THE SOUTH ciiURcir. 195 



Stanley has but recently passed away. Tlie meml)ers of tli-e 

 South and First churches mingle so freely in social life that it 

 is difficult to know who belongs to the one or tlie other. He 

 did not care for the distinctions made by the names of different 

 churches. We are all one. When a child is brouglit to the 

 font and is baptized, that child belongs to the family of God. 

 He belongs to the great, broad church of Jesus Christ, He has 

 a claim on Christian people everywhere. It is this strong and 

 tender bond of Christian love that we are to feel drawing us to 

 each other and to God. 



Mr. Rogers spoke for the '' Sons of the Church.' Referring 

 to Dr. Cooper's remark about the offense of a man outside of 

 the church coming into the fold and carrying off one of ^he 

 daughters of the church, he said that he, in one respect at 

 least, ought to be a man after Dr. Cooper's own heart, for he, a 

 son of the church, had married a daughter of the church and 

 was also very much interested at present in a little grand- 

 daughter of the church, both of whose parents, all four of whose 

 grandparents, and at least two of whose great-grandparents had 

 been members of the South Congregational Church. 



Referring to the story of the Prodigal Son, he said it was the 

 good son who stayed at home and the other that journeyed into . 

 a far country. In the present case the good sons had almost all 

 stayed at home. In professional life, in the banks, in the 

 offices and places of business and manufacturing, they hold 

 important positions of trust and are an honor to the community ; 

 they had already begun to be called to responsible positions in 

 the church, and as those who were older passed away to their 

 reward, they would be found able and willing to assume the 

 heavier responsibilities that might devolve upon them with 

 credit both to themselves and the church. Some of the other 

 sbns of the church, like William Peck and himself, had 

 wandered off to the far countries. William Peck, after travel- 

 ing over. all the civilized countries of the world, and several of 

 the uncivilized, had finally ended up in New Jersey, while he 

 had settled down in New York ; and they both, like genuine 

 prodigal sons, enjoy coming back to the father's house and 



