And State Papers 45 



counted in the life of our people that the descend 

 ants of those who worshiped in that church and of 

 those who under contract put it up, should be meet 

 ing here this evening. I have another bond with 

 you. There are not very many Dutch Reformed 

 churches in this city; not quite as many as there 

 should be; and during a considerable portion of my 

 life I have had to go to a Presbyterian church, 

 because there was not a Reformed church to attend. 

 All of my early years I went to the Madison Square 

 Presbyterian Church, which then had as its pastor 

 Dr. Adams. Those of you who remember him will 

 agree with me that he was one of the very few men 

 concerning whom it was not inappropriate to use 

 the adjective by which I shall describe him, for he 

 was in very truth a saintly man. 



It is a pleasure on behalf of the people of the 

 United States to greet you and bid you welcome on 

 this hundredth anniversary of the beginning of 

 organized home missionary work by the Presbyterian 

 Church. In one sense of course all earnest and 

 fervent church work is a part of home missionary 

 work. Every earnest and zealous believer, every 

 man or woman who is a doer of the word and not a 

 hearer only, is a lifelong missionary in his or her 

 field of labor a missionary by precept, and, by what 

 counts a thousandfold more than precept, by practice. 

 Every such believer exerts influence on those within 

 reach, somewhat by word and infinitely more 

 through the ceaseless, well-nigh unfelt pressure all 

 the stronger where its exercise is unconscious the 



