- ture and the highest spirituality, nay, rather, that the one im- plies the other, and that the one cannot be separated from the other. Were proof needed, we should call for Paul, some of the martyrs, Augustine, the early reformers, for Luther and Cal- vin, for the Wesleys, Knox, Jonathan Edwards, George Miiller, master of nine languages, Hudson Taylor, Andrew Murray, J. G. Paton, and Otterbein. Otterbein! In his early years cultured in the schools. Do not his entire life and work prove that there is no antagonism between the highest culture and the deepest spirituality ? Had one or the other been wanting in him, would this centennial celebration have been a possibility? Call Otterbein, then, and the great cloud of worthies saved by this Church standing with him before the throne, to testify that culture is not a foe to spirituality, but a great aid in deepening the life in union with God. 93 94 A Century The subject as stated is, "The Imperative Need of a Cul- tured Ministry." A cultured ministry! What are we to un- derstand by culture'^ "It denotes a high development of the best qualities of man's mental and spiritual nature, with espe- cial reference to the aesthetic faculties and to graces of speech and manner, regarded as the expression of a refined nature. Culture, in the fullest sense, denotes that degree of refinement and development which results from continued cultivation through successive generations. A man's faculties may be brought to a high degree of cultivation, while he himself re- mains uncultured, even to the extent of coarseness and rude- ness." Culture is what the Greeks expressed by Trauhia "disci- pline," and the Romans by humanitas, "the state or quality of being humane," the highest and most harmonious culture of all the human faculties and powers. Culture, therefore, does not isolate its possessor from his fellows, but rather the more identifies him with everything which concerns their highest well being. Further, it has been stated that culture has in it the element of politeness, which is more than civility. A civil person ob- serves such propriety of speech and manner as to avoid being rude; one who is polite (literally, polished) observes more than the necessary proprieties, conforming to all that is graceful, be- coming, and thoughtful in the intercourse of refined society, cares for the opinions of others, and, in the highest and truest sense, cares for the comfort and happiness of others in the smallest matters. It is synonymous with accomplished, cour- teous, courtly, cultivated, genteel, gracious. So that culture pertains to every faculty, every power, and every element in man's complex nature. It is the flowering and fruitage of edu- cation, going out in many directions, and, like the aroma of the ointment from love's alabaster box, it fills the house and goes into all the world for a witness. It is the opposite of coarseness, grossness, rudeness, vulgarity. Culture is ChristliJceness. How refined, polite, humane he was ! Upon what a high plane as a man he moved among men ! Imperative Need of a Cultured Ministry 95 Like Terrence, he seemed to say, "I am a man, and nothing that belongs to man is foreign to me." Real culture, then, im- plies that its possessor has all the faculties and powers of a man, that these are present, not in a weak or imperfect degree, but developed into the highest activity and efficiency, and in- creasingly from day to day. Having considered what culture is, and that it is not a foe, but a handmaid, if not the twin sister of spirituality, we are now prepared to consider "The Imperative Need of a Cultured Ministry." 1. The imperative need arises from the fact that the min- ister is a man, and capable of culture. Were he an angel, it might be different, although an angel, being finite, is capable of growth in knowledge, hence of efficiency in service. Made in the likeness and image of his God, his own highest well- being demands that every power be developed to its utmost limit — not one lying dormant. He requires it for himself, that he may be a man of vision, a man of large and powerful conceptions, a man of capacity to inspire others; to make him great in sympathy, having "largeness of heart like the sand of the seashore." He requires it to make him meek and lowly in heart and apostolic in his view of Christ and Christianity for his day. It takes an educated mind to be ambitious. "An educated mind that makes one eager for knowledge is a thing that has not come to India yet," said Miss Singh, in New York, at the Ecumenical Conference on Missions, and it has not come to many a minister in this country, 3,000 of whom can neither read nor write. The greatest success depends, not so much upon the number of the men who go into the ministry, or are sent out as missionaries, as upon the mental and spiritual quality of those who do go or are sent. "The need — the imperative need — is not for more men, but for more man." It is not truth alone that is to do the work, nor the minister alone, but truth through an educated, cultured, enlarged, electrified per- son. "The man who has prepared himself is the fittest, and the fittest will survive. Some men make light of, and even despise preparation. These are not the fittest, and do not sur- 96 A Century vive in the struggle. Much less will they survive in the age that is coming." Chrysostom said, all the men of his time to- gether could not do as much as Paul's handkerchief. 2. The imperative need of culture grows out of the fact that he is not only a man, but a minister — an ambassador in behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by him — a min- ister having high priestly functions to stand between the people and God, to offer and to intercede in behalf of the people, to be the medium through whom the mind of God is made known to the people, and the wants of the people made known to God. What degree of culture is sufficient to know the mind of God ill his Word, and then accurately convey it to the people! Then what breadth, what largeness of heart, what tact to know the deep and ever-varying needs of the people, in order that he may adapt rightly the truth of God to their needs and to present unctuously and prevailingly their wants to God in prayer, public and private ! "As our denomination is the irre- sistible outgrowth of the new life in Christ which was first wrought in the soul of Otterbein, and which burned and glowed like divine fire in his cultivated brain and heart," as the Ref- ormation of the sixteenth century was first in Luther, so all that a congregation should be and do must first be in the min- ister. Is it revival, world-wide missions, enlarged liberality, circulation of literature? Then first in the minister, and if not there, then they will never be facts in the congregation. Because the man is a minister, culture is an imperative need. One said : "Otterbein was a typical German, and a young man of excellent furnishing. He was a good scholar, a fine thinker, an able preacher, and a zealous missionary." Are we loyal sons of such a father? Will these old hills and mountains, these houses, barns, and streams say of us celebrating this centennial, "These men look and act like Otterbein, whom we used to know!" 3. Culture is the imperative need because the man-minister is the servant of the most high God. Of this exalted relation- ship and service the greatest apostle says, "Who is sufficient?" We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of C" " '■ '- K "3 ^ml M> ^ '^^^^K^^ 1 O > L i]^"^ ^ — «^^ Imperative Need of a Cultured Ministry 97 the power may be of God and not of us. It is the service of him before whom the most exalted, sinless beings cover their feet and faces as they contemplate his glory. Culture, yes, the highest culture is too little with which to serve the Redeemer and the redeemed. 4. A cultured ministry is imperative in this day because all other professions and vocations demand and enforce a higher standard of qualification. The training, too, must be special. As a result, technical schools have sprung up all over the coun- try, and into night schools have crowded, in the last few years, 25,000 more young men than are in all the universities of this country. They are forced to this in order to hold their posi- tions in factories, which demand an increasing efficiency. The Y. M. C. A. secretary who had a college education was, a few years ago, the exception, but now the one who has not both the college and special secretarial training is fast becoming the exception. Colleges are being searched for trained men to take responsible positions. In medicine, law, dentistry, en- gineering of all branches the standard courses are being length- ened, and requirements, both for entrance and for graduation, are being raised. In view of these facts, is not the need for a cultured ministry imperative'^ 5. A cultured ministry is imperative "because the under- graduate is studying the world as never before; is feeling in his fresh young heart the thrill of a new conception of applied Christianity; is realizing Christ's love and Christ's present salvation for this world in terms of reality." Imperative be- cause the educational function and power of the pastor cannot be overstated. Imperative, too, because he must direct the church intelligence, for knowledge is the true and substantial hasis of interest in the affairs of the kingdom of God on earth. Imperative because the minister must awaken the attention of apathetic minds and must overcome the unrestrained preju- dice in many minds. Imperative, too, because of the nature of the truth he must first discover, possess, and assimilate, and then so convey to others that they see as he sees, and then in- carnate the truth he lives and teaches. 7 98 A Century 6. A cultured ministry is an imperative need because the pulpit is still the only college and university many a worthy boy and aspiring girl will ever get to attend — the only chance to get any idea of true culture and the correct standard of life and of its limitless possibilities. Give the 6,000,000 young peo- ple enrolled as Endeavorers and in other kindred organizations cultured, efficient, world-wide, inspiring leadership, and who could even surmise the results in the next few years that would come to the reign of our risen Lord on earth? 7. Culture in the ministry is imperative because of the new century possibilities. As the early history of any denomination is largely the history of the individuals who were the provi- dential instruments in its origin, so, in some degree, the next one hundred years of the Church is locked up in the brain, heart, and lives of the ministry and laity of this General Con- ference. What this century has been in our history was locked up in the cultured brain and heart of Otterbein. Oh, that there were 1,000 Otterbeins among us to put the stamp of their cultured personality upon the Church, and lead her out into the new century upon which we are just entering! Culture is imperative because the minister is an organizer, even as Paul and Jesus arranged that the work begun by them should go on; that the new life generated should form for itself a body, in order to protect and preserve the life and for the growth of that life. Imperative because the chief function of the min- ister is teaching, and to teach he must know the mind of God, and the needs of men. Imperative because in his work and influence the minister must be world-wide. He cannot rest or cease his effort until all his people are identified with one or more of the world-wide movements of this throbbing and elec- trifying age. Imperative because he is called of God to lead- ership in the armies of the living God, and, like a wise, able, trained general, he will not be satisfied while any part of his command is asleep in the camp or resting under the shade of the trees. His battle-cry as he leads his charge from victory to victory is, "The Lord of hosts is with us ; the God of Jacob is our refuge." He plans an aggressive campaign — an advance Imperative Need of a Cultured Ministry 99 in every department, saying, "The God of heaven he will help us, therefore we his servants will arise and build." 8. A cultured ministry is imperative because of the in- creased interest in Bible study in all churches, the higher stand- ard of living which will be the inevitable result, and the great revival which many of the watchmen on the walls have seen from afar. 9. Imperative because the history of all reformations and religious movements is either the history of men of culture obtained in the schools or the history of men like Moody and Spurgeon, who were led to found schools for the high culture of which they felt they had been deprived. Not every successf ful general of our Civil War was trained in a military school, but the undeniable fact still remains that by far the largest majority of them were so trained. 10. Imperative because the history of the pulpit in America, England, Scotland, indeed, of all lands in all time is the his- tory of men of culture. Because, too, the progress of the church in all ages has been in exact proportion to the culture and piety of the ministry, and whenever and wherever these have not been emphasized there has always been decline. 11. Culture is imperative because from the ranks of the cultured ministry are drawn the presidents of academies, col- leges, and universities, in which are mobilized the mightiest armies of the strong, aspiring, heroic youth, destined to rule the world. How imperatively important that the highest ideals of manhood and service for mankind be set before them. "En- terprises started in Otterbein's time have extended their results in permanent features of the congregation down to this day." In one hundred years of progress the ideals of his cultured mind have not been eclipsed. Of Baxter, who lives to-day, it has been said: "To look at his controversial works, overladen with enormous quotations from Chrysostom, Jerome, Scotus, the reformers, and the very Jesuits, you would say he was never out of his study ; to look at his preachings, catechisings, visits, and his imprisonments, you would say he was never in it." "As plants convert minerals into food for animals, so each man 100 A Century converts some raw material in nature to human use." More by how much should every minister convert the grace and power of our Lord Jesus Christ into the use of the people whom he seeks to serve! 12. The need of a cultured ministry is imperative because, in the last place, it is God's order in the selection of religious teachers. Moses, who endured as seeing him who is invisible, was cultured in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and then for forty years was under the direct tuition of God in the desert. Everything indicates that Aaron, the priest, who was selected by God to represent the devotional features of that great dis- pensation, was no less cultured than his distinguished brother, for God said of him, "I know he can speak well." We know what he and all priests were to be physically — without blemish, and what they were morally — holy, and intellectually they were the peers and, in many instances, the superiors of those ruling the nation. The imperative need of a cultured ministry, then, grows out of the fact that the minister is a man ; that the man is a min- ister; that the cultured man and minister is the servant of the most high God; that other professions enforce a higher stand- ard of culture; that the undergraduate is pressing his in- quiries; that new century possibilities crowd upon him; that intelligent Bible study is more universal; that reformations and religious movements have originated in schools; that the history of the pulpit in all ages and all lands is the history of men of culture; that cultured men are chosen to occupy the great centers of learning, which determine so largely the weal or woe of the church, the state, and hence the world ; and, lastly, a cultured ministry is absolutely imperative because it is God's 07vn method in supplying religious leaders for his people, as evidenced in history and in his Word. THE MISSION OF THE DENOMINATIONAL COLLEGE. Eev. T. J. Sanders, Ph.D. The question of education is old; but it is ever new, and newer and fresher to-day than ever before. More and more do we see the primacy of mind in the world, as we will ultimately see its primacy in the universe. With every degree of self-trans- fcrmation and self -subjugation man has power to transform and subjugate in the outer world. These have ever kept pace with each other. One is the measure of the other. Logically, self-mastery precedes world dominion and leads the way, but chronologically they go hand in hand. The activities in the external world are like the thunder and lightning and quaking .and whirlwind,— showy, noisy, obtrusive,— while the trans- formations and subjugations in the internal world are akin to the still, small voice, silent, hidden, unobtrusive. When men speak of this wonderful age and its grand achievements, we all think at once of objective and material things. We do not realize that these are triumphs of mind. But whether we think it or not, it is nevertheless true. We do not realize it, yet education is the means of self-develop- ment, the means of mastery of nature and nature's forces. If this is an age of marvelous activity in the external world, it is also an age of marvelous activity in the internal, or mental world. The education of a human soul, in the broadest and fullest sense of the term, is the greatest thing in the world— the pur- pose of the world. This end should subordinate and unify all other ends. It should inspire us to a holy ambition to accom- plish the same. The world, as a pulsating, throbbing organism, is a process of evolution— a procession, a "double procession,'' as we learn in theology. The whole creation groans and tra- vails, and the highest product is the birth of a soul. From 102 A Cenfwy lower to higher the procession moves, till psychic life emerges from the world. With this the summit is reached. Says Emerson, "It is a sufficient account of that appearance we call the world that God would educate a human mind." The soul arises out of the world, and over against it stands the world for its discipline and illumination. The birth and probation of souls is the past, present, or future purpose of all worlds. "The baby new to earth and sky, What time his tender palm is prest Against the circle of the breast, Has never thought that 'this is I.' "But as he grows he gathers much And learns the use of 'I,' and 'me,' And finds, 'I am not what I see, And other than the things I touch.' "So rounds he to a separate mind From whence clear memory may begin, As though the frame that binds him in His isolation grows defined. "This use may lie in blood and breath, Which else were fruitless of their due. Had man to learn himself anew Beyond the second birth of death." We see that the action and reaction of the two worlds, the inner and the outer, upon each other is to bring man to self- realization and self -consciousness and make the subjective to be the spiritual equivalent of the objective. While the world is material, it is also spiritual ; while it is natural, it is preter- natural; while we have a cosmic order, it is, indeed, a spiritual order. We, too, are composite. We are material and spiritual, natural and preternatural, and this life and this world are a preparation for the purely spiritual. Like the comprehensive types in geology, we are the embodiment of the lower and the prophecy of the higher. Mission of the Denominational College 103 I repeat it, education is the greatest thing in the world, and is the purpose of life and the world. There is almost boundless activity in the educational world. Everywhere there is a striving to get the best that can be said on this subject. Look at the great dailies and weeklies; see the symposia on education in a great paper like the New York Independent; see the Interior, of Chicago, emphasizing edu- cation and endeavoring to show that education is the founda- tion of good morals and good government. Says President Gilman, of Johns Hopkins University: "To any one who sits in the office of a college president or in the editorial chair of an important periodical, or among the recent acquisitions of a public library, there appears a rapid and constant flow of pamphlets, essays, reports, and books bearing upon education, as if it were a subject new to the present generation." In all the history of the world there never was a time when tliere were given so many essays, sermons, addresses on education; so many hundreds of distinctively educational journals; so many associations of teachers — township, county, district. State, national; so many clubs studying psychology, the his- tory, philosophy, and literature of pedagogy, as at the present time. We come to the purpose of education. To the question. What is it? many answers have been given. Whatever dominates the life of an individual or a nation, or whatever is uppermost in their lives is put into their educational thought. Whatever a man practically believes to be the chief business of life, that to him is the great purpose of education. There are two main and worthy channels of educational effort: the one toward man's physical, the other toward his spiritual good. There are two goals sought by men: animal happiness and spiritual worthiness. Here we have the prac- tical set over against the culture aim. Only a small minority award the highest place to spiritual growth. The great ma- jority hold that education is a means to a livelihood; some external good is to be preferred to an internal condition of soul. Education is to be instrumental to "getting on in the 104 A Century world," and nothing more. Of a young man about to leave home for college, the question is often asked, "What is he going to make of himself?" expecting an answer in terms of a voca- tion only. Everywhere, even in cultured circles, there is im- plied the utilitarian end as the ground of education. Success is made the goal. But what is success? It is "getting on." This is the goal, and our time and energy, our spirit and buoy- ancy are quite used up in this fever of "getting on." "The means of life have become the end of life; and our faith lays hold of nothing but meat and bread, rain, soil, and sunshine, trades and traffic, machinery, workshops, and industrial schools. The fundamental assumption of American life is that the pur- pose of man is to subdue the physical earth. The infinite pos- sibilities of the soul have no place in our plans. While this is not the avowed doctrine, it yet orders conduct. To accumu- late material resources and gain that power over the world which wealth confers is the end of all endeavor." Rousseau stands squarely on the other side : "In the natural order of things, all men being equal, the common vocation to all is the state of manhood; and whoever is well trained for that cannot fulfill badly any vocation which depends upon it. Whether my pupil be destined for the army, the church, or the bar matters little to me. Before he can think of adopting the vocation of his parents, nature calls upon him to be a man. How to live is the business I wish to teach him. On leaving my hands he will not, I admit, be a magistrate, a soldier, or a priest ; first of all, he will he a man." But there is no opposition between these two aims; they are both reached by the same process. They are not antagonistic, but one is lower and the other higher, and in securing the higher, the more fundamental, the lower is realized in the process. By focusing the effort on the fundamental end, the other will be effectively secured; and much more effectively secured than if the lower end be directly sought. "If the needs of the soul be administered unto, the utilitarian ends of life will be much more surely and truly realized than if the latter end be sought directly. If, in the act of teaching, the teacher Mission of the DenomlnationaL College 105 holds firmly in consciousness, and is guided by the spiritual growth of a child, the best possible thing will be done for a successful career in life." All subjects should be taught so as to reach intellect, sensibility, and will — the whole spiritual being. Let the self be found in all things. Let the self be so mirrored forth as to reinforce and strengthen in the hour of trial. Let the aesthetic emotions be awakened by every object which the mind of the learner touches. This is a utilitarian age in education. Fine sentiment is not demanded, but it should be. There is no higher, more practical educational ef- fect than the habit of transforming everything into something beautiful and divinely true. The most commonplace and mat- ter-of-fact things may be invested with a halo of beauty and give inspiration to the learner. The comprehension of the simple truth that two and two make four, or five and five make ten is warm with emotion and charged with ethical force when wielded by the hand of the skillful teacher. We must insist that the soul has its own reasons for know- ing; that it is native to it to know, and not to be insulted by the mere utilitarian conception. Says Emerson, "You cannot insult the sun, moon, and stars; they will serve him and him only who becomes a high-born candidate for truth." So, too, all subjects should be presented as if to high-born candidates of truth. When this is done, we have taught our subjects, even for utilitarian purposes, in the best possible way. The boy who is taught how to measure wood-piles and corn-bins, having reference to the highest soul culture, will do the actual work more independently and efficiently than if the purely utili- tarian end had been kept in view. We must remember that what is popularly known as a prac- tical education is the most impracticable. Power to think, to adjust the mind to the realities of the world, to reach true con- clusions from carefully discriminated data, strongly developed and refined sensibilities, the aesthetic and ethical nature fully aroused, a will that directs the whole psychic movements and itself is under the supremacy of conscience — these are in the line of a truly practical education. 106 A Century An education that puts the two worlds — inner and outer — face to face; gives the inner an intellectual and spiritual equivalent of the outer, the intellect disciplined and trained and identified with the outer; the sensibilities strongly devel- oped and refined and made keenly responsive to the world known by the free intellect; a will, full, strong, wholly direc- tive, and in harmony with universal reason — a personality that can adjust and readjust, adapt and readapt, that has ability and adaptability to the varying conditions and unexpected sit- uations as they arise, this is 'practical. Bookkeeping is not the most immediate or fundamental qual- ification of a clerk; neither is the ability to compute the in- terest on a note or measure a corn-bin the chief requisite of a good farmer. That which makes a man a man supplies the fundamental necessity for all vocations. What a gulf there may be between a farming man and a man farming! If I could have my way, I would most gladly put behind the plow in my State of Ohio one hundred thousand classical graduates. And then, if rightly taught, through all the prosaic days of the year, the history, literature, and philosophy of the past would live in him; the great, throbbing present would find sympathetic response in him; the wailing winds and naked woods, the song of birds, the twinkling stars, the bab- bling brooks, the grub and the stones turned up in the furrow — all would bring messages to him. Then, too, in all that com- munity he would walk and work, a man — the full-orbed man, with enlarged powers of heart and brain, rendering an efficient service for humanity. "More life and better, that we want." Life is the end of life — the more abundant life. It is to be rich and full and strong and free, to be open to the great thor- oughfares of human thought, and responsive to the world's har- mony. It is to have an out-reaching toward what is truest, best, and most beautiful in life; to have tone, vigor, power, poise, serenity. For the sake of the soul we want breadth and thoroughness of scholarship. The age, too, demands it. It is time that, with all our splendid material achievements, we turn our attention Mission of the Denominational College 107 to the production of grand personalities; to the giving to the world of tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog and come into face-to-face communion with ideas — men of cos- mopolitan heart and mind — men who have world citizenship. Nothing but a generous, liberal culture can make this possible. The loftiest mountain peaks ascend from the highest plateaus. To be thorough in a few things and not a smatterer is a most deceptive argument. We cannot be thorough in a few things without a knowledge of the many. The lines omitted in the narrowed course are essential to mastery in the lines selected. We may smatter in one thing as easily as in many. To study things as isolated is to smatter. To be thorough is to find a principle, the universal and general, in them. To spe- cialize and not universalize is to smatter. In the whole range of a course of study passing from the pole of universal extent to that of universal content we find the universal through the individual. We then specialize in order to universalize. A knowledge of the part requires a knowledge of the whole. As we reach down we come to infinite relations. The position of the Christian college is unique. It has always been a beacon light, an inspiration. It stands for culture for culture's sake. It stands for the dis- tinctively liberal culture. It would put young men and women in possession of their powers and make them the in- heritors of the accumulated wisdom of the ages. It would give them high ideals, far-reaching vision, and holy aspirations. It would give them right life tendency and direction and set thedr souls on fire for truth, beauty, and virtue. It would have them keeping ever abreast of truth and ever a blessing and inspira- tion to all around them. It does not seek to make men law- yers or doctors or preachers or mechanics; but it does seek to bring to all departments of the world's work an enthusiastic, well-rounded personality for efficient service. It is not that they may get out of work, but that they may do vastly more and better work. It would seem that the avenue to life should be through the college. This should be the least for a twentieth- century civilization. But there is a feverish haste to life, and 108 A Century Hiost young men cut across and leave out of their plans a col- lege course, and, as a rule, are doomed to mediocrity. President Eliot complains that even in Harvard it is possible to reach the doctorate (M. D.) without the bachelor's or mas- ter's degree. It seems that a great contest is on between the so-called bread-and-butter sciences and a liberal training. It must be in the end that a thorough, liberal culture will win, but at present the great majority are against it. One of the fallacious doctrines held by men in high positions, is that for educational purposes one study is as good as another, and that all students are put upon the same level. The college of liberal arts, the Christian college, stands as a protest against these ideas. Its purpose is not simply to supply demands, but to create proper demands. It has always been a leader, a molder of sentiment, reaching down and lifting up all around it, and reaching forward begets the university, whose true function, in the language of Professor Laurie, "is to sow the germs of the life of spirit, to give food, nutrition, to supply the spiritual manna which will never fail us in the wil- derness-wandering of earthly existence, as each morning we rise to a new day." Thus it would seem that the college should stand between the academy and public high school on the one hand, and the university on the other, giving life and inspira- tion to both. This would differentiate the college from the university, and make the former to be the gateway to the latter. The college must turn the tide of materialism and utilitarian- ism and commercialism and make the man to be above that by which he lives. In the July Cosmopolitan of 1897, Prof. Harry Thurston Peck, of Columbia University, speaks out clearly and forcefully on this subject : "The fact is, that, so far from adding to the subjects now included in the university curriculum, we should instead diminish them. The present craze for making that curriculum a common dumping-ground for every possible va- riety of instruction is the most unfortunate of all the tenden- cies that are visible in educational theory to-day. As we have imitated the Germans in so many things, it is a lasting pity Mission of the De7iomlnational College 109 that we have not seen fit to imitate them also in excluding the teaching of the purely mechanical arts from university in- struction and in shutting them off into the polytechnicum, where they properly belong. When machine shops and fac- tories and all the paraphernalia of the applied sciences are im- ported into the academic shades, and when the perfume of the Attic violet is stifled by the stenches of the chemist's cruc- ible, the true purpose of the university is forgotten, and its higher mission is in a great measure sacrificed, for then there can exist no longer a distinct and definite type of university man. The civic value of the university in times now past was this: it gave to the community a very special class, not only highly trained, and trained in a broad and liberal way, but trained also according to one particular standard and with an absolute identity of training. This identity of training bound all university men together by the strongest possible ties of sympathy and mutual understanding, so that they stood forth as a kind of sacred band, alike in private and public life, exercising an influence for serenity and sanity of thought, whose value was inestimable and out of all proportion to the numbers of the ones who exercised it. From this class came the men who laid so firmly the foundations of the American Republic, and who worked out in a broad, far-seeing way the basal principles of our constitutional law and public polity; for of this class were Hamilton and Jefferson and Jay and Madison and Webster and Calhoun and Adams. They all re- ceived the older college training, based not upon the bread-and- butter principle, but upon the nobler far loftier conception of what the highest education means. But now the curious belief that all subjects of study are in themselves equally important is importing into the sphere of university teaching anything and everything which the casual person may desire to know; and, worse than this, it is putting upon every grade of capacity and attainment the self-same stamp of approval. Yet those who argue for this equality of value in the subjects taught do not regard the products of such teachings as being equal. They do not rank a great fly-paper manufacturer with a great 110 A Century statesman, nor a great cheesmonger with a great physician. Yet when we hear to-day that so-and-so is a university man, one never knows by reason of that fact alone whether he is only a sublimated type of tinker or a man of sound learning. And now that this confusion has been thoroughly established, what intimate and universal bond of sympathy can possibly exist among the scions of a university? The university has, in fact, been swamped by the influx of the mob, and its in- mates are themselves becoming only an unconsidered fraction of that mob. In other words, the so-called ^liberal' policy in university government has not raised mediocrity to the plane of scholarship, but has degraded scholarship to the plane of mediocrity. It has been in every sense a process of leveling down; in no sense has it been a process of leveling up. This, then, is gradually blotting out the true value of the university as a factor in a nation's larger life. By throwing its doors wide open to every one and for every purpose, and losing all perception of its original design, its chief importance and its noblest influence are vanishing away — lost in the well-nigh universal reign of the commonplace." Our civilization fore- stalls the ends of culture. We have become manacled by that which serves to free us. We do not desist at the point of com- petency, but make the means of life the end of life. Let us emphasize the college more and more, and give to it and the university the functions we have indicated. We want, through the college and the university, "to teach serenity of mind and loftiness of purpose, to make men see straight and think clearly, to endue them with a sense of proportion and a luminous phi- losophy of life — a thing impossible to those who do not draw their inspiration from the thought, the history, and the beauty of the classic past." It should produce for the service of the state men such as those who, in the past, made empires and created commonwealths, and give to the world "men of high breeding and supreme attainments, who would rise above the level of the commonplace, to establish justice and maintain truth, to do great things in a large and splendid way, and to illustrate and to vindicate the majesty of man." Mission of the Denominational College 111 Looking upon the denomination as a great organism, the college is fundamental and vital — its heart and life. As in the physical organism the heart drives arterial blood out through all the body, pouring nourishment over all the tissues, and by its very emptying of itself creates a vacuum toward which, by various routes, the blood continually returns; so stands the denominational college in its relations to all the organic life of the church. "Ever and forever it sends down by all routes and agencies, to all grades and classes of society, a wealth of culture and mental stimulus; ever and forever it draws to itself all the aspiring, all seekers after truth, a stream which its own pulse has quickened forever emptying itself to be forever filled, maintaining for society (and the church) the intellectual (and spiritual) life-current without which all must eventually end in stagnation and decay." For the church and the world it is the place and purpose of the college, supplemented by the true university, to answer the prayer of Holland : "God give us men ! A time like this demands Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and ready hands — Men whom the lust of office does not kill ; Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy ; Men who possess opinions and a will ; Men who have honor; men who will not lie; Men who can stand before a demagogue And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking ; Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog In public duty and in private thinking. For while the rabble with their thumb-worn creeds. Their large professions and their little deeds, Mingle in selfish strife, lo ! Freedom weeps, "Wrong rules the land, and waiting Justice sleeps." THE FUTURE OF OUR COLLEGES. By L. Bookwalter, D. D. The future of our colleges will largely determine the fu- ture of our Church. In the institutional organization of the Church some things are primary, some secondary; some forces are at the center, some at the extremities. If our educational work is not the heart in our Church organism, where is that cen- tral fountain whence pour forth "the issues of life" ? We are in full accord with the belief now held by the church of Christ everywhere, that her schools are the very centers and sources of her power. So, for half a century we as a people have been devoting no little money and brain and heart to the building and maintaining of colleges. And we are not ashamed of the record we have made. But for that record, marked by strug- gle and experiment though it be, no such successes could possi- bly have been achieved by us as a Church as have marked our annals. Most natural and befitting, therefore, is it that, at this stage of our Church life, at this centennial celebration, we should give prominent place to the consideration of our educational work, and turn with special interest to its future. It is at once apparent that in the discussion of this subject we are, in a primary and broader sense, giving attention to the whole field of the higher Christian education; we are neces- sarily led to consider that great system of advanced education now carried on by the denominational schools of the land, among which are our own colleges. Our educational work is a part of this great system. With its life our life is vitally connected. With it our fortunes are cast. So, in general, the future of the church college is the "future of our col- First, then, what is the future of the church college, the small college, the so-called "fresh-water" college? Is its fu- 112 The Future oj Oar OMeyes 113 ture in doubt, or is it assured^ from various quarters comes tiie suggestion that the day of the small college is passing away, and the day of the university is near at hand. If such is the case, this is to us an hour of confusion. But this con- ception of present educational life and movements is not in agreement with the facts. It is only the hasty and false in- terpretation put upon recent developments. Th« facts are these: Within the last thirty years the educational system of the counti-y has actually become a system, with well- defined departments, all articulating, from the kindergarten, through the elementary school, high school and college, up to the university. The time was ripe for this completing of the great edifice, esj^ecially for the placing of its long-neglected topmost stone, the university. While the college has been here for generations, the university has taken its commanding place suddenly and with eclat, and, some people are vain- glorious and others are scared — that is all. No, the church college is not passing away; it is here to stay, and to fill a constantly widening field because of its place and work. It is not only a vital part of the great educational system of the land, but is permanently woven into "the whole vast fabric of society." Its molding power has been felt for good everywhere. All this is so because the Christian college is Christian. Its conception is that college studies have to deal not only with the laboratory and museum, but also with questions of the heart, of speculation, morals and duty, of re- ligion; that, in correct education Christianity, is a leading factor, and that in true human life, both individual and social, the spiritual must be ascendant. The Interior, of Chicago, when not long since discussing "The College Situa- tion," well said: "The fact is, that Christianity is rooted deeper in the mind and heart of the nation than demagogues and trimmers know. The denominational school will always have the greater constituency in America, not simply because its theory fits it to deal with the most important questions of life, but also because it brings its advantages close to the door 114 A Century of the people. Great central universities never have leavened the masses, and never can. It is the small and widely dis- tributed institutions that level up the multitude. The bene- factions which have built these Christian colleges still con- tinue to flow. The friends of Christian institutions need have no fear that the schools they love are being pressed to the wall. "With every passing year they are more, and stand more firmly, and extend more widely their benedictions upon the nation." Said Mr. D. K. Pearsons, of Chicago, the widely- known friend and benefactor of church colleges, in an article which appeared in "The College Man's Number" of the Sat- urday Evening Post of May 28 last : "The greatest educational institution of America, aside from the common schools, is the ^fresh-water' college. The big colleges and universities with world-wide reputations are all right. They are fulfilling their purpose; but I believe this country could better afford to see them wiped off the list of her educational institutions than to have the struggling ^fresh-water' colleges removed from the reach of the common people. Why? Because these humble institutions are the direct productions of the true American pioneer spirit, and still have in them the vital breath of high moral purpose breathed into them by their founders, because the foundation of every ^fresh-water' college in the land is laid deep in the rock of sound practical Christianity. I believe that no educational work of an advanced kind is being done in America to-day equal to that of the 'fresh-water' college.'^ Let every fear as to the future life and influence of the church college be dismissed forever. But, that denominational colleges, that our colleges, may maintain and magnify their place, they must know their mis- sion and fulfill it. And they must measure up well along all lines. Plainly, Christian institutions should make their work distinctly and intensively Christian. They are the God-or- dained agency by which the learning and culture of the land are saved from heresy, secularism, and agnosticism, and given the stamp of orthodox, evangelical Christianity. Their mis- The Future of Our Colleges n5 sion is emphatically the making and sending out of strong, aggressive, Christian men and women. And, more and more] character is coming to be the goal of education. Eeal educa- tion is not primarily a bread-winning or commercial com- modity. A pronouncedly Christian influence is sure to receive- more rather than less attention in the future . educational movements. President Hall gives us high ideals, and cor- rectly divines the future when he names health, specialization,, and religion as the key-notes of coming education. And it will,, in the very nature of things, always be left largely to the^ church college to promote the Christian type of higher learn^ ii:g. Our colleges must also have a true educational policy as to standards. The demand for genuine learning and broad scholarship is growing stronger and stronger as the years go. by, and the colleges of our Church must meet this demand or the best brain and heart power will drift away from us. We- must set and maintain a high standard, taking our place abreast of the best schools of the land. We must cover fullyr the fields of modern college study. We should have as heads, of departments men and women of broad university training, and especially of great heart power and conscientiousness. We must provide good up-to-date equipment. Quality must continually be made primary. Our policy will make no pre- tenses and eschew all sham. We will strive only for the best,, and such striving will achieve its highest aims. Probably for years our colleges must conduct a preparatory department for the benefit of those who may not have had high school advantages. The academies of the Church may be expected to send to their respective colleges candidates well- prepared for the freshman class. It seems advantageous like- wise, at present, on the part of most of our colleges, to have connected with them a normal course, and also, as adjunct departments, a conservatory of music, school of oratory, school of art, and a college of commerce. Important in themselves. lib A Centurj/ these lines of study are the more valuable to the student when taken within the atmosphere of a college. At this point is naturally suggested the thought of the unifi- cation of our educational work and the building of a central university. Time does not permit the discussion in this paper of so important a question. Perhaps no one, as yet, feels ready to speak upon it definitely and with assurance. The present general judgment likely is that we are not yet where we can enter upon the early founding of a university. To establish and conduct such an institution, the amount of money re- quired would be so vast, and the patronage called for so large and well assured, that success would seem at present beyond serious expectation. The developments of the future may bring us to the place of clearer vision. But it certainly is wise, at the beginning of this new era, to look forward to larger things in our educational work, and plan to give to it greater practical cooperation and unity. But, respecting one thing we all see clearly and are all agreed — namely, that the time is at hand when we must re- lieve our colleges of embarrassment, place them firmly upon their feet, and start them out upon a new career. This ap- plies to all our institutions of learning. We have passed the crisis when our schools trembled between hope and fear, and are now come, in the providence of God, to a place and a time vvhich should be made an epoch. The future success of our academies, colleges, and Seminary will be determined by the plans inaugurated here. "We see the weaknesses of our schools; we have before us the ideal of what they should be. How shall they be brought up to that ideal? How shall they be given a new future? First, we must have a sound financial policy, persistently carried out. The financial feature is the master wheel of all the machinery. The immediate freeing of our schools from debt is a thing so palpably necessary as to need little argu- ment. No school is sure even of its life with a debt hanging over it, and but a meager endowment. This mill-stone must The Future of Our Colleges 117 be thrown from every neck. We must cease paying interest. Our schools have paid as much in interest as all their present real estate is worth. Whatever may have been the conditions of the past which seemed to call for the making of these debts, the time is here for wiping them out. Then let no more debts be contracted, not a dollar. Run the schools upon their incomes, making these sufficient by securing si>ecial gifts for the faculty fund. Pay good teachers fair salaries and pay promptly. Provide equipment as ability allows. In the run- ning of our schools we must pursue strictly business methods. In church work, as in every other kind of work, we can "trust the good Lord" when, and only when, we observe the good Lord's laws of business. So, in our finances, let the first watchword be, "Freedom from debt !" And let this key-note of the new song of victory be sent out from this platform, and this General Conference, and let it be taken up and heralded by every school in the Church throughout all its cooperating territory, until it strikes the ear and reaches the heart and the pocket of every United Brethren, and our entire Church is stirred and thrilled as by a trumpet call. The debts provided for, let the securing of endowment be entered upon and pushed vigorously and continuously, so that our schools may have incomes adequate for their conduct and enlargement. Meanwhile, additional buildings and equipment will become a necessity. Let the second watchword be "En- dowment and enlargement !" All this will require money, and large sums of it; money, and not promises. In the church, as in the state, money constitutes the sinews of war. Give us money and we can build up colleges, colleges in fact, per- manent, strong, and vigorous. We know what it is to attempt to run colleges without adequate means. We can pursue the old policy no longer — and live. The day of making bricks without straw is passed. And, further, we must keep pace with the colleges about us whose friends are pouring money into their treasuries, and with our well-supported State insti- 3-18 A Centw^y tutions, or we must quit the field. Our people, our men of xrieans, must come forward with their money as never before, <)lse the future of our colleges is anything but promising. The I)oint upon which I am now dwelling is vital. Here is the key :to the whole situation. I repeat it, the future of our college is <;hiefly a matter of dollars ; and the dollars needed are not be- ;yond the ready ability of our people to provide. And, let us be- lieve that, to the clear-cut, urgent presentation of the whole case, ■with its present need and its promise for the future, they will juake prompt and generous response. The situation itself is such that it surely will make to all generous minds its own silent and powerful appeal. But buildings, equipment, and faculty do not make a col- lege. A college must have students, and enough of them to give it a vigorous internal life. Here have our colleges been ■weak when they might have been strong. They have not had the xinited patronage of our own people. Many persons toil and sacrifice for the Church in its local lines of work, look after the extremities, then neglect the central interests — rob the leart. Loyal United Brethren should send their children to their own schools. This is not the advocating of a narrow sectarian spirit, but of a reasonable and healthy denomina- te onalism. We must be denominational in this day to ef- :fectively promote Christianity, especially in the great institu- tional interests, as missions, education, etc. This is dis- tinctively the denominational era in Protestant Christianity. To advance the kingdom of Christ we must work through a denomination or not at all. If we are to succeed we must pull together. Xot more than half the United Brethren young people who are attending college are in our own schools. Some people wonder why our educational work does not put on more life and assume greater proportions. No wonder at all. What an impetus would be given to this work and to all our Church activities if there would be a general turning of our own stu- dents to our own schools. With what a crowd of live young humanity would the halls of our institutions of learning be The Future of Our Colleges 119 thronged. They would be started forward with a bound upon a new career. There would be gathered at these centers such a life as would make our colleges veritable batteries of power ■whence would go forth currents to electrify and vitalize the Church to its farthest extremities. So, let another watch- word be, "United Brethren young people in United Brethren schools." It should scarcely need emphasizing that our colleges must be made more and more a veritable intellectual and social home for the average American youth and for the youth of any land. We must keep close to the great heart of the common people. The Christian college community should be the em- bodiment of the truest and best forms of the democratic spirit and life. Let there be no caste, no Greek fraternities, no false standards of life, no aristocracy but that of brain and heart. Let everything conduce to the leading up of all to the high plane of Christian manhood and womanhood, all ce- mented by the spirit of the young Man of Galilee into one common brotherhood. Now, with this whole subject before us, the vital relation of this to every other line of church activity clearly seen, with our hearts turned towards our schools in solicitude and hope, what general thought, formed into purpose and crystalized into plan, might wisely be given place? If our colleges are to be brought up to the standard demanded, and our edu- cational work as a whole is to be given new scope and power, something in behalf of this arm of our Church activity never before planned must be devised. What shall it be? Let it be the devoting of special attention to this work, on the part of the entire Church, during this quadrennium. While vigor- ously promoting every other line of our work, let education be made the paramount interest. Let the payment of every dol- lar of debt on the Seminary, and on each college or academy, and their liberal endowment, be the primary end sought. Said one of the most discerning and progressive laymen of our Church, in a letter to me of April 15 : "I am impressed that liiO A Ccnturij the matter of placing our institutions of learning on a sound financial basis during the present favorable conditions, is one of the great questions confronting the United Brethren Church." True, and the times are propitious. This is God's time, and God's time is our time. And in connection with this financial effort let there be such a campaign of education respecting the work of our schools, and the value of the higher Christian education, as has never been made among our peo- ple. Neither in its ministry nor its laity has our Church ever yet thoroughly awakened to the important relation of higher culture to life and to the kingdom of Christ on the earth. Let this General Conference agree upon this purpose and plan to carry it out. It must be clear to every one that we have reached a time and place in our work in education, both demanding and in- viting aggressive action. We dare not stand still; and hap- pily, before us is an open door. Wise, vigorous action now will be productive of far-reaching results; and this Church i.* an aggressive people. This body representing it will promptly lead in this forward movement, already felt by many in their deepest soul. There need be no fear for a cause when its friends and leaders are quick of ear to hear the higher voices and keen to discern the signs of the times. It needs no seer to tell us of a new era; its dawn is here; its morning breath is upon us. Toward that larger future we turn, with the faith and hope and inspiration that come to those who, "forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those which are before," press toward the higher planes that are already lit up by the sunrise of a new and better day. PART IV. The Nineteenth Century as a Preparation FOR THE Twentieth. THE EELATION OF OUE PUBLISHING INTEEESTS TO THE LIFE AND GEO\YTH OF OUE DENOMINATION. W. E. Funk, D. D. Literature is one of the chief avenues through which the world is to receive religion and civilization. No great enter- prise can be successfully launched or fostered without it. It has in it both knowledge and power. Knowledge is that which educates and instructs, while power is that which inspires to action and moves the individual to service. Schools, colleges, and universities develop the man, but literature is the product of the man thus developed. In literature, the product can never be higher than the individual producing it. So that, as we lift the attainments of the thinker, we raise the character of his product. The nature of its literature is the key to the per- manency of a nation. Let the printed thought of any people be dissipating, the days of that nation are numbered, be it monarchy or republic. The effect of Christian literature is best seen in the past hundred years, which is distinctively known as the missionary century of this era. Not until the printing-press was consecrated to the service of Almighty God did the Gospel of his Son accomplish so much in girdling the world with its rays of hope. Infidel science held in its grasp the literature of the two preceding centuries. Kant, 121 122 A Century Hegel, and others swayed the multitude until it seemed almost impossible for the divine truth of salvation through Jesus Christ to penetrate the realm of skeptical mysticism. 1. — The vigor and strength of a denomination is due very largely to its hook and periodical literature. Homer knew how to reach the Greek heart and move it to patriotism; hence he wrote his poems. Paul understood the strength of written epistles that in themselves gave new life to the churches of Asia Minor. What is written becomes in a very special manner the food that not only sustains life in the organization, but increases the source of all energy within the Church. It supplies the bone and sinew of spiritual warfare. It carries the life blood into the remotest parts of the Church organism. It becomes a source of life itself, and its absence means certain death to any organization. The Church, there- fore, needs a strong, healthy literature of all kinds, in order that it may send the current of a true life of service into the* hearts of all its communicants. 2. — The literature of the Church has to do with its polity. Every denomination should stand for something distinctive in its organic life. It is natural that this should appear in its literature. Slow progress will be made if its principles are to be perpetuated or promulgated by means of tradition. There must be a quicker and more frequently recurring agency if the growth of the Church is to be abiding and extensive. A high- grade literature is one of the best methods by which this end may be accomplished. The spirit of our Church periodicals and books determines the governing principles that shall con- trol the organic life of the denomination. The office and work of our superintendents, of all the general officers of the Church, are limited or increased much in proportion to the sentiment expressed in our Church publications. The narrow bigotry of the past centuries was due to the limitations surrounding the lives of the people in those days. A free exchange of thought widens the soul and removes selfishness and narrowness. It be- gets a spirit of expansion, an admiration for others, and as the spirit of Jehovah himself is received through the printed pages Relation of Our Publishing Interests 123 of religious books and papers, the soul thus fed enters into a new era of service in the denomination to which it belongs. This result accomplished in the individual, it becomes a moral certainty in the entire organization. A church, composed of people thus endowed, cannot live under a contracted polity; but, like the escaped bird, soars upward, entering the realm of true discipleship with Jesus Christ, and extends a hand of deepest sympathy to every son and daughter of Adam's family, ivith no question as to color, race, or primitive condition. S. — Literature is the means of mental, moral, and spiritual growth in the Church, We do not believe in fatality as applied to the individual, state, or church. Necessity may be inherent, but victory and triumph are the result of effort. If our Church is to rise to its full measure of strength in the work of soul-saving, it must unfold the mental, moral, and spiritual powers of its member- ship. It must have a line of Church periodicals and a series of book literature so freighted with eternal truth that the brain, heart, and soul of every reader will respond in a fruitful awakening as does nature under the influence of the zigzag lightning in the balmy spring shower. Growth is the watchword of nature. It is the primitive com- mand of God. It is the one basis of perpetual continuity. To arrive at this end, we must use our Church publications to open the minds of our people; to strengthen their mental con- ception; to cause them to know that better things may come to them by means of a cultured mind. Their conscience needs to be awakened. Their whole moral nature must be made to respond to the highest ethical truths of God. Their conduct must be made to conform to the rules of sobriety, nobility, and purity. Yet this is not all. Our literature must cause soul growth among our people. Who would say that Paul had as great soul power just after his conversion as when he held the revival in the jail at Philippi? Yet his already large soul must have grown much during the night on the sea when the angel of God stood by him and gave him assurance that even nature's wildest 124 A Century tempest would be stilled in his behalf. God speed the day when all our periodicals and books will give forth the heaven power, so that the souls of our people may be so enlarged for service, and, as a result, our institutions and societies will make a great stride forward in their work. When he arrived at Eome, Paul's mind, heart, and soul were about completed from the earth side; hence he soon entered a new world to be crowned a king and priest unto God, where he, without question, has continued his soul growth under the direct rays of the Sun of Righteousness. Thus we, as a Church must seek to develop the mental, moral, and spiritual in our membership, so that at the end of their earth pilgrimage they may be proper subjects for citizenship in heaven. Not with the thought of minimizing any other agency, but to emphasize the importance of this one, I assert that no other department of church work affords such opportunity for reaching all our people and imparting knowledge, which in itself becomes the basis of their lives as intelligent, consistent, spirit-filled Chris- tians. •^. — The publishing interest of the Church is the vehicle of all its organization. Unification, concentration, and organization fill the at- mosphere as we enter the new century. Shall the Church with its sacred jewels, "Our Holy Christianity," follow in the wake of commercialism? Will we allow the beliefs of Buddha and Mohamet, or the blighting ideas of material skepticism to reach the minds of men first, and there fortify themselves against the approach of the Holy Ghost as he seeks to enter the hearts of men and make them the temple of the living God ? Will we, because of our lukewarmness, permit our sons and daughters tj be dragged from our sacred home altars and engulfed in the pollution of sin as it obtains in social life about us ? The publications of our Church shout the rallying war-cry against sin and its effects, all along the line. It is through our papers and books that men like Moses, or our Joshuas, Samuels, Nehemiahs, Elijahs, Malachis, and Pauls, must sx}eak to our Relation of Our Publishing Interests 125 people and urge them forward to the possession of the world for God and his Christ. We are now speaking, and will continue to speak, to our entire Church through the Telescope; for, strange as it may seem, our Telescope speaks as well- as sees. Our Watchword sends weekly a rich message to the young people of our de- nomination. Our Sunday-school publications will always touch the lives of our hundreds of thousands of scholars and call them into active service. What a thought that through our publish- ing interests all the hosts of our Church can be marshaled as a solid phalanx, and, advancing, cause the powers of sin to re- cede into the shades of eternal oblivion. What an inspiration that 30,000,000 pieces of literature are going out into our Church annually to enthuse this magnificent army of Christian workers, as with steady tread and as one man they advance. It is delightful to know that no department is neglected by our publications; that all wheels within the great wheel— the Church — move in perfect accord. This, in the time-piece, guarantees correct time. In the Church it means order; no wasted energy, and, above all, it means the salvation of many thousands of souls annually. 5- — The publications of our Church become the enunciators of victories, thus giving inspiration which produces enthusiasm in service. Many an army would have been defeated had not the general eloquently recounted past triumphs. The young Spartan gloried in the valor of his parentage. The old Koman soldier used the long line of past victories as an incentive to further conquest. Napoleon lived much in what had been done with the thought that greater things yet would be accomplished. The announcement in our papers that a third, fourth, or fifth church has been started in Toledo, Chicago, Philadelphia, Kansas City, or some other center, is enough to electrify the entire Church and cause every congregation and every member in the same to put on new strength and go out to do more for God and the Church. 126 A Century It is useless to deny that enthusiasm in the Church is a posi- tive need. The two enthusiasts among the ten spies made the possession of Canaan a possibility. No member of our Church can read our literature and not feel a rising tide of purpose to he and to do in service for Christ and his church. Summing up the whole matter, allow me to say that the re- lation of our publishing interests to the future life and growth of our denomination is the same as that of the heart to the body. Its present being, its state of health, its future growth,, its very life, depend upon it. • THE OUTLOOK FOE MISSIONS AFTER A CENTURY. William M. Bell, D. D. Let us turn back the clock of time to the year of our Lord 1800, and take position at the threshold of the century just closed. Let us take a glance at world conditions with, reference to the advance made in giving the gospel to the utter- most parts of the earth. At that time Europe was nominally Christian. In southern Europe, Christianity had become some- what corrupted, and, on the whole, the churches were not espe- cially vigorous or inclined to carry forward the enterprise of Christian missions. Asia was Mohammedan and heathen; Palestine was under the control of Moslemism; India was closed against the gospel; the same could be said of China and Japan. Of Africa little or nothing was known, save that a number of civilized nations were drawing upon its vast popu- lation for their slaves. The isles of the Pacific were just pass- ing into the thought and plan of the church. A few mission- aries had gone to Tahiti. South America, though nominally Christian, was practically in heathenism. North America was possessed of an earnest type of Christianity, though little was being done for the evangelization of the aborigines. AS TO MISSIONARY ORGANIZATION. In Europe, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge had behind it a hundred years of history, and was pushing for- ward its work. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was also in existence, but was devoting itself almost wholly to work among British subjects in Canada. The Church Missionary Society had just been established. The British Baptist Society was seven years old, and Carey had been sent to India. The London Missionary Society was five years old, and had begun work in Tahiti, in South Africa, and India. In Germany and Denmark, no missionary society 127 128 A Century had been organized. In continental Europe, the Moravians were the only church which was undertaking to carry out the great commission. THE STATUS AT THE CLOSE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. During the last twenty-five years of the nineteenth century the missionary spirit in England increased rapidly. Extensive revival movements had quickened the life of the churches, and they became more aggressive and consecrated. In our own country, perhaps the most marked movement was that of the Student Volunteers. Remarkable advance was made in the evangelization of India. In China, the period was one of un- precedented extension and growth. Outbreaks, with destruc- tion of property and loss of life, were frequent, and many mis- sionaries sealed their consecration with their life's blood. In Japan, the influence of native Christians has been far in excess of their numbers. The native church itself has un- dertaken a movement for the evangelization of the whole coun- try in the present year. This, of course, involves but the mer- est heralding of the gospel of Christ. This is especially so in those parts of the empire where Jesus' name has never been heard. There is a revival of attention to South America, long called the neglected continent. In Africa, the British societies made decided gain, and have largely increased their complement of missionaries. The slavp. trade was almost destroyed, and the Congo and Uganda witnessed the conversion of multitudes. American missionary societies made decided advances in Egypt, Syria, Turkey, and Persia. EXHIBIT OF AGENCIES. At the New York Conference, Dr. James S, Dennis sub- mitted the following authoritative report: Societies actively engaged in missionary effort, 249; societies supplementing by service in special forms and phases of work, 200 ; women's so- cieties, 88; annual income, for 1898, $19,126,120; total of for- eign missionaries in the field, 15,460; total of native agents, unordained and ordained. 77,338; total of communicants. Room in tiii, 1'ktkii Kk.aii' IIomk, Where tlie Uniled Brethren Pilgrims Worsliiped. The Outlook for Missions After a Century 129 1,317,684; admitted to the church during the last reported year of the century, 100,000; attendance in Sunday school, 771,928; total of the Christian community, 4,414,236; educational in- stitutions of all grades, 20,407; pupils in schools, 1,049,378; translations of the Bible, entire or in part, 427; total annual circulation of the Bible, entire or in portion, 2,535,466 ; total annual circulation of books and tracts, 14,494,098; mission publishing houses and printing presses, 148; total annual out- put, 10,561,177 copies; periodicals published in the vernacular on various fields, 366; total annual circulation, 297,245; hos- pitals in operation under missionary auspices, 355; dispen- saries, 753 ; total of patients treated annually, 2,579,651 ; total of separate treatments at the dispensary or outside, 6,647,840; orphanages, 213; inmates, 13,039; leper homes and hospitals, 90; inmates, 5,166; schools for the blind and deaf mutes, 30; inmates, 500; missionary training institutions in Christian lands, not including theological schools and seminaries, 87. There has been an incessant growth of missionary service, as indicated by the steady increase of missionary agencies during each decade of the past century. From 1649 to 1800, 12 mis- sionary societies were formed; 1800 to 1830, 22 societies were formed; 1830 to 1840, 16 societies organized; 1840 to 1850, 25; 1850 to 1860, 34; 1860 to 1870, 41; 1870 to 1880, 57; 1880 to 1890, 92 ; 1890 to 1900, 100. RAPIDITY OF MOVEMENT FOR THE EVANGELIZATION OF THE WORLD. The world is hastening in great projects of every sort. Many of these enterprises are closely allied to the conversion of the world. The old Mediterranean was for years the very center of the world's commerce and trade. We confidently expect the next few decades to place the Pacific in close competition with the Atlantic in relation to commerce, travel, etc. The eye of the world is turning from the populations that gather about the Atlantic to those that are about the Pacific. There are limitations to the developments that grow out of geographical discoveries. The day when the map of the world can be changed by discovery is forever past. From our Golden Gate 9 130 A Centura/ the outlook is not to a new world, but to the Orient, hoary with age. The event that will make the closest approach in im- portance to the discovery of the New World will be the final great geographical event — the construction of the Isthmian Canal. Search the world's map, and you can find no project that can possibly parallel it. The cutting of the Suez Canal was a great thing for the world, the chief advantage probably accruing to Great Britain. The construction of the Isthmian Canal will place the United States at a relatively greater ad- vantage. The position of the Pacific Ocean, from the commercial standpoint, must then be that o,f final supremacy. No other isthmus will remain to be severed. As to population, it is worthy of note, as stated by Dr. Strong, that five hundred mil- lions of people, or one-third of the human race, are now resi- dents of lands that border on the Pacific. India, with a popu- lation of about three hundred million, may, for commercial purposes, be reckoned as on the Pacific. It is apparent that vast resources are at the command of this one-third of the world's population. The lands that border on the Pacific are capable of sustaining a vastly increased population. The popu- lation of Europe is one hundred and six and nine-tenths to the square mile; Asia, fifty-seven and seven-tenths; Africa, fif- teen and seven-tenths; North America, thirteen and eight- tenths; South America, five and three-tenths; Australia and Siberia, one and four-tenths. When the populations of the countries which have shore lines on the Pacific Ocean have become as dense as that of Europe, these countries will have a population equal to that of the entire globe at the present time. The geographers tell us there is as much tillable land in America as in all Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, or about ten million square miles. The Encyclopedia Britannica is authority for the statement that the American continent, when fully developed, can afford sustenance for three billion six hundred million people. The resources of that part of North America having shore line on the Pacific have never been fully estimated. Australia is des- The Outlook for Missions After a Century 131 tined to be developed in a marvelous degree. This island has already produced one billion seven hundred millions of gold. The four million inhabitants of Australia have to their credit the respectable sum of seven billion, or seventeen hundred and fifty dollars per capita, while their foreign trade amounts to the enormous sum of one billion per year. On the western fringe of the vast Pacific are to be found the Malay Peninsula, or Siam, French India, Formosa, Corea, Borneo, Sumatra, Java, Luzon and the lesser Philippines, Japan, and China. In all these countries great changes are sure to come soon in the methods of living, and this will be equal to a large increase in population. In all of these lands a vast increase of population is permissible before the proportion is equal to that of other countries. China is only one-half as densely populated as France, and if China were even as densely populated as Japan her population would be one billion one hundred and seventy- two million. Farther north on the Pacific lies Siberia, much larger than all Europe, with a population of but one and a fraction per square mile. Great inducements for emigration are now being held out by the Czar of Kussia. It is inevitable that Siberia will have, before many years, a vast population. It is evident that, by a vast increase in population, by the development of almost untouched resources, and by a higher standard of living sure to obtain among the present populations of countries con- tiguous, the Pacific Ocean is destined to be the world's greatest commercial highway. The present total of yearly commerce on the Pacific is five million dollars, and Hon. John Barrett says that it is in the earliest stages of development. Pacific lands produced, in 1898, a hundred and seventy million eight hundred thousand of gold, while all the rest of the world pro- duced but a hundred and fifteen million, nine hundred and ten thousand; of silver, a hundred and ninety-two million, a hundred and eighty thousand, as against twenty million, five hundred and ninety-eight thousand from the rest of the world. The Pacific Ocean is a great sapphire set in a rim of gold and silver. "We now speak of San Francisco as three thousand 132 A Century jiiiles from New York, but the time will come when New York -will be three thousand miles from San Francisco." PREPARATIONS FOR SOLID ADVANCE. The great movement known as the Student Volunteer Move- ment, having its origin at a meeting of American and Canadian students, in 1896, has adopted for its watchword, "The evan- gelization of the world in this generation." The organization of the Student Volunteers for foreign missions now embraces all civilized lands. During the last ten years more than two thousand have gone to the front. Their watchword is domi- nating an increasing number of intelligent people. It ex- presses an inspiring ideal, the task of our generation. It ex- presses a fundamental and most urgent duty. It means the giving to all men a fair opportunity of knowing Christ and becoming his followers. This involves the adequate distribu- tion of missionary agencies and the omnipotent ministry of the Holy Spirit. It means the preaching of the gospel to those -who are now living. Our relation to this responsibility ob- viously means in our lifetime. The unevangelized, for whom we are especially responsible, live in this generation. The enlightened people, upon whom this responsibility rests, are those of the present age. This great work cannot be effected except a sufficient number of enlightened people accept their obligation. The responsibility of the unevangelized begins when they have heard an intelligent message of Christ. This enterprise not only calls for urgent and aggressive effort, but also for persistence and thoroughness. When the enlightened people of this generation shall have discharged their obligation to the unevangelized, we shall find that, in advance of all human agency, God has been at work in mighty power. The evangelization of the world in this generation is a means to an end. An infinity of betterment for the world lies beyond this stage. This enterprise of evangelizing the world is our imperative duty, because we owe all men the gospel. 2' he Outlook for Missions After a Century 133 This is our duty, for all men need Christ. The need o£ the non-Christian world really beggars description. They live under a burden of sorrow, suffering, and sin of which we can. have no adequate conception. We only need to consider tha testimony of the thousands of missionaries who are next ta heathenism to be convinced of the powerlessness of the non- Christian religions. The gospel of Christ is the one remedy^ for human sin and guilt for the people of all lands. All peo- ple and nations have a capacity for Christ. He is able to sat- isfy and save the people of all races and tongues. The duty of Christian and enlightened people is, therefore, self-evident- What shall be the fate of these unevangelized millions of this- generation ? We only need to reflect as to our own poor hearts- to know what they all need. To have a knowledge of Christ is to incur a debt to every man without him. This obligation is a most serious one. We dare not undertake to g-ppropriate the gospel for our own ex- clusive use. Christ tasted death for every man. Before God'& intention all the nations and races are one. We know their need. We know the only remedy. They are within our reach.. We are able to go or send. The attitude of our hearts should be expressed in the significant words of a missionary on the- field: "Give me thy heart, O Christ, thy love untold, that I, like thee, may pity, like thee, might preach, for round me spreads on every side a waste, drearier than that that moved thy soul to sadness; no ray hath pierced this immemorial gloom, and scarce these darkened, toiling myriads taste even a few drops of fleeting, earthly gladness as they move on, slow,, silent, to the tomb." Let ours be the generation with sufficient alertness, courage, and consecration to fulfill the unrevoked and last command of our Lord. "Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say ?" The evangelization of the world in this generation is essen- tial to the best life of the Christian church. To know our duty, and do it not, is sin. Neglect and dis- obedience touching this great work is consuming the heart- 134 A Centm-y blood and power of our churches. In many instances this accounts for our weakness and want of growth. On this ac- count we suffer loss of vitality and power. The church of to- day needs to take on her heart an object great enough to engage all her power and attention. Nothing short of this respon- sibility accepted will ever call out and utilize the unconsecrated power of Christendom. "The taking of this great project upon her heart will mean the salvation of the church from her great- est perils — ease, selfishness, luxury, worldliness, and low ideals." It will necessitate and promote real Christian unity, thus pre- venting a large waste of force. It will react on Christian lands with infinite blessing. Nothing will so promote the work of home evangelization and revival as will this vast enlargement of foreign missionary force and operation. It is the testi- mony of history that missionary epochs have invariably wit- nessed the greatest activity and spiritual vigor in the home church. The next great revival in Christian lands is sure to come in connection with a general and mighty advance in world evangelization. Patriotism and loyalty to Christ unite in impelling us to a great advance movement. The largest manifestation of Christ to us as individuals and as churches is dependent upon our obedience in this matter. Obedience will bring the overwhelming, victorious, overawing presence of the Holy Spirit. The ohligation to give the whole world a knowledge of Christ is an urgent one. The present generation is rapidly passing away. If we do not give them the knowledge of Christ, who will? Christen- dom has all too long been committing the evangelization of the heathen to coming generations. No coming generation can love and obey God for us. We cannot commit to them our share of preaching Christ to a heathen world. The present generation is face to face ivith an unexampled crisis in all unevangelized lands. The task of coming centuries will be made incalculably difficult if we shall delay. Our generation confronts unparalleled opportunities. No other generation has ever known so fully the world's need or had such facilities The Outlook for Mlssioris After a Century 135 for supplying it. The forces of evil are not deferring their operations to the next generation. It would seem as if they sought the full consummation of their deadly work in, and with this generation. Herculean efforts in world evangeliza- tion are called for in order that we may, in some measure, neutralize and supplant the effects of the sins of our own peo- ples. "Because of the infinite need of men without Christ; because of the possibilities of men of every race and condition who take Christ as the Lord of their lives ; because of the com- mand of our Lord, which acquired added force as a result of nineteen centuries of discovery, of opening of doors, of experi- ence in the Christian church; because of shameful neglect of the past; because of the impending crisis and the urgency of the situation in all parts of the non-Christian world; because of the opportunity for a greatly accelerated movement in the present; because of the danger of neglecting to enter upon a great forward movement; because of the constraining mem- ories of the cross of Christ and the love wherewith he loved us, it is the solemn duty of the Christians of this generation to do their utmost to evangelize the world." DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY OF EVANGELIZING THE WORLD. External to the church on mission fields. Because of the scattered population. The problem involves almost, if not quite, one-half of the race. In India, nine-tenths of the popu- lation are located in over seven hundred thousand villages. It is estimated that there are a million villages in China. A few lands are not yet open to the missionary. These are Thibet, Afghanistan, and parts of Arabia. There are political diffi- culties, such as the opposition of governments to the propaga- tion of the gospel. In a few countries the church and state are yet connected closely. For instance, Kussia, Turkey, parts of Europe and India. Unjust and selfish treatment of non-Chris- tian nations by nations that are nominally Christian. Influence of opium wars upon China, extorted treaty concessions, Erench protectorates in Africa, the political 136 A Century efforts and influence of Roman Catholics in various countries. Identification in Japan of Christianity with disloyalty to the emperor. In India, the identification of patriotism with adherence to the faith of one's an- cestors. The influence of unscrupulous traitors, godless sail- ors, soldiers, and other foreigners who visit non-Christian coun- tries. These far outnumber the missionaries, and their influ- ence is powerful and damaging. Social customs and habits of heathen populations. Their traditions have been handed down through many centuries. In many instances the confession of faith in Christ not only means social ostracism, but the for- feiture of life itself. In China and parts of Japan, the re- straints of village and family organization are great hin- drances. In India, all these social difficulties are embraced in the one word "caste." The tendencies of all these are to forbid or make exceedingly difficult independent choice of Christ. Multiplied thousands of the unevangelized cannot read. In Brazil, sixty per cent, of the people are illiterate. In India, nine hundred and ninety-four out of every thousand women cannot read, and in China the proportion is still greater. The intellectual conceit and vanity of the so-called learned classes of China and India. Difficulties of the lan- guage. Many of the non-Christian languages have no words to express the fundamental ideas of the gospel. Towering over all other difficulties of an external character are those of a religious and moral character. Confucianism, Hindooism, Mohammedanism, and Buddhism number their adherents by the hundreds of millions. Many of these religions are hoary with age. The very triumphs of Christianity have aroused them to a final struggle. Reaction from the decay of confidence in these false religions. The circulation of infidel and ration- alistic literature in Japan and India. The great degradation of uncivilized tribes. All these reveal a soil preoccupied by noxious growths. The dullness of the moral sense. The su- preme obstacle is sin. God, the Holy Spirit, must call, awaken,, save. The Outlook for Missions After a Century 13T DIFFICULTIES WITHIN THE CHURCH ON THE MISSION FIELD. So many of the Christians are extremely poor. Lack of spirituality. Weakness in testimony. Want of the missionary spirit. Lack of the missionary spirit in native leaders. In the missionaries themselves. Physical peril from deadly cli- mate and fearful sanitary conditions. Failure to come into close touch with the life of the native Christians. The wide divergence between the customs of the people of the Orient and the Occident. Failure to overcome mutual distrust and sus- picion. Difficulty of mastering the language of the people. Of maintaining a triumphant and ever-expanding spiritual life- Lack of association with deeply spiritual people. Lack of con- ferences, conventions, and other great religious assemblies. DIFFICULTIES WITHIN THE CHURCH IN CHRISTIAN LANDS. Misconceptions as to missionary work and obligations. Fail- ure to advance beyond the view that the evangelization of the world is optional. Failure to appreciate the necessity of preach- ing Christ to all men. Failure to realize that the unevangel- ized millions are hopeless as long as they are Christless. Want of unity and cooperation among the home churches, growing out of denominationalism, isolation, pride, jealousy, and mis- understandings. Overlapping, friction, and waste of force at home. A secularized and self-centered church. Lack of missionary pastors. CONCLUSIONS. No advantage in overlooking the existence, number, and greatness of difficulties. We must deliberate and then dare. Not one of the difficulties, or all combined, are insuperable. Diffi- culties of equal moment have been overcome during the last fifty years. During this time more than seven hundred millions of people have been made accessible to missionary work. God and faith have never announced any land as inaccessible. High-caste Hindoos have been converted as well as conceited Moslems. Missionaries have* won remarkable trophies among peoples the most degraded and benighted. Dr. Griffith John, forty-five 138 A Century years a missionary in China, says: "I do not consider the difficulties external to the church of vital importance. The difficulties within the church at home are the only ones that trouble me." All are as nothing before a church filled with the spirit of the great commission. Those who are at the front and on the firing line declare that all the difficulties must go down before a Spirit-inspired church. We must look at the diffi- culties through God and reckon his power commensurate with the responsibility he lays upon us. Difficulties were never cal- culated to unnerve us. They should intensify our activity. They exist to be overcome. They should drive us to God. Not- withstanding all the difficulties, judging by the missionary im- pulse and success of the first century, and in anticipation of the fullness of God's blessing, the great work can be done. THE ADAPTATION AND EQUIPMENT OF THE CHURCH OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. I. L. Kephart, D. D. The church is God-ordained. It is his organized force for establishing the kingdom of righteousness in this world. Through it he aims to bring mankind into a saved relation to himself. The church's working instrument is the fundamental truth that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God. Its founda- tion is the power of that truth, when re The Refokjiei) ciiLitcii, 1-"i:i:i)Ki;u'K. Md. It was from lliis chun-li tliat otterbiMii was locked during liis pastorate between 17(10 and 17()"). His carncsi uvanjielifal preaching awakened oppo- sition to the extent tliat a majority determined to get rid of him. To etteet this thev locked the ehurch door. Adaptation and Equipment of the Church 145 in the higher social circles. What is needed in our pulpits of the twentieth century is men who, like Peter and John, are brave enough to brook public opinion, declare the plain gospel in a Christlike, loving spirit, and say, "We ought to obey God rather than men." 3. The church of the twentieth century needs a much larger equipment than she now has of earnest, consecrated lay workers, both men and women. While it is the special work of the ministry to give themselves to the preaching of the word, it is certainly the duty of the laity to give themselves more effectively to the business interests and the social work of the church. This special feature of the original church organization (see Acts 6:3, 4) has been far too much over- looked; hence, there is great need of return to primitive methods in this regard. The crying need of the church to-day is a wonderful awakening in the direction of attendance of all the members at the stated public services. The weakness of the church to-day is the great lack of interest on the part of the masses of her membership in the work of the church. Members who do not attend divine service once in a month show thereby that they care not for the work in which thje church is engaged. 4. An essential part of the equipment of the church of the twentieth century is an adequate supply of church literature. The church and the home are the two great saving institu- tions of society. Protect the home by supplying it liberally with pure, inspiring reading matter and you build up the church. Demoralize the home and the church is weakened at its foundation. Hence, the church of the twentieth century must not only seek to conserve the personal piety of the mem- bers of the home, but it must make war upon and overthrow the legalized iniquities that so insidiously besot parents and corrupt children. This can be done largely by supplying the homes with periodicals and books, the very best possible. The present is distinctly a reading age, and the years as they come and go will continually advance in this direction. To save 10 146 A Century the people from being polluted with the trashy, the church must supply them with the best. To reach and instruct the people, and make them more and more churchly and active in church work, they must be informed through live, high- grade, religious periodicals of what the church is doing, and of matters of importance as they transpire in the world. And to this end the church, in her various branches, must main- tain publishing houses that are abreast of the very best the world can afford. Lastly, an equipment is needed that will effectively em- phasize and push world-wide evangelism. This implies vigor- ous missionary, church erection, young people's, and Sunday- school organizations. True, these already exist, and are main- tained by every branch of the church worthy the name, but the twentieth century work to be done demands that they all be consantly increasing in zeal and efficiency. fThe outlook is inspiring. The workers fall, but the work goes on, for, in the language of the poet, "Humanity sweeps onward; Where to-day the martyr stands, On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands ; For in front the cross stands ready, and the crackling fagots bum, And the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return To gather up the scattered ashes in history's golden urn." PART V. Jubilee Celebration at Otterbein Church BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, MAY 14, 1901. The culminating service of the centenary celebration was held in the Otterbein Church, Baltimore, Maryland, where Otterbein, the founder of the United Brethren Church, was pastor at the time of his death. On May 14, an excusion train left Frederick, Maryland, carrying between five and six hun- dred persons — Bishops, delegates to General Conference, mem- bers of the Woman's Board, and others, going on the pilgrim- age to Baltimore. The morning was clear, the air cool and invigorating. A little before 10 A. m., the party landed in Baltimore, and was met by Eev. A. Schmidt, pastor of the old Otterbein Church, and others, and conducted to the church. As the pilgrims approached, the bell rang out a vig- orous welcome, and the party filed into the large audience chamber, crowding every nook and corner, aisles and gallery, the great pipe organ discoursing inspiring music all the while. The church had been recently beautified, inside and out, and was richly decorated with flowers, and a large portrait of Otter- bein, in oil, set in a wreath of evergreen decked with white and red roses, hung in the recess above the pulpit. Bishop N. Castle, D. D., the senior Bishop of the denomination, pre- sided, and delivered THE OPENING ADDRESS. When Paul took his stand on Mars Hill, amid the classic glory and boast of Grecian philosophy, and looked around on the famous mountains, valleys, and seas of Greece, he took occasion to utter some of the most sublime truths of our holy 147 148 A Century Christianity. He proclaimed the true God; his universal su- premacy in the world of mind and matter, his ubiquity, his creative and redeeming power, and his final adjudication of the affairs of his moral universe. As Paul found occasion, in doubtless a more magnificent material outlook than we possibly have to-day, for the utter- ance of these great, fundamental principles, may we not hope to find themes and speech befitting this splendid and magnificent occasion, though solemn, that finds us in this old, historic church? How the voices of a vanished century come ringing down through its aisles and hallways, mingling with our voices within these sacred walls ! Brethren, we do not meet alone in this church to-day. Out from behind the seen stands the unseen, a very cloud of wit- nesses from all lands and from all time. We are to-day a cen- ter of a great company. May we be worthy of this presence and of this day in this holy place ! What an inheritance we have entered into! What a large fellowship of the past bids us onward! What a future of op- portunities invite us forward ! How much better our day than the days of the fathers ! God meant that the days should grow better and better. It is said in the eleventh chapter of He- brews, referring to the ancient worthies, that "God provided," or foresaw, "some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect." What an overwhelming thought that we, in our day, and by our services, are perfecting the lives and the work of the fathers! No marvel that the twelfth of Hebrews presents that wonderful perspective, where gallery on gallery, and tier on tier are crowded with excited and expectant faces, watching the progress of the church through the cen- turies. What a responsibility to sustain this work of the past! It cost too much to suffer decline and final failure. What if the sons of the Republic let liberty perish? Go back to old Inde- pendence Hall, in Philadelphia, and look at that table on which a memorable document awaited the signature of men. Around it stood a sober-looking company of heroes, with the Jubilee Celebration at Otterbein Church 149 question before them, "Shall we sign it, and, if need be, seal it with our blood?" The decision was made. They signed it, and the greatest republic and the greatest nation on the face of the earth was born. This was a crisis-hour, and God had the men for the hour. These brave men did more than they knew. To-day we stand at the head of nations. We are lead- ing the world toward a newer and grander civilization. Our growth as a nation is phenomenal. In 1607 we numbered 102 souls. Now, in our home dominion, we number about seventy millions. What history we have made during a century of national life ! What institutions we have builded ! What prin- ciples we have developed! What a country we have, and still we are growing. The sun never goes down on our territory. He slips his cable, and the shimmering light of day fades on our Philippine possessions only to transform New England into a scene of glory. We applaud earthly heroes who, when dying, bid men fight. We catch up the last words of Marmion, and, turning them into poetic form, shout, "Charge ! Chester, charge ! On ! Stanley, on !" But when we have traced the moral heroes of the world, as they have fought the battles of faith, or, as Paul phrases it, "the good fight of faith," all military glory pales and grows dim in the comparison. What has not faith conquered? In the beginning of time it conquered death, putting a man straight into heaven, it saved from the overthrow of the world, made a highway in the sea, crumbled mighty fortifications, conquered kingdoms, tamed wild beasts, rendered fire and sword harm- less, scattered hostile armies, gave mothers their children from the dead, and endured, in a glorious triumph, all manner of torture and privations — mockings, scourgings, bonds, imprison- ments, stoning, wandering in deserts and in mountains, and living in dens and caves of the earth — all that a better resur- rection might be obtained. This same power sustained and rendered valiant the fathers and the pioneers of our Church. No other power could have done this. It was seeing Him who is invisible that stayed them amid the desolation of their wilderness life. We are the succes- 150 A Century sors of such illustrious heroes, and the heritors of such a glorious past. Will we sustain all its wealth of suffering, trial, and triumph? If we do not, then it must remain forever in- complete. They, without us, cannot be made perfect. We, as the children of Otterbein, are carrying his work forward to larger triumph and greater completion. I am sure we have something to prize, something to be thankful for, something to be loyal to, and something worthy of perpetuation. How we ought to be encouraged by such a past! If the scene in the twelfth chapter of Hebrews represents the gath- ering of the past to witness and encourage the present, how we should zealously and loyally strive for its perpetuity and en- largement ! We do not have to lay foundations, to begin things. We have only to carry things forward, to keep them moving, to complete the work so well begun. Paul said, "As a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon." If Otterbein is permitted to look on this scene to-day, I am sure his fears are all and forever allayed as to whether the work vdll stand and endure the fiery test. With this gathering of his children from all sections of this great country, and from beyond the seas, in this centennial General Conference, he must find the strongest guarantee that his work is abiding, and that he did not live and labor in vain. Who can tell the value of a man? What, the value of Co- lumbus ? America, is the answer. What, the value of Washing- ton? The mightiest republic on earth, is the answer. What, the value of a Lincoln ? The freedom of four millions of slaves, the answer. What, the value of a Wesley? A church number- ing her converts by millions, the answer. What, the value of Otterbein? A church the most American and democratic in government, evangelical and catholic in spirit, and standing for equality of rights and reformatory in morals, the answer. Influence is immortal. "The righteous shall be had in ever- lasting remembrance." However enduring monuments may be, they finally crumble. The dangerous and desolating years reduce granite and marble to dust. Here we stand and listen Jubilee Celebration at Otterbein Church 151 to the swash of waves on the beach of a sea stretching shore- less and unrimmed. How the billows break and boom over sunken forms of beauty and love ! We tread upon the genera- tions of sixty centuries. Agencies of death sweep the genera- tions away as with a flood. Where is there a table without an empty chair ? A hearthstone without a vacant place ? A way- side without a grave ? Who of us that has not some one under the "green of the grass and the blue of the sky" ? Now, how may we best overcome this awful oblivion? How best forestall the forgetfulness of the future? Is -there an unfailing way by which one may fix his name in the affectionate memory of the world around him? Certainly. Enthrone Christ where it is his supreme right and pleasure to reign, and death cannot obliterate such a life. That life survives the shock of the sepulcher. Influences set in motion by holy men survive all time. Jesus said, "He that liveth and believeth in me shall never die." The influence of such lives builds what is greater than kingdoms and republics. A distinguished, Southern orator, when, for the first time in the capital of the nation, said, as reported, "Here is the home of my nation." A few weeks after this he spent a night in an old-fashioned country home, where the Bible was read, and the children gathered around the family altar in common fellowship and prayer. On leaving this home, he said, "I was mistaken in Washington, That pile of marble, magnifi- cent as it is, is not the home of my country, where are reared the men and women of my country." What a tribute to Chris- tian influence! Why are we in the church of Otterbein and at his grave? We wish to keep his memory green and his influence fresh and vigorous. We have poured forth a very exodus from our homes to this sacred spot, that we may freshen the cherished memories of earlier years. Here is youthful manhood, with those whose years are multiplying upon their heads, but in heart we all per- sistently refuse to grow old. We have all honored ourselves by coming to this sacred spot. These ancestral memories ought to be kept alive. We should remember the best deeds and the 152 A Century truest lives of the past. It is a great stimulus to keep in mind that we have ancestors whose names are in the annals of an honored past. In Otterbein and his coadjutors we have names worth remembering. ADDRESS OF WELCOME BY REV. A. SCHMIDT. In the name of the board of trustees of this church, and of the congregation, I greet the honored General Conference, our worthy Bishops, the ministers, the lay delegates, and all visitors and friends, most heartily, and bid them welcome to the centennial celebration in this church, the mother church of the United Brethren in Christ. We stand upon memorable historic ground, upon the very spot where one of the greatest divines of America labored. The revered Father Otterbein, the founder and first Bishop of our Church, preached the gospel here from 1774 until 1813, a period of thirty-nine years, in the power of the Holy Spirit. One hundred and fifteen years old is this church, but in spite of her old age she stands before us to-day grown young again. In her new garments she appears an adorned bride, or, still more appropriately, as an honored mother, who, especially on this festival day, rejoices over the thousands of daughters and the hundreds of thousands of children which have been born to her in the course of this century. With youth renewed stands the house of God, but equally so the present congregation, which, in spite of its existence of one hundred and twenty-seven years, is as spiritual and as full of vitality as one hundred years ago, in the days of Otterbein. Although we have a goodly number of fathers and mothers in Israel, the congregation is made up for the most part of young persons and brothers and sisters in the prime of life, who consider it an honor to be members of this honorable old church. I, too, esteem it an honor and an especial privilege that for eight years I have been permitted to preach the gos- pel here, where Otterbein labored so many years with great blessing. Jubilee Celebration at Otterbein Church 153 This church is considered the mother of the other United Brethren churches in Baltimore. Through her own spiritual power, and her financial help, seven churches have been es- tablished in this city. Five of these are growing. Upon these the mother looks with pride and interest. Unfortunate- ly, two have died, one in infancy, and one more mature. But this old Otterbein Church is not only the mother of the United Brethren churches in Baltimore, but of the United Brethren churches everywhere. She is entitled to this honor as the first and oldest United Brethren church. Here Otterbein spent the greatest nimiber of years of his ministerial life. From this city he undertook his evangelical tours to Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia; from this point he organized and superintended churches; here it was that he appointed ministers, taught and instructed them, and in the parsonage of this church, the first United Brethren ministers were ordained. As his dust for eighty-eight years rests in front of this church, so his spirit rules in the church and makes itself felt in the assemblies and services which take place here. When one hundred years ago the conference was held in Frederick, Maryland, there were only thirty-one ministers in the denomination, who chose Otterbein to be their Bishop; to-day the church has 1,900 itinerant preachers, 493 local preachers, four Bishops, a goodly number of colleges, and one theological Seminary, with excellent faculties, where young men, who wish to consecrate themselves to the ministry, can receive a good preparation. One hundred years ago the church had found its way into three States — Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia — and to-day it is spread over the majority of States in the Union, and has successful missions in Germany, Africa, China, Japan, and on the island of Porto Rico. All the streams of blessing which in the course of the past century have, by means of the United Brethren Church, been poured out upon this land and other lands, find their source 154 A Century in this mother-church. Looking back upon this past century, we have abundant reason to thank God, and we must say, "The Lord has done great things for us; the Lord has done great things in us, and the Lord has done great things through us." I close now with the prayer that the Spirit, which Otter- bein possessed in so great a measure, may come upon us to- day, not only upon this assembly, but also upon the whole United Brethren Church, and upon all the churches in the world, so that during the twentieth century the kingdom of Jesus Christ may be extended to the uttermost parts of the earth; that all scepters and all crowns of this world may be laid at his feet, and all nations may worship him as their Lord and God. We consider it a great honor that this jubilee service should be held in this the old mother-church of the United Brethren in Christ, which was erected by our Father Otterbein. And what I said in German I will say again, May God bless this congregation assembled in this his own church, and may the Holy Ghost, that Otterbein possessed in so large a quantity, come down from heaven upon this congregation, upon all the United Brethren churches, and upon all churches. May the twentieth century bring the greatest success which this Church ever had. May the gospel be preached to all nations. May our Lord Jesus Christ be the King of all kings and the Lord of all lords. May this congregation here, and all United Breth- ren churches be the holy temple in which the Holy Spirit can dwell and be himself in all his glory and power, is my wish, and again I express my hearty welcome to the General Con- ference in this old house of worship. In introducing the program of speakers, Bishop Castle said : "I am very certain that, whether you understand all that this brother said in the first part of his address, you are all well assured that you are welcome. No one has ever known the German element of this Church, and associated with it, but that he has found out that the German heart is a very large Jubilee Celebration at Otterhein Church 155 lieart, and our German brethren and sisters prove well their extraction. They are the descendants of that great, broad- hearted man that could embrace one of another faith and an- other profession, putting his arms about him, and saying, 'We are brethren.' That is the temper of our German people. You may be well assured that you are welcome, and I am glad that, in this day of broader things and larger philanthropy and be- stowment of the spirit of unity, we have come to a brighter day for Christian work and Christian fellowship. "In Christ Jesus we are all one. There is no male and no female. We stand on one common level, and I am glad this Church accords to the womanhood of the country an equal right with the manhood, that equal right to the sister that she does to the brother to stand on the platform or in the pulpit or anywhere proclaiming the Word of Life and helping to re- deem this world. I do not know what we would do if it were not for the sisters of the Church. Woman has always stood close to Christ, and I do not marvel that she has, and I do not marvel that we have that early record of how Lydia was con- verted. It was all such a quiet, blessed conversion, just like pulling the thin veil away from the heart, — for I think it was not very thick, — just a thin veil away from the heart, and then opening up to that longing, hungry heart the great fountain of wealth of infinite Love. How Lydia was converted — what a quiet, blessed affair! And that is about the way it is with woman. Man has to have something of the heroic to bring him, but woman is brought by the quiet, easier methods of the gos- pel, and she is the more heroic when she is brought. She will endure more with larger patience than man. She is more loyal to Jesus Christ, his Son. She will follow him to his trial and to his crucifixion. She will be first at his grave and last at his tomb and first to proclaim the risen Lord. So I am glad in this celebration to have the honor and privilege of having woman associated with it. We honor ourselves by giving her this blessed place. We will now listen to a centennial poem by Mrs. L. K. Miller, editor of the Woman's Evangel, subject: 156 A Century A HUNDKED YEARS. A hundred years ! Oh, who that stands to-day In this great throng can grasp the meaning of A hundred years? To trace it backward day By day, and seek to gather up impact The doing, thinking, living of one soul — One single mortal life ! What heights of joy. What deeps of woe, what humdrum toil between ! And then the sum — the myriad lives that stretch The century through ! Oh, think ! — a hundred years ! Step softly here to-day, my friends ; right here Beside this mound, perchance the rustle of Angelic wings may touch thy ear or fan Thy cheek or brow ; one feels the spirit-tread Of saints who patient toiled a hundred years Ago, whose feet then echo waked on pavement stones ! With one wild bound we leap the century o'er, And stand right here, a century agone ! What stillness reigns in this small rustic town ! Just a few thousand souls to meet and greet ; But at the evening-tide on yon green sward, Or play-browned knoll, what sweet, unfettered glee — The children playing in the quaint old town! Oh, pause, sweet memory ! — No rush of cars, No madd'ing whistle's scream, or whirl of wheel ! No wires above our heads in quivering tones Like human heart-strings, bringing in the news Of weal or woe of yesternight forsooth, Or of this very morn — of good or ill — From myriad cities in the sisterhood Of States, or from the far-off sea-girt isles. Or from old England's shores, or the far East, Which sleeps in its dark heathen night as dead! Where myriad idols lift their hateful forms, An insult to the mighty God of heaven ! We little reck of all the wide world's woes ! Close to this town stand the primeval woods. In rich, unbroken green, stretching toward heaven ; From out whose wilds the timid, meek-eyed deer In wild bounds leap o'er dale or babbling brook ; Within whose depths crouch fierce and direful beasts Jubilee Celebration at Otterbein Church 157 Of prey ; while flocks of game tempt oft the shot Of hunter bold ; and wild birds clear and sweet Trill their glad songs, waking at early dawn The drowsy swain. And here, forsooth, the red man lurks the while, In the deep shadows of the wild, wild wood. Chafing in grief beneath the white man's rule ! Ah, think — recall ! An awful chasm is A hundred years. We listen for the voices of the men Who planned and wrought with hand, and heart, and brain, A hundred years ago ! Our grandsires they — Our fathers yet unborn ! Come, gather close about this sacred mound And let us hear again our grandsires speak From out the records of the hallowed past. What of our Church a hundred years ago? A little group we find — a handful mere, Who stood for God and right, who sought not fame, — Sought first to know His will who spoke from heav'n, Who sought not honors from the hands of men, But wept when honors came, nor deemed themselves Worthy to take the highest proffered place. Beside them stood, we know, their fair-faced dames — Stood by and onward urged them in their toil, Tho' silent oft the record of their deeds. We know they lived, and planned, and wrought, and prayed. And gathered up the tangled threads that make The warp and woof of life until "Well done" Was whispered from the throne — "Well done ; come home." Oh, honored grandsires and grandames ! we bless The God who gave you birth and sturdy soul To brave the formal church, the rigid times, The persecutions bold, that make men quail Of weaker spirit-mold. We sign your creed. We link our lives with yours, and here we stand, "United Brethren in the Christ," after A hundred years ! United still In Him, who came to seek and save the lost. Come closer to the sacred mound to-day — Come! Let us speak the praise of him who gave Us name and sturdy creed to suit the times ; Our own — our strong, heroic Otterbein ! 158 A Century God grant that more and more his robust worth May help mold characters of strongest cast To preach the living word to dying men. We hail this day of days that brought us here, To stand in sacred fellowship beside This tomb. This Church, his fittest monument, With colleges and school of sacred lore, With mission fields and martyrs' graves in far- Off heathen lands, and on old ocean's isles With true souls manned ! With hundred thousands whom the century won, And myriad youth and children linked in name — May these, all these, go marching down the years With torches in their hands — torches of truth ; May virtue grow more strong, and sin and greed Meet stern rebuke until our ministry To earth be crowned by Christ's "Well done, well done." Come, let us wake to see our mission true; Let us the voice of duty hear and heed ; Let us arise to freedom's star-lit height, For half we 're bound by pleasure's subtle chain ; Half worship we at shrines of ease and gold. Let us, with vision clear, our duty see. And haste, like Mary, from the tomb away To tell sad, hopeless brethren, Christ is ris'n. Behold, the far-off islands of the seas. Half-waking to discern their direst needs — The far-off heathen giant of the East Half opes his eyes, and moveth slight his frame ; But, crippled from his very birth, he lies A helpless beggar at Bethesda's Pool. Oh, risen Christ, bid us but touch his hand In thy great name, and he will rise, and walk. And leap for joy, and shout thy praise aloud, Till old earth's temples shall thy praise resound. Let us awake and rise ; the morning breaks ; The resurrection voice of spring is harped From every tree, and flower, and blade of grass — From every rill that gushes from the heart Of Mother Earth ; from every warbling bird ; Jubilee Celebration at Otterbein Church 159 Let us awake and rise ; the century calls ! The resurrection voice of Christ, as ne'er Before, is thrilling all the Christian world! Wide open swing old, rusty, heathen gates ; The future, full of promise, becks us on ! A new hope gilds the rosy East ; arise ! Let us enhance the glory of our King, Winning new saints to his rich heritage ! Then shall the King, the Lord himself, come down To claim his church — ^his bride-elect and chaste — To call his own to celebrate that feast — The promised marriage supper of the Lamh. THE POWEK AND INFLUENCE OF A SINGLE LIFE. W. J. Shuey, D. D. I ESTEEM it a distinguished honor to be permitted to make a brief address on this extraordinary and memorable occasion. To stand beside the sleeping dust of our spiritual progenitor is itself an inspiration sufficient to arouse the soul of every person in this presence to the most holy aspiration, both for greater usefulness in this life and a final meeting with the good and great man whose memory we are here to revere and honor. The name of Otterbein, at the end of a century, has lost noth- ing of its luster. On the other hand, the light of his earth life shines more and more as the ages pass by, and the ever- multiplying fruitage of that life appears. We are not here to revere Otterbein dead; but Otterbein living — living in his spirit and deeds and their abundant results. We are here to contemplate the influence and power of a single life as il- lustrated in this man's histoi*y. Born of godly parents, de^ prived of his father by death when scarcely more than a child, he was reared under the most tender solicitude and earnest prayers of a pious mother. A faithful and thorough student, by which he became noted for his learning and soundness of judgment, consecrated in heart and life to the service of God from his very youth, he early imbibed a burning desire to serve his Master. The brief time allotted us for this address forbids a review of Otterbein's youth and preparation for his life work. That he was a child of Providence seems as certain as earthly indications can de- termine. He who sees the end from the beginning and maps out all his purposes for the future knows what agencies are needed for the accomplishment of those purposes. A new and far away wilderness was being peopled and many of God's children from the old world were seeking their fortunes there. Wise and trained men, consecrated to unselfish philan- 160 o i* »1 S ? si 0 •" o -o Power and Influence of a Single Life 161 thropy and Christian leadership were needed to follow these multitudes, and guide them into righteous ways. Young men of vigorous constitutions and sturdy integrity must volunteer for this work. Prompted by an exalted missionary impulse, Otterbein for- sook native land and dearest earthly friends, and sought his field of labor in far off America. Without experience as a missionary and pastor, he was com- pelled to feel his way, and by personal tests, determine the methods best adapted to accomplish his noble aims; namely, the building up of believers and the salvation of souls. Correct habits of life and a clear knowledge of the theory and plan of salvation enabled him to awaken men to a sense of their sin- fulness and need of regeneration, and a witness of the Holy Spirit that they were born of God. That same Holy Spirit awakened him to a sense of his own need of a profounder and deeper spirituality for himself. A definite Christian ex- perience came to him and proved the very climax of his in- fluence and power over men as a winner of souls. With this new baptism as a soul-propelling power and enthusiasm, wherever he journeyed preaching a living gospel, he stirred his hearers to a like hunger and thirst after righteousness. With- out a conscious purpose on his own part to do so, God led him in various ways until he became the founder of a de- nomination of Christians, distinguished from its beginning for its insistence upon a radical conversion of the soul and a holy life. To properly estimate the measure of Otterbein's influence for good, is no easy task. The forces of his character and teach- ings were far-reaching, and all pervading. The tangible fruits of his life must come to our aid in this grasp. In the found- ing of an ever-expanding and energetic community of Chris- tian workers lay the means and outcome of his influence and power. While these abide and work, Otterbein will live and work. In studying the character and work of this godly man, we may well inquire, Wlierein did his strength lie? What were 11 162 A Century the forceful elements which lifted him like a towering peak above the surrounding plain ? We have time to emphasize only a few of those elements. First. He was a man of trained intellect, able to think, and grasp the truth in its very roots, and apply it to its most ex- alted and practical purpose. By his scholarship, he compre- hended the framework of the gospel, and, doing so, he believed il, and went forth to disseminate it among men. We gather from his life, as written by our own historians, and corrobo- rated by others, that Mr. Otterbcin was a profoundly learned man, commanding the highest respect of learned men. As an educated man clothed with divine power, he stands as the ex- ponent of a sanctified education. Second. Mr. Otterbein was a great and powerful preacher of the gospel. Especially was this true after he had entered into the fullness of the gospel of Christ by a mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost. All accounts we have of his efforts and of their results at the "great meetings," tend to prove this claim. He expounded the Word of God to the masses with great clear- ness, and, by his manner of presenting it, and tender sympathy for the sinner, his hearers were often moved to tears and re- pentance. He was the chief among his brethren as a preacher and leader in the bringing of men to God and a new life. His preaching was direct and practical. He did not "sugar coat" unwelcome truth; but drove the arrows of the gospel quiver to the very hearts of his auditors. Third. He was a trained leader of men. He framed his own creed and discipline, which creed and form of rules be- came the very nucleus of our present fundamental articles of faith and essential polity. Everjrwhere his wisdom in such matters was acknowledged, and the fact that Otterbein was the author and sanctioner of given teachings and rules of order, was sufficient guarantee of their wisdom and correctness. He was emphatically the founder of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. The "constitution" of the congregation beside whose walls we stand this day, provides in substance these fundamental re- Power and Influence of a Single Life 163 quirements : "The purity of the ministry; the piety of mem- bers; the necessity of attending faithfully on the means of grace, in public and in private; the propriety of class and prayer-meetings; the sacredness of the Sabbath, and how to spend it; the doctrines of the Church; that preachers must harmonize and sustain each other in the work of the Lord to the best of their ability. These points enter essentially into the rules of a Christian church, and upon the observance of them rests the usefulness and perpetuity of churches. As to the age of the Discipline of the Church of the United Breth- ren in Christ, it is of little importance, whether it be of yester- day or more than a century past ; but it is all-important that it be of the right character, and in the letter and spirit of the in- spired Word of God. In whatever light our present Discipline may be viewed, and however favorably adjudged by an intelli- gent community, we find its original germs traceable to Philip William Otterbein as early as 1785." Fourth. The character of Otterbein as a Christian. From his entrance upon his work in Lancaster, in 1752, until his fall- ing asleep in Jesus in 1813, the standard of ministerial piety in the American colonies and States was often far beneath the dignity becoming the sacred office of a religious teacher. It was no light matter that a missionary and reformer should be a holy and living epistle of God, "known and read by all men." It is said of Otterbein that "his character was pure; that as a minister of the gospel, he was solemn and serious. No light- ness in conversation marked his conduct in society. Digni- fied, yet simple as a child, in conversation open and free, yet no one could approach him but with respect, nor converse with him without feeling a sense of his superior intellect and purity of heart." Thus equipped in mind and heart, he stood a commanding figure before God and men. Want of time forbids further characterization of our exalted subject. The oldest historian of our Church, and a personal ac- quaintance of Otterbein, thus describes his end (Spayth's His- tory, page 136) : "We shall now view him on a dying bed. His day of life has been long and toilsome; but the evening came. 164 A Century and with it calmness and tranquillity. His sun was about to set with a smile, but in that smile, there was suffering from an asthmatic affection, which had affected him for some time, and which as his end approached became the more distressing. The fiiends that gathered around him were soon assured that his end had come. The Rev. Dr. D. Kurtz offered up at his bed- side the last vocal prayer, at the close of which, Otterbein re- sponded in these words, 'Amen, Amen'; it is finished. "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation" ' (Luke 2: 29-30). When able to speak once more, he said: 'Jesus, Jesus, I die; but thou livest, and soon shall I live with thee. The conflict is over and past. I begin to feel an unsi>eakable full- ness of love and peace divine ; lay my head on my pillow, and be still,' and stillness reigned in the chamber of death. The chariot of Israel had come and carried his great soul on high." For almost a hundred years his body has slept beneath this slab and soil, and awaits the resurrection of the just. Once more, and I am done. Again, what are the results of this one life? Taking the average membership of the Church Otterbein founded, from its birth, we have a spiritual population nearing a half million of souls. All the gifts and fruits of this vast army of workers are the outcome of this single life, and the ages to come, only, can round up the honor and glory of this influence and power. The assembling of this multitude by this sepulcher, gathered from many States of our civil Union, stretching from ocean to ocean, and from lakes to gulf should have only one over- shadowing purpose. It must be to gather fresh life and en- thusiasm for Christ from the memory and example of Philip William Otterbein. If it does not produce this effect, our coming will be vain and his soul will cease to go marching on in its exalted mission among men. "He, being dead, yet speaketh." Shall our ears be too dull to hear his voice and our minds too obtuse to ap- prehend the lessons he would teach us ? Power and Influence of a Single Life 165 I believe, I almost know, that every devout heart here present, joins with every other kindred soul, in one solid invocation to God that he, the mighty One, would here and now let fall upon this host of pilgrims the very fire and power of the Holy Spirit, and send us all abroad, over land and sea, to achieve mighty conquests for his kingdom. This company is composed of much of the cream of the United Brethren Church. The fact of your presence proves your interest in Otterbein and his mission to men. While here, let us seek more grace and better equipment for active work in the vineyard of our common Lord and Master. "Let brotherly love continue." Nay, more, let it grow to an indissoluble bond. Let all unworthy human ambition for per- sonal and selfish ends be eliminated from all minds and hearts. Let unchristian and unmanly church politics perish here by the grace of our immortal spiritual ancestor. As law-makers for the Church of Christ and office-bearers in the kingdom of God, drive from mind and motive all unworthy thoughts and desires for preferment. Let the spirit of Otterbein and Boehm and all the worthy fathers of our Church fill us to the brim, and let us seek only the will and good pleasure of our common Father. Let min- isters and people strive day and night, while life lasts, to carry the truth as it is in Jesus, to its full and final triumph. Then shall we all be crowned with immortality and eternal life. POINTS TO BE EMPHASIZED BY THE CHILDKEN OF OTTEKBEIN. Kev. H. S. Gabel. We have passed througli the formative and testing periods of our church history, which have been full of revelations and lessons. Out of our struggles there comes the assurance for a long and strong future, clearly demonstrating to the world our right to exist and perpetuate our mission among men. We have reached the era of shrewd and keen-eyed planning for future aggressiveness and enlargement. That this be done, as the children of Otterbein, in proving worthy of our noble ancestry, we should: 1. Exalt the influence of the deeds of our illustrious founder. The innate instincts for increased Christian activity are stirred to action in emulating the example of the heroic deeds of our sainted and honored Otterbein, who, by the Holy Spirit, was moved to shun and denounce a cold, formal church-life, as pre- sumptuous, and who emphasized the need of a vital union with Christ in heart and life as essential to religious growth and power, his heart burning with missionary zeal to deliver his heavenly message, impelling him to encounter derision and all manner of hardship, not for any personal aggrandizement, but solely for the salvation of men. This made him invin- cible and vouchsafed unto us such a goodly heritage in the grand Church of the United Brethren in Christ. The earthly immortality of Otterbein is inevitable in the heart of this Church, inasmuch as his children exalt his scholarly and spirit- ual life by championing and advancing his cause. 2. Perpetuate the spirit and faith of the fathers. The spirit of our denominational church can only be continued through the covenant of heredity, to preserve it a family in likeness and identity. Therefore, in conferences, conventions, and in the administration of the affairs of the Church, in the Seminary, Iannis to be Emphasized 167 and colleges, should there be conserved such devotion and loy- alty to the faith and principles of the fathers, as to plainly bear the stamp of their spirit. A departure from this would be a desertion from our divinely appointed field. Fidelity to our special, yet broad mission, will be a strong safe-guard against any threatened ritualistic tendencies, and enable us to contribute to the future, as they did in the past, for the power, honor, and glory of the Church. 3. Positive and spiritual preaching. With our greater ad- vantages, multiplied opportunities and increased responsibil- ities, there never was a time in the history of this church when such an imperative demand for spiritual power and equipment for service was felt as now. There is a growing need for our pulpits to discard feeble negations and proclaim strong, posi- tive truths, with the power of propelling conviction. The char- acter of the ministry will determine the character of the Church. A spiritual ministry will produce a spiritual church. Asserting the demands of a cultured ministry, it is nevertheless true, that there exists a deeper need for a stronger spiritual life. 4. Needs of weak and promising fields. The false notion that an educated ministry is but for the influential and well- established charges must not be encouraged. There are many weak and promising fields that can only be developed to their highest possibilities by the help of efficient and consecrated pas- tors. Notwithstanding the claims of supply and demand, the commercial idea as a factor in the administration of the itinerancy, dare not be countenanced in frustrating the Lord's plans. 5. Revivals and heart culture. Having been born in a re- vival of religion, the only successful course for the United Brethren Church in projecting her mission, is by the methods of revivals and evangelistic operations. Such efforts are the only hope for the salvation of many souls, for which we must own our responsibility. Associated with this work is the need of heart culture by systematic and thorough Bible study. Our converts must be taught to be Bible Christians. The spirit of this age must be met by heads clear and well-informed, and 168 A Century by hearts sanctified by the Holy Spirit. A Christianity of demonstration and emotion may be well, but no religion can have power and endure that has not for its basis an intelligent Biblical faith. 6. Claims of the general interests. The high standard of excellence of the general interests, makes a righteous claim for them to be more popularized. That they may gather strength for greater achievement, there should be infused broader im- pulses and a holier ambition in the thought of our people throughout the Church for these promulgating and indispen- sable agencies. 7. Christian beneficence. A stronger conscience of be- nevolence ought to obtain. There are many whose horizon,^ mental, moral, and spiritual is the rim of the little valley in which they live, who are self-centered, welcome no new idea, demur to new measures as innovations, declaim against for- eign missions, and, as a result, become selfish and unsympa- thetic in their natures and narrow in their views. Instruction on the ethics of Christian giving is urgent, to stimulate a more generous habit in enhancing the interests of the Church. Such a course of education will broaden the views and hearts of the membership upon the stern necessities of many faithful pastors and the burdened condition of the missionary and educational boards. 8. Strength of family piety. There should be emphasized the importance of domestic piety, family worship, child con- version, and pastoral care for the young. Parents who neglect the spiritual interests of their children betray their highest trust and neglect their greatest opportunities. Much of our influence depends upon the character of family government as administered by our people. The astmosphere of the United Brethren home is a true barometer of our religious power as a denomination. 9. Our deserving hoys. The history of the Church will doubtless be repeated, in that, out of the loins of her poor, will come the leaders of her future, and the men of the hour and for the occasion. There is greatness slumbering in some of our Points to be Emphasized 169 worthy poor boys, which only needs opportunity to be awakened. Out of these ranks may spring another Otterbein and another Weaver. Under existing conditions, it is almost impossible for them to acquire an education such as is required in this age. There are men of wealth within our reach who are disposed to make liberal donations for the help of such boys, if proper and specific measures are instituted by some of our schools. A want of interest and vigilance for this inviting and prolific field may cost us irreparable losses. The rightful opportuni- ties for our industrious and deserving boys should be in the institutions and on the works within the denomination. 10. Orphanage needed. There is a dependent class whose helpless condition, in deep silence, makes a plaintive appeal to the honor as well as to the sympathy of the Church. Because they cannot speak for themselves, seems to be the reason why the Church hitherto has been so derelict in its duty to- ward them. Dare we longer forbear to provide for the wants of our many defenceless orphans, and afford them a comfortable. Christian home, with the privileges of an edu- cation? This is too important and needy a department to be o-verlooked by the alert of this age. In leaving these children to the merciless world, with its awful dangers and alarming contingencies, we will continue to forsake those who especially need our protecting care. May the Church supply this need by inaugurating an immediate movement for the relief and assistance of her orphan children. 11. Moral reforms. True to our identity, as well as our history, we must stand at the front in the great moral battles of our nation. We dare not be silent when patriotism and duty call us to cry out against the destructive sins of the land. We must teach that the love for Jesus and the love for country are inseparable. In the moral conflicts waged in our country we must emphasize the duty of Christian citizenship, to abolish the liquor traffic, advance social purity, create peace and con- fidence between labor and capital, and for the supression of many public evils that are fostered in our land. If we shall con- serve the liberties of the nation, it will be by the faithful dis- 170 A Century charge of our stewardship. If the Spirit of God is not injected into the body politic, it will perish. 12. Hopeful outlook. Beloved children of Otterbein, there are great hopes for this church which our sainted fathers es- tablished and labored so heroically to perpetuate, but in order that these may be realized the same unselfish spirit and con- quering faith that actuated their deeds must be maintained and energize an entire denominational organism. The church which persecutors, obstructionists, and an ecclesiastical war could not wreck, a devitalized gospel and a time-serving spirit can bring to disaster. This being so, let us serve our dear Zion by keeping it in loyal allegiance with the Kings of kings and Lord of lords. 13. Devotion. How highly fitting on this eventful and tender occasion, within these sacred and historic walls, after a United Brethren century, and in the beginning of the twentieth century of the Christian era, that we place as a monument, not a cold, marble shaft in honor of our immortalized father, but a holy, aggressive and patriotic church, breathing his spirit. The flowers of pure and beautiful lives are the flowers with which to decorate Otterbein's grave. OUR YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE NEW CENTURY. J. P. LAJiDis, D.D. Children to-day, adults to-morrow, old men and women next day. In the school of training for service to-day, to-morrow the leaders and workers of the Church— the bishops, editors, secretaries, presidents of colleges, professors, presiding elders' pastors, class-leaders. Apprentices, clerks, hired hands to-day,* to-morrow the laymen of influence and wealth. To-day earn- ing pennies and nickels, to-morrow the owners and operators of farms, stores, factories, and banks. To-day in school, next day founders of schools, endowing colleges, professorships, scholarships. Nothing is more certain than that the children and young people will very soon stand where you now stand, who have borne the heat and burden of the day; they will oc- cupy the places which you now occupy, and which your prede- cessors passed to you but just yesterday. Is it not a matter for which you may be profoundly grateful that an army is in training— it may be, in many instances, imperfectly, but yet in some sense in training,— to take up the work which you must inevitably soon lay down ? Many of you have labored long and hard; you have suffered self-denial and sacrifice; you bear the scars of the conflict. Soon you will say with him around whose ashes we are assembled, "The conflict is over and passed," but if you are Christians and loyal United Brethren in Christ, the deepest longing of your hearts as to this world is that the cause for which you have fought, the bat- tle in which you have received your scars, and in which you fall shall be carried to triumphant issue; that those are in training who shall bravely snatch up the banner as it falls from your hands, and close up the ranks as the veterans sink to earth. It were idle to occupy your time in the indulgence of rhetor- ical or poetic fancy in seeking to depict the future, but it is 171 172 A Century not a mere play of fancy to take into our thoughts the forces operating under our eyes, which, if more complicated, are yet as certain as to their ends as are the natural forces operating in the physical world. With Patrick Henry, we may judge of the future from the past. We may make calculations as to re- sults from the forces and tendencies which we see at work, for "tendencies," as one says, "are prophetic." Carlyle says, "The centuries are all lineal children one of another." With what an inheritance do our yoiuig people start out! Never were times so auspicious or hopes so bright, or oppor- tunities so great or numerous, or prospects so inspiring as now.. The material, industrial, intellectual, and spiritual accumula- tions of all the past six thousand years are theirs. They enter the twentieth century, moreover, with the accelerated momen- tum engendered during the marvelous century which has just closed. This great inheritance which has fallen to the young people of the twentieth century, consisting of material wealth, ma- chinery, commerce, literature, education, schools, colleges, and other forces, is to he used in building up the kingdom of God — for perfecting our Christian civilization. God generally works through instrumentalities. Man can work alone through instrumentalities. To a greater or less extent, according to their relative adaptability, the same forces employed in our commercial and other material operations are employed in the moral, or spiritual sphere. Steam power, electric power, light, heat, chemical affinity are used, and will be more and more used in the intellectual and spiritual realms. It is true that intellectual and spiritual forces cannot be expressed in the formulae of physics or chemistry. We cannot say that so many steam pounds or steam tons have been transmuted into so much thought or intelligence, or that so many volts of elec- tricity have been transformed into so much righteousness or charity or faith, but these agencies are made the instruments for the operations of intelligence, thought, charity, faith, right- eousness. Our Young People in the New Century 173 The world was created for moral, or spiritual ends. As in man the physical being, including his material structure and the various mechanical, chemical, and vital forces and opera- tions, is but the hasis for the intellectual and moral elements of his nature, and created to serve them and to be their instru- ments, so in the world at large all that is helow the intellectual and moral and spiritual is intended to be their servants, their • instruments of operation. Some people seem to think nothing belongs to God or the kingdom of God except what can be ex- pressed in the terms of a theological creed or at least in ethical and religious formulsB. But God's "kingdom is over all," and all things are subservient to that kingdom, and to be con- sciously employed by the Christian for upbuilding and final universal recognition of that kingdom. No civilization, even if it call itself Christian, which has regard only to material €nds, will, or can long endure. Witness the civilizations of past history. The things that are unseen, spiritual, are the things that endure. While God transcends nature he is also immanent in nature, as he is immanent in humanity, and he uses the powers and operations of the one and of the other to bring about his ultimate ends in the creation of the world and of man. As wealth is an enormous power in every other department of human activity, so is it in the work of the church. In re- spect to this element of power, those upon whom will soon de- volve the interests of the Church start out with an iromense advantage, first, on account of its present great quantity; sec- ond, its continuous rapid increase ; and, third, the rapidly grow- ing sentiment as to the duty and privileges in the uses of wealth for God's cause. According to William E. Gladstone's estimate, "all the wealth which could be handed down to pos- terity produced the first eighteen hundred years of the Chris- tian era was equalled by the production of the first fifty years of the nineteenth century, and that as much more was produced between 1850 and 1870." According to trustworthy statistics, during the thirty years from 1860 to 1890, we in this country created and accumulated forty-nine thousand millions of dol- 174 A Century lars. Our wealth for some time past has been increasing at the rate of $7,000,000 per day. This, it is true, is not all con- trolled by Christians, but Kobert E. Speer estimated in 1898, three years ago, that "the share of Christians in the wealth of America was $20,000,000,000." But even the wealth of the un- godly and profane is made in a thousand ways to contribute to the operations of Christianity. In connection with this vast accumulation and rapid increase of wealth, consider that, through the Young People's societies, the missionary associa- tions, the pulpits of our own and other lands, and the religious press, the sentiment is being proclaimed as from the house-tops, and is meeting with widespread adoption, that men are but stewards of God, and that they must pay systematically a pro- portionate part of their wealth into the treasury of the Lord, and we see in the hands of those who succeed us a power almost inestimable for the accomplishment of spiritual ends. Even men who have been conspicuous only for their ability to ac- cumulate money are adding the weight of their words and ex- ample to the higher and worthier uses of money. Instance the words of the multi-millionaire, Andrew Carnegie, "I have often said that the day is coming, and already we see it dawn, in which the man who dies possessed of millions of available wealth, which was free in his hands ready to be distributed, dies disgraced." Is it, therefore, a foolish or fanciful prediction that the young people now in training, and their successors in the new century, will employ this gigantic power for "the glory of God and the salvation of men" ? As in the industrial world the powers of production and of work have been immensely multiplied through inventions ap- propriating and employing the forces of nature, so they have immensely increased the possibilities of the church. It is esti- mated that "in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, and France, there is steam power at work equal to the strength of 551,000,000 able-bodied men. Machinery is employed every- where in the application of power from twenty to a hundred times as effective as when applied by hand." True, men are not to be regenerated or justified or sanctified by the application of Our Young People In the New Century 175 machinery operated by steam or electricity, but the forces of steam, electricity, magnetism, chemical affinity, and others are employed now, and will be more and more employed in multi- tudinous ways in carrying on the operations of the church. In this respect the church workers of the new century have im- mensely the advantage over those working in the days of Otter- bein. When Otterbein came to America, for instance, the voy- age from Holland occupied almost four months; now our pala- tial steamships make the distance in six or seven days. In 1793, it took the great missionary, Carey, five months to go from Dover to Calcutta. Now the trip is made in three weeks. Judson, in 1812, was eleven months in going from Salem to Calcutta, now scarcely a month is required. The telegraph and ocean cable are constantly used by the church and mis- sionary societies. There are in operation more than 170,000 miles of submarine cable lines, and they are constantly multi- plying. The continents of Asia and Africa, like the continents of Europe and America, will soon be covered with a complete network of telegraphs. There are in the world 466,000 miles of railroads. These, too, are at the service of the church. Fifty years ago, it required six months of laborious travel to go from Baltimore to San Francisco ; now the distance is traversed in about four and a half days. Bishops, presiding elders, pastors, and other Christian workers are incessantly using the railroads and electric lines in reaching conferences and appointments. Telegraphs, telephones, ocean cables, photography, and many, if not almost all, the industrial inventions are in one way and another serviceable in the work of the church. The whole world is now made easily and quickly accessible by our marvelous means of travel, and almost daily communications can be had, and are had with the remotest parts of the earth. Men are nearer one another spacially; this brings them nearer intel- lectually, politically, socially, and religiously. This nearness begets neighborliness. The nations know one another better— their wants, needs, habits, their religious views, feelings, and necessities. A disaster happens in Calcutta to-day; to-morrow, in our generous country, money and provisions are accumulat- 176 A Century ing in a thousand places to start the next day on a swift voyage to the relief of the sufferers. All these appliances are rapidly increasing, which is only putting into the hands of our succes- sors increased facilities for reaching the world, evangelizing the world, converting the world. Mention should also be made of the schools and colleges. Think what our free schools are doing in America, as compared with fifty years ago. Reflect upon the improved methods of instruction. Schools are becoming more efficient; books and libraries are multiplying. Natural science is revolutionizing the thought, the business, the education, the religions ; we might even say, in some measure, the true religion of the world. Our conceptions of the greatness or immensity of God, his power, his wisdom, his creative skill and energy, his beneficence, are incalculably enhanced by the revelations of natural science. It is also clearing away the superstitions of the nations, and is helping to make religion a more rational thing to the minds of men. Sociology is opening up to the intelligent observation and understanding of students the hitherto unknown and un- suspected laws that govern society and social operations. These sciences are yet in their childhood, and are destined to be a strong handmaid to religion in the generations ahead of us. There are in our schools and 400 colleges in this land about 17,000,000 pupils and students. The people are becoming more intelligent, better educated. Knowledge is power. Culture is power. Greater than the power of the locomotive or the gi- gantic ocean steamer engine; greater than the forces of the thundering Niagara or the roaring cyclone or the belching vol- cano, is the intellectual and spiritual power locked up in every rational brain and heart. These trained, school- and college- trained, heads and hearts, are to have the work of the church in a few years. Our young people enter the twentieth century with a truer theoretical and a more practical idea of the brotherhood of man, a better knowledge of men in all lands, and a deeper, more brotherly sympathy for them. How marvelously and unex- pectedly God is using the commerce of the Christian nations of IS £ o - o Ou7' Young People in the New Century 177 America and Europe, their diplomacy, their arms, and even their greed, as well as their philanthropy, as in our war with Spain, to open and make easily accessible, not only the ends of the earth, but every nook and corner of it, to the Student Vol- unteers, 6,000 of them, and others, anxious to march out under the Christian banner, willing to suffer and die if only the for- tresses of superstition and idolatry and agnosticism can be stormed and captured for Christ. The spirit of him whose dust lies here was reproduced and carried to its greatest devo- tion in the heroic sacrifice of our Wests, Gomers, the Cains, Frankie Williams, the McGrews, and others of hallowed mem- ory, whose forms lie moldering in distant Africa. These are but an earnest of the hosts who are preparing for the conflict. The inspiring battle-cry of "the evangelization of the world in the present generation" is stirring the hearts of multiplied thou- sands, and its reverberations are already heard around the belt of the globe. "The organized Christian movements among stu- dents," says John E. Mott, "constitute one of the largest and most potent forces in the church. There are now fourteen national and international student organizations, of 1,400 sep- arate Christian associations, and a total membership of about 80,000 students and professors." These are organized into a World's Federation. They originated but yesterday, but they are daily multiplying and acquiring more momentum. Already the churches of every continent have felt the thrill of their en- thusiasm. What will they yet be in the hands of those just beginning their work with the beginning of the new century? Add to these the Christian Endeavor societies, Epworth Leagues, Brotherhood of Andrew and Philip, the Baptist Un- ions, Luther Leagues, Young People's Christian Unions, al- ready numbering upward of 6,000,000, a swelling host, organ- ized and organizing, training and drilling, multitudes and mul- titudes of whose hearts will flame with love to Christ and for the lost; whose lips will be touched, as were Isaiah's, with a live coal from off the altar, who, when the call is made, will respond in a thundering chorus, "Here am I; send me." 12 178 A Century O brethren, what may we not safely predict of spiritual power and rapid and widespread conquest for our Lord ? In the nineteenth century, the Christian population leaped from 200,000,000 to 477,000,000. Who will venture to prescribe limits to the possibilities of the twentieth century upon which our young Christian heroes are now entering ? AT THE TOMB OF OTTEKBEIN. An immense gathering witnessed the beautiful and impress- ive consecration service conducted by the Bishops at the grave where sleeps the dust of the sainted Otterbein. To witness that scene was the privilege of a lifetime. Bishop Castle presided, and Bishop Kephart made the following address: "At the grave of a great and good man is not the place for an individual, either in speech or in prayer, to attempt elo- quence. We are not here as hero worshipers, not here to wor- ship men, but to recognize the life lived by a great and a good man, and to recognize, also, in a special sense, the Christ whom he recognized and whose life in him made this great and good man what he was. We are not to hold him up as the model, but we are to recognize as our model the life of the faultless man, Jesus, whom our worthy ancestor sought to imi- tate, and whose life, in a sense, was simply the unfolding of the Christ life as it may be developed among men. "As we stand by his tomb to-day, in the name of the Christ whom he adored, let us plight our faith anew to God, and then, in that good time, when the trump of God will pour forth its omnific blast into the trembling universe, and death's wide empire quakes from its pole center to its frigid circumference, and the dead will come forth, we, with him, in the presence of the King eternal, shall hear his voice, ^Come, ye blessed of my Father.' " "Rock of Ages" was then sung by the great multitude of voices in a grand, inspiring chorus, which thrilled all hearts, after which Bishop Mills read Psalms 122 and 123. Bishop Hott offered the following prayer: "Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, thou holy God, we wait in this presence at the close of these services of celebration and ask thine infinite and precious blessing to fall upon and abide with us all ; with the memories of the lives of those whom thou hast chosen gathered fresh into our thought. This day, 179 180 A Century by this hallowed grave, we invoke upon the church of thy love the spirit of consecration and holy covenant to the service of mankind, to the uplifting of our fallen race, to the extension of the kingdom of thy Son, our Saviour, to the carrying for- ward of the purposes of Jesus Christ. "And now, Eather, we pray that our mothers all through our broad land, and in the lands beyond the sea, in the years that are to come, may be enabled to give their sons and daughters to thy service, as she gave him by whose tomb we gather this holy hour. We pray that our sons in all the years that thou shalt give to this Church shall be inspired by the spirit of our loving Lord to give their services to the Man, to the Christ of Galilee, as he gave his life and services to that Christ, he by whose tomb we are assembled in dedication this day. "And now. Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we would gather up all the holy memories of our lives; we would gather up all the divine purposes of our hearts; we would gather up all the ransomed powers of our nation and of our own nature and of our Church, and we would offer them to thee in this loving and humble prayer. "O God, our Father, God of the living, do thou accept the consecration that we would make this day, for ourselves and for our little ones, and may the kingdom of God the Father, and of God the Son, and of God the Holy Spirit come and abide with us until we shall be gathered into the kingdom of our God in the fullness of glory, where thou dost preside with- out sin and above the clouds of night and sorrow. We ask it in Jesus Christ, our infinite Redeemer, to whom be the glory and dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen." After the singing of the doxology in a grand chorus which seemed to reach to the very throne of God and bring heaven down to earth in a mighty Pentecost of blessing, Rev. G. Fritz, of the Ohio German Conference, pronounced the following benediction in German: "And now may the love of God the Father and the covenant of our Lord Jesus Christ, the com- munion and fellowship of the Holy Spirit abide with you all evermore. Amen." At the Tomb of Otterbein 181 Thus closed one of the greatest celebrations in the history of the denomination. While there was no disposition to in- dulge in hero worship, there was given, however, the tribute which old age delights to pay to the memory of those who laid wise, broad, and secure the foundation of our Zion, as well as the grateful reverence which pious youth always offers to those who have wrought faithfully and well in the toils and struggles of the past. This was touchingly exemplified at the jubilee service, when a great-granddaughter of Peter Kemp, in whose house the immortal Otterbein preached a hundred years ago, brought a large bunch of fragrant flowers from the Kemp home and laid them on the beautiful marble slab which marks the grave of Otterbein, an act typical of the honor which youth would pay to the sainted father of our beloved Zion. Surely the celebration was a great event in the history of our Church, and will doubtless help the children of Otterbein to preserve and cherish the spirit of their sainted father and noble leader. With new inspiration, hope, courage, and faith in its fu- ture achievements and progress, the Church of the sec- ond century, retaining all the essential, vital, distinctive ele- ments of our denominational life, will go forward, alongside of other sister denominations, to do the will of God in upbuild- ing the kingdom of righteousness among men, and in carrying the Word of Life to the uttermost parts of the earth. The children of Otterbein will best pay their debt of gratitude to the past by making the future resplendent with moral and spiritual victories, in meeting every human need, and in solving the problems of social and religious thought and life which press upon the attention of the church of Christ, The faithful dis- charge of this grave responsibility and duty will bring their highest honor and richest reward. PART VI THE BISHOPS' QUADRENNIAL ADDRESS. To the Twenty-Third General Conference of the United Breth- ren in Christ. REVIEW OF THE PAST. As WE stand at the close of one and the beginning of another era, we may well review the past and learn its lessons of wis- dom, of warning, of hope. The past century is one of un- paralleled progress. 1. During the nineteenth century the human mind achieved its greatest victories over matter; more useful dis- coveries and inventions were made than in all the preceding ages. Evidences of this are seen everywhere — in the home, the sewing-machine; on the farm, the plows, mowers, reapers, and great harvesters which reap, thrash, and sack the grain as they move along; in the busy hives of industry, the won- derful engines and machines; in illumination, matches, gas, and electricity; in modes of travel, the railroads and steam- ships; in the uses of light, the Eoentgen ray, the spectroscope, and photography; in preventing and alleviating human suf- fering, anesthetics and antiseptics. In theoretical science and speculative philosophy the advance has been equally marked. 2. In material riches the nineteenth century is unsur- passed. This could not well be otherwise with the conquest and appropriation of the natural resources of all the islands and continents of the earth, and the use of steam, electricity, and machinery, combined with the skill and culture of the age, by means of which to turn everything into gold. 183 184 A Century 3. The mental development or education of the race dur- ing the nineteenth century has never been equaled in any- other age. Never before were there so many school-teachers, pupils, or superior instruction, and courses of study offered; never before so much money expended to make an education a possibility for every child and youth. When to the schools are added the printing-press, the forum, and the pulpit, never be- fore has knowledge so freely and so universally run to and fro and increased among men. Universal education is the end aimed at, and much progress has been made towards it. How has Christianity fared in the century of such wonder- ful growth? It has been brought into contact with all the other religions of the globe, and substitutes for religion, and systems of thought which ignore all religions. How has it fared in this world-wide conflict? It must be confessed that its chief foes have been they of its own household. 1. For the past half-century a materialistic hypothesis of evolution, united to an agnostic view of the universe, waged war upon Christianity. The conflict was with weapons of keenest logic, and fought to a finish. But as the smoke of battle clears away, it is seen that evolution has had its ma- terialistic and agnostic views consumed as by fire, and what remains vital has been annexed to Christianity as conquered territory. 2. Next, a destructive form of "higher criticism" waged a fierce war upon the Word of God. This grew out of a certain critical tendency of the times. The same spirit questions if Homer wrote the books called by his name; if Shakespeare wrote the works attributed to him. Its method was one of doubt as opposed to one of faith. The signs are abundant that this attack, so far as it was skeptical and harmful, has spent its force, and the net results are gains to the old Bible. The attack of the pen called out the defense of the spade ; and to-day in Crete, Egypt, Syria, Assyria, and Babylonia the un- covering of ancient cities, temples, and libraries triumphantly confirms the Word of God. The Bishops^ Quadrennial Address 185 3. As to the third attack upon Christianity, we are in the midst of it to-day. It has many symptoms or modes of mani- festing its presence. In one place it is seen in the person who sells his birthright for a mess of pottage; in another, in the one who lets the family altar perish in his home for lack of time; in another, in him who ceases to attend the house of God for the same reason, or because his em- ployer demands his services on the Sabbath day; in an- other, in him who abandons his religion because it costs him something to maintain it, — in general, it is seen in the greed for gain, and rush after material riches and the privileges and pleasures which they afford, now witnessed all over the world as an age characteristic. The real cause is a certain habit of mind, the overestimating of the value of ma- terial goods, the things of time and sense, the things which are seen and temporal, as contrasted with the worth of the un- seen, eternal, spiritual things; its root is living according to the external senses and not living the life of faith. This habit of mind is the effect of the materialistic theory of life of the recent past, and the enormous growth in riches during the past century. It has been justly termed a "geocentric" view of life, as distinguished from the heavenly vision. It is not so much a decided and conscious opposition to Chris- tianity as it is a neglect of all spiritual things. This earth- centered view of life is a narrow one. It is concentrated, with an intense gaze upon present things, present pleasures, present life, present success. The spiritual faculty of faith is suffering a temporary paralysis; the eye that sees the in- visible is shut, or partially blind. This is the present time- spirit. We await a new Pentecost of the Holy Spirit to bring the remedy, through a church which, like its Master, seeks "not to be ministered unto, but to minister," and to give its life for the ransom of the world. How has Christianity stood these tests? What is her con- dition at the end of the century? (1) Numerically, there have been larger gains than in all the preceding years. At the beginning of the nineteenth century there were 200,000,- 186 A Century 000; at its close, 500,000,000 Christians. (2) Financially, it has shared in more than its proportion of the world's growth in wealth, as that growth has been almost limited to Christen- dom. (3) Its vitality during the century was that of a strong man rejoicing to run a race. This is evinced by five great movements, additional to former modes of church activity: First, the Bible societies, through whose agency the Word of God has been circulated in all the chief languages of the earth; and this work still goes on at a rate no other book was ever distributed among men. The second is the great mis- sionary movement, which goes on unabated, and which is preaching the gospel to almost all nations. The third is the Y. M. C. A. and the Y. W. C. A. movements, by which thei gospel is brought to so many through the zeal and faith of young men and young women. The fourth is the Christian Endeavor and kindred societies to unite the Christian youth for worship, training, and aggressive service for God and the right. The fifth is a revival in spiritual religion during the last quarter of the century, and still going on, under different names, in many parts of the world, manifesting itself in increased Bible study, prayer, faith in God, and holy living. But in addition to these evidences of the vitality of Chris- tianity there has been an overflow into the world of such in- fluences as have made all life richer, better, more worth liv- ing. It may be said: In a political sense Christendom is to-day the world. If we take a map of the globe and mark off the possessions and spheres of influence of the Christian powers, there will be little or nothing left to the independent control of non- Christian governments. The islands of the sea are all appropriated; the Western Continent is wholly under Christian rule; the partition of Africa among the Christian nations of Europe is well-nigh complete; Asia is slowly coming under the control of Christian nations. The Christian leaven is working among the nations, as Been in the overthrow of slavery, greater political liberty and equality before the law, and in the growth of that spirit of altruism, which is but another name for love, that is leading The Bishops^ Quadrennial Address 187 many a rich man to consecrate his riches to care for and re- lieve the defective and dependent classes in a manner truly Christian. More money has thus been given to make better the lot of the unfortunate of earth in the past ten years than was given in the first thousand years of the Christian era. Christianity has wrought this effect, in many cases, uncon- sciously to the givers. A CENTURY OF OUR HISTORY. A revival of spiritual religion, of vital godliness, among the Germans of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, be- ginning in the middle of the eighteenth century, and for the next half century being the occasion of many great religious meetings and many conversions, in the year 1800 resulted in a meeting of the leaders near the city where we are now assembled, at which time a union was effected of the different elements growing out of different local revivals, and an or- ganization was completed by the election of general officers and the assumption of a distinct name — the United Brethren in Christ. At that meeting were saintly men of heroic type — William Otterbein, Martyn Boehm, George A. Guething, J. G. Pfrimmer, Christian Newcomer, Adam Lehman, Abraham Draksel, Christian Crum, Henry Crum, John Hershey, J. Geisinger, Henry Boehm, D. Aurandt, and Jacob Baulus. This conference of these 'truly apostolic men, and the initial conferences, and "great meetings" which preceded, as well as the events which followed, constantly reminded us of the men and events in the early church, recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, where it is said: "They, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved." At the time of this conference, in 1800, there were only thirty- three ministers affiliated with the movement, and no enroll- ment had yet been made of the laity. The Eepublic itself was young, having but five and a quar- 188 A Century ter millions of people, but few west of the Ohio River. The great central and western regions were almost unknown. The virgin forests and verdant prairies, buffalo-covered plains, and unexplored mountains extended almost from the Ohio River to the Pacific Ocean. The Church organized one hundred J ears ago theoi had no houses of worship, no Missionary or Church-Erection societies, no Sunday schools, no Young Peo- ple's Christian Unions, no Woman's society of any kind, no schools, no printing-press. It only knew one thing — Christ Jesus and him crucified. It had but one aim — preach the glad tidings and thus secure the salvation of souls. It had but one incentive — the constraining love of Christ. Our Church is to-day spread abroad over the land. It has taken its part in the overthrow of slavery and in the war against intemperance and all other evils of our country; it has trained citizens for places of usefulness, honor, and trust; it early recognized woman's equality with man in all the serv- ices of our Lord; it heard the cry of its children for knowl- edge, and established noble schools of learning; it heard them cry for spiritual truth and training, and organized a vast system of Sunday schools and Young People's Christian Unions; it heard the pitiful wail of hungry souls, coming up from destitute and heathen lands, and, through two efficient missionary societies, and a Church-Erection Society, it has been building houses of worship and distributing the Bread of Life not only in America, but also in Europe, Asia, Africa, and in the islands of the sea. Our contribution to the peace, prosperity, and progress of our country may not be measured ; neither can be estimated the vitality which has flowed out into other communions around us; nor can the joy be told of the millions of the ransomed who are before the throne of the Lamb, through our toil and sacrifice. But as the loyal chil- dren of Otterbein and Boehm, holding in grateful remem- brance the holy lives and heroic deeds of our fathers, we are here to take an inventory of our present condition, and to plan hopefully and courageously for the future, rejoicing in what God hath wrought. The Bishops' Quadrennial Address 189 Spiritual life. Christ is the living Vine. Every true be- liever is grafted into him, and receives vitality from him, and bears fruit because of this union. "By their fruits ye shall knovf them; an evil tree cannot bear good fruit, neither can a good tree bear evil fruit." Christ Jesus is the type of the new man. If we would know what spiritual life is in its per- fection we can see it in him, who is the second Adam, the Head of the new creation, the spiritual man. To be spiritual is to be Christlike, to show forth the life of Christ in daily service. The spiritual man makes the interests and relations of his spirit supreme; those of his body are subordinate and secondary. Spiritual life is a new species of life, a heredity from the second Adam. Beginning in the "washing of re- generation and the renewing of the Holy Spirit," as a mere babe, it finally attains to the stature of a perfect man in Christ. The old personality and originality are not de- stroyed, but they are permeated by a new spirit, the spirit of sacrificial love. The man becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit, who works through the thinking, the feeling, the volition, the whole man "to will and to do his good pleasure." The fruits of the Spirit grow from bud to perfection, such as love, joy, peace, long suffering, faithfulness, meekness, tem- perance. Let it never be forgotten that there is as infinite a variety in spiritual life as there is in vegetable or in animal life, and that it passes from infancy up to manhood ; that is, that there are all stages of progress in spiritual life. John, leaning on the Saviour's breast, Peter preaching the great Pentecostal sermon, Paul writing his profoundly intellectual letter to the Ephesians, James "visiting the fatherless and the widows in their affliction," and Dorcas making coats and garments for the poor, were all living spiritual lives, and rendering spirit- ual service unto God. Only those states, or acts, or things which are sinful or merely animal are unspiritual. In the progress of Christianity the different elements of man's triune nature have been conquered, one at a time, or one side of his 190 A Century nature was more affected than another, giving rise to different standards of what is religious or spiritual. In one age that only was accounted spiritual which was emotional and de- monstrative; in another, to be spiritual meant to retire to a monastery, to meditate, to pray, and to write out a vast system of speculative theology too ponderous to be even read in our rapid age; while in still another, it meant to devote the life to deeds of loving service for the welfare of mankind. One made spirituality a matter of the heart, another made it a matter of the head, and the other made it a matter of the hand. If this age is one of will, the helping hand, it may not be called wholly unspiritual, for surely it is imitating our Lord in feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and visiting the sick and imprisoned, and for which it will bear his ap- proval, "Come, inherit the kingdom." Let us not be too hasty in judging of what is spiritual. May not the material growth of the Church be one sign of a true spirituality, even though our ideal is broader and includes more ? Is it not true that all useful work, all honest toil, of whatsoever kind, whether it be to sow or to reap, to buy or to sell, to build a house or to rule a nation, to alleviate pain, or to teach the children, as well as to preach the gospel, to sing, and to pray, may be done in the name of the Lord Jesus? And when so done for his sake, is it not a spiritual service? Is not pre- senting unto God our bodies holy and acceptable a spiritual service ? Are not preaching good tidings to the poor, releasing the captives, giving sight to the blind, and liberty to the bruised, all evidence of being anointed by the Spirit of the Lord now as of old? Is not every Christian "a worker together with God," a partner of God's, to make this world better and happier? We find this was the doctrine of our fathers; they regarded themselves as partners of God in every good work, and we, their children, hold the same evangelical truth. In this we have a test of what Christians may lawfully do — they may do whatever can be done in partnership with God; whatever it is clear that God has no partnership in, a Christian should have no part in. Apply this test to church finances. The Bishops^ Quadrennial Address 191 and every one will honestly pay God his part of the profits of this divine-human firm, and some of the present financial methods will cease. Apply this test to business, and we will engage in nothing but what God wants done for man's good. Apply it to politics, and we will vote no ticket on which God cannot be a partner. Thus we will make every part of life holy and spiritual because lived in fellowship with God. THE CHURCH JlSD THE FAMILY. In Christianity and in modern scientific thought the family occupies the most important place in the life of society. It is the fountain from which the stream of humanity flows. Here is where heredity and environment may combine their mighty forces to make a godly race. There is no other place on earth where God is so vitally present to sanctify the chil- dren through the believing parents. Here best can be taught the life of sacrificial service, and all the principles of Chris- tian character be established in the plastic nature of youth. Here the Church can do some of its best, most enduring work by speaking the truth in love relating to married life, the early conversion and religious training of children; by encouraging family worship, the reading of the Bible, and other good books and papers, and obedience to the law of love in the home, and by inspiring a desire for education and progress. The family is fundamental in both church and state. It is the only legitimate gateway of the coming generation into life and society. It is the best school for both parents and children to train for social efficiency. The divine ideal of marriage is the voluntary and loving union of one man and one woman for life. The evils which threaten this institution are not so much the results of unfavorable circumstances, though these are not small, as of unspiritual and undomestic views of happiness and success. The marriage founded upon nothinsT more reliable than the romantic imagination of youth, or the mere desire to gratify animal lust, or the ambition to share somebody's name, reputation, or fortune, is so lacking 192 A Century in the Christian ideal, and in enduring ethical elements, as to furnish constant employment for the divorce courts. The low standards of courts granting divorces are only equalled by the lax consciences of those seeking them. Two great causes lead in this direction: One is selfishness in some one of its many forms, the absence of forbearance, kindness, love. The other is the rush for material good. One is the love of self, the other is the love of money. But while sixty out of each one thousand marriages in America prove a failure, in the nine hundred and forty successful homes Christianity is taking its deepest root and bearing its most precious fruitage. Children brought up in the truly Christian home where love is the law of life, and sacrificial service its constant expression, find it easy to believe in God the Father, and in man the brother, for they have lived in sight of these facts, attractively symbolized from infancy. THE CHURCH AND SOCIAL PROGRESS. As the new century begins, we are in the midst of the pro- foundest investigation of human society and the conditions of its progress known in the history of the race. These studies are prosecuted by all classes of students. The church is en- gaged in this research, as she cannot remain indifferent to anything that affects mankind. It is only through knowledge of the facts involved that she can wisely and hopefully en- gage in the task of social betterment. Of the social function of the church we are all conscious as never before in modern times. This is partly due to the growth of the social con- sciousness of the race, and partly due to a fuller interpreta- tion of Christianity; namely, that Jesus Christ came to save society as well as the individual. This new consciousness of each other is the result of the growing recognition of God as the Father of us all. And the universal fatherhood implies universal brotherhood "of church with church in the communion of saints, of nation with nation in the bonds of an international patriotism, of race with race in the strangely new and real race consciousness which is The Bishops^ Quadrennial Address 193 thrilling the body of humanity, of craft with craft, and class with mass, and man with man the world over." Next to the earnest study of the social problem of the age, it is the social function of the church to teach and to illus- trate the divine ideal of social life. The kingdom of heaven is the divine ideal of society. Intensively, it is the regenera- tion of the individual, "righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit"; extensively, it is a divine leaven that regener- ates every social institution, thus making, not the Church alone, but also the family, the school, the community, the in- dustrial organizations, and the political institutions, organs of righteousness and means for securing peace and good will among men. The church must be a sample of this kingdom, a colony of heaven planted in this world of chaos, lifting up holy hands to God, constantly praying, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." It must embody in its relations to all men the command to "love our neighbor as ourselves," and the Golden Eule, "All things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them : for this is the law and the prophets." The church must exemplify the love and patience of the Father toward the wandering, prodigal sons of men, and the com- passion and humanity of the good Samaritan towards all men in suffering and distress. The third social function of the church is to give itself in sacrificial service for society, even as Christ Jesus counted not the glory he had with the Father a prize to be retained, but emptied himself and came to earth as he that serveth. The sacrificial service of Christ, and of his early followers, was the medium of the Spirit's power in the regeneration of society in the Koman Empire. The life of Jesus was one of sacrificial service from beginning to end, as it is written, "Him- self took our infirmities and bear our diseases." His life was thus the medium through which the Spirit of the Lord God operated on men. Paul had this conception of his mission when he sought to fill up that which was "behind of the suffer- ing of Christ, for his body's sake, which is the church." The 13 194 A Century church that saves itself cannot save others; but the one that loses its life for others shall find it again. The church is the body of Christ ; this body must be given in high and holy, un- reserved, sacrificial service as the only medium through which the Spirit can save society from its evils and death. This sac- rifice is all that awaits the pouring out of the Spirit upon all flesh, and a nation's being born in a day. The United Brethren in Christ have always believed in not only the saving of the individual man, but also in the spir- itualization of his environment. A perfect man in a healthy environment is the ideal aimed at. It not only is a revival church, but it is one aiming at social betterment. Hence our war against slavery in the past, and our present and past fight against the saloon curse, and everything else that fetters indi- vidual or social progress. In the social crisis upon the modern world, growing out of the multiplication of machinery, the accumulation of vast wealth in the hands of the few, and the struggle of the toilers for a larger share of the profits of their own labors and a better opportunity in life, the church must be the friend and reconciler of all classes. She must always remember the lowly life of her Master and his sympathy with the masses, and recall that hei* mission is to repeat his life and labors among men. But she should never assume that the pos- session of wealth, however great, is a proof that its owner is an oppressor of the poor or an evil-doer. The vast opportuni- ties of the recent past, and the possession of rare talents and training, have made such fortunes possible. The voluntary redistribution of these fortunes, under the growing sense of the trusteeship of wealth, for the benefit of the unfortunate classes, is one of the most hopeful signs of the times, that the rich and the poor will yet meet together and Jehovah be recog- nized as the Maker of them all. THE CHURCH AND MORAL REFORMS. The church has put down and destroyed many great evils. It accomplishes this work by holding up a better standard of life, revealing the degrading character of sin, causing the en- The Bishops^ Quadrennial Address 195 lightened conscience to antagonize the evil thing; but its greatest reformatory power is found in that fullness of life which Christ came to give to men. A healthy soul is as proof against moral evil as a healthy body is against physical dis- ease. As our Church was not one of those that waited until slavery was abolished before entering the field against it, neither does it to-day play the coward towards any other evils, but, in the name of God, we lift up a standard against them. 1. Intemperance and the saloon traffic. In so early a date as 1837 our Church legislated against the liquor traffic, and in 1841 it prohibited the manufacture and sale of intoxicat- ing liquors as a beverage by any of our people. This has been our attitude ever since towards this greatest evil of our day and parent of most other evils. We will never cease to wage an uncompromising war e gainst it, till it is utterly destroyed from among men. 2. Divorce and polygamy. Divorce, except for scriptural reasons, is forbidden among us, and as related to the welfare of society and the progress of the kingdom of God on earth, it is no better than polygamy. The latter deserves no mercy at the hands of civil law, and the former more rigid treatment by both church and state. 3. Sahhath desecration. The Sabbath is for man ; he needs it for physical, mental, moral, social, and religious reasons. Man cannot live a completely human life without a day of rest. The commercialism of the age is robbing hundreds of thousands of men of their divine right to rest. They are cut off from the fellowship of their families and the church, be- cause of this oppression. Other multitudes spend the day in frivolity and pleasure-seeking, turning this blessing of God into an occasion for sin. In our cities it is found that it is the tenth man who insists on keeping open his shop or store, and thus compelling the nine others to do so, when they would like to spend the day with their families. Liberty needs a new definition that will allow every one the opportunity to spend God's holy day in peace and quietness in the home and the church. 196 A Century 4. Amusements. Innocent amusements and recreations are a necessity for human nature. A tradition of St. John the Evangelist comes down 'to us to this effect: The aged saint was one day found by an ascetic person, playing with a pet partridge. When rebuked for wasting his time, John replied, "I am relaxing ; the bow always bent loses its elasticity." The strenuous life needs its relaxation. No Christian who keeps a good conscience, and grows in knowledge and grace, will have any trouble to decide what are innocent or what are harmful amusements. For the sake of others he will observe the law of consistency: "If eating meat or drinking wine cause my brother to stumble, I will eat no meat, nor drink any wine, while the world stands." For Christ's sake, and his own, he will do nothing in which God cannot be his partner. These are safe principles of conduct. 5. War. War is always a calamity. But, like the thunder- storm that purifies the air and brings along the refreshing rain, it is sometimes a necessity. But this necessity diminishes as the race grows in humanity and away from the animal. Wars for the avenging of petty offenses, or for the conquest of ter- ritory ought never to occur among the followers of the Prince of Peace. Notwithstanding the preparations now being made, and the rumors of war, may we not trust in an overruling Providence that the time is at hand for all Christians to settle all individual, state, and national difficulties by peaceful arbi- tration ? 6. Lynching. The increasing number of lynchings occur- ring in our fair land is a cause of deep humiliation and shame. Yet the uncertainty with which the courts administer justice and the law's delays are largely the cause of this element of anarchy. The churches of our country should everywhere lift the voice against this mode of punishment and insist on the courts being more swift and certain in the execution of justice. "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil" is as true to-day as in the olden times. The Bishops^ Quadrennial Address 197 THE CHURCH AND STATE. The state, no less than the church, is a divine institution, through which God seeks to enforce justice among men. It is not the form of government that is divine, as that must de- pend on the character of the people governed; yet even in this, as the people are able to receive it, the logic of Chris- tianity is democracy — "government of the people, by the peo- ple, and for the people." Edmund Burke says: "Without civil society man could not by any possibility arrive at the perfection of which his nature is capable, nor even make a remote and faint approach to it. He who gave our nature to be perfected by our virtue, willed also the necessary means to its perfection. He willed therefore the state; he willed its connection with the source and original archetype of all per- lection." He says further : "It is to be looked on with rever- ence, because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science, a partnership in all art, a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection." The Biblical teaching on this subject is plain and unmis- takable. Back of the state is God; back of the civil statute is the righteousness of God; back of the earthly rules is the King of kings. The underlying idea of the Judaic legislation was the kingship of Jehovah. Judges, rulers, and kings were not regarded as sources of authority, but as channels. The judges are charged to judge righteously, "for the judgment is God's." He is Ruler among the nations forever. The New Testament presents the same doctrine of civil government: "Let every soul be in subjection to the higher powers, for there is no power but of God ; and the powers that be are ordained of God. Therefore, he that resisteth the powers withstands the ordinance of God. 'Wherefore ye must needs be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience sake. For this cause ye pay tribute also; for they are ministers of God's service.' For this reason the Christian is commanded to pray for rulers, and for all in authoritv. It is to be feared that we 198 A Century} are losing sight of this divine idea and purpose of the state, and that partisan politics is degrading state office to a mere prize to be won, or as a reward for a friend, or as an op- portunity to defeat a political foe. "No other institution on earth so holds in its grasp the weal or woe of the millions now living and of the millions yet to be as the state. The social order, the national sentiments, the governmental regulations, influence immeasurably every soul that comes within their reach. More and more men are com- ing to see that the state has a moral end, and that the real work of citizens consists of so shaping institutions and so framing legislation that conditions may be secured favorable to the development of noble characters. The true wealth of states is to be measured, not in terms of material resources, but in the growth of moral personality." The Christian should be a patriot, loving his country and ever ready to aid it, even to die for it, if need be. The Christian should carry Christian principles into politics with him. Politics is the science of good government. This noble science should not be turned over to the demagogue, or mere partisan. The state is to be regenerated and made an instrument of righteousness. This cannot be done without Christian men doing their duty here as conscientiously as they do it in the church. Moral princi- ples must be brought into politics as in the personal and fam- ily life. The unprincipled man is no more fit to hold an office in the state than in the church ; he is no more fit to be a lawmaker for the state than for the church. A new patriotism is growing, even Christian citizenship, in which men feel as keenly their obligations to God for their political relations and acts as for their private lives. CHRISTIAN UNITY. Our Lord prayed for his followers, "That they all may be one; even as thou Father art in me, and I in thee, that. they also may be in us : that the world may believe thou didst send me ; that they may be one even as we are one." Paul tells us : "There is one body, and one spirit, even as also ye were called The Bishops^ Quadrennial Address 199 in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all." These expressions present that ideal unity in the thought of God concerning his church, the original union which has been marred and broken, but never entirely de- stroyed. While Christians differ on many minor things, they are agreed in far more and greater things. They differ in ''dogmas and theology," but they agree in the fundamental articles of faith which are necessary to salvation. They are divided in church government and discipline, but all acknowl- edge and obey Christ as Head of the church and Chief Shep- herd of souls. They differ widely in modes of worship, rites, and ceremonies, but they worship the same God manifested in Christ, they surround the same throne of grace, and pray as the Lord has taught them, and can sing the same classic hymns. They hold to the same Bible as the Word of God, and the ethical unity of the church never has been seriously shaken, as the noblest souls in all communities live the same divine life of faith. For ages a reunited Christendom has been the faith and prayer of the most devout and intelligent followers of Christ. This will be accomplished only by sharing the unity of the Spirit. We are taught that all good gifts and graces and fruits are from the one Spirit, who is given to every man to profit withal. In that new Pentecost, which is approaching, and may be nearer than we think, every man shall hear the wonderful things of God in his own tongue, and be brought into unity with all others by the one Spirit. The past century has been noted for its movements towards unity in both the church and the human race. But we can only speak of the former, as seen in the union of the Lutheran and German Re- formed churches in Germany, the union of the Old and New School Presbyterians in this country, the union of the four branches of Presbyterians in Canada, the union of the five independent bodies of Methodists in Canada, and the recent church union effected in Scotland. We commend the follow- 200 A Century ing suggestions of the late Dr. Philip Schaff as some of the moral means for hastening the reunion of Christendom : "1. The cultivation of a peaceful and evangelical-catholic spirit in personal intercourse with our fellow-Christians of other denominations. "2. Cooperation in Christian and philanthropic work draws men together and promotes their mutual confidence and re- gard. "3. Missionary societies should at once come to a definite agreement, prohibiting all mutual interference in their ef- forts to spread the gospel at home and abroad. "4. The study of church history, symbolics, and compara- tive theology are important means of correcting sectarian prejudice and increasing mutual appreciation. "5. One word suffices as regards the duty and privilege of prayer for Christian union in the spirit of our Lord's sacer- dotal prayer, that his disciples may be one in him, even as he i;? one with the Father." We may briefly state that our Board of Bishops has for two years past been in consultation with the Board of Bishops of the Radical United Brethren Church with reference to adjust- ing differences between these two bodies. Some progress has been made. We recommend that this General Conference authorize the Board of Bishops to continue their efforts with the body named, and with any other evangelical bodies that may desire union on terms honoring God and honorable to all concerned. OUTLOOK. And now, brethren, we commend you to God, and to the Word of his grace, begging you to consider the glorious cause in whose behalf you have met, that your acts here may be worthy of our high calling. As a recent writer has said: "Among all the blessings conferred on com- ing time none can equal in worth and in extent the grace and influence of Christianity. Admitting her defects as she appears in history, conceding her melancholy failures at The Bishops' Quadrennial Address 201 various points, nevertheless, no other institution compares with her in the range of her benefactions and in the scope of her mission. The past century bears witness to her benevolence and beauty, to her preciousness and power. Wherever during the last hundred years a wrong has been righted, a shackle has been broken, a wound has been healed, a burden has been lightened, she has not been absent from the scene. What the sun is to nature, that Christianity has been to society. The highway of gold in the sea, the brilliant and transfiguring colors in the evening clouds, the flush of health on the cheek of maidenhood, the ripening riches of fruits and harvests, the coal fire blazing on our hearth, the gas and electric light illumin- ing our chambers, and the very forces by which machinery is impelled, are all the products of the chief orb in the solar sys- tem. And as the sun is the prolific source of inestimable bene- fits to the earth, so Christianity has been the mother of innu- merable mercies to the suffering and struggling world. If childhood laughs more freely and sweetly, if womanhood walks more independently and safely, if manhood toils more cheer- fully and hopefuly, if brotherhood prevails more generally and absolutely, and if priesthood has lost much of its bigotry, and statehood much of its tyranny, Christianity is to be praised, for to her heavenly ministry these blessings are largely due." We stand within the portal of the new century. It is natural that our first impressions should come to us through the hear- ing of the ear and the vision of the eye. Through these sources we learn of poverty's burden, blight, and heart-breaking, wealth's greed, grandeur, and godlessness ; society's inequality, injustice, and unrest; politics corruption, fraud, and tyranny. But much of this as may be real, it is only the visible and tem- porary which is thus seen. It reminds us of the vision of the prophet's servant at Dothan. When he first looked out and saw the Assyrian army all about him, his heart failed through fear, and he said to his master, "Ah ! we shall now be taken." But the old prophet, who had learned not to judge by the mere outer appearance of things, prayed that the young man's eyes might be opened, then sent him to look again. And, behold, 14 202 A Century he saw the mountains full of horsemen and chariots, the in- visible host of God sent for their deliverance. Then he ex- claimed, "They that are for us are more than they that are against us." The vision of faith only can give us the true condition of things. The man who leaves out of account God and his invisible host is always a pessimist. But "seeing him who is invisible" means optimism and endurance. When Israel's bondage became intolerable, Moses, the deliverer, ap- peared. When the Dark Ages had almost quenched the light of the gospel, Luther, the reformer, appeared. When the bond- age of the slave became intolerable, Lincoln, the liberator, ap- peared. When the fullness of time was at hand, the Messiah came; and when Pentecost was fully come, the Holy Spirit was poured out. God is in his world, and has never been ab- sent from it, neither has he exhausted his possibilities concern- ing it. WTien the finger on the dial of time points to the hour, he will pour out his Spirit upon all flesh, and nations will be born in a day. The gentle rain falls upon the dry ground, and the earth is soon covered with green grass ; the sun lifts up the raindrops, carries them over and showers them on the wheat- fields, and soon they are waving a golden harvest. The sun gathers up the little drops again and scatters them over the fields of wilting corn, and soon there is the stalk and ear and full corn in the ear, and the song of rejoicing in the "harvest home." The drops of water make these wonderful changes, because they are in partnership with the sun. God^s people "cause the wilderness and the solitary places to be glad, and the desert to bud and blossom as the rose," because they are in partnership with the great Sun of Kighteousness. They are not the source of blessing; they are only the channel through which he conveys it. The multitudes are weary and hungry. The church is commanded to give the people to eat. But there are only a few loaves and fishes. How can these satisfy the great multitude? Still, the command is given, "Give ye them to eat." When faith takes the place of sight and the small provision is handed over to Jesus, and he blesses it, it is found that all are fed, and much is left over. The Bishops^ Quadrennial Address 203 The churcli is God's storehouse, where he multiplies the sup- ply for every spiritual need, as faith puts forth the effort to use what is already in possession. According to the teaching of Jesus, the Christian church is a channel of spiritual energy, a mighty social dynamic, a fountain of redemptive life. "I came tha^ they may have life, and may have it abundantly.*' "The church is a 'power-house,' where there is generated a supply of spiritual energy sufficient to move the world with wisdom, courage, and love. Let this power fail, and a church stands in the midst of modern life without an adequate rea- son for existence — a Sunday club, an entertainment bureau, a mere survival of the days when religion was real." Without the Holy Spirit in the Church it is a body without life, an al- tar without fire, a temple without God. Brethren, our Church is composed of as noble Christian people as exist on earth; our Church organization is equally good. What we need is to embody more and more the living Christ in our individual and in our Church life, as our "wis- dom and righteousness, our sanctification and redemption"; and to conserve wisely all that is pure, and true, and right, and good, and lovely of the past, and to open wide and hospitable hearts to all the new light coming to us from God's Word and his works, from his people and his Providence ; then the world will be blessed by our presence, and millions will be saved by our labors; and dealing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God, we shall go through the century before us over a shining pathway that grows brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. N. Castle, E. B. Kephart, T. W. HOTT, J. S. Mills. BX9878.4 .M42 A century : address delivered at the Princeton Theological Semlnary-Speer Library 1 1012 00044 7831