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 GIVEN BY 
 
REV. GEORGE A. GORDON 
 
CELEBRATION OF 
 THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 American Congregational 
 Association 
 
 IN TREMONT TEMPLE, BOSTON 
 MONDAY, MAY TWENTY-FIFTH 
 MCMIII, AT SEVEN-THIRTY P.M. 
 
 m^ 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 THE AMERICAN CONGREGATIONAL ASSOCIATION 
 
 MCMIII 
 
NOTE 
 
 The date of the jubilee meeting coincided with that of the 
 May festival of the Boston Congregational Club. When this be- 
 came known, the Club generously voted to give up the festival and 
 unite with the Association to celebrate its anniversary. Commit- 
 tees were appointed on both sides, and all the arrangements were 
 made and carried out with the utmost harmony. At their first 
 meeting subsequent to the jubilee the directors of the Association 
 passed the following votes : 
 
 " That grateful acknowledgment is hereby made by the American Con- 
 gregational Association to Rev. George A. Gordon, D.D., for the very great 
 and valuable service rendered to Congregationalism in our land by his most 
 interesting address at the fiftieth anniversary of the Association in Tremont 
 Temple on May 25, 1903." 
 
 " That Dr. Gordon be requested to furnish a copy of the address for 
 publication." 
 
 "That the thanks of the Association be given to the Boston Congrega- 
 tional Club for its invaluable assistance and hearty cooperation in carrying 
 out to so happy a conclusion the public meeting of its fiftieth anniversary." 
 
 " Whereas, the fiftieth meeting of the Association was greatly indebted 
 for its success to the musical numbers so efficiently rendered by the combined 
 choirs of the Shawmut Church, Boston, and the Eliot Church, Newton, 
 
 " Resolved, that the hearty thanks of the Association be given to these 
 organizations, with special acknowledgment to Mr. Henry M. Dunham and 
 Mr. Everett E. Truette, their leaders, for their kind services." 
 
HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 of the 
 American Congregational Association 
 
 (Condensed from the Fiftieth Annual Report) 
 
 On the twenty-fifth of May, 1853, in the Old 
 South Chapel, Boston, an addition was made to the 
 happy family of anniversary week by the birth of this 
 Society, whose name, for the first eleven years of its 
 life, was the Congregational Library Association. 
 
 This last fact indicates the idea prominent in the 
 minds of the founders. An earnest, united effort was 
 needed to preserve the early religious literature of 
 New England, which was scattered in thousands of 
 garrets and was fast perishing. So thought Parsons 
 Cooke, Julius A. Palmer, Joseph S. Clark, and others 
 who launched the undertaking. With the advent of 
 Rufus Anderson among the leading spirits, during 
 the first year, the object of the Association was 
 broadened. A charter was secured, early in 1854, 
 which announced the double object of a Congrega- 
 tional Library and of a building for its use and that 
 of charitable societies. 
 
 It was a day of small things. Every one ac- 
 knowledged the importance of the double function 
 for which the Association stood, yet very few were 
 found to render the indispensable aid. Dr. Joseph S. 
 Clark, the faithful Corresponding Secretary, labored 
 with unwearied diligence to stir up churches and in- 
 
 5 
 
6 Wlstorical Sftctcb 
 
 dividuals with the call, " Arise and build." He met 
 with fair success in collecting books and pamphlets, 
 but with a very discouraging reception to his constant 
 plea for the money needed for a building. 
 
 The Old South Chapel was never the home of 
 the Association ; only the place of some of its first 
 annual business meetings. In 1853, a small room in 
 the old Tremont Temple was rented as headquarters. 
 This was soon filled to overflowing with books and 
 pamphlets. In 1857, the Association bought the 
 Judge Jackson estate, No. 23 Chauncy Street. It 
 covered about 4,500 feet of land, cost $25,000, and 
 was mortgaged for $13,000. During that year the 
 country was visited by its greatest financial panic, 
 and the fragile bark of this enterprise was all but 
 swamped in the hurricane. Two generous friends of 
 the Association, Alpheus Hardy and Abner King- 
 man, came to the rescue and gave their individual 
 notes to secure the Association's loan. The building 
 was held ; but nothing could be spent for many years 
 upon books or for the services of a financial agent. 
 Dr. Clark gave his labors freely, but just as they 
 seemed about to be successful came the storm of 
 civil war, and hope was again deferred. 
 
 In 1864, the Association secured an enlargement 
 of its charter and a change of name to that which it 
 has always borne since. The National Council held 
 at Boston in 1865 heartily endorsed the plan for a 
 worthy Congregational House. Rev. Dr. Isaac P. 
 Langworthy, who had been chosen Secretary and 
 Librarian after Dr. Clark's death in 1861, employed 
 his time and energies in the great work of collecting 
 the necessary funds. 
 
Wstorlcal Sftetcb 7 
 
 In 1867, the Chauncy Street house was sold for 
 a little more than double the purchase price ; rooms 
 at No. 40 Winter Street were rented, and efforts 
 for an appropriate Congregational House were more 
 eagerly prosecuted. But very little money could be 
 secured until 1870, when the denomination was 
 aroused to celebrate the two hundred and fiftieth 
 anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims. Among 
 the chief objects brought into prominence was the 
 work of this Association. There was a wide if not 
 deep response from churches and individuals ; the 
 impetus of the movement lasted through the next 
 two years, and it began to look as though Congrega- 
 tionalism would secure the needed centripetal force. 
 Then came in swift succession three staggering 
 blows: the Chicago fire of 1871, which made so 
 great a shrinkage in Boston capital ; the Boston fire 
 of 1872; and the monetary stringency of 1873. The 
 best that could be done was to secure the two old 
 buildings at the corner of Beacon and Somerset 
 Streets, and to adapt them as well as possible, by 
 various changes and additions, to the purposes of 
 the Association. 
 
 Dr. Langworthy was the leading spirit through 
 all this period, and for many years after; to him, 
 more than to any other one man, it is probable that 
 our present relative prosperity is due. The varied 
 machinery set in motion directly or indirectly by him 
 produced in the end fully a hundred thousand dollars, 
 and in 1873 he had the satisfaction of removing the 
 property of the Association from Winter Street to 
 the " Congregational House." 
 
 The latter half of our fifty years is so fresh in 
 
8 Historical Shetcb 
 
 memory that it can be treated summarily. The new 
 location brought the benevolent societies and the 
 library together for the first time, but there were 
 new difficulties to face. The building had cost ^425,- 
 000, and had been mortgaged for $200,000; it was 
 soon found necessary to put on a further mortgage 
 of $50,000. For five years the debt remained at 
 $250,000, with no prospect of its reduction. But in 
 1879, mainly through the earnest efforts and liberal 
 gifts of Samuel D. Warren and Rufus S. Frost, 
 $30,000 was secured by subscription, and thus the 
 sharpest corner was turned, and the last nine years 
 of Dr. Langworthy's life were relieved from his chief 
 anxiety as to the success of what he called " his last 
 and tenderly loved work." 
 
 This faithful servant of the Association passed 
 away in 1888 at the age of eighty-two. At that time 
 the debt had been reduced from $250,000 to $184,- 
 000. In 1896, when it had been brought down to 
 $142,000, the entire property was sold for nearly 
 $600,000, and the present site. Numbers 12 and 14 
 Beacon Street, was bought for $310,000. The build- 
 ing itself, which was dedicated on Forefathers' Day 
 in 1898, cost $325,000, and the fact is worth preserv- 
 ino^ that it was built for a sum somewhat less than 
 the original estimates. A mortgage of $212,000 has 
 already been reduced to $189,000. The various be- 
 nevolent societies are now comfortably housed and 
 in convenient working relations with each other. 
 The library has a fine modern stack, and is growing 
 constantly in size and value. Beginning with " fifty- 
 six books and pamphlets" in 1853, it has now more 
 than 50,000 books and more than 50,000 pamphlets. 
 
^Historical Sftetcb 9 
 
 besides a multitude of unbound periodicals, with 
 many manuscripts, portraits, and other relics of the 
 past. 
 
 Nearly all the rooms in the Congregational House 
 are now occupied, several of them by outside business 
 parties. But if the debt which rests upon the prop- 
 erty could be cleared away, it would be difficult to 
 estimate the gain that would accrue to all Congrega- 
 tional work. 
 
 This gain would be direct as w^ell as indirect. 
 For instance, during the coming year we shall have 
 to expend ^20,000 in round numbers as follows: for 
 interest on the mortgage, $7,000; for sinking fund, 
 $9,000; rebates of rent to the missionary societies, 
 $4,000. But if, during the year, one or more large- 
 hearted Congregationalists should contribute $185,- 
 000 to clear off the debt, the whole $20,000 would be 
 saved, and then the goal aimed at from the beginning 
 would be reached — a Congregational House rent- 
 free to all the Congregational Societies. 
 
Am^rtran 
 
 Congregational 
 
 AH00riation 
 
 Sremnnt (StmpU 
 Ma^ thipntH-fiftlj 
 
American Congregational Association 
 Mr. William O. Blaney, President 
 
 Boston Congregational Club 
 Rev. Charles H. Beale, D.D., President 
 
 MUSIC 
 Shawmut Church Choir, Boston 
 
 Eliot Church Choir, Newton 
 
 Mr. H. M. Dunham, Director 
 
„.Prog 
 
 ramme,,. 
 
 Music 
 
 Prayer Rev. A. E. Dunning, D.D. 
 
 Welcome by the President 
 
 Music 
 
 Address Rev. George A. Gordon, D.D. 
 
 Music 
 
 Benediction 
 
HYMN 
 
 OGOD, our help in ages past. 
 Our hope for years to come. 
 Our shelter from the stormy blast. 
 And our eternal home ! 
 
 Under the shadow of Thy throne 
 
 Thy saints have dwelt secure ; 
 Sufficient is Thine arm alone. 
 And our defence is sure. 
 
 Before the hills in order stood. 
 Or earth received her frame. 
 
 From everlasting Thou art God, 
 To endless years the same. 
 
 Thy word commands our flesh to dust, 
 "Return, ye sons of men ; " 
 
 All nations rose from earth at first. 
 And turn to earth again. 
 
 Time, like an ever-rolling stream. 
 
 Bears all its sons away; 
 They fly, forgotten, as a dream 
 
 Dies at the opening day. 
 
 O God, our help in ages past. 
 Our hope for years to come, 
 
 Be Thou our guard while troubles last. 
 And our eternal home! Amen. 
 
ADDRESS OF WELCOME 
 
 In behalf of the American Congregational Asso- 
 ciation, which I have the honor to represent, it be- 
 comes my duty and privilege to extend to you a most 
 cordial welcome, and I also desire to thank you, 
 Mr. President and the members of the Congrega- 
 tional Club, for uniting with us in celebrating this, 
 the fiftieth anniversary of our organization. 
 
 When we look back over the past to that meeting 
 which was held in the Old South Chapel fifty years 
 ago today, I feel we should return thanks to Almighty 
 God for raising up those earnest, Christian men who 
 laid the foundation of what has since become a power 
 in our denomination. It might be of interest to many 
 who are present were I to review the history of our 
 Association and tell the story of its struggles during 
 the early days of its existence, but time will not allow 
 me to do so. I will therefore mention only a few of 
 the more important facts and refer you to a fuller 
 statement which has already been published. 
 
 The question has often been asked : " What is 
 the American Congregational Association ? What is 
 the object of the Association } " I know of no better 
 answer than to quote from Article 2 of the Consti- 
 tution, which states that " the object of this Associa- 
 tion shall be to secure the erection, in the city of 
 Boston, of a Congregational House for the meetings 
 of the body, the accommodation of its library, and for 
 the furtherance of its general purposes; to found and 
 
 15 
 
i6 aODrces of TlClelcome 
 
 perpetuate a library of books, pamphlets, and manu- 
 scripts, and a collection of portraits and relics of the 
 past ; and to do whatever else shall serve to illustrate 
 Congregational history and promote the general in- 
 terests of the Congregational churches." 
 
 The need for such an organization was felt among 
 our churches as early as 1843, and in 1847 Pro- 
 fessor Edwards, of Andover, published an article in 
 which he urged the importance and practicability of 
 a " public library and whatever else would serve to 
 illustrate the Pilgrim and Puritan history of New 
 England theology." It was not, however, until 
 May 25, 1853, that the movement took definite shape 
 and the Association formed. Like many great enter- 
 prises, it had a small beginning, and one room in 
 Tremont Temple was found of sufficient size in 
 which to hold the meetings of its members and to 
 accommodate its library of fifty-six books and pam- 
 phlets; but it soon outgrew these quarters, and in 
 1857 ^^ estate on Chauncy Street was purchased for 
 the sum of $25,000, upon which a small payment was 
 made. 
 
 This building was occupied during the next ten 
 years, when the property was sold and temporary 
 quarters were secured on Winter Street, where the 
 Association remained until it moved into the Con- 
 gregational House, at the corner of Beacon and 
 Somerset Streets. It was then thought that the 
 Association had found a permanent home, but twenty 
 years later the increase in value of the land upon 
 which it stood made it imperative either to erect a 
 modern building or to sell the property and move to 
 a less expensive locality. 
 
BDDress ot TIClelccme 
 
 17 
 
 After much discussion by the members, it was 
 finally decided to adopt the latter course, and in 
 1896, through the efforts of Dr. Samuel B. Capen, 
 to whom the Association owes a lasting debt of grat- 
 itude, the property was disposed of and the estate 
 was purchased where our present building stands, " a 
 building," to quote the words of my predecessor, the 
 late Mr. Samuel Johnson, at its dedication, " of which 
 every member is proud, and one that will be known 
 the world over." 
 
 Yes, we are proud of our building, and we can 
 say that it is known the world over as the home of 
 Congregationalism, for from this center are sent forth 
 the messengers of our faith with the command, " Go 
 ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every 
 creature." 
 
 Surely the seed sown fifty years ago fell into good 
 ground and has multiplied and increased, not thirty, 
 or sixty, or one hundredfold, but one thousandfold. 
 Our little library of fifty volumes now numbers fifty 
 thousand, and the value of our real estate today is 
 more than seven hundred thousand dollars. 
 
 I regret to state, however, that there is a debt 
 upon the property, and while it is gradually being 
 reduced, it should, for the credit of our denomination, 
 be paid at once. It is not my purpose, neither is it 
 the time nor the place, to make an appeal for assist- 
 ance, but if there are any present who believe that it 
 is a " disgrace to die rich," I ask them to remember 
 that here is an opportunity where a generous dona- 
 tion would result in much good, for it would not only 
 relieve the Association of a burden, but it would 
 benefit every benevolent society which occupies the 
 building. 
 
i8 BODress of TUflclcome 
 
 And now, as we pass the fiftieth milestone in our 
 history, rejoicing in what has been accomplished in 
 the past, may we not look forward with hope to the 
 future, believing that the time is not far distant when 
 we can say, there stands the home of our denomina- 
 tion, free from debt or incumbrance, a monument to 
 the founders of our Association, representing the 
 progress of Congregationalism and the principles of 
 the Pilgrim and the Puritan fathers. 
 
DR. GORDON'S ADDRESS 
 
" Remember the days of old, 
 Consider the years of many generations: 
 Ask thy father, and he will show thee; 
 Thine elders and they will tell thee." 
 
 " Thence to the famous orators repair." 
 " To sage philosophy next lend thine ear." 
 
 "Remember them that had the rule over you, which spake 
 unto you the word of God, and considering the issue of their 
 life imitate their faith." 
 
 " After these things I saw, and behold, a great multitude 
 that no man could number." 
 
 " Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, yea and 
 forever." 
 
 " The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, 
 and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all." 
 
DENOMINATIONAL MEMORIES AND 
 INSPIRATIONS 
 
 George A. Gordon 
 
 The American people delight in commemora- 
 tions. The most radical race in the modern world, 
 they thus disclose a native, a precious, and let us 
 hope an indestructible, conservatism. The nation 
 celebrated with serious joy the centennial of its 
 organization, and thirteen years earlier, the hun- 
 dredth anniversary of the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence, thus lending its high sanction to the habit of 
 our people, and, by national example, encouraging 
 them in the cultivation of an ever larger memory, 
 and an ever juster appreciation of the past. Time 
 subdues passion, induces sane judgment, and brings 
 about great reconciliations. In 1901 Dartmouth 
 College fittingly observes the centennial of the grad- 
 uation of Daniel Webster, and hardly a voice is heard 
 save in praise of that monumental American. In 
 1902 Hartford commemorates the hundredth anni- 
 versary of the birth of Horace Bushnell, and all good 
 men of all shades of belief unite in grateful recog- 
 nition of his "great genius, his great character, and 
 his great services to mankind." And while we are 
 gathered here for our own specific purpose, another 
 American of genius, and of enduring fame, is receiv- 
 ing the honor that is his due. Ralph Waldo Emer- 
 son belongs to the American people; he has taken 
 his place among the greater forces for good in our 
 national life. When one thinks of these three men, 
 one must exclaim with the Psalmist : 
 
22 2)enomlnatlonal /Dbcmorics anO Ifnsplratlons 
 
 " To him that made great lights : 
 For his loving-kindness endureth forever." 
 
 This instinct for looking backward is an immedi- 
 ate inheritance from the British race. A century 
 passes from the hour when Robert Burns first saw 
 the light, from the hour when he closed his glorious 
 eyes upon the sun, and Scotland takes occasion to 
 appreciate the gift of God in her greatest genius. 
 A century passes from the day that Edmund Burke 
 ended his career of greatness, and the nation that he 
 served with a purity unsurpassed, and with a richness 
 and splendor of power unrivaled, recalls with honor 
 his undying fame. A thousand years pass away from 
 the death of the first English king, and again the 
 English race rise and record their homage to the 
 name of Alfred the Great. 
 
 This instinct for commemorations, so potent in 
 our people, so potent in the race from which Ameri- 
 cans first drew their being, is a law of human nature, 
 and its strength is a sign of the stability of nations. 
 Twenty-one years ago all enlightened peoples united 
 with Germany in the recognition of the four hun- 
 dredth anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther; 
 and seventeen years earlier the civilized world did 
 honor with Florence to the immortal name of Dante. 
 Tennyson spoke for contemporary humanity when 
 he sang of this event: 
 
 " King, that hast reign'd six hundred years, and grown 
 In power, and ever growest, since thine own 
 Fair Florence honoring thy nativity, 
 Thy Florence now the crown of Italy, 
 Hath sought the tribute of a verse from me, 
 I, wearing but the garland of a day. 
 Cast at thy feet one flower that fades away." 
 
Denominational Memories anO ITnepiratione 23 
 
 Let the good habit of periodic retrospection grow; 
 let it become fixed. We are fitted to entertain great 
 hopes only as we cherish great memories ; even as 
 the rower sits with his face toward the stern of his 
 boat that he may drive the prow forward. In order 
 to be trustworthy, the modern man, especially, must 
 be Janus-faced ; one face looking back, the other 
 looking forward, one to behold and conserve the high 
 spirit of the past, the other to greet the new day, 
 the new opportunity, and to employ the purified and 
 extended vision of the generations that are gone, in 
 the service of the generations that are, and that are 
 to be. There is but one kind of retrospect to be 
 deplored, that represented by a certain famous person 
 fleeing from the cities of the plain. There must be 
 no consecration of the limitation, the failure, the 
 weakness, the shame of the past. History holds 
 within its vast domain many a Sodom and Gomor- 
 rah, many a consecrated falsehood, many a gray- 
 headed superstition, many eonian outrages upon 
 faith, many millennial inhumanities. Infatuation still 
 consecrates these cities of the plain, and the pillars 
 of salt, the petrified mind and heart, remain the mel- 
 ancholy monuments on all the highways of existence. 
 Tonight we build the sepulchres of the fathers, we 
 garnish the tombs of the prophets ; but we do so 
 only in the recognition of the Eternal God in their 
 humanity, only in obedience to the supreme and 
 enduring prophet, Jesus Christ, only in the faith 
 and service of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 We celebrate today the fiftieth anniversary of the 
 American Congregational Association. The history 
 of the Association has been written in a manner that 
 
24 Denominational /iBcmories anO Unepirations 
 
 admits of no improvement at my hands. That his- 
 tory is accessible to all. In looking for a theme suit- 
 able to this occasion I have been led by the spirit 
 of the Association as indicated in these memorable 
 words of Professor Park : " Let us establish in this 
 City of the Pilgrims, a Pilgrim Hall, that shall con- 
 tain the writings of our fathers, and of our brethren, 
 and of our successors, and let its walls preserve the 
 portraits of our Cottons, and our Mathers, and our 
 Hookers, and our Emmonses, and our Paysons, and 
 our Hallocks, and our Beechers." The Association 
 has its vision upon the whole denomination, and the 
 Congregational House is its home, the emblem of its 
 interests and ideals, the guide to great memories and 
 to vast hopes. My subject is thus given in the 
 meaning of this hour and my statement of it is, 
 Denominational Memories a7id Inspirations. 
 
 The building which is the home of the Associ- 
 ation reminds us of the polity of our churches. It 
 is simple, serviceable, in keeping with the plain and 
 solid character of our people. A strange silence has 
 fallen upon us as speakers for our polity. The Pres- 
 byterian is not silent, or if he is, it is because he 
 thinks no one can question the superiority of Pres- 
 byterianism to all other forms of ecclesiasticism. 
 The Methodist is not silent, or if he is, it is because 
 the thunder of his devotion in God's name to the 
 deepest needs of the nation has drowned even his 
 voice. The Episcopalian is not silent, or if he is, 
 it is because he claims with serene complacency that 
 his church is the church ; and, of course, if that is 
 true, there can be no other. It is a strange thing 
 
©enomtnatlonal IWbcmoxice and Unsplrations 25 
 
 that has come to pass in this citadel of the Puritan. 
 While other denominations declare through frank 
 and honorable speech the superiority of their forms 
 of government, or assume without discussion as an 
 axiom that superiority, it has somehow come about 
 that among the successors of the Puritans it is 
 deemed narrow, or trivial, or reviving dead issues, or 
 disturbing to the growing unity of the churches, 
 or as exhibiting a deplorable polemic instinct, or as 
 savoring of something almost vulgar for a Congre- 
 gationalist to enter a plea for his order. It is con- 
 ceded by our friends, the enemy, that we have had 
 a great history, and it is claimed by the same class 
 of persons that our work is done. Many among us 
 have been so flattered by the praise as to become in- 
 sensible to the dismay of the judgment upon our 
 future. Meanwhile there are other and more promis- 
 ing signs. There are among us younger men of 
 Puritan fiber who do not think it narrow, or trivial, 
 or reviving dead issues, or as showing a lamentable 
 polemic spirit, or as savoring of something almost 
 vulgar, or as disturbing in the churches any other 
 kind of unity than that which has its type in the pro- 
 gressive assimilation of the lamb inside the lion, that 
 is, of inducing an attack of arrested ecclesiastical 
 digestion, to speak frankly, to plead manfully, and 
 to declare in terms of reason and fact the high claims 
 of the polity of the Pilgrims and the Puritans. 
 
 It is sometimes said that our polity lacks com- 
 pactness, that it has little organization, that it is, 
 therefore, at a disadvantage when compared with 
 other ecclesiastical forms, for purposes of self-preser- 
 vation and reproduction. This criticism, when taken 
 
26 Denominational Memories an& ITnepirations 
 
 in connection with the two great facts of the pro- 
 gressive character of modern life and the democratic 
 character of American institutions, is a mistaken 
 criticism. 
 
 The Roman Catholic Church is a marvel of com- 
 pact organization. In certain countries, and among 
 peoples of a certain grade of intellectual develop- 
 ment, this is an advantage. In the modern world it 
 is an enormous disadvantage. Churches need con- 
 tinuous reformation ; they need to be in perpetual 
 readjustment to the life of the people. The tragedy 
 of organized Christianity is the steadfast refusal, in 
 the Middle Ages, of the Catholic Church to admit 
 reform. The reformation became a movement out- 
 side the Catholic Church. An organization, less 
 complete and severe, might have averted the calam- 
 ity of disruption. 
 
 The same remark may be made, although not 
 with equal force, of the Protestant Episcopal Church. 
 Its organization does not indeed close its doors to 
 the legitimate influence of the modern world. But 
 its order does hold it in alienation from the demo- 
 cratic sympathies of the people of the United States. 
 The Episcopal Church is the child of Imperial 
 Rome; it is the church of the class-organization of 
 society. It is native to England, with her king and 
 her aristocracy, with her ritual of royalty and her 
 love of social distinctions. 
 
 The Anglican church in America confronts an 
 enormous initial disadvantage. That disadvantage 
 may be overcome. It has been overcome in many 
 signal instances. Where it has not been overcome 
 it has been mitigated by a shining record of service 
 
2>cnominattonal /iftcmories an& Unsplratfons 27 
 
 to the community. Honor is due to brave men for 
 triumph over initial disadvantages. The name of 
 Phillips Brooks leaps to our lips at the mention in 
 this city of the church that he honored with his 
 great ministry. But it must not be forgotten that, 
 whether with reason or without it, Phillips Brooks 
 appeared in the Episcopal communion as a wonder. 
 How he could do what he did, how he could be 
 what he was, and yet remain an Episcopalian, con- 
 tinued to the end of his existence to be a kind of 
 mystery. The mystery of a mighty democrat in an 
 aristocratic ecclesiasticism was part of the enchant- 
 ment of his great career. The resolution of the 
 mystery is that Phillips Brooks was a man of genius, 
 and of irresistible popular power; and as in all simi- 
 lar cases, the institution gave way to the man, and 
 not the man to the institution. Like almost all the 
 broad men in the Episcopal Church in America, 
 Phillips Brooks was the descendant of Puritan an- 
 cestors ; he was born and bred in this city of the 
 Puritans ; his nature was alive with the finest tradi- 
 tions and the loftiest ideals of a democratic commun- 
 ity; and he took over into the communion in which 
 he chose to do his work, this precious inheritance 
 and the issues of his training in American society. 
 The Episcopal communion has a right to the glory 
 of his career; it was that branch of the church of 
 Christ that gave him his opportunity. 
 
 But those charged with the perpetuation of the 
 polity and the principles of the Pilgrims and the 
 Puritans will cherish a strong delusion if they sup- 
 pose that Phillips Brooks is an accepted exponent of 
 the genius of Episcopacy. For us, after the widest 
 
28 Denomtnatlonal jfflbcmorics anD Ifnsplratlons 
 
 recognition of the great and honorable service ren- 
 dered to the kingdom of God in that communion, 
 Episcopacy as an ecclesiastical system reduces itself 
 to two uncompromising denials ; first, the denial that 
 our ministry is a valid ministry ; second, the denial 
 that our churches are Christian churches. Our min- 
 isters are not recognized as such in the fellowship of 
 the Episcopal ministry. When members leave our 
 order for the Episcopal order, letters of dismission 
 and of recommendation are not desired. These per- 
 sons confess Christ again, as if for the first time. 
 Their confession of the Master in our order, and 
 their ecclesiastical connection with us do not count. 
 When communicants come to us from the Episcopal 
 Church, as they often do, a letter is given not of 
 dismission and of recommendation, but of assurance 
 that the wanderer is a member of the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church. Thus our ministry is ignored; 
 thus our Christianity is ignored. Ecclesiastical rec- 
 ognition either of our ministry or of our Christian 
 laity on the part of the Episcopal Church there is 
 none. 
 
 Against all this the broad churchman is indig- 
 nant. He is, however, powerless. The genius of 
 his order compels him to obey, overrules his fine 
 instincts, disregards his breadth, ignores his sweet 
 reasonableness, and turns him into a supporter of 
 this strange system. As one has said, the abomina- 
 ble rule must be obeyed. The prevailing church- 
 man does not admit that the rule is abominable. He 
 is here to contest with the Pilgrim and the Puritan, 
 and if he can in honor do it, to take away their name 
 and their nation. He knows that with the advent 
 
Denominational /Bbemorics anD fnsplrations 29 
 
 of those heroic men on these shores, a new era was 
 opened in the political and religious history of man- 
 kind. The democratic church prepared the way for 
 the democratic state ; and the democratic state needs 
 the support of the democratic church. The aggres- 
 sive Episcopalian is swift to note this, and his im- 
 patience with our veneration for our Congregational 
 ancestors finds a not unsuitable expression in the 
 frank exclamation of one vigorous churchman, " In- 
 stead of the Pilgrims landing on Plymouth rock, 
 would to heaven that Plymouth rock had landed on 
 them ! " 
 
 For the admission of new light, and for closeness 
 to the order of our national existence, Congrega- 
 tionalism has an immense advantage. The local 
 church is independent. It chooses its own minister, 
 its own officers ; it determines what its covenant or 
 creed shall be. It may open its gates to the east and 
 to the west, to the north and to the south. It is 
 shackled by no man, it is hampered by none, it need 
 be kept from progress by none. It may, to be sure, 
 abuse its independence, and thus fall out of fellow- 
 ship. But the wise and resolute use of its inde- 
 pendence will not bring about that result. And so 
 it has come to pass that with only here and there 
 a shock, our Congregational churches have passed 
 safely through the greatest intellectual revolution 
 known to Christian history. They have kept the 
 faith ; they have kept faith and pace with progress ; 
 they have kept faith with one another. Today they 
 stand in unbroken and in closer fellowship, rejoicing 
 in the freedom and the responsibility of the autono- 
 mous church, rejoicing more and more in the com- 
 
30 Denominational /IRemortes anD Unspirations 
 
 munion and cooperation of autonomous churches. 
 The stars have their several and separate orbits. In 
 these they go their several and separate ways. They 
 shine in these paths of freedom ; they move in these 
 highways of independence. And out of this inde- 
 pendence, because it remains unabused, comes the 
 vast and glorious fellowship of the stars, the clusters 
 and galaxies that constitute the milky way, that sym- 
 bolize the communion of the saints in glory everlast- 
 ing, that symbolize the bold independence and the 
 shining brotherhood of the churches of our order. 
 
 No church can do its best work that is not in 
 accord with the genius of the people, that is not 
 in harmony with the genius of our political institu- 
 tions. The second advantage of our polity is equally 
 impressive. We are open to new light, and we are 
 close to the national heart. The people of the 
 United States are democratic in history, in feeling, 
 in institutions, in all their sympathies and in all their 
 ideals. The priestly church, the aristocratic church, 
 is here under immense initial embarrassment. The 
 church that founds its ministry upon manhood, that 
 describes itself as a company of the disciples of Jesus 
 Christ, whose aims are all for the equalization of 
 men before the law, before the human conscience, in 
 human feeling, in social custom, and in the presence 
 of the Infinite, whose spirit is one of intense and 
 abounding humanity, must possess an unmeasured 
 initial advantage with the people of the United 
 States. If we do not succeed it is not because of 
 our polity. If we fail to advance, our ecclesiastical 
 order is not to blame. It is because we are un- 
 worthy of our history ; it is because we have for- 
 
Denominational /Iftemorles anC> Unspirations 31 
 
 gotten the price by which our freedom was bought; 
 it is because we are blind to the issue that confronted 
 the Pilgrims, blind to the meaning of their struggle 
 and to the magnificence of their victory. They 
 fought for the primacy of the people, for the ascend- 
 ency in all human affairs of the human being, for the 
 sovereignty of man under the sovereignty of God. 
 If we fail it will be, not because of a poor polity, 
 but because of deficient manhood; not for want of 
 better organization, but for want of wider sympathies; 
 not because we are without bishops, but because we 
 are without men. Indeed, we are confronted by our 
 greatest opportunity. In the stern days that are 
 upon us, in the terrible epoch of the trial of strength 
 between capital and labor, there is an immeasurable 
 opportunity for the church that appeals to man as 
 man, that is no respecter of persons, that claims 
 Lazarus the beggar as a son of God, that reminds 
 Dives that he is nothing more, and that seeks by the 
 Gospel of the Divine Man to lift human society into 
 the mood and power of brotherhood. 
 
 In the Congregational House is the denomina- 
 tional paper, the special guardian of the polity and 
 the principles of the Pilgrims and the Puritans. In 
 my judgment, and I am not a stockholder or a 
 director in it, that paper is one of the broadest 
 and best conducted denominational journals in the 
 country. A denominational paper is often provok- 
 ing ; it is provoking as the preacher is now and then 
 provoking. There is little opportunity to reply, and 
 the journal and the preacher always have the last 
 word. In the expression of his thoughts, and in run- 
 
32 Denominational Memories an5 flnsplratlone 
 
 ning counter to the current of their convictions, the 
 preacher often seems to possess an unfair advantage 
 over his people. The same is true of the paper. 
 On the whole, however, the honest and fearless 
 preacher is forgiven and loved in spite of his ex- 
 asperating opinions ; and the courageous and upright 
 journal is honored and supported notwithstanding 
 its occasional apparent perversity. Think what the 
 pulpit would be if it should sink into a mere echo 
 of the pews. It would be a confusion worse than 
 Babel ; for there is less agreement in belief among 
 laymen than among ministers. It would be a dis- 
 grace equal to that of Judas ; for its salutation of 
 conformity would be but the kiss of the betrayer. 
 If we had no voice for the current thought of the 
 denomination, no influence to reach, in the name of 
 our order, the homes of our people, no medium for 
 the expression of the new ideas and the old, no force 
 for the creation of a common sentiment, and a pre- 
 vailing public opinion, no organ to represent our 
 history, cherish our traditions, recall our great names, 
 and mediate between those who are a venturesome 
 vanguard and those who constitute a lagging rear- 
 guard, we should be poor indeed. Our denomina- 
 tional paper is less in need of our appreciation and 
 support than we are of a just apprehension of the 
 indispensableness of its service. 
 
 The religious newspaper represents the large 
 body of ephemeral but powerful writings which 
 come, like the snows of winter, to whiten for a sea- 
 son the fields of human society, which melt and 
 vanish only to leave the soil richer and prepared for 
 a more abundant harvest. Much may be said for the 
 
S>enomlnatlcnal /Dbcmorlcs anD llnspirations ^^ 
 
 word that perishes in the utterance of it, for the ser- 
 mon or pamphlet or article or paper which is read 
 but once, which yet enters into contemporary man- 
 hood and womanhood as illumination and inspiration. 
 The vast majority of writers, in all departments of 
 letters, long survive their books. Their lives would 
 be sorrowfully brief if this were not the case. I do 
 not see why religious writers should grieve unduly 
 over this situation. The romance that this year sells 
 by the one hundred thousand in another year will 
 be utterly dead. The overwhelming majority of the 
 issues of the press in fiction have an existence about 
 equal in length and in unhappy power to that of the 
 black flies in the Adirondacks. If our writings in 
 behalf of the faith are true and worthy, if they are 
 in any degree, and for a short time, forces in the 
 intellectual and moral training of the people, why 
 should we mourn their brief existence ? They come 
 like the song-birds, and like them they leave; but 
 the memory of their clear and ringing notes abides 
 to strengthen men and women at the great and seri- 
 ous business of living. Literature exists for life. 
 Life is the ultimate wonder, the final glory of the 
 world, and it elects to immortality only an infinitesi- 
 mal part of the really precious and temporarily in- 
 dispensable in literature. It is no discouragement 
 to the lover and servant of life that his article, essay, 
 sermon, or book cannot last. If only it may serve 
 for an hour or a season, let it pass. It has done its 
 work, it has gone into the soul of the living world 
 that cannot die. 
 
 It would be ill with us had we no contemporary 
 literature. Darwin dies, but Darwin's science lives. 
 
34 Denominational Memories anD Unspirations 
 
 Philosophers die, but the meaning of the universe, to 
 whose unfoldment they made their several contribu- 
 tions, continues to grow and to engage the human 
 intellect. Theologians die, but the work of giving 
 order and vindication to the great ideas of the Chris- 
 tian faith, to which they devoted their power, lives 
 on. In all but a few instances, the written word 
 dies ; but that which every true written word serves 
 cannot die. The ideal interest of man, the kingdom 
 of God in time, is great enough to call forth our best 
 utterance whether spoken or written ; and we may 
 leave it with our King to determine how long our 
 words shall last, while we console ourselves with the 
 mighty conviction that we stand as servants and as 
 heirs in a kingdom that cannot be shaken. 
 
 In the Congregational Building is the library of 
 the Association. It represents a labor of love in its 
 growth from fifty -six books to more than fifty thou- 
 sand that should not be forgotten. It has been 
 served in love and reverence from its origin to the 
 present hour. It is rich in the peculiar literary treas- 
 ure of our order, and it contains an increasing col- 
 lection of rare things gathered from the ends of the 
 earth by pious hands and brought hither for our in- 
 struction. The writings of our New England fathers 
 are here. A great body of denominational literature 
 is here. And if it is today little read, if it seems to 
 have little relation to the duty and the peril of the 
 hour, if a strange absence of vitality appears in the 
 thoughts and literary forms of our predecessors, let 
 us be sure that this will not always be the case. 
 One interest is certain to invest more and more these 
 writings, and that is the human interest. Thy dead 
 
Denominational jflRemorles anO Unsplratlons 35 
 
 men shall live again. For those who look upon 
 these New England fields and hills as invested for 
 more than two hundred years with the heroic human- 
 ity of their ancestors, who see the image of kingly 
 men and queenly women burning in the sun that 
 lights the world today, who hear in the murmur of 
 the brook and the sigh of the river the voices that 
 once made glad the holy place of the Most High, 
 and who carry into the depth of nature and into the 
 contemporary world of man the sense of that pathetic, 
 heroic, majestic past, these dead books will live again. 
 It would be sad indeed if while we have imagination 
 and humanity enough to renew out of mud tablets, 
 strange stones, and often the mere debris of art, the 
 vision of vanished races and civilizations we should 
 be unmindful of the great human world whose power 
 is still upon us, whose beauty is the beauty of the 
 Lord our God. An hour in the library of the Asso- 
 ciation is like an hour in the courts of our God. 
 The silence is a message to the soul ; and those 
 shelves with their books tell of large and heroic in- 
 tellectual power. They tell of a New England in 
 which plain living was accompanied by the zest of 
 high thinking, and of generations of men and women 
 whose hardship and poverty were glorified in the 
 light of an Eternal ideal. Love and marriage, birth 
 and death, the awakening to the glory of true man- 
 hood and womanhood, the sad yet heroic struggle, 
 the tragedy of reverse and despair, the victory and 
 the joy of faith ; the dark worlds of sorrow transfig- 
 ured in the burning light of Christian intelligence lie 
 behind those silent and mournful memorials. For 
 imagination and humanity they are alive, and like 
 
36 Dcnomfnatfonal /Dbemorfes anO fnepirations 
 
 the third rail, dangerous to the unwise. Hither let 
 us come to read a little, and to think and dream and 
 love much. The mood of veneration for the past 
 will help to create insight and courage for the pres- 
 ent. The Christ who departed most from the Old 
 Testament understood it best, and went back to God 
 with one of its great words upon his lips : " Father, 
 into thy hands I commend my spirit." The true 
 Christian leader is he who works in the sense of 
 the God who was, and who is, and who is to come. 
 In the library we look upon shining names. 
 There are here names of laymen known all over the 
 land for their character and service. The portrait 
 gallery should be enriched with paintings in oil of 
 these leading laymen. It would be an enduring 
 denominational inspiration to look upon the faces 
 of Alpheus Hardy and Samuel Warren, E. S. Tobey 
 and Ezra Farnsworth, Samuel Johnson and Henry 
 Woods, and of other men of similar strength of 
 character and reach of influence. The power of the 
 layman is a chief distinction in our order. The 
 prophethood, the priesthood, and the kinghood of all 
 believers is the heart of our faith. And when we 
 think of the churches, and of the societies that are 
 the extension of their spirit and power in the coun- 
 try, we are reflecting upon organizations that have 
 come largely from the brain of our laymen, we are 
 regarding organizations whose operation is largely 
 dependent upon the wisdom, and wholly dependent 
 upon the beneficence of laymen. When we look upon 
 the New England churches and colleges, the creation 
 of the voluntary principle, institutions of humanity 
 brought into existence in the day of small things ; 
 
2)enominatlonal /iBemodcs anD IFnsplratlons 37 
 
 when we look at the greatness in influence to which 
 these churches have come, at the authority in the 
 world of science and of letters to which these col- 
 leges have risen ; and when we reflect that these 
 far-shining centres of love and learning are largely 
 monuments to our Congregational laymen, we begin 
 to apprehend from what high and heroic generations 
 we have come. From our limits in the east to those 
 in the west, and from north to south, the country is 
 dotted over with monuments to the love of knowl- 
 edge and of sound relis^ion that is the inherited tra- 
 dition of our laymen, and that in them has become 
 a fundamental and ruling instinct. The sense of the 
 worth of the nation is at the heart of it all, and 
 science and faith, learning and religion, insight and 
 character are for the establishment of the American 
 people in righteousness and hope. 
 
 The astonishing gifts of individual men, in these 
 days of fabulous fortunes, are apt to draw attention 
 from the far grander fact, that in days of hardship 
 and penury in the first instance, and later, in the 
 years of humble incomes, our laymen gave of their 
 substance for the creation and endowment of colleges, 
 gave of their substance for the multiplication and 
 support of churches, reserved from their small store 
 a constant and generous contribution for the culti- 
 vation of ideal interests, and for the realization of 
 ideal ends. The universities and churches of the 
 old world are largely the product of the state. The 
 people are taxed that these instruments of science 
 and religion may come into existence, and that they 
 may continue in existence. Our ideal in science and 
 in religion is creation and support out of the will of 
 
38 Denomlnatfonal Memories an& Inspirations 
 
 the people, and in all history there is nothing to sur- 
 pass, if indeed there is anything to match, this high 
 devotion to ideal interests originating in the enlight- 
 ened minds and democratic sympathies of New Eng- 
 land Congregationalists, and spreading from them, 
 like airs from heaven, over the whole country. Our 
 laymen have been the strength of the church, the 
 vigor of the college, the resource of the nation, the 
 sagacious and resolute organizers of the Christian 
 ideal into the service of the people. All honor to 
 them tonight. For the past fifty years they have 
 never wearied in well-doing, and the highest praise 
 that we can bestow upon the living is that they are 
 worthy of the venerated dead. This is part of our 
 apostolical succession. We are unconcerned about 
 the official continuity of our ministers back to the 
 apostles, unconcerned about our official relation to 
 bishops who claim to date from Peter or Paul or 
 John. That relation through ordination or the want 
 of it is to an enlightened mind a trivial circumstance. 
 About the unbroken succession of our laymen from 
 the centurion who made his great confession in the 
 presence of the dead Christ, and of Joseph of Arima- 
 thea who begged Pilate that he might give the dead 
 Master burial ; about the unbroken succession of our 
 women from the Syrophoenician mother and from 
 the sisters in Bethany, we are greatly concerned. 
 When we read of Aquila and Priscilla in the New 
 Testament, and in the churches of New England we 
 devoutly pray that their character may repeat itself 
 in all generations. So long as the brotherhood that 
 constitutes the Congregational churches of America 
 shall remain wise and strong, devout and self-denying, 
 
Dcnominatfonal /Ibcmorfes anD "ffnsptrations 39 
 
 able to control the world, and to turn it in part, at 
 least, into a servant of the Christian ideal, so long 
 shall our order flourish, and go from strength unto 
 strength. 
 
 Here as well as anywhere a few words may be 
 said of the societies that have their home in the 
 Congregational House. Our order is a working 
 order. Part of the strength of the denomination is 
 in its intelligence. There is our general theological 
 belief holding in it many of the greatest ideas that 
 have entered human history, and there is the special 
 tradition of high intellectual power. But the voca- 
 tion of the thinker and believer completes itself in 
 the vocation of the doer. The best book in correc- 
 tion of the difficulties of the mere thinker or believer 
 is Fichte's classic, " The Vocation of Man." The 
 ring of that book is the better music in much of the 
 higher thought of the last hundred years. It lies 
 behind Carlyle's gospel of work ; it is a living force 
 in the whole modern recognition of the primacy of 
 will in man. 
 
 Our denominational societies are the eyes that 
 search the land, that search the world for the needs 
 of men and the opportunities of the gospel ; the 
 eyes to discover human want and the arms to bring 
 together the hunger of the soul and the bread of life. 
 More than all else these societies proclaim that we 
 are a working denomination, that we are doers of the 
 word of God for the city, the commonwealth, the na- 
 tion, and the race ; that as Christians we are citizens, 
 patriots, and men; that we regard the entire ideal 
 treasure in our Lord as a guide and inspiration in 
 the service of humanity. Nothing more deserves 
 
40 Denominational Memories anD Unspirations 
 
 our devotion than these societies. Nothing is more 
 alarming than their decline, nothing more signally 
 proves our denominational vitality than their in- 
 crease in power. That the wisest and best of our 
 people support and love them, that they thank God 
 for the expressions and powers of the churches which 
 they are, bringing together the needs near and re- 
 mote and the saving strength of our faith, is surely 
 one of our profoundest inspirations. 
 
 Among the multitude of names of ministers sug- 
 gested by a visit to the library of the Associa- 
 tion I select four for special mention. The first is 
 Edwards A. Park, preacher, teacher, scientific theo- 
 logian, leader here in Massachusetts for an entire 
 generation in every great interest of the churches 
 of our order. 
 
 In looking back upon the career of this remark- 
 able man, it is essential to bear in mind that in com- 
 mon with the generation to which he belonged, he 
 became involved in the most surprising and radical 
 revolution in Christian history. We shall utterly fail 
 in justice to our great predecessors if we overlook 
 this supreme fact. Here and there indeed a seer 
 escaped the doom that overtook suddenly, as a thief 
 in the night, an entire generation of scholars, think- 
 ers, teachers, and preachers ; here and there an orig- 
 inal mind anticipated the coming change, and, like 
 a wise sailor, caught its power with all sails set. It 
 was otherwise with the mass of even able and noble 
 men. A new view of nature, a new sense of history, 
 a new conception of literary and historical criticism, 
 a new application of scientific. method, and the sub- 
 
PKOK. KJ)\VAK1)S A. I'AKK 
 
E>cnomlnatlonal /Dbemorics anO Inepiratfons 41 
 
 jection to critical consideration of every human inter- 
 est, a new consciousness of the work of the great 
 historic thinkers of mankind, and the entrance of 
 theology into the arena of philosophic debate, with 
 a fair field and no favor, brought about, within the 
 space of a decade, an incredible change in the world 
 of thought. Men who were in the vanguard in 1870, 
 found themselves in the rearguard in 1880. When 
 these men saw their work as scholars discredited, 
 their methods as Biblical interpreters disowned, their 
 systems of theology built up with immense ability 
 and devotion wholly disregarded, it is not strange 
 that they lost their finest temper, that they failed in 
 sympathy with the new era, that they grew, in some 
 instances, hostile and bitter to younger men, that 
 they set themselves with Herculean strength to avert 
 what they regarded as a calamity. That new order 
 could not be averted. It is in vain that the strongest 
 stand in the path of the inevitable. Edmund Burke 
 could not arrest that insurrection of humanity — the 
 French Revolution, and Daniel Webster could not 
 suppress the burning assertion of the Puritan con- 
 science in the presence of human slavery. Prayers 
 and imprecations may do much, but they cannot con- 
 trol the dawn or hold back the rising sun. The new 
 era came with the sudden and quiet might of day- 
 break, smiling serenely in the face of opposition, and 
 men who had hitherto conquered and controlled every- 
 thing were smitten helpless as from the bow of 
 Apollo. We must antedate this hour of unhappy 
 opposition to the progress of the world, we must go 
 back to the earlier time, if we would do justice to the 
 men of heroic size who led thought and who inspired 
 life in the generation preceding our own. 
 
42 Denominational itsemoxies and Inspitationa 
 
 Professor Park represents that large class of con- 
 servative men whose merit is likely to be unrecog- 
 nized on account of their want of relation to our 
 time. He was of his class easily the first. He knew 
 the New England churches, the New England min- 
 istry, the New England theology and the earlier 
 New England character and traditions as few men 
 have ever known them. He was a preacher un- 
 equaled in his order, one whose great sermons be- 
 came traditions of power in all the denominations, 
 and among all types of belief. Men will differ in 
 their judgments about such matters as they do about 
 everything else ; still I am inclined to think that the 
 greatest sermon ever preached in Boston, — greatest 
 for immediate impression upon one of the most in- 
 tellectual audiences ever assembled in the city, and 
 for its recognition of the function of life in theol- 
 ogy, — was Professor Park's discourse on " The 
 Theology of the Intellect and the Theology of Feel- 
 ing." The sermon was preached in 1850, in the old 
 Brattle Street church, before the Convention of 
 Congregational Ministers of Massachusetts. Among 
 those who heard it, Unitarians and Trinitarians alike, 
 there was but one conviction concerning it, and that 
 was of its transcendent power. Professor Park was 
 then in his forty-second year, and if he had allowed 
 his thought in that great discourse to control and 
 shape his entire teaching, instead of being the last 
 of the old order of theologians he would have be- 
 come the first of the new. If he had utilized his 
 insight that the content of genuine Christian feeling 
 is an eternal content, while the theories of the intel- 
 lect chase each other, in their discovered inadequacy 
 
Denominational ftcmotlee anO Unsptrations 43 
 
 as philosophy, like shadows over the summer grass ; 
 if he had turned the intellect upon the deposit of 
 faith laid up in the Christian heart, stored in the 
 Christian consciousness, treasured in the soul of 
 Christ; if he had allowed the enlightened conscience 
 to cleanse the Augean stable of the mediaeval under- 
 standing, Edwards A. Park would have stood for the 
 dawn of a new day in American theology. The 
 promise of all this burned in the eloquence of that 
 sermon ; a promise unfulfilled by Park, but now re- 
 ceiving fulfillment by the men who have entered 
 into his labors. 
 
 Upon serious subjects Professor Park was prob- 
 ably the greatest teacher that we have ever had. He 
 made preachers, and filled the pulpits of the land 
 with them. In the power of creating enthusiasm for 
 the calling of the preacher he has never been ex- 
 celled. He was a master in the realm of thought. 
 He gave to New England divinity an expression 
 which for ingenuity and dialectical force has never 
 been surpassed. He was a tireless promoter of all 
 forms of sacred learning, and eagle-eyed in the rec- 
 ognition of young men of promise. Scores of the 
 men who afterwards became scholars of national 
 fame, and who grieved their teacher by undermining 
 or shelling the forts that he had constructed, were 
 frank in the confession that Professor Park first 
 inspired them with the scholar's enthusiasm and 
 directed them in the selection of the subjects in 
 which they rose to authority. 
 
 This fascinating man has another distinction. 
 He was a master in the delineation of character. 
 Here his sermon on Moses Stuart may well serve 
 
44 Denominational /iBcmotlcs an5 Unspiratlons 
 
 as a model. Nothing could well be finer than its 
 appreciation and its honest and yet reverent indica- 
 tion of limitations. His biographies of Samuel Hop- 
 kins and Nathaniel Emmons are unique in the class 
 of literature to which they belong. Professor Park 
 had an eye for a heroic character, a vision that took, 
 with immense vividness, the image of the great per- 
 sonality in its leading features and in its significant 
 detail. He possessed in a remarkable degree the 
 historical imagination, and where his sympathies 
 were keenly enlisted, working as they did through 
 an intellect of sleepless critical activity, the result 
 was a portrait of a kingly person drawn to the life. 
 His biographies never sink into blind adulation. 
 They are never mere appreciations. As a delineator 
 of character he had the fear of God before his eyes. 
 He does not idealize his hero out of all relation to 
 the facts and the characteristics of his career. He 
 sees the real hero, and has the good sense to know 
 that in the lights and shadows, in the colors gay and 
 gray, brilliant and dark, are the materials for an 
 authentic portrait of the great man, and one im- 
 measurably more potent than that which uncritical 
 homage and unchastened imagination can paint. 
 
 Professor Park was a man memorable for his wit, 
 his humor, his sarcasm ; a man from whom came, for 
 a generation, the larger part of all the good stories, 
 and a considerable portion of the keenest comments 
 on current affairs. He constructed out of anecdote 
 a ritual of humor, and one could wish that the ritual 
 might become record. It must be confessed that this 
 great man had bitter prejudices ; but outside the cir- 
 cle of these sad infirmities, a more accomplished gen- 
 
Denominational /Bbemorlee anD Unepfrations 45 
 
 tleman one could not meet. He was absolutely free 
 from vanity, clean of every form of vulgar egoism, 
 ready to give and ready to receive the flow of wit 
 and of wisdom. 
 
 Professor Park was an imperial personality. In 
 his presence even extraordinary men looked undistin- 
 guished. Lacking indeed a rich nature, wanting in 
 originality, entirely without the gifts and the sympa- 
 thies of the seer, he was the incarnation of keen in- 
 tellect, logical alertness, dialectical skill ; and he was 
 this in thorough accord with his native bent, and 
 in the highest degree of accomplishment — in disci- 
 plined, compact, commanding character. Let us be 
 magnanimous toward the mighty. The Greeks did 
 not forget Achilles because of his wrath ; they even 
 found in that wrath an epical significance. Let us 
 recall tonight the Achilles of our camp, his well- 
 proportioned and towering figure, his finely molded 
 head, his eagle features, — their keenness, their force, 
 and their fire ; his voice of melody and command, 
 his intelligence, filling, shaping, swaying his whole 
 being, the impassive face and the avalanche of 
 humor, or wit, or sarcasm, or critical remark, the 
 iron will that would have made him the first of stoics, 
 the loyalty to his convictions that enabled him to 
 confront and fight almost single-handed a revolution 
 in belief, the composure and the uncomplaining forti- 
 tude of the fighter, his high disdain as of an eagle 
 in defeat, his unfailing dignity, his unembittered and 
 unbroken spirit, his imperial manhood. The portrait 
 of this man, could we but find one with skill to paint 
 it, would add to the distinction of any hall of fame. 
 
46 H)enomtnatfonal ^emodee anO fliisplrations 
 
 The most famous pupil of Professor Park was 
 Richard Salter Storrs, of Brooklyn. His death is 
 so recent, and the place that he filled in the denomi- 
 nation up to the very close of his career was so 
 large, that it is unnecessary that I should do more 
 than refer to his brilliant name. He belonged to a 
 class of men of whom there are now no survivors. 
 Edward Everett, Rufus Choate, and Richard Salter 
 Storrs were orators formed upon the Roman model ; 
 and of the three I am inclined to put Storrs first. 
 Ciceronian eloquence is not native to Americans, 
 and it required a rare conjunction of gifts in the man 
 who mastered it, and who made it a power in the 
 free and unconventional life of this republic of the 
 west. To Dr. Storrs men would listen for hours ; 
 and a good example of this enduring spell of the 
 orator over his audience is furnished by the remark 
 of Mr. Beecher to his neighbor, after a wonderful 
 address in the Academy of Music: "Brother Storrs, 
 for the first hour and a half I thought you were 
 going to be dull." 
 
 Dr. Storrs could be surpassingly effective and 
 brief at the same time. It will be long before his 
 remarks made at the meeting held in New York in 
 1893, in memory of Phillips Brooks, are forgotten. 
 Old man as he was he rose to the occasion, and in 
 that meeting there was much that was fine and thrill- 
 ing, but nothing to match the splendid eloquence of 
 this master. Nor will another brief speech of his 
 soon fade from the memory of those who heard it, 
 when in a hot municipal campaign against corrup- 
 tion, he called for a public opinion so sharp and swift 
 that it might act upon these robbers of the people 
 
REV. RICHARD S. STORKS 
 
Denominational Memories an& Ungplratlons 47 
 
 as a certain sword which passed so quickly and com- 
 pletely through the neck of a villain that he did not 
 know that he had been decapitated until he tried to 
 swear and could not. And again at the meeting of 
 the American Board in Minneapolis, when troubles 
 were many, he touched the situation with character- 
 istic frankness and grace when he referred to the 
 person who carried a kind of cement that would 
 mend anything, from the crack of a teacup to the 
 break of day. 
 
 Dr. Storrs did not see the significance of the 
 scientific movement of his age, nor did he interest 
 himself in the modern view of the Bible. His tastes 
 and sympathies did not carry him into the compan- 
 ionship of the great philosophical minds of the race, 
 nor did he look for a better theological expression of 
 Christianity than that found in the New England 
 divinity. These were doubtless limitations. They 
 serve to define and frame the figure of this com- 
 manding preacher. He was a scholar, a patrician in 
 nature, in thought, in taste, and in culture, and at 
 the same time a man of strong and just character. 
 He was a person of wide and accurate historical 
 learning, alive with the sense of beauty in nature 
 and in art, one whose mental operations were an 
 incarnation of the law of artistic excellence, whose 
 speech at its best had the elevation of ancient lit- 
 anies, whose illustrations of truth had in them the 
 fiery scope and splendor of sunsets. He was largely 
 and honorably useful as a mediator in times of de- 
 nominational distress; he was for more than a gen- 
 eration a proud distinction in our order ; and as a 
 rhetorician and an orator of the antique type he 
 
48 Dcnomtnatfonal /Hiemories anO Inspirations 
 
 stands without a rival in the history of American 
 Christianity. When in one of his elaborate similes, 
 his imagination found in the movement of the stars 
 a slow assumption of the form of the cross, he was 
 revealing the central thought and enthusiasm of his 
 own heart. For him the cross of Christ was the 
 symbol of the soul of the universe ; the token of 
 man's refuge and hope. 
 
 Contemporary with Edwards A. Park was Horace 
 Bushnell. He divided with Park the theolo2:ical 
 leadership of the churches of our order in New 
 England. He was a man of original insight, a 
 diviner of meanings deeper and more vital than 
 those found in the forms of the current orthodoxy, 
 a pioneer in doctrinal investigation, a creative mind 
 in the realm of Christian belief. His career and his 
 character are part of the treasure of the denomina- 
 tion. The denomination gave him his freedom, and 
 it supplied that inspiration of antagonism without 
 which no man can do his best work. There is a 
 divine reason for the presence in Jerusalem, when 
 Nehemiah attempts to rebuild the wall, of Sanballat 
 and his set. There is a divine reason for the pres- 
 ence of Sanballat in New England, in New England 
 Congregationalism, in Christian history. Job could 
 not arrive at his best without the tormenting Satan, 
 and Jesus reached the full maturity of his Messianic 
 consciousness through his victorious battle against 
 the Adversary. Dualism must not be allowed as an 
 ultimate fact; there is but one original and eternal 
 fountain of being. But short of the intolerable ex- 
 treme of a dualistic universe, there may well be 
 
REV. HOR Ml i;i -II \ I 1,1 
 
Denominational /Bbemories anD "ffnspltattons 49 
 
 a dualism of history. The stream of the Divine 
 benignity divides with the birth of time and the 
 advent of life, and the coming of man into two 
 branches — one stands for the sympathy and the 
 other for the high hostility of the universe. Into 
 the order of human society, into the order of nature, 
 into the order of the universe, as it affects the tem- 
 poral life of man, is wrought the Adversary : Behold 
 the goodness and the severity of God. 
 
 In the world of religious faith, as elsewhere, the 
 opposing forces of conservatism and radicalism act 
 and react on each other, and progress is the issue 
 of the collision. All that Bushnell said was not 
 true ; all that his opponents said was not untrue ; 
 and in the high combat between the solitary man of 
 genius and the multitude of average minds, while we 
 thank God for the great seer, let us think kindly of 
 those persons who, by their antagonism, brought his 
 message to a fruitful issue, who drove him deeper in 
 upon God, and who called forth the profoundest and 
 the best that was in him. The denomination did 
 distrust Horace Bushnell. Many thought that he 
 had no place in it. Much bitterness was leveled 
 against him; much trouble was given him. But 
 after all, his denomination stood by him. It gave 
 him his opportunity. Into its ministry he poured 
 the treasure of his life, and through it his influence 
 has gone to the ends of the earth. 
 
 Horace Bushnell is an engaging character. The 
 stress of his soul in the storms that raged about him 
 during the larger part of his career, the candor of 
 the man, his flawless honesty, his profound and habit- 
 ual religiousness, the romance that he found in liv- 
 
50 Denominational ^emorlce anO Insplratione 
 
 ing, the way in which he took his nature and em- 
 ployed it in the discovery and in the realization of 
 truth, his unclouded sense of an ideal world, his vast 
 faith, his great and tender love combined with the 
 most fearless courage and the most splendid fighting 
 qualities ; his deep and earnest eyes, his noble head, 
 and at last its shock of white hair, his face, with 
 the feeling of eternity and of solemn triumph en- 
 graven upon it, make him for thoughtful men and 
 women a hero of the faith of imperishable worth and 
 charm. 
 
 Henry Ward Beecher was the greatest preacher 
 for the people that our order has produced ; in my 
 judgment, he was the greatest preacher for the peo- 
 ple that America has produced. He was not a theo- 
 logian like Park ; he was not a scholar and rhetorician 
 like Storrs ; he was not a profound original mind 
 like Bushnell ; but in his own distinctive excellence 
 he was immeasurably beyond them. Educated in 
 his father's house, in college, and in early associa- 
 tions in the formal doctrines and nice distinctions of 
 New England theology, he was well fitted to discover 
 in the service of the church the limitations of his in- 
 herited belief. In his day the material did not exist 
 for the reconstruction of theology. Intuitions and 
 emotions, the witness of the great instincts of the 
 soul and the experience of the heart, are what one 
 finds in Beecher. One is sometimes disappointed 
 not to find in him the modern view in its integrity. 
 But to condemn him for this failure would be an un- 
 just judgment. He was among the first in our order 
 to reject the New England Calvinism. He did not 
 
REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
Denominational ftcmovice an& fnsptratione 51 
 
 put a new scheme in the place of the rejected scheme. 
 For that the time was not ripe ; for that service 
 Beecher had not the power. He had a glorious 
 vision of the God and Father of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. He knew sonhood in his own nature ; he 
 was a true son. He knew fatherhood as few have 
 ever known it. He had a great nature, and guided 
 by the humanity of Christ, he sought God through 
 his whole manhood. Here is the source of his doc- 
 trine. Christianity is the revelation of God through 
 the divine humanity of Jesus, and Beecher took his 
 own great human soul and reached through the 
 divine humanity of his Master to the eternal human- 
 ity of the God and Father of men. 
 
 Beecher's teaching was the surprise of the nation 
 in its richness, in its simplicity, in its fascination, and 
 in its amazing vitality ; and when we think of it as 
 pervaded by the widest play of emotion, as filled by a 
 voice of wondrous compass, melody, and intelligence, 
 as presented by a genius for natural expression abso- 
 lutely unequaled, and by a personality of heroic vigor 
 and charm, we can imagine how his name became over 
 the whole land a household word. When we add to 
 all this that he was one of the earliest and bravest of 
 the anti-slavery orators ; that he had a genius unsur- 
 passed in any preacher for the moral appreciation of 
 political life ; that the honor of his country was as 
 close to him as that of his own home, and that the 
 supreme single service of his career was the revolu- 
 tion of opinion which he created in Great Britain in 
 favor of the North in the great civil conflict, — a rev- 
 olution of opinion accomplished in the face of almost 
 impossible opposition ; a revolution begun and carried 
 
52 Denominational /Bbemories anO "Inspirations 
 
 forward by his indomitable courage before howling 
 mobs, a courage that could not be intimidated, that 
 could not be exhausted, that could not be betrayed 
 into ill temper, that clothed itself in genial humor, in 
 withering irony, in silencing disclosures of the hol- 
 lowness and hypocrisy of Great Britain's friendship 
 for the South, that wrought by infinite tact and infi- 
 nite patience, by every form of eloquence from the play 
 of the conversational note to the rolling thunders of 
 impassioned declamation, and by as splendid an ex- 
 hibition of the power of speech over popular and 
 maddened assemblies as was ever witnessed in the 
 annals of mankind, it is small wonder that this man 
 became the hero, the idol, of the American people. 
 If the shadow of shame had not fallen upon him, if 
 his good name had not been clouded by a vast and 
 subtle slander, if his sun had gone down clear and 
 full after the glorious brightness of the day, instead 
 of blazing a path through storms and thunder clouds, 
 there would have been no name in the annals of the 
 American pulpit to put in comparison with that of 
 Henry Ward Beecher. It is with inexpressible thank- 
 fulness that all good people behold the vast shadow 
 that once rested upon him lifting, and we may hope 
 that his great soul may yet come forth clear as the 
 sun, fair as the moon, and for all the hosts of wicked 
 men, terrible as an army with banners. What could 
 Benjamin do when the cup was found in his sack ? 
 Could he prove that he was not a thief? Could he 
 do other than await the revelation and vindication 
 that time and the truth of things would surely bring ? 
 Such, in my judgment, was Beecher's case. The cup 
 found in his sack had been put there by malign men. 
 
Denomtnattonal /Memories anD Uneplratlons 53 
 
 The evidence against him was manufactured, — lied 
 into existence by word and deed. What could he do, 
 what could any man do, but confront and defy it, and 
 abide the righteous revelations of time ? 
 
 Beecher's eloquence was of orchestral variety and 
 fullness. He spoke with the inevitableness and ease 
 of nature. He could storm and thunder; and he 
 could utter, in the lowest and sweetest notes, the in- 
 finite compassions. Not his indignation, although 
 that was grand ; not his humor, although that was 
 without guile ; not his didactic address, although that 
 was surpassingly clear; not his great enthusiasm, 
 although that was instinct with high contagion ; but 
 his pathos, his deep-hearted sympathy, his wondrous 
 tenderness, the incomparable way in which he carried 
 the wounded spirit back into the divine consolation, 
 was his supreme power. He could comfort men with 
 a marvelous range of sympathy, he could comfort a 
 continent, as when Abraham Lincoln fell, from his 
 own orreat heart. And when in this human orchestra 
 the rolling of the drum ceased, and the blast of the 
 cornet was suspended, and the gay music of the violin 
 was held up, and the soft notes of the solitary flute 
 floated, as from heaven, into the soul of the congre- 
 gation, one can imagine, but cannot describe, the 
 magic, the mystery, of this man's speech. 
 
 These four men do not exhaust the kinds of power 
 in our order. They do not include the technical 
 scholar, like Moses Stuart and Joseph Henry Thayer; 
 nor influential writers upon polity, like Dexter and 
 Quint ; nor denominational leaders, like Leonard 
 Bacon ; nor evangelists, like Charles G. Finney and 
 
54 Denominational Memories an5 ITnsplratlone 
 
 Dwight L. Moody ; nor ministers, of the peculiar 
 grace of Edward N. Kirk or the social charm of 
 George W. Blagden ; nor preachers, of the type of 
 Nehemiah Adams and Leonard Swain and Austin 
 Phelps ; nor pastors and teachers, of the unique 
 genius of George W. Field ; nor men of heroic mold, 
 like A, L. Stone and J. M. Manning, who surrendered 
 their pulpits to serve with their regiments in the 
 hour of their country's peril, and who afterwards re- 
 sumed them to fill them with high thinking and the 
 power won through personal sacrifice and suffering ; 
 nor the great army of servants in our missionary 
 societies at home and abroad. Still, these four men 
 may serve to remind us of the richness and the 
 breadth of the denomination. There is room in it 
 for the scientific theologian of conservative habit ; 
 there is room for the splendid orator ; there is a place 
 in it for the seer whose premises are first principles, 
 and the issues of whose radicalism none but the Holy 
 Spirit can forecast ; and he belongs in it who is the 
 highest incarnation of the genius of preaching. In 
 these four names we may well behold the nameless 
 host of the servants of Christ in our churches whom 
 they recall. " The Lord hath wrought great glory 
 by them through his great power from the beginning. 
 There be some of them that have left a name behind 
 them ; and some there be which have no memorial ; 
 who are perished as though they had never been. 
 But these were merciful men, whose righteousness 
 hath not been forgotten. Their bodies are buried in 
 peace, but their name liveth evermore. The people 
 will tell of their wisdom, and the congregation will 
 show forth their praise." 
 
denominational /llbemories anJ> Ifngpiratione 55 
 
 It has been an inspiration to look backward. Is 
 it an inspiration to look forward ? Our denorriina- 
 tional societies are increasing in wisdom and in 
 power. Our contemporary literature is as vital and 
 serious as at any period of our history. Our laymen 
 are alive to the religious need of the nation ; they are 
 worthy of those whose places they fill. Our ministry 
 is an educated ministry, open to the teaching of the 
 time, honest, straightforward, devout, self-denying, the 
 joyous servant of the Christian ideal. But men are 
 subject to the mood of their age. A new mood has 
 arisen ; it fills the educated world ; it reaches the en- 
 tire intelligence of the time. Is this new mood for 
 better or for worse ? What of the future of our faith 
 at its hands.'* What of the future of those beliefs 
 that have hitherto been the perennial fountain, or at 
 least the indispensable channel of our greatest in- 
 spirations .f* Are we permitted now to work and to 
 feel as of old.'* Are we forbidden to think as of old .f* 
 How long can work and feeling go forward when 
 thought has lost its hold upon the Eternal .'* Does 
 the change in thought mean only a vaster thought 
 and thus a profounder feeling, and a mightier activity 
 for Christian righteousness ? In the new mood of 
 the age are we confronted, like ancient Israel, by 
 a possible blessing and a possible curse ? In our 
 hope and in our fear is there balm in Gilead ? Is 
 there a physician there ? The intellectual world, the 
 spiritual world, the Christian world is in movement. 
 Whither is it bound .'' Who is its leader and Lord ? 
 When the sea breaks its immemorial bounds is there 
 any law or force upon which one may look for 
 the control of the fearful flood ? When Christian 
 
56 Denominational /jBemories anD ITnsplrations 
 
 scholars, teachers, preachers, disciples of the Lord 
 have, in one degree or another, abandoned imme- 
 morial traditions is there any Guide on whom we 
 may rely for the conservation of the best in history, 
 and for the control and happy issue of the whole 
 daring movement of man's spirit ? 
 
 There is indeed much confusion today in the 
 field of belief, and much need of patience. You have 
 dedicated to the ministry of Christ the son whose 
 entire existence has been covered by your prayers. 
 You have sent him to college, and there he has stood 
 in the heart of the world's great debate between the- 
 ism and atheism, a knowable God and an unknow- 
 able, history as an optimism and history as the in- 
 terminable desert of despair. In college he has been 
 trained to think, to question every affirmation, to try 
 the spirits that he might know their worth. Is it 
 strange that under this discipline, — and there is no 
 other discipline that is intellectually decent, — your 
 son should come forth with a high spirit, a vigorous 
 understanding, and a somewhat attenuated body of 
 belief? You send this son to the divinity school. 
 The mood of the age is still with him. If it is not, 
 send him anywhere rather than to that inferno of 
 the spirit. In the modern seminary he stands in the 
 heart of the great debate about the Bible. How came 
 the Old Testament to be what it is ? How came the 
 New Testament to be what it is? How much is 
 authentic history ? How much, if any, is myth or 
 legend or the accretion of the creative imagination 
 of after times ? In answer to these questions your 
 son hears a multitude of conflicting tongues, and 
 Babel itself seems peaceful and beautiful order com- 
 
Denominational /Dbemorles anJ) Inspfratlons 57 
 
 pared to this unsilenceable and endless uproar. Again 
 is it strange that your son, when he presents himself 
 for ordination as a minister of Jesus Christ, should be 
 somewhat uncertain, and perhaps unsatisfactory, in 
 his statement of faith ? You cannot blame him. You 
 know the honor of his soul, you know the integrity 
 of his intellect, you know the deep and tender vener- 
 ation of his heart for his Master, you know that he 
 stands ready to confess him in service and in sacrifice 
 and unto tears and blood. You cannot blame him. 
 Why should you blame his teachers.'^ Why should 
 you blame anyone ? The mood of the age is upon 
 us all. Whither shall we go from its spirit, or 
 whither shall we flee from its presence ? If we take 
 the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost 
 parts of the sea, even there shall the mood of the time 
 confront us. If we ascend up into heaven it is there ; 
 if we make our bed in hell it is there. It is with us 
 in the darkness and in the light. It is the shadow 
 of God in the mind of educated man. And as the 
 shadow of God we must behold it, we must implore 
 for its meaning, we must beg for its name. 
 
 The profoundest meaning of the vast and restless 
 mood that is upon us, I believe to be the divine in- 
 tention to throw us back upon God, the Holy Ghost. 
 If natural law seems to be inviolable, if there appears 
 to be no longer any room left for miracle, it is that 
 the whole creation may appear miraculous, the gar- 
 ment that God is weavins: for himself on the roarino: 
 looms of time, under the eyes of the living. For a 
 few miracles, hard to grasp, we are bidden behold 
 a miraculous universe, where all things depend upon, 
 where all things reveal, the mystery of the Infinite 
 
58 Denominational /iftemories ano Ifnspiratione 
 
 will. No man is intellectually justified in denying 
 the miracles of Jesus ; he does not know enough to 
 deny. No man has a right to make the glory of 
 Christianity depend upon the miracle. Does the 
 fourth Gospel mean nothing in setting the life of 
 Jesus into the life of the world, and back into the 
 life of the universe, and up into the life of the Eternal 
 God, without the aid of miracle ? Consider which is 
 the grander, the story of the incarnation according to 
 Luke, or the same story according to John. 
 
 If the Bible appears to be no longer an infallible 
 book, it is that men may come to know the Divine 
 inspirer of it. The Bible seems to me to have 
 gained immeasurably in the process of scientific ex- 
 amination. The humanity of the Bible is monu- 
 mental ; and this monumental humanity enables us 
 to lay hold with new assurance of the Eternal hu- 
 manity. " The burdens of the Bible old " are still 
 out of the Infinite. In the lyric and epic utterance 
 of supreme souls one still hears the accent of the 
 Holy Ghost. In the oracle of the prophet, in the 
 epistle of the apostle, and in the eternal wisdom and 
 tenderness of the teaching of Jesus, we still rise as on 
 wings into the presence of the Most High. Theories 
 about the Bible are born and die like the swarms of 
 insects in summer; but the Bible in its really great 
 books remains what it has always been, the monu- 
 mental witness to the presence in man of the Holy 
 Ghost. If we live in God we shall see that the Bible 
 lives in God ; if God lives in us we shall know that 
 God lives in the Bible. 
 
 Even the uncertainty about the person of Jesus 
 Christ, which I so much deplore, seems to me to be, 
 
©enomlnatfonal /nbcmorlcs anO Unsplrations 59 
 
 in a way, providential. " It is expedient for you that 
 I go away ; " so spoke the Lord. The religion of 
 Jesus Christ is, after all, the religion of the Holy 
 Ghost. The church is the church of the risen Lord. 
 The church began in the consciousness of the risen 
 and reigning Christ. It can never be, without out- 
 rage upon history, without revolt from Christian 
 reason, the church of the dead Christ. With this 
 fountain of organized Christianity sure, with this 
 consciousness rising and terminating in the Lord 
 who abolished death, we have nothing to fear. Be- 
 hind that, below that, sane criticism cannot go. And 
 with this consciousness as channel, there comes in 
 upon us, if we will but open the gates, the floods of 
 the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit thus becomes the 
 hope of the church. If we have the Holy Spirit, he 
 will guide us into all truth ; he will recover to faith 
 and life the truth that the church may from time to 
 time lose. Thinking, believing, doing, living in the 
 strength of the Holy Ghost — there is no hope 
 save in that experience ; and for the soul and for the 
 church in that experience, there is nothing but hope. 
 What if all the criticism and uncertainty of the age 
 shall prove a divine discipline toward this issue ? 
 What is the final beatitude for man but that he shall 
 live and move and have his being, full of love and 
 awe, in God.-^ For what do we hope but that the 
 tabernacle of God shall be with men ? For what do 
 we long when, in the language of the Apocalypse, 
 we behold the holy city, the New Jerusalem, with no 
 temple therein, save the soul of God omnipresent 
 and omnipotent, in the social life of the race } The 
 outgoing mariner leaves much behind. The dear 
 
6o Denominattonal /ebcmoties atiD flnsptratlons 
 
 shores fade from his sight; the beloved land sinks 
 deeper and deeper under the horizon. But these 
 shores and that land do not cease to be ; they remain 
 part of the order of the world, and the buoyant and 
 benign sea goes with him, floating him with its joy- 
 ous floods, and fanning him with its strong winds, 
 until he anchors in the harbor whither he is bound. 
 The recorded gospel, the recorded Christ, we leave 
 behind as the swift years roll, as the great centuries 
 pass. That divine life in Galilee and in Judea is far 
 away from our time. We may weep that it is forever 
 receding from the successive generations of men ; 
 but we must not forget that it is part of the history 
 of the race, that it is the abiding and the supreme 
 human memorial, and the glorious deep of the Holy 
 Ghost goes forward with us ; it is under the keel of 
 the church. Its currents are all toward good. Its 
 winds are the prevailing forces in all progress ; and 
 with this element under us, and with these inspira- 
 tions behind us, filling the sails of faith, and blowing 
 into white heat the great furnaces of love, we have 
 everything to hope and nothing to fear. The secret 
 of existence for the individual Christian and for the 
 whole body of Christians is in a life in the life of 
 God ; in a life that cannot be plucked out of his 
 hand, that cannot be torn from fellowship with him. 
 The Christ of yesterday and the Christ of tomorrow 
 are in the keeping of the Christ of today. The 
 divine past and the divine future are safe, utterly safe, 
 when held in the divine present. " God is our refuge, 
 a present help in time of trouble. Therefore will not 
 we fear, though the earth be removed and the sea 
 roar and be troubled." Go forward in God and you 
 
Denominational /Ibemodes an£> fnepiratione 6i 
 
 shall not faint; go forward in him and you shall not 
 fear. The planet goes forever forward, but it takes 
 with it its atmosphere ; and when the storms are still, 
 it looks through that atmosphere, as through a vast 
 window, upon the numberless shining worlds among 
 which it rolls. Let the moving church take with it 
 the faith, the experience, the protection, the infinite 
 gift of the Holy Ghost. Let it roll forward in the 
 heart of this mystery of encasing deity ; let it view 
 all worlds of science and art and philosophy and gov- 
 ernment, all the shining moods of human culture, and 
 all the blasted survivals of departed glory, through 
 the infinite transparency and peace of the Eternal 
 Spirit. The church that shall journey onward, rolled 
 in the atmosphere of the Holy Ghost, shall continue 
 living, fruitful, beautiful, and to it God shall disclose 
 more and more of the splendor of his universe. 
 
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