The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1910-07-01
HISTORICAL SERMON.
Continued from page g.

munlon service, the gift OF Mrs
David Blakely; the parsonage prop
erty and church bell by Mr.. Timothy
Aver, Jr.; two silver communion
plates by Dea w. E. Norcross;
$1,000 by Mr.. Johnson A. Hardy;
500 by Miss Lucy Brewster; $500
bG Miss Betsy Aver; $500 by Miss
Abbie Wright; S4S6 by Dea. John
Sawyer; one-half the amount Of the
church debt in 1891 by Mr.. David
Blakely; $4,000 by Mrs Amanda
Sawyer; $4,000 by DR.. D. X. Pear
sons; $4,000 by Mr.. Edward c..
Sawyer; and 5000 by Miss Philena
McKeen.
The church holds over $4,000 of
invested funds today. Here l am
going to mingle with my task of the
historian a note of the prophet:
many churches in New England,
notably in Vermont, have been the
recipients Of large endowments. A
noble purpose prompted these en-
dowments. Men and women, pros
porous in this worlds goods, have
desired that their lives should be
perpetuated in the work of saving
men, building the Kingdom. But
it is growing to be common knowl-
edge that in the maj ority of cases
where these gifts have been made
unconditional upon any effort by the
church, the result has been a dis
tinct letting-doWn in the sense of
responsibility by the churches so
aided. They have found it harder
and harder to produce from the
members ADJUST amount for benevo-
lence snd missions, and even for the
pastors salary. A certain New
Engl and church received from
a devoted friend whose boy
hood had been spent in that church
an endowment which produced in
terest sufficient to pay the entire
salary of the pastor The immed-
late result was that practically the
entire membership of the church de-
clined to pay anything farther
toward the salary and, still more
seriously, the offerings apportioned
to the church for benevolence and
missions fell off about 80 per cent,
This means spiritual poverty. 1t !
means sapping the very roots of
Christian effort. My conviction is,
that those who would really strength |
en our churches by gifts must
begin to make further gifts con-
ditional upon a certain amount of
effort by the people of the church.
Take out the need of individual
giving, and you have injected into
the church a spiritual cocaine. You
remember how one of the early
popes, throwing open the door of
vault containing the fabulous mon
eys of the Vatican in that day, said
to the plain monk with a smile,
" You see the day has passed when
the church must say, " Gold and
silver have l none,' "Yes," re-
piled the plain monk, "and the day
has passed when the church can say,
Rise up and walkP " All the
voices of those who have struggled
in the past century call upon you
not to make this the day of ease.
TO that end every member should
feel it a matter of personal pride to
take his or her financial part, how
ever humble, in the church expenses,
and in raising the apportioned
amount for this church in the benev-
whereby our Congregational
regiment is fighting the battle of
Gods Kingdom in other cities and
other lands.
Enough of money. The wealth
of our church, we will all agree, is
not in mortgages and bank pass
books. 1t is in lives of integrity
and power, sent out from the church
as from the hand of a mother, to
do a faithful day work in the world,
to increase the volume of the worlds
faith in God, in man, and its mystic ;
but glorious thirst for eternal life.
Many such lives has this church
produced. The story of them would
be well worth the telling if it were
possible. | name but two.
Gov. Roswell Farnham Joined
this church in 1854 and was for !
fifty years its faithful and consistent
and the largest part of
that time clerk of the church and
a teacher in the Sunday School
Those who met and honored him
in the many affairs of his widely .
life as a lawyer, a soldier, !
and governor of our common
wealth probably little realized how !
the springs of that life were fed
by communion of his God, service
Of his Master. Others delight to
tell of the Northumberland of J
the Twelfth Regiment instruct ,
NO his brave wife i'm their tent