The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-10-15

slon.' l should have been most heartily glad to reassume these duties and these solicitudes-if such had been your wish if l felt that had strength and Eigor for the work-strength and vigor equal to those which had five or eight years ago; but it is 6 joy to me that you have round another, my dear and honoreo friend and brother of many years, Who will take up this work and carry it TOT ward in the spirit, as he has suggested or loyalty to the traditions oE thls American Board, and with an earnest ness and 8 strength which l now cer- tainly could not give to the same work, So l rejoice to be here this evening and to say what 1 have to say.
 More than fifty years ago, when l was a young pastor in Brooklyn, was invited to join, and did Join, a compar- atively small society of fifteen or twen- " clergymen associated in .nat city under the name, if I remember alright. of the Clerical Union. It was very pleasant society. I enjoyed the meet lngs very much. though there were not more than eight or ten usually present at them. The president for the first
 
 friend. Dr. Maurice w Dwight Ga rela- tive of the distinguished president of Yale university, who was then pastor of the First Baptist church in Brook lyn and who had been kind enough to take part in the services of my installa- tion. At the end of the year he retir- ed according to the rule, and pr. Cox was elected in his place. I do not think there were more than seven or eight of the members present when Dr. Cox arose-I can almost see him now-in his stately dignity, in his splendid aspect, with the nimbus of white hair around his head, and said, lifting himself, ac- cording to his custom, as he said it, 1T wish before pronouncing my inaugural address to listen to the exaugural dis course of Dr. Dwight" Gaughter. ] The word was a new one to me at that time. Perhaps it seemed larger and more resonant than it would have done if there had been one hundred people there, but for eight or ten persons it seemed rather a waste of articulation. O4aughter.) However, I have always remembered it, and what I say this evening is to be regarded as what Dr. Cox would have styled my exaugural address.
 Dear brethren and friends, I have certainly no fresh and large philosophy l of missions to present. I have simply l certain cardinal convictions which were 1 in my mind when I stood on the plat form at Springfield and when after ward I accepted the office to which l your kind confidence had called me, l which have been more and more vitally | imbedded in my mind from that hour ] to this, and by which all my thought and action concerning foreign missions are moulded and sustained, and these I I shall be glad to recall to you in a few ! rapid words, not as anything new or anything startling, but as giving incen- tive, as I think, and motive and the l law of action to those who are inter- ested in this country in foreign mis- sions.
 And the first of them is that simple and yet stupendous conviction that God l has plan in the history of the world, 1 has purpose for mankind, the purpose to bring mankind into subjection in all it's parts, in all it's reach, to the divine | law of righteousness and truth, to en- 1 dow mankind with the treasures Of di- vine wisdom and grace. It seems to me impossible for any intelligent and reverent thinker to doubt this convic- l tion. Of course, the Bible is full of it from end to end. It speaks in every song and every story. It interprets narrative and history. It gives the criterion of judgment for the character |, presents. According as they have fall en in with this divine plan and further | ed it by their endeavors and by their l lives they are noble; according as they | have opposed it or withdrawn from CO., operation with it they are mean and despised. 1t is in all the ritual in all 1 the offices of the ancient dispensation. It is in all the prophecies pointing on :, continually to the more and more glow | ing skies from which Christ is to come i in the advent and into which He is af- terward to arise conqueror of death, It is this vital, undecaying idea of the divine purpose to bring mankind to the | knowledge and the holiness of God which is the vital substance of the Scripture, which prepares us for the
 
 divine instruction and for the cross it. self, and then for the illustrious and triumphant ascention which follows the | cross.
 It is this which makes Pentecost di- vinely natural, If we may say so. and prophetic of all that is to come in the dispensation of the Spirit. It is this which reverberates in the great ar guments of the epistles and which comes out in ruby and jasper and am. ethyst and chlysolite in the glorious imagery of the Apocalypse; that the armies arrayed in white are to subdue the inveterate and fierce and bloody evils of the world. That is the burder of that closing book. That is the bur. den really from first to last of all the l Scripture, and no man can read that ! Scripture carefully and thoroughly without having this vitally and perma 7! nently impressed upon his mind, ant whatever particular criticisms may be made concerning writings or portions l of writings in the Scriptures as to theil authority, as to their proper place 1T the sacred canon, as to the authorship of them, as to the time at which they | were written, these criticisms or card nal inquiries no more touch this sub stance of the Scripture than a minut, botanical analysis touches the splendo1 | of gardens or the grandeur of forests