The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-07-20
610dOR MIME . AOORGSO.
Bishop Ninde said in part:

BISHOP N1NDES ADDRESS.
Bishop Ninde said in part:
This vast throng of Christian young
people is not here merely for a sum
mer outing We are here on business
the kings business. We are profoundly
in earnest. We are consuming with a
mighty purpose We are spurred by
holy -endeaVOr. We are here to take a
new sacrament of undying devotion to
the Christ we love We intend to do
your great community no harm. We
hope to leave a blessing behind US that
will be remembered for many a, day.
Why is it that we call together these
great rallies? Why do we count the
crowd and love to be in it? Why do
Christian people care for crowds? Our
Methodist forefatherS used to go to
their meetings along the lonely high
path, but we come in swift trains, load
ed with their living freight. Once the
log school house would hold the few
neutrality-suspicious. the big tent is too
small to cover the great crowds. We
say times have changed. That is true,
but it is not the Whole of the truth.
What means this growing yearning
for wide comradeShip? Why do we
hurry to and fro in the earth to meet
with sympathetic hearts? Why do we
yearn to look into multitudinOuS faces,
massed together in great conventions?
Why is there visible everywhere such
an effort toward fraterniZatiOn? Why
in our day these wonderful race affili-
ties and affiliations overlapping aI<geO-
graphical and national lines and show
ing that blood is thicker than Water?'
MOngol Japan proposing to return to
MOngOl China the captured war ships
and to help train her armies. Why are
the Croats and the Bulgarians-the
Servians and the Russians uniting in
a pan-slavic movement? Why are the
Latin races reaching out fraternal
hands? Why have the two great An
glO-Saxon empires buried their differ
ences and crossed fraternal palms
across the sea? and why is Germany
intimating a. wish that the generic basis
may be brOadened and made TeutOnic,
that she may join the racial kinShip?
Divine Providence knows. I take these
blessed yearnings for wider cOmrade-
ship as glad prophecies of the swift
coming time when all distinctions of
race and color, condition and class shall
dissolve in the bright glOrieS of a re-
generate and unified humanity where
there shall be neither Jew nor Greek,
Scythian, Barbarian bond nor free,
but Christ shall be all and in all''
In TOmlinsOn hall, Frank NJ. Bar
bOur, Evansville, Ind, presided.
Because of the absence of Senator
Fairbanks from the city, Attorney
Charles w Smith Of Indianapolis de-
Hvered the address of welcome on be
half of the state. Mayor Thomas Tag
CART threw the gates of the city open
and Rev. Mr.. Lewis of MOores Hill,
Ind. welcomed the convention on behalf
of Indiana MethOdism.
Rev. G. J. Bond of Halifax, N. s., re-
sponded for Canadian Methodism. The
response from the Methodist Episcopal
church was delivered by Bishop John
T. Hurst, Washington, and Bishop o.
p. Fitzgerald, Nashville, Tenn, in
speech threaded with humOr, thanked
the welcOmers on behalf of the Method
ist Episcopal church, south.
The convention then adjourned until
evening and at 4:30 O'Clock an Evange-
listic meeting was conducted in the
tent.