The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-12-03
Rev, J. A. Rice Will Not Return to His
 Charge. HIS TERM AS PASTOR EXPIRES
 - Sum of $5,OOO Pledged at Court Street Church.
 -----a~--- All Montgomery Churches Report Most satsifactory Year in All Their His- tory--Are Paying OF Any
 Obligations.

The services at the six Methodist churches of Montgomery were memor- able yesterday from the fact that 1t was the last Sunday of the Conference year and the pastors who have served dur ing the year faithfully and well, will leave Tuesday for the Conference, which convenes at Eufauia on Wednes- day, where they will receive appoint ments for the coming year. Some, there are among the pastors of Mont ogmery churches, who will, no doubt. be returned, but there are those among them who will be assigned charges at other places and new faces will be seen in the places of the old ones and new voices will be heard where the old ones have charmed so many times.
 The Methodist churches of Montgom- cry occupy a prominent place in the spiritual life of the city, and the last Sunday of the Conference year is to the several thousand people who compose the membership of those churches day of reaping what has been sown-- a great day of reckoning. As a whole, without an exception, the six churches showed at the closing service of the year, that the past year has been the most successful and most prosperous in the history of the Methodist churches of Montgomery. There have been more members received into the Methodist churches of Montgomery during the past year than for a number of years; there has been more money collected for the causes of Missions-Foreign and Home--than in the history of the churches; more money spent in church improvements; better salaries paid the ministers, and a deeper spiritual inter est manifested among the members than ever in the life of the church.
 Notwithstanding the pleasure that al- ways comes from the knowledge of the censummation of desire and purpose, and the especial qualification of the Methodist people of Montgomery in the realization that the past year has been a fruitful one, yesterday was frought with sadness for the many.
 In every Methodist church of the city the services were impressive for both the pastor and the congregation; for the pastor and people alike realised that the end of pleasant year had come, and to many it meant the sever ing of relations of the pleasantest na- ture, and to many the sundering of the closest ties-a parting perhaps for life, with the warmest of friends.
 At the Court Street Methodist Church the service was especially impressive. Drs J. A. Rice,s<thes pastors has served the church for four years, and accord ing to the law of limitations which ob- tains in the Southern Methodist Church, he will not return to Montgomery again. The church was crowded at the morn ing service, and when Dr. Rice arose and looked over the congregation, he was visibly affected Pastor and people realized that they had come to the Parting of the Ways" and that the pleasant relationship which had existed for the past four years-the most pros porous years in the history of the Court hcI 4A
 Dr. Rice made the feature of his last service at the Court Street Church the receiving of a number of people into the church, to several of whom he ad- ministered the rites of Baptism. Ths text of the sermon which he preached to his congregation was from Reveia- tions: Come hither and I will show ye the things which must come to pass hereafter"
 During the four years of his minis try at the Court Street Church Dr. Rice has never preached Q more touch ing sermon than that of yesterday morning. In the half hour which he addressed his congregation he summed up his ministry of the four years. He spoke of what he had tried to do and of what he had done. His subject was the Ideal Church of the Future" and he laid great stress on his hopes for the future of the Court Street Church As God called the Apostle John to "come up higher and look that he might see the things of the future" pr. Rice exhorted his congregation to rise to their highest, to the best that is in them, and from the standpoint of the "very best'' to view the future. The Court Street Church of the future he pictures as one of the most attractive, most impressive places in the whole Southland He pictured the church of the future as a beehive of activity, a center of study, of moral and religious forces. where the Fundamental princi- ples of religion is taught not on Sum day alone, but on every day of the week. The church of the future will have a definite relation to the civic. the commercial, the social and the spir- itual life about it. The church of the future will emphasize the religion in the commonplace; the church of the future will be the church of magnih- cent proportions, embracing every known comfort and every luxury or the modern times.
 Dr. Rice outlined to his congregation a nacnifcent vision of the coming wears with the church as the center.