132 A HALF CENTURY. 



ral and moral inability," are no longer of interest to us. The famous 

 old "New England Theology" has had its day, and fills an honored 

 place in the history of Christian doctrine. There has been an advance 

 out of the speculative into the biblical and spiritual conceptions of 

 truth. The logical school has been supplanted by the intuitional 

 school of thought. Philosophical systems have given place to bib- 

 lical theologies. The attention of the church has been directed more 

 exclusively to the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ. All those "Lives 

 of Christ," found in our libraries and in your homes, have been 

 written within the past fifty years. Theologic thought has become 

 Christo-centric. And as men have concentrated their attention upon 

 Him, they have forgotten those minor differences that separated them 

 from one another, or have remembered them only as furnishing oppor- 

 tunity for tolerance and Christian charity. 



The Christian world has thus been drawn together in fraternal sym- 

 pathy and co-operative service. We have felt the pressure of the 

 world's great needs. We have stimulated each other to multiplied 

 forms of Christian activity. Our hands are full of work. The appeals 

 of missionary enterprise are constant and clamorous. Abroad the 

 nations wait for His law. At home the nations are at our very 

 doors to receive the ministry of His love. 



It is good to live in such a time as this! the past so full of inspira- 

 tion; the present, so crowded with opportunity; the future, so rich in 

 promise ! 



"Wherefore," my brethren, "seeing that we also are compassed 

 about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, 

 and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience 

 the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and 

 finisher of our faith." 



