USA > Pennsylvania > Lebanon County > Kleinfeltersville > Centennial celebration of the organization of the first conference of the Evangelical Church : held at Kleinfeltersville, Lebanon County, Pa., September, 25-26, 1907 > Part 3
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Now another question meets and challenges me on the threshold of this Memorial Day, as we enter upon the exercises of this anniversary occasion: What have we, of the United Evangelical Church, to do with the centennial anniversary of the organization of the first annual conference of the Evangelical Association? What part or lot have we in the inheritance of its memories, its history, its achievements, its germinal life? Why should we here, on this historic spot, on this anniversary occasion, consider "the genius and spirit of our Church life"? What interest have we, of the United Evangelical Church, in such a celebration as this, seeing that we are of a different denominational name and household?
Some weeks ago I was invited to an old-time Evangelical home in Illinois. The father and the mother were there alone. They were happy that day in anticipation of the home-coming of their children and children's children to celebrate in the old home the eightieth birthday anniversary of the husband and father. One branch of that honorable family, constituting now a household of its own, bore a name different from that of the
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old family name, for a daughter had merged her name in that of another whom she loved. But they were of one blood and life; they had a common family heredity, enriched with another tribu- tary stream; so also had they a common interest in the happy event that had drawn the families together around the sacred old shrine. The parable is plain. "Our fathers, where are they?" we cry, in the language of the old Book. The voice of an an- cient Psalmist in "A Song of Loves" gives reply : "Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou shalt make princes in all the earth." (Psalm 45 : 16.) They of a century ago were the "fathers"; we who are "instead" of them, are of the "children." We are of the humble Evangelical, royal blood and lineage, heirs and stewards by inalienable rights of the household of faith. At this old ancestral shrine, where Albright wept and prayed and preached, we joy to celebrate the first conference family reunion of one hundred years ago. We come to remind ourselves of "the rock whence we were hewn and the hole of the pit whence we were digged." (Isaiah 51 : I.) We come, to view again the fountain head whence flowed the fertilizing stream which in its fretting banks parted into two heads and flowed onward in two channels.
The United Evangelical Church of to-day is a perpetuation, a development, an intensification of the life of the original Evan- gelical Association ; a realization-at least in part-of "the prom- ise and potency" of the simple germinal life of its first days ; in genius and spirit identical, yet clarified, enlarged and ripened ; of clearer vision, larger outlook, freer movement, and surer, firmer tread. To the Christ-consciousness of the individual be- liever and witness, has been added the Church-consciousness of the united believers bound together. in well-ordered fellowship for co-operative service in the freedom of the emancipating Spirit. Identity of life, of genius and spirit, is not conditioned on identity of forms and methods and speech with the Church as it was in its primary, elementary and formative stages. The bud is father of the flower, and the flower is father of the fruit, but the bud is not the flower, nor the flower the fruit. "The child is father of the man," as the old proverb sagely proclaims, but the man does not dishonor his childhood nor demean his manhood when he "puts away childish things" and lives the full life of the ripened man. He may even change his name, his garb, his earlier
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habitudes, not only without detriment, but to the greatest advan- tage, and in truest loyalty to his antecedents and his mission.
This is my answer to the second question. Both answers at least touch both center and circumference of my theme.
Jacob Albright, whom we honor as the human agent in the founding of the Evangelical Association, a plain, humble, sane, sober, open-minded, serious, laboring man-Albright a deeply convicted, penitent sinner-Albright, an agonizing wrestler in the marshes and quicksands of the 7th of Romans-Albright, a pardoned, renewed, sanctified, happy, triumphant believer, stand- ing on the rock of the 8th of Romans-Albright, the love-con- strained witness of Jesus and seeker of lost souls-Albright, the divinely called, commissioned, empowered, attested preacher of the gospel-this man may well stand as index and exponent of the genius and spirit of our Church.
Albright had a distinct, never-to-be-forgotten experience of the sinful, lost, hopeless condition of the natural man, and, fol- lowing this, of the pardoning mercy, and the renewing, trans- forming, comforting, sustaining grace of God.
He was drawn by the constraining love of Christ at once to seek the salvation of others whom he knew to be as he had been, and so became a true witness for Jesus Christ who had saved him.
In the zealous activities of his glad, new life, this grateful convert believed that there came to him a clear call from God to give himself wholly to the work of an Evangelist, and he was "not disobedient to the heavenly vision."
He did not seek from any human authority for confirmation of his call, or for permission or authorization to respond to the call. He had it to do with God alone, and in the simplicity of faith and love he obeyed the voice of God and braved the con- sequences.
He preached the word, "in season, out of season," wherever, whenever, and however he could, in churches, in school-houses, in market-places, in houses, in barns, in groves, in fields, on the streets, and by the wayside. He declared his glad message of grace to individuals, to families, to little groups, to congregations, whether one, or few, or many.
He sailed his craft in stormy times, in narrow channels, be- tween threatening rocky shores, and steadfastly held his course in the middle of the channel, sane, sober, and strong, proof alike
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against fanaticism, self-conceit, unholy ambition, and lust of power.
He sought only the salvation of the people, without thought of personal gain or loss, as a faithful servant and ambassador for Jesus Christ. The seal of God was upon his work from the first. The persons whom he and his associates of like spirit had led to Christ and who had been saved from sin and renewed in heart and life, were so manifestly different from what they had been, and from others not so converted, that they were known as "the converted people," in distinction from "the church people" who had no such experience. So unmistakable was the change that these people were "known and read of all men" as disciples of Christ. In this we touch the heart and core of our Church life --- a new heart and a new life and its open testimony before the world-an experience of a supernatural change, and its unanswer- able, irresistible argument for the Gospel of the grace of God. If ever this light goes out in our candlestick, then let the black smoke-wreaths from its sooty socket spell out our fateful "ICHA- BOD" on the lurid sky.
Albright and his co-laborers did not go out to make pros- elytes, or to gather church members, for they had then no Church organization either in fact or in thought. Even at the first an- nual conference, after nearly fifteen years of evangelistic labors, the assembled believers had not even a Discipline, nor Articles of Faith, but stood on the Holy Scriptures alone as the sufficient rule of faith and practice. On this solid and only foundation of truth our Church still stands, but with duly specified and clearly for- mulated points of agreement in doctrine, practice, and polity, em- bodied in a Book of Discipline. This bodily clothing of polity, policy and creed, the spirit of the Church has woven about itself, according to the law of correspondence with present environ- ment, conditions, and needs. So the form fits the fact, and the spirit fills the form. So, I am glad to believe, this spirit of our Church, with the Spirit that ever worketh in the children of obedi- ence, is now fitly bodied forth in the form of our Church-not bound and restricted, not hampered and baffled, not galled and bruised, not fretted and goaded, but fittingly harnessed for service in the liberty wherewith Christ makes free.
Our Church, therefore, is Evangelical, or it is nothing- Evangelical in birth and blood, in grace and gifts, in preaching
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and practice, in life and labors. The Evangelical note rings out, clear and strong, in the orchestral harmony of its Articles of Faith and its testimony of experience. It is rooted and grounded in the Bible, in the old Bible, which constituted the itinerating library and the ever-ready arsenal of the pioneer evangelists.
Our Church is United Evangelical, that is, a Church com- posed of Evangelical people sorted out, sifted out, tried in the fire, drawn together by the powerful gravitation of moral and spiritual affinities, joining hearts and hands in the cohesion of common, sympathetic interests, fused in the white heat of trial, and made strong in the fellowship of sufferings, in heroic strug- gles and patient endurance.
Our Church is also Evangelistic, else would it be an Evan- gelical Church gone to seed, an unfaithful steward of the Gospel of grace. In the person of Jacob Albright the Church in embryo moved out with only the one thought and impulse, the one motive and purpose, to seek and to save the lost near at hand. The Evangelistic movement was then within narrow neighborhood lines and limits. It has now gone out beyond language lines and na- tional boundaries, and knows no limits save the circumference of "all the world" and "the end of the age."
This outward movement upon the heathen world is a reve- lation of the genius and spirit of our Church. There is hardly anything like it in the history of any Church. It is an inspiring story of womanly devotion, of high purpose, of patient waiting, of unwearying persistence, and of victorious accomplishment. Our China Mission is one of the fruits of this woman's work in our Church. To those who have observed and understood the far-reaching influence and the already realized outcome of these activities of our women, in the larger liberty of the reorganized Church, it has been a revelation of latent powers and undeveloped forces grandly prophetic of greater things than we have yet known.
In its evangelistic activities our Church has surely justified its right to its name and place in the fellowship of sister Churches. Thousands of souls saved through its ministration and influence have gone into other Churches, greatly to their advantage. For we stand, and have ever stood, for thoroughly Scriptural con- version into a new life of obedience to the will of God, a holy, happy, useful, winsome life. Hand in hand with evangelization
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go also the conserving ministries of Christian nurture and Chris- tian discipline, solicitous not only for the welfare of the individ- ual soul, but also for the safety, purity and power of the Church.
Our churches have always presented the characteristics of genuine "households of faith," where all can be sure of a cheery welcome and equal share in the blessings of the means of grace and the fellowship of the saints. No barriers of fashionable eti- quette, or pretentious form and ceremony can find place in the congregational households of our Church to hinder the free course of the Spirit of God in the edification of believers.
In the public worship, in the larger and the smaller meetings, there is full liberty for free expression in prayer and praise, in testimony and exhortation, as the Spirit may move the heart of the worshiper. In these households of faith there is no respect of persons, but all are one in Christ Jesus.
No consideration of the genius and spirit of our Church would be complete without some reference to its ministry. With the old Bible in its hand, our Church has never wavered in its insistent demand for soundly converted, consecrated, divinely called, and divinely qualified preachers. No exigencies of need, nor pressure of changing sentiment, nor demand from within or without, has yet prevailed to move us from this only safe ground. But it is not by any arbitrary ecclesiastical rules or standards that we receive or reject applicants for the ministry. The divine call must be recognized and honored, whether it brings a man from the plow-handle, or the carpenter's bench, or the coal-mine, or the school-room, or the theological seminary, or the university. Then the preacher is given ample time and patient tolerance to "make full proof of his ministry" and certify his call, to the sat- isfaction of the Church.
Our Church, as one among many Churches, stands in a league of love with all followers of Jesus Christ, ready for any co-opera- tive service within the proper sphere of its activities. It has open ears for every appeal that comes from the wide fields of moral reform and Christian philanthropy, mindful of the inspired ad- monition not to look on its own things only, but also on the things of others.
Remembering now our origin, our history, our heredity, our obligations, our mission, how can we best honor our noble Evan- gelical ancestry and vindicate our worthiness to bear this name
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into the coming years? Shall it be by simply striving to perpet- uate their noble spirit and to go on repeating and duplicating their work? Yes, all this, but we can do more and better, and, thank God, we are doing better than this. We are, by the grace of God, enlarging and intensifying the Evangelical spirit as we also perpetuate it, and we are doing the work assigned by the Head of the Church with wider outlook and larger apprehension.
Our spirit, aspiration and endeavor are well expressed in the words of the Apostle Paul as he faced the momentous future with its vision of the struggling, conquering Church : "Forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."
Our past-"the things which are behind"-is settled, sealed, secure; we can "forget" that. Our future-"the things which are before"-looms large in the promise and providence of God, and the glorious goal, "the prize of the high calling," is in full view. Our present lies in clear light, and we can confidently, with sure, swift feet, "press toward the goal."
The days of the militant Church are numbered in the secret chronicles of the Kingdom. The end of toil and conflict may come soon. Our time of service, at least, is short. Ere many years the last sower and reaper will be called from the field. The last sol- dier of the Cross will be mustered out in the Church militant. Then the completed Church triumphant in the heavenly world will shake the heavens and the earth with the melodious thunders of the "Song of Moses and the Lamb." And there, among the in- numerable multitudes of those ransomed, raptured singers will be ten thousands who were first taught to sing redemption's joyful song in the homes and chapels and churches and tents of the Evangelical Church. It will be a great hour in that endless day when all these shall gather there for one grand Evangelical re- union at the eastern gate of the city of God. May we all be there !
THE FATHERS AND THE CHILDREN. "Thy fathers, where are they ?" "Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children." I. From humble, virtuous homes they came, Unknown to fame, or pride of name; Untaught in learning of the schools, Free from tradition's bonds and rules.
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II.
Theirs was the open heart and mind, The simple faith to truth inclined, The soul where God could work his will, Where love could suffer and be still.
III.
Their hearts were wed to one dear Name, Nor lure of wealth, or ease, or fame, Nor scorn of men, nor hellish hate, Could move them from their blest estate.
IV.
Their lives were hid with Christ in God,
Like planted seed beneath the sod; So, they could suffer and be strong, And cheer life's way with joyous song.
V.
Content with all-sufficient grace, They sought not riches, power, nor place, But gave themselves, at any cost, To seek and save that which was lost.
VI.
They sowed the seed of toilsome years, On furrowed fields bedewed with tears, And where their toil seemed oft in vain, We reap with joy the ripened grain.
VII.
Their swift race run, their work well done, They found their rest at set of sun, To see their good works follow on, And hear their Master's sweet "Well done!"
VIII.
So, at the crossing, one by one, With finished work, with victory won, The fathers pass, and in their stead The children in their footsteps tread.
IX.
The workmen pass, the work goes on; Love's work on earth is never done, Till Christ our Lord returns again, With all his saints in bliss to reign.
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X.
Till then our sacred trust we'll keep, To work or wait, to sow or reap, Content our calling to fulfil, And bide God's own good time and will.
XI.
On this memorial day of grace,
God of our fathers, Thee we praise
For all that other hands have wrought
For us and ours, beyond our thought,
Fruit of their prayers, and toils and tears-
The harvests of a hundred years.
XII.
We praise Thee, too, this happy day,
That Thou dost cheer our hearts alway With visions of that better time, When all the days shall be sublime,
And all the dreams of all the Seers
Shall bloom in God's millenial years.
THE POLITY OF THE UNITED EVANGELICAL CHURCH.
BY BISHOP WILLIAM F. HEIL.
Unity of faith lies at the basis of denominational organiza- tions. Men of a common faith are drawn together and held by the invisible but real bond of a commonly accepted truth. This fact accounts for the association of the men in 1807 from which sprang the Evangelical Association. This unity of faith is ex- pressed in the doctrines published in the discipline of this asso- ciation, ten years later. No serious differences of doctrine have at any time disturbed the Evangelical Association. At this time the articles of faith of the United Evangelical Church and the Evangelical Association agree substantially. The articles of the former church, because of more recent formulation, are ex- pressed in language more acceptable and intelligible than that of the earlier form.
The desire to promulgate this faith created a demand for some form of organization and thus the work of formulating
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a polity followed the adoption of the articles of faith. The polity of a church embraces the principles and rules which de- termine and control the organizations and methods of opera- tion. The character of polity is usually determined by the so- cial character and purposes of the constituency to be organ- ized and governed. In the case of the Evangelical Association, the constituency consisted of humble Pennsylvanians, descend- ants of pious Germans who emigrated to America to escape the despotism of their native country.
The development of forms of government civil or religious, presents a question relating to the harmonizing of extreme ten- dencies, one ending in an absolute despotism, the other in a per- fect personal independence which, in the present moral and men- tal state of humanity, would mean anarchy. These extremes bound the territory in which all movements toward the estab- lishment of governments are found.
The character of the original constituency of the Evangelical Association supports the inference that the polity sought by them would be democratic rather than monarchial. The formulation of a polity was, however, a difficult undertaking for the few men who gathered in the home of Samuel Becker in 1807, and the men who met in the home of Martin Dreisbach ten years later. To simplify their task, they appropriated liberally from the polity of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The desire to escape the almost absolute power which that polity confers on the bishops and the general conference, appears in the fact that efforts were made to impose limitations upon them. My acquaintance with the Evangelical Association since childhood and my study of her history convinces me that the constituency of the Associa- tion believed the polity contained in the discipline to be demo- cratic. But the formulation of a constitution and its interpreta- tion are two very different processes. The interpreters fre- quently contravene the purpose of the authors of constitutions. Our federal constitution and its interpretation furnish an illus- tration. When it was adopted the matter of state's sovereignty was a mooted question. Some statesmen held that the constitu- tion recognized the right of withdrawal on the part of the states. A larger number were convinced that the union was indissoluble. The civil war interpreted the constitution in favor of the latter position. In the Evangelical Association the powers of the
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episcopacy and the relative powers of the general and annual conferences, became vexatious questions, and in 1891, the Gen- eral Conference at Indianapolis, interpreted the constitution adopted by the simple-hearted Pennsylvanians, as exceeding in absolutism that of the Episcopal Church. That portion of the Association which in 1894 became the United Evangelical Church, took the position that such an interpretation was contrary to the original purpose and meaning of the constitution. In this issue the civil courts finally sustained the position of the Indianapolis conference, but the spirit of the fathers was in their sons, and suffering the forfeiture of church property estimated at circa $3,000,000.00, they met in conference at Naperville in 1894, formulated a discipline in which was expressed in terms of unmistakable clearness, the polity which they had been taught to believe, was the constitution of the Evangelical Association, and which they are now persuaded was the thought of Albright, Miller, Dreisbach, Seibert and Long.
The efficiency of a polity as well as its reasonableness be- come apparent in periods of contention. Constitutions are de- signed to protect right against might, the few against the many. The polity of the Evangelical Association proved weak as a de- fense against, but potent as a means of oppression. It was in- terpreted to mean that the decision of the majority is right be- cause it is the decision of the majority. In order to understand the distinctive features of the polity of the United Evangelical Church, it is necessary to consider the constituencies of the var- ious conferences, the relative powers of the conferences, the powers of the ministry, especially that of the episcopacy and the vesting and control of congregational property.
The first conference in 1807, was composed exclusively of laymen, but the discipline adopted in 1817, restricted the mem- bership of the general and annual conferences to the ministers of the church. In the contention of 1890-4, the laymen cheerfully bore the responsibilities which the loss of property imposed and they were accorded a place in these conferences. Each field of labor is permitted to send a delegate to the annual conference to which it belongs, and this delegate enjoys all the rights of a ministerial member "except to vote on the reception, ordination or expulsion of ministers." The general conference is composed of an equal number of ministerial and lay delegates. This sys-
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tem accords the laiety the fullest recognition and also imposes upon them enlarged responsibilities. The presence of laymen in these conferences augments the strength and influence of these bodies. This full representation was granted them not in answer to a clamor on their part, but in recognition of their fidelity and service. The efficiency of this system requires a larger measure of intelligence on the part of the laymen, than the former system in which laymen were confined to the primary councils of the church, and our experience and observation convinces us that our laymen are being well prepared to meet these requirements. I am persuaded that we can safely repose confidence in them.
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