The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-11-29
"SAFETY IN THE OPEN. !"
ELOQUENT DISCOURSE BY RET. " y, HUTCH AT CENTER CHURCH.


 Union Thanksgiving Service of tn
 Several Congregational Churches Yes
 terday-Prayer by MT. McLane-Th
 Church Was We'll FilIed-sermon |,
 Full.
 The Congregationalists of the city held their united service at Center church yesterday morning at il o'clock There was, as might be expected, very large congregation, each of the severa churches being well represented. The pastor of Center church, the Rev. Dr services and made the invocation pr. Phillips, Dr. Chalmers, pr. w. w 1eete. Rev. Dr. McIane, pastor of Plymouth church, offered the prayer of Thanksgiving. It referred with touch ing tenderness to the families stricken with sickness last spring and gave thanks for the medical skill which al 1eviated suffering, the sympathy which solaced sorrow, the Christian faith which faced death without fear and the Christian hope which looked above to the home in the Fathers house of many mansions.
 It made mention of the recent evi- dence of the growth and greatness of our university and gave thanks for the large opportunities of learning offered to our youth. It referred to the re- Wival of a sense of civic righteousness and gave thanks for the growing hope of municipal movements which should be clean and just. It made mention of the late president and gave thanks for the service rendered the nation in his life which evoked the expression of the nations approval of true and noble manhood.
 The prayer referred to the thousand teachers who during the year sailed across seas to the Philippine Islands and invoked the divine blessings upon them and their work. The prayer in cluded in It's petitions for blessings in
 
 States, congress about to assemble, the governors of all the states and also the legislatures, all courts of justice and all our teachers in our schools. The prayer closed with an invocation of special blessing upon the state of Con- necticut, our city, university, schools, churches and people and tended not only to express thanks but also to pro- duce a state of thankfulness in the audience.
 The sermon was preached by the Rev. w. J. Mutch, pastor of the Howard avenue church The subject was Safe ty in the Open" It was as follows
 We have enounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by the manifestation of the truth commenting ourselves to every mans conscience in the sight of God''-II. Corinthians, A. ?.
 It was matter for congratulation between Paul and his Corinthian Chris tians that in their moral and religious life they had come out into the open before God and man. There are some happy indications that the American people and nation have done the same thing in a more marked degree of late than ever before. If this is true it is pre- -erninently appropriate as a theme for our thought on a Thanksgiving oc- casion, because it is gain upon an ethical and spiritual level where gains than upon the lower levels of material and commercial life.
 I. AMERICAN LIFE AGREES WITH
 THE GOSPEL.
 Let us note in the first place that there is ruling spirit in American life and institutions which is in harmony with the gospel principle of ethical can dor and frankness.
 It Is hardly necessary to argue that this is a gospel principle when we read at the very threshold of the gospel nar- rative the words, This is the judgment that light Is come into the world and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, lest his works should be reproved, But he that doeth the truth cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest. that they have been wrought in God" (John 3: 1S-21) Jesus Is more than anything else revealer of the mysteries of life and of God, an opener of blind eyes, an advocate of light and open air in every realm of be- ing. But for q nation and a great people to show characteristics and tendencies like this is surely a new thing under the sun. Not to mention ancient and oriental peoples with their "ways that are dark and tricks that are vain," one | finds more craftiness and hidden things | of shame than he Is able to look at in the modern and western world with it's superior refinement of Christian civili- zation. Every chapter of modern his- tory reveals the malign influence of | political cabal, of ecclesiastical in- | treague, of sinister diplomacy or of | greed. True there shines put also here and there the grateful | gleam of an honest purpose and gen. arous motive, but they are almost as rare as diamonds in the dirt. And if we have come upon q time when in our own land the ratio of that which can bear the light as compared with deeds 1f darkness is greater than formerly, | we may indeed be thankful to Him who Is the source of light and truth. J In specifying some particulars which