The Portland daily press., 1895-10-21
GREAT DAY AT CHESTNUT STREET
The Church Raises Money Preparatory
to the Centennial.

About Four Thusand Dollars Subscribed
DR.. Parsons breaches an Appropriate
Sermon.
| Sunday was AN important day with the
Chestnut street Methodist church. The
centennial exercises are approaching,
and the church means to be out of debt
when the event comes. So ON Sunday
DR.. c. W. Parsons, the pastor, preached
an appropriate sermon, and there was a
money raising.
The text was from Daniel, 4th chapter,
verse 8. Ellis kingdom is an everlasting
kingdm, etc.
Seventeen hundred and ninety-five,
eighteen hundred and ninety -dve-Slg-
nifcant figures. Significant if viewed IN
their relation to practical and material
affairs; deeply significant when applleo
to religious and ecclesiastical movements
A century of years in the finite tnough'
is most imposing and impressive
period. Anyone would be, but doubtless
the one bounded by the dates l have
named, is especially and permanently SO.
This age is not the golden age; it Is
not the silver age; it is not the iron age,
the age of conquest, the age in which
man has compelled nature, longshis mas
ter, to become his servant These new
forces are the new Johns the Baptists.
preparing the way for the coming Lord.
The Methodist Episcopal church in
Portland was established sometime in
the autumn of 1895 with a membership
in the circuit of So persons, and with
Philip Wager as pastor On that au-
tmnn day, when the trayei-worn itinerant
drew rein in this town. the United
States of America as federal union
were but little more than decade old.
New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore
were comparatively small cities. And
Washington city was not. But George
Washington, frstsPresident of the United
States, was still in the executive chair.
Thi venerable church, therefore, of
which we are members, is prac tically as
old as the nation of which we are citi-
zens.
To say that the iron horse had not yet
galloped over the plain, that no steam
ship racer had ever entered your port. or
any other port, that the lightning had
never carried message or protraoted the
human voice, and did not from third to
half century later, is only to repeat the
merest common place.
The patent Office. mother of all inven-
lions. had just been born. One little
daily newspaper. more dead than alive,
had appeared in Philadelphia And the
year 1885 came and went before publica-
ton of any sort attained publication OF
5000 copies. And so right on.
But have other purpose in this hour.
Having rounded out an hundred years of
history, we propose to recognize the event
with suitable celebration, and with such
earnestness and enthusiasm that the vic
tories of the past will be but prophecies
of the triumphs- to come.
The event itself imperatively demands
recognition. 1t is SO exceptional. When
Method1sm was planted in Portland the
M. E. church itself as an organized body
was but II years old. And the Metho-
dists were here only 81 years after Bar
bara Heck, mother Of American Metho
dism, as John Wesley is the father of all
Methodism, lighted the fire which soon
rose into eonfagration. Twenty-one years
after the time when, of the roll "the
people called Methodists" had been
called, Ba-bera Heck and Philip Embury
were all who could have responded pres
emit, more than ten times that numt er
were here. The Methodist Book ConoerI
had just been started with a borrowed
capital of $500. 1t is now sheltered by
palace on Fifth Avenue worth a million
and half.
In the matter of education in which
we now lead the country, scarcely any
thing had been done. And so on, what
is. almost surely was not then, except
the Faith. The blessed gospel of the
Son of God, free salvation, amnesty and
pardon, with not a letter added OF
syllable diminished was the preaching
of 1875; it is the preaching Of 1885, and