The record-union., 1899-10-23
FIFTY YEARS IN
GODS SERVICE.
Continued from Seventh Page.)

cause of influences exerted here. that
prompt to more ennobling employment.
1t is thus l would make inventory
of this church's accomplishment, and
for watchword say courage and ad-
vance. Fifty years of consecrated work
of pastor and people have bequeathed
to you this inheritance of a Christian
church. A word as to the significance
it should have for this people now, and
I have done.
| have said that the founders of this
church were early intent upon building
something here which should be TO
them the visible symbol of the higher
life, and Notwithstanding all the modi-
ffcations of religious belief which have
marked the history of the last half cen
tury, the strong men and noble women
of this community, men of affairs and
women of social position and influence,
taking the places of those who are
gone could find no more honorable en-
ployment than in the conservation of
the interests this church represents.
The tangible symbols of faith may be
too persistently intruded at times by
some humble worshiper, to meet your
own imagined larger apprehension Of
truth, but know that the spirit of this
church is broad enough, and generous
enough, to welcome you to its fellow
ship, and protect to you your own ideal
of that for which the church should
stand. Is it the too great dependence
upon the type which offends? Then
Tennyson's rebuke may be pertinent
when he says:
See thou that countest reason ripe,
In holding by the law within
Thou fail not in a world of sin,
And even for want of such a type.
Fifty years of faithful work have
been given to the task of building into
the life of your city something which
represents to your Imagination a semb-
lance Of the kingdom of God. Long
as the period may appear, it is an un-
completed cycle at best, and leaves you
with still uncompleted work The very
systems by which we measure time are
things that will themselves be swal-
lowed up in the relentless crashing Of
times roaring loom. But in the back
ground there rises the imposing image
of something that endures, and the
cycles by which we make our compu-
cades, and centuriesbecome but epi-
cycles, riding the deterrent of some
eternal orb. Systems may perish, but
in that something which endures, let
US trust tonight to be ourselves in
cluded as we say
Our little systems have their day,
They have their day and cease to be;
They are but broken lights of Thee,
Ana Thou, . Lord, art more than they.
DIR. VAN NORDEN'S ADDRESS.
DR.. Charles Van Norden said he was
called upon to speak, not of the past,
but of the future. He said he saw a
church that was no church at ALL but
great parish embracing humanity. In
it the forces of righteousness were or
ganized, and not a single vital influence
was lost in warning sects. He said the
church of the future would be demo-
cratic, and that essential pety ard
practical humanity would be it's basis.
There would be neither creed nor
covenant, and the church would not
exact that it's members subscribe to
formulas. Membership would be vol
untary, and any who aspired to the
infinite might become members of the
church, leaving God to judge.
THE oldtime theological rhinoceros
will be out of place in the church of
the future, and the minister will be
man of brains, a man who stimulates
| his congregation, all the members OF
which will strive hard to make the
world better. There will be reading
rooms and gymnasiums, sociological
| lectures and other interesting things in
the church OF tomorrow"
The speaker said he once told a min
lister that it was not the purpose Of
the modern, church to get the masses
in, ''and if they should come, your dea-
cons would send for the police to put
them out"
REV. B. FAY MILLS
Spoke for nearly an hour and was lis
tened to with much interest. The
brotherhood of man was his theme. He
said pessimisim and infdelity were
about the same thing and that the
world is better to-day than it has ever
been since time began.
Morally and spiritually we are bet
ter he said, "and according to Alfred
Russell Wallace, in a book called The
Wonderful Century we have achieved
more in science and invention in fifty
years than in thousands of years, more
this century than in the 30090 years
before. The age is deep and high and
broad, and it is also profoundly relig
ious, but religion is seeking new forms
of expression. Religion is the impulse
of all life and existence, and there was
never SO much faith and hope and love
as there is to-day. We have ir the
past had too much faith in a God who
was not god too little in the real God
The new faith believes God is what he
ought to be. Therefore there are some
forms Of seeming irrelgion that We're
really reactions against the worship
of a counterfeit God
For the first time in all the ages,
the human race believes in itself. hence
| such expressions as the unity of the
race the solidarity of the race-ex-
pressions coined almost within the de-
cade. Faith in all things is sign of
the age, and the future religion will
have more, rather than less faith. A
! boy in a grammar school to-day has a
wider vision than the prophets Of the
past, and preachers are rightly dis
carded if they preach anything but glad
tidings.
"A few years ago it was taught in
! economics that self-interest was the
! first law of life; that doctrine would not
be taught anywhere now. Even in
such conservative schools as Harvard
and the Chicago University they now
actually believe in humanity.
"A few hundred years ago French
! rulers shot people for fun and English h