The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1882-10-05

is the same DIR. Griffin who preached hi
Eloquent missionary sermon Of 1902, who de
livers the Park st. theological lectures of 1871
both of them in the same revival spirit. TIL,
five men who extended five right hands O.
fellowship to the first five ordained missiona-
ries in the Tabernacle Church of Salem il
1912, were Leonard Woods Samuel Spring
Samuel Worcester, Edward ID. Griffin anC
Jedediah Merse, five fold inteftwined core
of theology and of missions not easily broken
When Park Street Church ordained its second
PASTOR Serene Edwards Dwight, in 1917, five
missionaries were ordained at the same time
and the memorable sermon preached by Ly-
man Beecher, entitled, "The Bible Code OF
Laws, was appropriate alike to the theological
and to the missionary atmosphere of the hour
These were the men contending earnestly for
the faith, intensely fervent in reyivals, pro-
foundly interested in the most aggressive
work of their own day, who, far beyond their
possible conception were building, not fol
one generation alone, but for the centuries.
They digged deep, and laid the foundation on
a rock. (s)
SECOND PERIOD, lS20-ls50. co.
The work of the second period from 1920
to 1850 brought into prominence the special
efforts put forth for the education and evan
gelization of the North American Indians,
which were attended with marked success,
notwithstanding Il sore trials connected with
the work arising from the forced removal of
| several of the tribes. No men ever met pri-
walton and peril more heroically than those
| who, during this period were connected with
our missions to the Cherokees and Choctaws
in Georgia and Mississippi, of whom
were imprisoned, and some accompanied the
Indians upon that terrible exodus west
ward, when one fourth of the sixteen thous-
and fell victims by the way
The papers prepared by jeremiah Evarts,
during this crisis, upon the Indian question,
have not been surpassed in craftsmanship and
ability by any discussions or documents upon
the same topic of that of any subsequent pc
Rod. The fact that Notwithstanding all OBJ
staeles, the ingatherings into the churches
| among the Indian tribes were counted by sew
eral hundreds multiplying into thousands, is
one OF the most interesting and suggestive of
our missionary history. Whatever may be
far as the churches represented by the Ameri-
can Board are concerned, our trust as to the
Indian tribes has been honorably met
The same period was pre- -eminently the
hour OF the Lords appointment for the ingath-
erlng OF many thousand souls from the Haw-
alian Islands; and with clear discernment of
the opportunity, and generous outlay both
OF money and of men, was it met.
Nor was the broader work among the Mara
tina and Tamil peoples neglected, that OF the
latter passing over from Jaffna to the Cont
nent, and becoming well established in Madu-
ra and Madras.
Add to these the wide and fruitful fields
opened by divine Providence in Western
Asia, in Syria and Persia, and alss the begin
Hings in China and Africa, and the werk Of
those who Uara fha an arOnt n 1ob oraro of has
generation has been seldom surpassed in i'm
pertance or in interest
The names ofmen and women who wrought
during this period, some of them aboring but
few years, and some of them spared into tho
generation following, are themselves sugges-
tive Of the nature both of the work and the
werkmen DIR. and Mrs. Eli Smith and Harri-
son G. o. Dwight; William Goedell and Sim
con III. Calhoun; Justin Perkins and Asahel
Grant; David I. Stoddsrd and Fidelia Fisk;
Posr and Meigs and Winslow and ScHdder;
Hume and Ballantine and Bridgman; Bishep
and Gulick and Judd Cyrus Kingsbury, Sam
uel A. Worcester, Daniel Lindey, and many
more.
During the same period the missiona ry
interest in the churches at home was large ly
increased, an interest which emphasized earn
est revival work, which pervaded our Christian
colleges and theological institutions, which,
added to the number and to the fervor of
evangelical churches, many of them born out
of great tribulation, and which per manently
strengthened all benevolent agencies specially
c0nsecrated to the extension OF living
spiritual fl it'll in our land. We cannot forget
that during this period Amherst College
passed through its early years of momentous
history and began to send forth its steady
stream of consecrated ministers and mis-
- II ~
direction the work of the older colleges, Will
liams, Dartmouth, Middlebury, and YALE
that this was the period when Lyman Beecher,
Albert Barnes, and Asahel Nettleton, were in
their prime; when the American Home Miss.
Society was formed; when the Presbyterian
church became two bands, not without some
connections when the voices of the Cen
necticut warehouses were heard in the land
Saying among the trumpets Ha ha and
smelling the battle not "afair of" all in the
same interest of revivals and missions as well
as of incisive theology; when the Sunday
school work and temperance and anti slavery
reforms began to rise into prominent notice,
the latter not without occasional thunder and
threatened tempest, yet all under the guidance
of One who rides upon the whirlwind and
directs the storm. 1t was vigorous period
through which to live, and its special work
was to be accomplished then or never. 1t is
| wildly brought back to us both in its rene
and dignitied, and also in its aggressive and
sometimes controversial, features, by recalling
| to remembrance some of those who were
| present and prominent thirty one years ago.
when the American Board last met in
| Portland. Their forms seem to rise before
us as we mention few of their names ::
| Theodore Frelinghuysen, our president, and
Chief Justice Williams sitting by his side;
| Chancellor Walworth and Seth Terry Lyman
| Beeeher and Nehemiah Adams; William J.
Hubbard and John Aiken; Enech Pond and
Benjamin Tappan; Levi Cutter ard Asa
| Cummings; Samuel H Valley, Arson G.
Phelps, and John Tappan; Linus Child and
| joel Halves; Thomas III. Skinner, Samuel II.
Cox, Nathan S. s. Beeman, the preacher for
the next year, Leonard Bacon, (D and his
alternate, William Adams William Wis
ner, William Patton, Albert Barnes, Asa d.
Smith, William A. Stearns, William L.
Dwight, George Shepard, Zedekiah S. Bar
stow, John Todd, Parsons Cooke, Seth Sweet
ser, Justin Edwards, Edward N. Kirk, Charles
Stoddard; not forgetting Secretaries Greene
and Anderson, or Missionaries Goodell,
Andrews, Byington and Walker Whsta his
terry of that honsred generation in the mer,
record of these names
THIRD PERIOD, 1S50-1S80.
vi III SensrdtlOh just eieseu, the PERIOD o
. lS50-1SS0 little need be said-the actors
being many of them still living, and the detail
of the work recent and familiar. It ought
however, to be mentioned with gratitude tx
God that this has been the period of larges
perceptible and recorded growth, as well as o
broadcast plans and most liberal expenditure
as certainly it should have been with the lif
and momentum of the two preceding period
behind it. Particularly has progress beei
marked in the establishment of nativ
churches, and in the ingathering into their fel
lswship, in the multiplication Of native agenc
and in all departments of educational wsrl
1t has been period, also, of liberal benefac
tons, some of them munifcent, to our variou
philanthropic, educational, and missionary in
situations, and of increased and more intelli
gent missionary interest in the churches an
throughout the land. Whether or not interes
in the distinctive department of foreign mis-
sions has kept pace with that which has char
acterized all branches of evangelistc and edu
cational work at home is an open question
We incline, ON the whole, to answer the ques
ton in the affirmative. At any rate we ar
quite sure that if the correct answer is in tn
negative, we have hitherto made grievou
| ,,olxo