166 A HALF CENTURY. 



permitted to do so much for the cause of religion at home and abroad. 

 Nor has any contributor to these amounts any other regret, I am 

 Bure, than that he has not been able to do more ; for, large as they 

 are, they have already been returned ten-fold in blessings on our- 

 selves and our community. 



Every day we are taught that it is only by giving up a part of what 

 we call our own that we can enjoy the full benefit of the rest. Society, 

 the state, the community in which we live, all demand something of 

 us, and all pay back double in return. They open the way for pub- 

 lic and private prosperity, and for those social enjoyments and privi- 

 leges, which are at once the aim and the joy of our lives. How true 

 this is, is seen more clearly from a glance at our national history. 

 What but anarchy, civil war, and final ruin would have been the fate 

 of our American colonies after the Revolution, if they had clung 

 each to their own individual right, and not yielded up the part neces- 

 sary to constitute this now glorious Union. What, too, but the con- 

 sciousness of its priceless value made the North ready as one man to 

 sacrifice property and life in its defense. 



It is one of the axioms of Euclid, as every school-boy knows, that 

 the whole is greater than any of its parts, and school boys used to be 

 willing to admit Euclid's conclusions without the test of demonstra- 

 tion. But a pagan living two thousand years ago could not reason- 

 ably be expected to be abreast of the wisdom of this, the wisest of all 

 the centuries. Observation daily proves the part to be often infinitely 

 greater and more valuable than the whole, and the whole to be value- 

 less except for the possible separation. 



In these days of prosperity and wealth, we are not apt to fully real- 

 ize the sacrifice and self-denial that the founders of this Church .were 

 called upon to endure. All did their part, encouraged by the splen- 

 did liberality of one of their number, who, ever as bold as he was far- 

 sighted, saw in the church an institution, adding value to everything 

 around it, and for which no present sacrifice could be too great. Later 

 on we saw that same man, when other men of larger means in differ- 

 ent parts of the state were hesitating, with the courage of deep con- 

 viction, coming boldly forward, and with the aid of his friends, secur- 

 ing for New Britain the State Normal school, of which we all are so 

 justly proud. The church and the school, the two great moral forces 

 in the community, making home and property and life itself doubly 

 blessed. Think you these men were the poorer for these sacrifices? 

 Nay, even, were they not a thousand times richer, not merely in the 

 consciousness of noble deeds, but even in material resources. What 

 banker after that was not more ready to furnish them any needed aid? 

 Character as well as enterprise gave them capital. From that time on 

 a higher spirit has pervaded our entire community. Education and 



