182 A HALF CENTURY. 



Deacon and Mrs. Seymour, Gad Stanley, W, S. Booth, Chaun- 

 cey Arnold, W. B. Stanley, Mrs. Chester Hart. 



On the old hair-cloth sofa, which stood in the old church 

 behind the communion table, was the marble corner-stone of 

 the old church itself, bearing the date 18-41, the building hav- 

 ing been begun and the corner-stone laid a year before the 

 church organization was made. On the wall was a drawing of 

 the old church, and beneath it a plan of the pews, with the 

 names of the pew-holders of those days written in. 'Here also 

 were the contribution boxes, the Sunday-school bell, the ''double 

 bass," the minister's prayer meeting chair, and last but not 

 least, the old pulpit Bible and hymn book. 



At eight o'clock, Dr. Cooper bade the people welcome to this 

 social entertainment and Rev. Dr. F. G. Woodworth offered 

 prayer. 



The musical selections of the evening were interspersed 

 through the two hours of speech-making and letter-reading that 

 followed, and were rendered by Miss Jessie Leigh, Miss Mack 

 and Messi's. Charles E. Wetmore, Robert H. Stanley, Frank S. 

 Pierce, Mortimer H. Stanley, and Walter P. Stanley. 



The first literary exercise of the evening was the readmg of a 



THANKSGIVING ODE 



by the Rev. Levi Wells Hart, of Brooklyn, N. Y., the son of an 

 original member of this Church. Mr. Hart depicted three 

 phases of our city, the present, past, and future. The follow- 

 ing selections are given from a very interesting poem : 



THE PRESENT. 



" Better fifty years of Europe 

 Than a cycle of Cathay. " 

 Thus sang the English poet 

 So lately laid to rest 

 In grand Westminster Abbey, 

 Where England's noblest pressed. 

 Yet the "fifty years of Europe " 

 Show less of triumphs won, 

 Thau a decade of our nation, — 

 Bride of the Western sun ! 



