THE SOUTH (;iiuu(;ii. 157 



religion, labor and culture have joined hands in achieving the noble re- 

 sults visible all around us. 



Our city has grown up under such intluences ; small it may be, but 

 of a moral power, great and far-reaching ; nor more famed for suc- 

 cessful business enterprise than for its philanthropic and liberal spirit. 



We justly admire the foresight and liberality of our fathers. Yet 

 they builded better than they knew. Like those who framed the con- 

 stitution of our Union, they had no conception of the grand results 

 which should follow their work. They saw not even in imagination 

 this great congregation, and this beautiful church building, which 

 their sons and successors have erected, hardly daring to count the 

 cost, but resolved in imitation of them to build a sanctuary, itself a 

 continual song of praise and thanksgiving, which, as it lifted itself 

 heavenward, should lift up the whole community with it, speaking in 

 language which all could understand of God's love for man, and man's 

 gratitude to God; and as one noble deed inspires another, so the church 

 inspired the chapel, together making one grand symphony of grati- 

 tude for unnumbered unmerited blessings. 



Nor should we fail at this time to call to mind among the many bene- 

 factors of this church him especially who provided so liberally for 

 our church library, and for aiding in the support of the poor among 

 us. Fountains of continual usefulness are those funds, the peren- 

 nial streams from w^hich refresh and gladden wherever they flow. Nor 

 him again, whose liberality could be confined within no denomina- 

 tional limit, but reached to adorn and bless our commimity on 

 every side, and not ours only, but colleges and religious institutions 

 in the far off West and South, but of whose truly Christlike charity, 

 -the Erwin Home will ever remain among us the most fitting memo 

 rial. Nor him, perhaps above all, who for so many years so success- 

 fully managed our financial affairs, not only himself fruitful in good 

 works, but the constant occasion of them in others. 



These all rest from their labors, but their works remain for our ex- 

 ample and inspiration. We may not be called upon to repeat just 

 what they did, but the field of active Christian benevolence daily 

 widens, and humanity on every side reaches out for aid and encour- 

 agement. But not more for their sacrifices and self-denial do we 

 honor those who have gone before us, than for the spirit which 

 .prompted them, making of them not a burden but a blessing. An- 

 other fifty years, and in its softened light the beauty of their lives 

 vfiW appear even more glorious. Not on the wealth of our community 

 then do we boast but on the use made of it. Our churches, our 

 schools, our libraries, our Christian associations, our private bene- 

 factions, our sacrifices and self-denials, to make the life around us 

 richer and nobler. Not what we have, but what we have given up 



