The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-10-09

| At St. Paul'e P. E. church yesterday morning the rector, Rev. Dr. E. ;. Lines, preached his twentieth annlVer-
 sary sermon. It was listened to with | profound attention by an unusually large congregation. In honor of the occasion the choir rendered a number of new selections, the anthem How
 Lovely are Thy Dwellings Fair" by Spohr, being especially fine.
 Next Thursday evening the anniver- sary reception in honor of Rev. Dr..
 Lines, will be held in the parish house.
 Mrs. Lines will receive with Dr. Lines
 in the main school room. A corps of
 ushers will be in attendance to intro-
 duce the many callers.
 Rev. Dr. Lines sermon yesterday
 morning was taken from Genesis xxi,
 3S: This twenty years have l been
 with thee'' and from I. Samuel, i, 7-2,
 'The time was long, for it was twenty
 years"
 The preacher said that there had
 been longer rectorships in the Episcopal
 church in New Haven than his own,
 and named those within the memory
 of persons present, of Dr. CrosWell, pr,
 Beardsley, Dr. Vibbert and Dr. liar
 wood. He thought that now, with pos
 sibly one exception, he was the longest
 in charge of the same congregation, of
 any minister of any name in the city. In the diocese the rectorship of MT
 French of Darien is the longest, dating
 from 1863 There are a few others
 which began before 1879. The reasons
 for the shortening of the pastoral rela-
 tion were considered as also the ad-
 vantages of permanency where interest in religious work is maintained. Not
 much space was given to statistics in
 the sermon but it was said that in the
 twenty years 1923 baptisme, 656 confir
 nations, 474 marriages and 1,101 bur ials had been recorded in the parish register Some of the Improvements in the church were named and also the things which are to have attention in the future. While no special plea for the endowment fund was made the at tention of the peope was called to the plan of building it up by gifts and be- quests. The preacher said that his people could do no better service for re- ligion in New Haven than by making St. Paul's church strong for it's work. From line at Orange street far across the city to Blatchley avenue and from the harbor clear back to East Rock there is a great and populous section of New Haven from which every Eng fish speaking and worshipping church has gone, or is preparing to go, save two, the Davenport Congregational and St. PauPs. It is a reproach to our Christianity that churches go from the | places where they are most needed and that churches like people seek what are called desirable residence neighbor- hoods" St. Paul's must stay where it l is and fight out the battle for religion and morals, and it's members must | make it strong to do it's work. If the report of last years work of the church | be compared with the. vital statistics of | the city for the last year, it would ap- pear that one in forty-siX of those born | in New Haven was baptized at St. | PauPs, that one in twenty-eight of the was performed by it's clergy and that one in twenty of those who died in New Haven was buried by the clergy of St. Paul's. So the idea of service of the community and of inhu- ancing it's life has in some measure filled out.
 But the main part of the sermon was devoted to the consideration of the re- ations between the preacher and his people, and the acknowledgment of he kindness which had been shown to 1im. The remembrance of the good and worked at St. Paurs and worked at St Paurs vas made the ground of exhortation o continued faithfulness. The church lad been consecrated by the prayers md labors of very devoted men and women, and those who had passed to heir rest were still blessing St. PauTs.
 In the offerings yesterday there was gift of S1,000 for the endowment fund, he giVer not named