Morning journal and courier., 1884-12-08
CENTENNIAL SERMON.

CENTENNIAL SERMON.
 Rev. Dr. GoOdseH DtscOurses on the |
 Work of the Methodist Episcopal |
 Church for the Past One Hundred |
 YeaFs-The Coming Centennial Com
 ference at Baltimore
 At the First M E. church last evening | Rev. Dr. Goodsen delivered very interest ing centennial discourse, his subject being, | t"The place of the Methodist Episcopal church in the family of churches" Dr. Goodsen said in part: There will assemble in Baltimore this week conference representing nearly four million communicants divided between the M. E. church with 1 ,750, 900, the M. B. church South with 900,O0 the various branches of the African M. E. church and of the Methodist church in Canada making up the balance. All these are children in the Lord of the little company of preachers who in Christmas week in Baltimore, 1784, organized the M E. church after the revolution and who by the election of Bishop Coke and tion, Bishop Coke having been consecrated in England by John Wesley) accepted modified episcopacy to their form of gov ernment. This centennial conference, which will last one week, is in commeIn- oration of that event and will discuss a variety of interesting subjects.
 It has been my lot to have been on the exec utive committee which has arranged the de- tails of this conference, and I expect to at tend the conference as co-delegate with Dr. Curry, Dr. Buckley and Dr. A. s. Hunt An account of it will be given you when I re-
 turn. My task tonight is to speak of the church whose organization is there to be eel ebrated, and of it's place in the American family of churches.
 It will be observed that when it was organ
 ized, the Church of England, the Reformed Dutch church, the Presby yterian, the Baptist church and the Congregational were already here. The life of these churches had begun with the settlement of the colonies. This church had existed as scattered societies con nected with the Church of England since 1766 But after the revolution, by the ne cessities of independence and the advice of John Wesley, it began life as church, and it represents in it's organization John Wes- ley's view of what a church ought to be. At the Christmas conference of 1784 there was reported a membership of IA, 9SS members and S4 ministers. The bodies which are the children of that conference number 4, 900, 900. One hundred years of work have wrought these results in membership, and at least $50 COG, 900 of property in churches, ,parson-
 ages and educational institut ions. Such church does not live by sufferance. It is one of the institutions of the country. It exceeds in numbers any other Protestant body. It must have had it's own peculiar life and spirit. In America alone the religious spirit develops freely. It is not fettered by
 governmental patronage or State union.
 ! The doctrine of the survival of the Attest l is here at work in respect of church organiza- ! tions. Our peculiar abundance of organiza [ tions is due to the importations of the church es of the nations who have sent immigrants ! to these shores apart from the strength which a few churches had by endowments ante-dat- | ing the revolutionary days. Each church has survived and grown because it has met 1 the wants of certain classes of our people and
 in doing this has achieved a philosophical
 reason to be. And where religion is free
 we may expect the future to show | the survival of those which meet
 the demands of different classes of minds an-
 imated with the spirit of the Christian reli- | zion. The speaker then sketehed the pecu- liarities of those churches by whose side the | Methodist Episcopal church has labored, and
 then said: eff these other denominations l cover the whole ground if they meet all the | wants, then the Methodist Episcopal church | will soon be on the wane. But if in being l sharply individualized she meets 8 popular want her life in her present organized form l will continue" A contrast was then made be- 1 tween the government and spirit of the 1 churches developed in their his | tory and the following were the
 concluding sentences: ''We are then | Catholic, but not Roman we have bishops, but not hierarchs; we have diocesan super l intendence without dioceses we maintain 1 the sacraments, but deny sacramental grace :; | we have ordinations without indelibility and | divine right. We are Presbyterians in much l of our church order, but are not Calvinists. l We give certain command to the clergy and protect the church against clerical control 1 We maintain the independence of the local l church and preserve the connectional idea. We permit immersion, and yet are not Baptists We baptize children and deny baptisma1 de- | generation. We maintain a liturgy and yet ] justify the spontaneous expression of prayer l and praise We claim to follow the spirit
 and yet are not Quakers. We believe God 1 rules and yet hold that man is free. We be-
 lieve all may be saved and yet are not Uni 1 versalists. We are low churchmen in fellow
 shipping all who love Christ. We are broad l churchmen in allowing individual liberty in l our acceptance of the established results of | science and criticism, while first and last we l are evangelical holding to depravity, the 1 atonement and punishment after death. This
 is surely unique church. The bigot of in | tellect and sect will never be comfortable in 1 it; the Bourbon in theology and government
 will detest it. the epicurean, who wishes a
 pious veneer, will abhor it; the aristocrat of
 heart and culture, the Dundrearys of taste
 and intellect will despise it. But people of broad mind and religious purpose, whether
 rich or poor, learned or ignorant, are happy
 in it, and it's work is not yet done"