USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > A centennial history of Christ Church, Cincinnati, 1817-1917 > Part 11
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mocracy of France on the west, and poor old England that has given of her best, can you not see that in these there is a mass of dynamite under the very seats of the Hohenzollerns that will send them all-[Loud and prolonged applause drowned the remain- der of the sentence.]
You may depend upon it that there are in the affairs of men those quiet forces that are constantly at work, and that can not be stopped. You may build a breakwater that abides the ad- vance of the sea, but a small microbe, a thing that crawls into the piles, and eats, and eats, and eats its way, at last works a dissolution and a ruin that the might of the waves can not make; and I believe that once this mighty American people grasp this idea, I am not exaggerating when I say that when they grasp this idea that man can live with man, can understand man, and can love man, such as the Russians have proved, you have got there the germ of a larger evolution which over and above all the terrible conflict in Europe means that the spirit of Jesus is back on this earth. You think I have exaggerated, perhaps; but, gentlemen, the very first thing that the Russian democracy did when it felt itself free-perhaps it was a foolish thing to do; personally, I fancy it was-but what was the first thing they did? The first thing that great Russian democracy did in its initial hour of freedom was to pass a law which put it out of their power to put to death thousands of those who had so be- trayed the Russian people that tens of thousands of their soldiers were not even provided with munitions; yet the people passed a law which abolished the capital punishment of those that had betrayed them. That is the most extraordinary thing that has ever been done; it is the spirit of Jesus that says, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do." A democracy will not always do wise things; none of us can. But let us go out with all of our might and with all of our hearts, filled with the wonderful new hope, and do our part for the betterment of the world; this is true democracy. When in spite of conditions in Russia the United States makes them a free gift of one hundred thou- sand dollars, it shows that we are extending something more than mere sympathy to those our brothers across the sea.
Some one says, "Can not the same happen quickly in Ger- many?" I do not think so, for this reason: For fifty years there has not been a Russian poet that I know, or a novelist that I know, or a musician that I know, or an artist that I know, who has not been an idealist, from Tolstoi to Turgenev. That is the reason; and those men do not think in terms of Christianity; they do not believe in God; you will find all of them in theory agnostic, some of them think they are atheists; yet there is moving in them the spirit of God. So absolutely true are the words of Jesus spoken two thousand years ago that, although many of them would not dare to use his name, or would not
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choose to use his name, yet instinct with his spirit they stood naked-breasted before the whole world and passed the most wonderful and absolutely gracious law that has ever been passed by any nation that had been betrayed and enslaved the way they were. If that is not Christianity in these days, I would like to know what it is.
And so, brothers, brothers! we come back to our own task, our own job of helping forward these great things, of lending a helping hand to this great work; to show that we who have been a democracy for all this long time can do something to lead with our older life the younger life that needs our leading. Shall I tell you how we are going to do that, brothers? Each profession must do its own house-cleaning. I am not going to say more to-night than to simply express impersonally my thought that these are wonderful times when we see that Jesus is really saying to us, "Your eyes are seeing that which no other eyes have seen; your ears are hearing things that no other ears have heard." And what are you going to do about it? Are you simply going to let your opportunity go by? No, we will take our opportunity; but, please God, we have got to do something more than that, gentlemen; we have got to do something more. This splendid Parish House of yours that I have been delightedly going through stands for a big thing, but we have got to carry out this same idea to an extent that we have never deamed of yet. We have got to clean house, gentlemen ; we have got to clean house. We have got to get this idea of a religion that is broader and grander than simply the saving of a man's own soul. We have got to have a Christian religion that will clean up the professions from top to bottom. We have got to have a Christian religion that gets into the prac- tice of the lawyer, that gets into the practices of the politician, that gets into the methods of the business man, that will get into the life of every man and so change it that it will conform to the religion of Jesus Christ. We have outgrown the age-long idea of a religion whose overwhelming conception is that of individual safety. We have got past that; it won't satisfy the world any longer. We can not go back to the hell of Billy Sun- day, no matter how much you say; we can not do it, for it is a false idea of God, it is a false idea of Jesus, it is a false idea of man; for man was not born to be damned. What a beastly idea, that man is to be thrown into an ever-burning pit, where the devil rakes hot coals constantly between his toes! We can not have an idea of God as a God that allows the devil to shovel live coals upon tortured souls in hell. Good Lord ! What rot the whole thing is! We have to have the religion of Jesus that says, "You are my child; go into the world and live as the Child of God should live." Do not seek to save your soul be- cause you are afraid of being damned, but be willing to lose
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your soul for others, that you may save it in the losing. Even lay down your life to serve.
We do not know about the future. What do we know about the future? Any moment may change our conception of the future. What the future has for us I do not know; but I know that God is able to give the man that tries to follow him a con- cept of a life of service for his fellow man which alone will satisfy the soul of man and fit him for God's great work; and if God thinks I am worthy of going on after this life, I will go on; if he does not, I will not. If the candle does go out, let it go out. If the candle is going to burn afterwards, it will burn-I do not know-I am content to follow Jesus, and try to serve him; that is what I want to do.
That is the thing that America wants to come to to-day. That is where the world is leading us to-day. But, boys, it means house-cleaning; it means that each one of us must try to clean up his house, and live our lives orderly and truly as we ought to live if we follow Jesus, who said, "For this cause was I born into the world, to try to be true." That is a very hard thing to do, to be true. Any man who says that he does it, of course does not understand what a hard thing it is to do. But that is one of the things we will have to face in the world after this war is over, what we will have to do.
I believe, as I stand here, that the old walls of the church organization are going to tumble to pieces. I do not believe in national churches. We see that great good man, the Pope, sitting trembling on the fence, afraid to help Belgium because it might hurt his chances of temporal power by going against Austria. We have seen the English Church making all sorts of mistakes, just because the Archbishop of Canterbury did not know better and would not let the English clergy go to war; yet those men have gone where thousands and tens of thousands of their countrymen went, their cassocks covered with an in- fantry jacket. Church walls are tumbling down. Why? Be- cause the mighty spirit of Jesus is working in the souls of men now as never before.
The poor ignorant boy that goes off to the war, not knowing its nature, and as he steps over the trench, steps to death, is giving the best he has to the best he knows. That is religion.
I defined religion thirty years ago in St. George's Church, and I will stand by that definition still. I am afraid to try to add anything to it. A very great lawyer in this country said to me, "You do not know in how many cases in court that definition has helped me in my findings on the bench, and I want to thank you for it." Here it is. You fellows can stick it in your heads : "Religion is giving the best you have to the best you know." I think that will wear and wash. "Religion is giving the best you have to the best you know." Those fellows that have gone
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to die in the trenches, God knows how many of them were poor weaklings; but when they died they were stepping up after the Master-a long way behind, perhaps-but he won't turn them down; they were giving the best they had to the best they knew. They make us feel that there is something, after all, in the ordinary man.
Business is not simply barter; business is exchange. You business men can preach that better than I can. But you know you do not practice it. Business is not getting the better of the other fellow; it has got to be exchange, which is a higher thing. And now you will say that I am getting into something that is not my job.
But to return to my subject, we have got to come back, and the world has got to come back to a new sense of the reality of brotherhood, that men are all brothers. We have got to get back to that reality. It was the getting away from that that produced the conditions that forced us into this war. The com- mon man does not want war; the man that lives in the open does not want war. Certain men, because of their own jeal- ousies or evil purposes, have forced millions of men to war, and that has got to stop; and the thing that is going to do that is Christian democracy.
And so, in conclusion, I want to say that if we are going to help stop it, we must not simply give our money, or give our help; but, gentlemen, you fellows have got to carry on the work that we old men can not undertake because we can not do much more, and you must see to it that you have a better vision than we in the older time had of Jesus; see that you have a better understanding of your fellow men than we had; and go for- ward with a new meaning of life, a new understanding of men. Give, and it shall be given unto you. Give your life, give your sympathy, give your money, give your love to your fellow men, and you will find that they will pay you back.
Seth Low, who is now dead, said to me shortly before he died, "I have been Mayor of Brooklyn; I have been Mayor of New York; I have been President of Columbia College; and I want to say to you, Rector, that I feel that ten years' contact with the people who come to St. George's Church has taught me more of the meaning of democracy than all the other experience I have had of my fellow men;" and he spoke the truth. When you meet your fellow men on the conditions that the church offers, following out the teachings of the democracy of Christ, filled with the purpose that Doctor Goss spoke of, and do some- thing to promote a clear light and a better day, you do some- thing, ah! yes, you do something to bring back that old Gospel with new power, in the spirit of those brilliant men who have filled the pulpit of Christ Church; the fulfillment of the saying of the prophet of the Lord: "The spirit of the Lord is upon me,
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because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek; He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."
Address of Rev. Frank H. Nelson, Rector of Christ Church.
MR. TOASTMASTER AND GENTLEMEN :
Of course I am only a milestone on the way. It is my privi- lege to be here when Christ Church celebrates its Centennial.
It is a privilege to be the Rector of Christ Church, an office that I did not take with any great avidity seventeen years ago, that I have held with fear and trembling in the seventeen years that have followed.
There is no Church that I know of in this country, not ex- cepting that Church in which I came to some little vision of God, to some little understanding of democracy, under the leadership and vision of the man whom every man who has worked under him loves with a passion and an understanding that perhaps some of you men can understand a little to-night- after hearing him.
There was a book dedicated to him some years ago, and the text of the dedication was: "To a great soul, who has seen a vision and shown it to men-my friend, William S. Rainsford !"
That man has been to us who worked under him a prophet of God, and a revealer somewhat, as we were able to receive it, of the greatness of man.
We came out here because he sent us, he told us that we ought to come-not because we wanted to come. Stein and I both had lived always in the East. It was all the America that we knew, and it seemed a desirable place to live, just as those of you who have been born here think that Cincinnati is the most desirable place to live, because it is your home. But he, with a larger vision of America, and a larger vision of the calling of God to a man in the ministry, sent us here to do what we could. As he said a few minutes ago, Alexis Stein not only found him- self here, but his heart-strings were tied here as they were to no other place that he ever lived; and to the day of his death Cincinnati and Christ Church were first in his affection and made the strongest appeal to his imagination.
You have not been able to get rid of me in these eighteen years since I came, which only shows how close I have clung to Christ Church and to Cincinnati, until it is the place I love above all others, and it is the place I believe has the best people in this land; the place where there is the greatest opportunity
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for progress, for service, for achievement, that I know of in this land.
There is no Church like Christ Church-begging the pardon of Dr. Goss, of Dr. Dunlop, of Dean Purves, of Mr. Hunter, of Mr. Eastman, and of any others that may be here from other Churches !
While inadequately we have striven to see our vision of God in the face of Cincinnati-not in the faces of individuals in the congregation of Christ Church, but in the faces of Cin- cinnati-we have believed, however inadequately we have ex- pressed it, that the mission of the Church, of Christ Church, is not to the members of Christ Church, but is with the members of Christ Church to the city of Cincinnati, and then to the State of Ohio, and then to the United States of America, and then to the fellowship of man throughout the world.
The Parish House stands, as you know, not as a private possession of Christ Church, but as a trust in the hands of Christ Church for the service of manhood and womanhood in Cincinnati; whether they are Jews, or Roman Catholics, or Presbyterians, or Methodists, or atheists, or agnostics, or haters of their fellow men.
It has been there as the servant of God to try to do what it can. As the Rector said-we never think of him as anything but "The Rector"-as the Rector said a minute ago, to help man to see his fellow man, and when he sees him to trust him a little, and at last to love him; and those of you that have lived in that House know how, bit by bit, you have learned to know some other men than you knew before, and to trust them, and to come at last sometimes-with some, I think, at any rate- to love them; and out of that trusting and of that loving comes a fellowship in the city and a vision of fellowship in the city which makes Cincinnati a better place to live in because more democratic. And I believe-not in any spirit of boasting at all, believe me-for no one is more ashamed of the little that I do compared to what I ought to do, than I; yet I believe that it is true that Christ Church, with that little sign outside, "Come in, and Rest, and Pray;" that Christ Church with the open door between the Church and the Parish House; that Christ Church with the Parish House standing beside the Church, and giving that Parish House to the free use of anything that is for the welfare of the people of Cincinnati and of the world, has helped the cause of democracy and fellowship in Cincinnati to a little extent.
You know how fellowship has developed in Cincinnati that very remarkable thing that we call the Centralized Budget that we have here now each fall, when all of the social service or- ganizations in the city come together and each lays its budget before the others for criticism, for examination, and for chal-
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lenge ; an agency that ties together the city not only in co-opera- tion, but in fellowship to serve the welfare of the whole city; not of any part of it or of any cause in it, but the whole of it. That is an expression of democracy and of fellowship that twenty years ago would have been unbelievable and inconceiv- able. But it is of the years to come that we must think and to which we must look.
Christ Church has ended its first one hundred years. It is no part of ours to boast of that, nor do we speak of it in any boasting fashion, for it is not we here who preserved Christ Church for one hundred years; most of us have been in it but a little time. It has come down to us through the faith of the fathers. It has been given to us in trust; and in this newer time there has come to us, inevitably because of the times, some vision of a social religion, of a religion expressing itself in fel- lowship and of the will to fellowship; there has come to us somewhat of the vision that it is for us in the days to come to see that Christ Church, if it is to live for another hundred years, shall deepen that vision and spread it abroad.
We are not very democratic, as a matter of fact, yet, are we? There are differences of class, there are differences of associ- ation. We come into church Sunday after Sunday; we come into the Parish House week-day after week-day; and we do not know each other very well, and we go out to our own separate lifework and think very little about each other's welfare. And perhaps that is inevitable.
Such a change as the democracy of Jesus comes slowly; it is a process, it is a living thing; as the Rector says, it comes with pain and travail; it can not be won easily; it can not be satisfied with a word here and there; it must be wrought out in pain and sacrifice, it must be wrought out by putting behind us our private feelings, and our prejudices, and our class suspi- cions, and our religious differences, that religious difference which is so serious in this country between the Roman Catholic and the Protestant. As you know, I am a Protestant of the Prot- estants. I do not belong to the Catholic party in the Episcopal Church, I belong to the Protestant party. I believe in Protes- tantism; I do not believe in Catholicism, I never have, and please God, I never will. I believe in Protestantism; but I believe more, and deeper, and further, and broader, and higher in manhood and womanhood. I can see a vision of God in the man and in the woman, in the Catholic as well as in the Prot- estant, in the Jew, in the atheist, as well as in the Episcopalian.
What we stand for, as you know, in the Parish House is, that the Roman Catholic comes in there as the Protestant. I believe that we have not suffered by that faith-though sometimes some of you may have thought so. I dare say there are dangers in it; but there is a greater danger in keeping them
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out, the danger to our faith in man and to our brotherhood with our fellow man; it is by looking in their faces, by coming to know them and to trust them, that we shall serve the wel- fare of the city, and the welfare of the nation, better than by keeping our suspicion and by looking at them with suspicion; and we have got to go forward in the years to come in Christ Church to try to make it not a place for the people of Christ Church except as they shall come there to get some vision, some faith, and some inspiration to go back into business, to go back into politics, to go back into every part of our city life feeling that we would like to serve it, to be better business men, to be better citizens, and to be better members of this great country to which we belong.
We have got to try to make Christ Church one of the great centers of the religion of Jesus as Dr. Rainsford gave it to us this evening, from out of which shall come that spirit of fellowship and that spirit of faith which alone can make a city great.
We have got to make it a place to which we can go with pure hearts and fine enthusiasm; and as we go along into the coming years let us go as men and brothers; let us go together ; let us go believing so in God that we will have to come to his church to get that faith refreshed and strengthened, not that we may be able to save ourselves alone, but that we may go out and try to help be saviors of many of our fellow men.
Then shall Christ Church so fulfill its function, please God, that some day again, as you had for fourteen months seventeen years ago-some day, please God, you will have a preacher there, a man with a vision of God that he can make men see; a man with a vision of this city and a vision of this nation; a man with a strength and a courage of vision of a great break- ing up of the peoples of the earth and of its institutions and customs, a vision so clear and strong that he is not afraid of anything that may happen, of anything that God sends. When man follows that vision there will come that strength and mas- tery of the things that seem to be destructive, that out of them shall come the Child which is the desire of all nations-the Christian democracy that is to be.
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FROM THE SERMON BY THE RT. REV. BOYD VIN- CENT, D. D., BISHOP OF SOUTHERN OHIO, ON "THE CONTINUITY OF THE CHURCH," ON FRIDAY, MAY 18, 1917, THE ONE HUN- DREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUND- ING OF CHRIST CHURCH.
More and more we have come in these days to see the social significance of the Gospel; we have come to see that "the kingdom of heaven," preached and ushered in by Jesus Christ, is not merely the organized Christian Church, but rather the ideal of the whole of human society regenerated by the Spirit of Jesus Christ-God's reign at last in the social spirit and lives of men as well as in their individual hearts and lives. We are equally bound, as Christ's people, not only to do right ourselves, but also to do good to others-in every way we can; if we can not bring them to faith and into the Church, at any rate to make them in every other way better and happier men and women, and so make the world better and happier through them. There is preventive as well as rescue and remedial work to be done. We Christians have no right to find fault with the young for indifference to worthy things and for seeking social satisfactions in unworthy and harmful ways, unless we are also trying to teach them better and also to supply them with better places and means of innocent and helpful recreation.
Again: The world is full of evils-physical, moral, social, economic, political. There is something terribly wrong with the whole state of things when so many of our fellow men are still in so much unnecessary bodily need or pain, ignorant or defiant of all moral restraints and decencies, tormented and maddened by the inconsiderateness or unfairness or injustice or tyranny of others. And is all this just to be let alone by the rest of us, to drift on and better itself as best it may? Have we Christian men and women-we, above all others-have we no concern or duty in trying to find and remove the causes of all this? Otherwise-what are we Christians for? Not that the Churches, as churches, are to organize and conduct reform campaigns. That is not their business. Their business is to preach principles-the principles of righteousness and justice, in the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Then it is for Christian men and women as citizens, as members of the community filled with the Christ-Spirit, to organize and apply the studies and the forces needed to remedy such evils. At any rate, no parish ought to be able to go on any longer as a mere comfortable re- ligious club, after it has once heard this call out and up to a
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larger, nobler life of service to its own community, its country, and the whole world.
And now I need hardly say how perfectly, to my mind, Christ Church, Cincinnati, has already realized all these high ideals. Its new and present era began, of course, with the coming to you, from Saint George's Church, New York, in 1898, of the Rev. Mr. Stein and the Rev. Mr. Nelson. It is hardly credible now that after the Rev. Dr. Gibson was, in 1897, made Bishop of Virginia, some members of your vestry, while still paying a $4,000 choir, were bemoaning the poverty of the parish, and, after a year's vacancy, were thinking of abandonment. For- tunately, all such ideas were soon effectually dissipated by an- other and very radical idea. Of that the two following letters are interesting souvenirs. The first is from Bishop Potter, of New York: "My dear Bishop: I have your letter of the 14th inst., and beg leave to suggest the Rev. Alexis Stein, of St. George's Church, New York, for the vacancy. He is highly spoken of as a preacher. He is a man in every way of unusual force and ability and of fine fiber." The other is from the Rev. Dr. Rainsford, the then rector of St. George's: "My dear Friend : I am going to give you the greatest proof I can of my love and deep interest in Cincinnati. I have a plan for Christ Church. Here it is. Take two of my men-let them work and live to- gether; they could take a mighty strong hold, and do a really good work. I feel sure that in the future many a position of great difficulty can be much better occupied by two men, pulling together, than by one alone. There are two magnificent fel- lows-dear, dear boys after my own heart-who have been here with me for years; and I shall be lost without them, if you call them. Stein (Alexis) is the ablest preacher of his age (28) in our Church in these United States to-day. Nelson (Frank) is a strong, capable man, full of energy and charm and a first- class organizer. This is a big idea, my friend; but I believe God may be in it. It is like offering to cut off both my hands for you." What a fortunate, blessed thing it was for Christ Church just then, and still, that the Church in Cincinnati had made and kept such a friend as Dr. Rainsford; that all the splendid inspiration of his own great personality and great work, focused in those two fine protégés of his, should have been brought to bear on your life; and that we are once more able to tell our great gratitude to him personally present with us to-day.
What the instantaneous and wonderful effect was of putting his plan in operation you all know as well as I: the immediate winning of the love, confidence and support of all hearts and hands; the inspiring sermons; the gradual abolition of that old, long-established, vicious, pew-rent system; the erection of the first parish house for new, aggressive parish and social work;
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then, after Mr. Stein's sad breakdown and resignation, the wise elevation of the Rev. Mr. Nelson to the rectorship, with such admirable associates as the Rev. Mr. Melish, Rev. Mr. Poole, Rev. Mr. Attridge, and the others; the stimulating preaching again, and faithful pastoral work; the increased activity and expansion of organized work; the noble gift of the greater parish house to meet the need; and all the manifold results which make Christ Church to-day one of the strongest, most beneficent, and most influential churches in the country. But mere words seem superfluous here; you all know the facts; and, in order to see the whole story at a glance and in the concrete, you have only to look first at the two pictures on your pro- gramme-one of the little old first church, the other of your present great church and parish house, keeping in mind the beautiful chapel soon to be added; and then to look at your last Year Book, with the facts and figures of church member- ship and church offerings, and your endless organizations turn- ing your parish house into a perfect beehive of activities day and night-for spiritual helpfulness, for the moral and social betterment of thousands of young people, and for the promotion of every other worthy public interest. At one time I felt that there was room for real fear here of some of the evils often inherent in merely institutional church work; but the all-suffi- cient answer now to that fear is found in the manifest present strength of the spiritual life of the parish; in its great congre- gations of worshipers, in its great annual confirmation classes ; in its communicant roll of 1,400, in the Sunday School roll of 500, and in the early communions of three or four hundred young people at a time. How much of all these blessed results is due to the ministry and leadership of the Rev. Frank Nelson you know and feel, as well as I.
And so, to the devoted, successful, modest, beloved and alto- gether worthy Rector of Christ Church to-day, and to his good and loyal and nobly generous people, I bring congratulations on all that past and joy in all the present, not only from your Bishops, but also from all the fellow clergy and sister parishes throughout the city and the diocese. We do give devout thanks to God for all you have done and are still doing for his glory and the good of souls.
Those past hundred years of your parish history-are they a closed volume now, something complete and separate and apart by itself; or are they rather just a single chapter in the one continuous history of God's people? The men and women who made that parish history-many of them near and dear to you-did they just have their little day and play their part and pass entirely away; and is their spiritual life no longer a part of your parish life, here or hereafter? It would be heart- breaking if we had to believe that that were so.
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But the dear God has given us Christians a better faith and hope than that. One of the things modern science has taught us is that there is no new life in this world-not even at birth ; and no ending of life, even at death-though there is then a dissipation-and redistribution of the life-forces. Life at birth takes on a new form, a new personality; but there is no new life-there is only newly-communicated life. All life must come from pre-existent life. For life, not death, is the dominant fact in God's universe; death is but an incident. The one continu- ous stream of natural life goes on from the beginning, forever being checked and turned aside by death at particular points, but never turned back; the main stream forever flowing onward. So with the spiritual life of God's people in any given person or generation. It never ceases, though it seems to disappear, at death; for, though hidden then with God in Christ, it is still part of the continuous life of his people, flowing on through all the generations. Those many dear souls of your spiritual past here-they are still with us in the spirit; still one with us in faith and hope; their good works are still present to inspire us and bless us; we all wait together the final and glorious consummation above.
The writer to the Hebrews, in a wonderfully beautiful chap- ter, carries us down in thought along the whole line of Hebrew worthies from the beginning, and shows us how they all died in faith and hope, not yet having received the promises; how they all confessed that they were only "pilgrims and strangers" here upon the earth-for they were always "looking for a city which had foundations, whose builder and maker is God." Even so we Christians ourselves-says the writer-"have here no continuing city;" but (in our spiritual life) we too still "seek one to come." In other words, their spiritual life and ours look on to the same consummation; neither is complete without the other. For God, says the writer, "had foreseen some better thing concerning us, that apart from us they should not be per- fect." "Nor," he might have added, "could we be made per- fect without them." Here is the blessed doctrine of "the Com- munion of Saints."
It is a peculiar merit of medieval stained glass that the light, . passing through the windows, carries the colors and almost the figures with it, and so fills the whole church interior with a flood of glory and almost of unseen life as from heaven itself. What a comfort, as your parish life and worship and work still go on, to feel that so-all about you, inspiring and blessing you, are the spiritual influences-the witness and the sympathy and the good works-of those who have gone before you here!
Again: Nothing is more real and beautiful in Christianity than the pastoral relationship-the relation of pastor and peo- ple, of a shepherd and his own particular flock. Some of the
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most tender and grateful and sacred associations of the past are connected with this thought. But although there have been many pastors and many flocks among you, although there is such dis- tinctness, still there is no separateness of interest, in all this. For at the last each shepherd will bring his own sheep with him and call them each by name; but also it will be a comfort to remember that all shall come together then to become parts of the One Flock under the One Chief Shepherd, Jesus Christ, the Lord.
So I can not close without claiming my own large and pre- cious share of interest, also, as your Bishop, in your spiritual past and present. For twenty-eight years I have gone in and out among you, preaching the Word of Life, ministering the means of grace, and learning to love and care for your souls, even more than for my own. I have broken your bread; I have shared your home life; and I have been with many of you in your happiness and in your sorrows. For all these privileges of fellowship and service among you I am very grateful. May God spare us awhile together yet in our glad labors for him. I thank your present Rector and vestry especially for the invita- tion to speak to you now again on this festal anniversary day.
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