The record-union., 1899-10-23

for a vocation, and to reconcile, If pos
sible, the intellectual difficulties which
beset me in the apprehension Of sys-
tematic Christian religious truth. Soon
afterward / felt that for the prosecu-
tion of such work as I might wish to
do, must ask for the grant of absolute
freedom at your hands. This you very
reluctantly accorded. but 7 still remain
with you in friendly association, and
count myself privileged in the large and
generous fellowship which has been
ever given to me and NINE for my
wife died member of your communion,
and the tender ministrations of friends
in this congregation during her declin-
ing years endeared you most wcnder-
fully to her, as I am proud to think
that some qualities of mind and heart
which she herself possessed may have
approved her graciously to you.
Your third minister, Mr.. Merrill, I
had known socially during the early
years of my residence here, but as g
fellow student in the Oakland Seminary
was brought into daily contact with
man who, outside the hours devoted
to instruction, furnished the only addi-
tional intellectual stimulus connected
with those study years A graduate of
Phillips Exeter Academy and of Am
herst College, he brought to the dlvin-
ity school a breadth of scholarship
which exerted it's refining influence up
on every appreciative mind. His call to
this pulpit came to him in the conclud-
ing years of his course, and I remem-
Der how the large responsibility he was
soon to assume burdened his magma
OF iY1c rJ1
somewhat embarrassing his mind for
the technical work which yet remained
to be accomplished. Absolutely with
out experience for the task to which he
had been called, with no known quail
ncations excepting those of his scholar
snip and the generous qualities of his
nature, and with no formulated work
or any description upon which in an
emergency to be privileged to draw, he
came as the immediate successor of
the magnificent men I have described,
and for six years maintained a place
IN your regard, doing earnest and schol-
arly work, until entirely on his own vo-
lit1on he in his turn made way for a
successor, himself accepting G call to
another field of labor.
With the three gentlemen who in turn
after Mr.. Merrill succeeded to the pas.
torate OF this church, my relations have
been Of varying degrees of friendly ac-
qualntance, characterized, I trust by
mutual respect, and although 1 am
pleased to pay the tribute of an inter-
ested and instructed auditor to the
magnificent ability of the gentleman
VINO is the worthy successor to this
royal line, I cannot speak from the
standpoint of intimate and familiar
CONFIDENCE, and the accent of personal
1ty may now be dismissed.
But the question now arises as we
thus take retrospect of the life of this
church during the half century gone.
what does the inventory of your pos
sessions disclose of moral significance
and accomplishment? To answer this
question in word, we can say that for
all the varying degrees Of intelligence
or differing apprehensions of religious
truth among those who have worshiped
mere, this church has always stood for
moral Ideal. 1t is pleasant then to
contemplate the action Of those found
ers fifty long years ago, at a time when
men were released from the restraints
CT the orderly life of the older and far
olstant communities from which they
had come, and when the only rccog-
nlzed civil and social obligations found
warrant in the law Of the Individual
mind itse.f, it is pleasant to contem-
plate them, stopping for a moment in
the exciting rivalry in the pursuit OF