The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1893-09-29

baptistns, marriages and deaths is quite
incomplete. The amount of money
raised for the support of the church and
the amount given to benevolent objects I
am unable to find exactly. From the
best data can gather this church has re-
ceived about $I6,oo from the board of
home missions. 1t has contributed about
$50 1t has raised some $40, 900 for its
own support. am informed that this
church was the second or third in order
of organization in this city. For the
first few years the congregation wor-
shipped in the old court house, but for
more than thirty years have occupied
this edifce. This building was
erected in 1860 at a cost of 5000;
that the bell was purchased in Philadel-
phia and shipped around Cape Horn and
placed in the steep1e in 1863. In this
historic building have transpired some of
the important events of the city and state.
The Presbytery of Oregon has assembled
fifteen times and here have been preached
thousands of sermons, and who shall
number the uttered and unuttered pray
ers that have ascended from this sanct-
uary? Oh, these very walls could they
speak, what stories they could tel1e How
they could echo the song of praise and
the solemn words of prayer that have
been sung and spoken mall these years!
What tears have they seen falling over
the precious dead laid before this altar!
What solemn vows have been taken and
how many have started from this Chris
tian home to I've for Christ and heaven.
Who can measure the influence for good
that Christian church has exerted dur
ing the period of forty years? This
church is one of the foundation stones of
this city, and its history and its growth
are almost identical with the history and
growth of Corvallis Here with one ex-
ception is written the beginning of Or
ganized s,Presbyterianism on the North
Pacific coast. In 1858 there were but
two Presbyterian churches in the terri
tory known as Oregon, Washington and
Idaho and Montana, with but nine men,
bers. Now in the same tirritory there
are 22o churches with 5000 members.
Truly as branch of the church of the
living God we can say with the servant of
old, Hitherto has the Lord helped U.S."
My dear friends while Il know this is
no hour or occasion for boasting cannot
but feel pardonab1e pride as review
the years of this historic church. It
almost seems that the place where am
standing is solemn. sacred ground. I
can but believe that the unusual expert
ences, the trials and triumphs of this
church, illustrates in marked manner
the permanence, perpetuity and power of
the polity and doctrines of the Presbyte-
rian church. :. It speaks of christianity
that is neither hurried nor emotional,
nor shallow nor. cheap, but calm, solid
and enduring. While I rejoice in the
greater church :.of to-day; while insist
on special means and special efforts to
save men, yet with Jeremiah of old I
often "ask--for the. .old paths" that our
fathers and mothers travelled. These
people, the..early members and founders
of the church, lived in the fear of God.
Their religion was definite, thorough
scriptural They had sense of personal
relations and personal responsibility to
God. They were not afraid to voice
their faith in such hymns as this: ''Lo;
On narrow neck of land, or this, BROAD
is the way that leads to DEATH" or this,
"Day of Judgment; Day of wonders"
hymns which rarely make the echoes IN
the soul of the church-goers of today.
Oh, my dear friends, all the machinery
and movements and religious inventions,
great and grand as they are, can never
take the place of serious meditation and
solemn contact with the unseen and
eternal, a calm intelligent ''unwavering
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ 1t was
such vision as this that. made Moses in
the mountains of Midian: that made
Elijah and John the Baptist..in the will
derness of Judea; that made Paul in the
desert of Arabia, and that formed the
framework of that matchless life of Jesus
on the quiet hills of Nazereth.
So, dear friends, while we dwell with
i grateful and loving thought upon the
past, thanking God for constant keeping
love. Oh, let the faith, the conviction,
the reverence and the reality, the truth
and love which speak to us from the
past, fill, inspire and possess our
souls. If we are to stand in the places
of the men; and women who laid these
foundations we must put on the whole
armour of God, looking unto Jesus "who
is the author and fnisher of our faith"
i 1 cannot close these words on this
leventful day, without bringing before
you another picture more beautiful and
transcendingly glorious. One day visit
Il ing the home of an aged and bereaved
u mother of the church touching little
incident occurred can never forget.
The dear old saint was telling me the
family history and showing me the pho
Itographs of the children that had came
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