The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1879-11-14


not well able" In better times upor
wh.ss re are entering! All the invest
ment of these years has yielded splendid
returns. All we have put into God,
cause has prospered with increase com
pounded.
! said little while ago that you had
gathered and disbursed in ten years
almost $29, 00O-nearly 5000 a year
q surprise psrhaps to many, and careless
thought may suggest that there's little
10 show for 30 much. Let US zee. An
average of $500 q year has Gov
cred current annual expenses. The
remaining LOO per year, as aver
aged, covers the great debt above men.
toned, and all debts beside; deficits In
running expenses that have been allowed
In all bat two of the ten years, all re-
pairs and purchases, all private benef.
cence to your pastor or others, all
church beneyolences, including contri.
buttons of ladies' Missionary society and
Sewing society, and Sabbath School Mis-.
sion Band, and every penny beside, for
any purpose whatever.
But here is this we'll nigh thirty
thousand dollars of hardly gathered
expenditure, and what is there to set
over against itH
For this outlay, you have nearly
g. 900 of debts and deficits paid; you
have $1,000 of repairs and refurnishing;
you have all your benifcences, in the
parsonage, in the Sabbath School, in the
choir, and elsewhere; you have general
Christian benevolences, averaging $500
yearly; you have the running expenses
of our church life-some 81, 800-an-
nually; GU have this house OF worship,
with.all its equipments; you have ] 100
sermons, besides other hundreds from
other lips than your pastors; you have
sacred ordinances, and Sabbath School,
and ten years Of pastoral work,
and 308 accessions to the church !;
you have Gods secret for them
translated to 1l2 welded couples;
you have 1874 souls, priceless as
Christ's coined blood, hopefully gar.
neIed for God, and given to God, in this
house; aye, and you have the thirty.
four graves of brethren and sisters who
have entered into glory, and all the
green teds of the little ones among the
daisies, whom Christ is keeping for you
against your coming. You have your
own growth in grace and enjoyment, and
usefulness, and consolation; you have
all the security, and the widespre Id
benedictions, this church has dispensed;
and, by Gods favor, you have all the
splendid prospect that opens close before
you to-day. II any one can say before
God that he is not satisfied lie ought to
take his dismissal to quit the church.
If the account does not balance in
your favor a one hundred fold, God
will make it good, for SO he has prom
irsd. If any one can say he has not
received q full equivalent with profit
compounded for. his utmost investment,
I venture to give the word of this
church to him, that its treasurer shall
give him q receipt in full for the future,
with iull freedom of the church, and he
shall be quit of charge forever.
And if it has paid, then what of those
who have missed paying all they ought?
Will not our utmost new investment,
in the name of the Lord, make equal
returns?
What are we "well able" to do to.
day? If during all these hard years OF
scOurge and panic and loss, members Of
this church have built or purchased
for themselves thirty-five or forty homes,
and the bulk of the business accommoda'
lions of the entire city have been
erected in no small measure by you who
frequent this house, and still the meat
Al Gods house has never wholly failed,
then are you not we'll able now, in the
rising revival of business, cat once" to
bring in all tithes into the storehouse,
and herewith prove God, whether he
will not open the windows of blessing
upon us, and give us ability to make
room and receive it? If ten years ago,
with $50 members less than now, with
wheat at 60 cents, with the hard
times Just Strengthening upon you, with
no sidewalks and few brick buildings,
and but ole schoolhouse, without the
cemetery, and the mill, and the bridge,
and the artesian we'll, and the water
works, and the railroad bonds, and not
half the town there now is, you could
pay of the dead burden Of a church
debt amounting to $4,000, and raise
nearly $1,000 in twelve months, are you
not "well able" to raise at least IS 900
this first year of the the new decade, and
build parsonage, or a room and parlors
in the rear of this building, in style like
the new house that the progress God
demands of us will soon call for in place
of this dear old sanctuary Cannot
church finances be at once established
on such a basis as never to admit of
another deficit, and to be in all
respects worthy of the third
Presby terrain church, in size, in the state,
and an honor to our God? Would not
such things be a means of grace to this
people? Would it not be scaling the
0utworks of the overcoming for which
God pronounces US "well able" to-day /?
With somewhat intelligent ard keenly
sympathetic recognition of the hard
grippe of the lean years only half relaxed
from your energies, l make bold to say
that there are resources among US suffi.
cient to make US "well able" to do such
things at once, and these ten years of
profitable investment are witness to my
words.
But there Ia another more solemn,
though not less impulsive point of view,
for this retrospect.
The scourges, and the storms, and the
hard times, and the graves, have been
Gods chastenings, to fit this church for
promise and possession. 1t surely is
time the lesson was learned and the
Christening bore its peaceable fruit.
Material distresses-the locusts, and
hail, and commercial disaster-deserve
not to be dwelt upon compared with the
affections of this church.
Just before this past decade began
Rev. Mr.. Hicks died. Father Thomson
passed away in the middle of these years
two ministers out of the four who ave
served you these nearly rs years.
OF the church session none have es-
capped.
The pesrly gates opened for one and
let him through to glory-the only elder
deceased in % years. One was widowed,
and his hesrthstone left cold and desolate
The infant child OF another has recent.
" been translated from. mother arms to
Jesus arms, and ne has been over
whelmed with private grief with whose
bitterness the stranger intermeddleth
not. A fourth has again and again been
Frustrated by dangerous hemorrhsges.
One has suffered painful surgical opera
tions and consequent disease.
He who In senior of them all, in the