Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1883-05-31
ate. until last autumn, INV vic Las been


may properly receive honorable Mon
ton on this occasion for service rem
dered as presiding officers of the Sunday
School MIR. Howe was elected Super
intendent in the year 1856. And in
compliance with the earnest desire OF
the school, repeatedly expressed, con-
tlnued to hold the office until Jan. LIST.
1888, twenty-seven years. He was as
sisted in the discharge of its duties for
a long period by Mr.. Murphey. The
work of many of the teachers is scarcely
less worthy of Acknowledgement al
though it is not practicable to render il
to them individually and in detail. The
accessions TO the membership of the
church have come largely flom the Sun
day School. The church has reaped
the benefits of permanence in the dea-
cons office, George Howe having served
the church in that capacity somewhat
more, and James A. Jones little less
than quarter of century.
Many of the young have availed
themselves of the facilities for education
afforded in our higher institutions of
learning. Since 1865 some names of
students from Lancaster have been
found in almost every annual catalogue
of Beloit College. The church has
contributed one Thousand dollars
to the funds of that cherished
institution, which is evanoelizing
and missionary, as well as scientific, in
its aims.
A weekly meeting for prayer has
been uniformly maintained, although
with different degrees of interest and
varying attendance. Before the cree
ton of our present ediice we not infrc-
quently gathered for this purpose at the
house OF some one of the members, but
more generally at the church. For the
last ten years this meeting has had a
home which leaves nothing to be desired
in that respect. think | may say that
the heart experiences there disclosed.
and the fresh impulses to duty received,
and the heayenward aspirations kindled
| through mutual and divine commune
ings, are making the place more dear
and sacred to memory week by week
May 1t become to us in u greater degree
what the upper chamber at Jerusalem
was to the first disciples, means of up
lifting, a source of spiritual power.
During most of my passionate women 5
prayer meeting has been held; also, for
considerable part of the last ten years,
young peoples meeting. A women $
missionary society has been worked
with some degree of success, and re-
Gently young peoples missionary So
ciety has been organized. Our Sunday
School dates from the same year as our
church organization, 1913.
1t has been my conviction from the
first that daily meetings of special
character are sometimes needed to ma
ture the fruits of ordinary labor, as the
more intense heat of the summer is re-
quired to ripen our fields after faithful
husbandry in the earlier months. Re-
cent inquiries indicate that majority
of Christian men became such in con-
nection with the use of these special
| means.
Such measures were twice adopted,
with happy results, while we were still
| occupying the school house. In the
first of these revivals excellent aid was
afforded by the Rev. j. c. Holbrook d.
d., then pastor at Dubuque, and in that
year. 40, the membership was doubled.
Some OF the fruit of those seasons of re-
vivirg is found in this and other
churches to-day, and part has been
gathered into the heavenly garner
More recently assistance in such work
was rendered by the Rev. VIM. Stod-
dart. The most remarkable revival oc-
CURED ten years ago under the labors
of the Rev. G. +. Clapp, the young pas.
tor at Prairie du Chen, who has since
had IN
As the work progressed one feeling APP
peared to sway the whole congrega-
ton night after night, as when every
head of wheat in the field bends before
the same breeze; all seemed moved by
a heavenly impulse to say, Il will arise
and go to my father,n with great
gladness in view of what Gods love
had wrought in Christ If we wept,
yet ''our mouth was filled with laughter
and our tongue with singing" Il IS our
prayer that God will '.repeat that
heavenly hour" Then followed the
day when sixty-seven souls, the num-
Der being about the same as entered
into covenant with the ancient first
church of Charleston, Mass, as the
result of Whitefelds preaching, were
espoused TO Christ in the public assem-
bly,, most of whom had never before
named that name which is greatest on
earth and in heaven.
Appropriate emblems on the walls of
the church, the star, the cup. the
cross, the crown, representing Beth
lehem, Gethsemane, Calvary, Heaven
told the story of the one divine life
lived on earth, which we were all
pledged to follow Verify we felt that
the marriage of the Lamb had come,
and that the bride had made herself
ready.
The Church has lost fewer members
by death than might perhaps have been
anticipated IN SO long q period, and yet
the destroyer, or rather the remover
and immortalizer of life, has withdrawn
more names from the record of the
living than ! can tarry to repeat. OF
the seven originalfounders of the church
four have died. The venerable Daniel
McAuley was removed from this earthly
fellowship before my coming. He is
almost the only one in our entire cata-
logue with whom my acquaintance has
not been personal. In this case can
not look forward to an immediate recog-
milton when we meet within the veil,
as with nearly all the rest OF the
three who are now living, Miss Mary
Ward soon connected herself with
another communion and removed to
another place. Mrs. Cecilia Ward lives
her deyout life in one of the southern
states, where the soil is rendered sacred
to her ~ the fact of its holding the
ashes of daughter whose life was
marked by conscientious piety. Judge
Joseph L. Mills, alone is with us, after
forty years of thoughtful study and pro-
fessional activity.
Mrs. Jerusha Otis, although not one
of the original members of the church.
became connected with it at an early
date, aud her native energy OF charac-
ter, together with her interest in our
growth, made her mother in Israel
at the time of the commencement OF
my labors. She sleeps in the ceme-
terry, the sleeping place, as Christianity
has taught us to call it, at Marengo.
Ill. John Alcorn, who belonged to the
same early period. had been familiar
with methods of Christian work i'm an
active church in the city of New York.
He was apt and efficient as superin-
| tendent of the Sunday School, but was
| removed by the fatal termination of a
lingering disease. BY the sudden death
OF Mrs. Elizabeth Barnett. not only was
her large family bereaved, but the en-
tire community was made to mourn for
one whose disinterested kindness made
her mother to all.