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the weak, comfort the sorrowing and inspire the contented. It must edify the regular attendant, while it entertains the stranger within the gates.

Mr. McCulloch fulfilled these requirements. It was the perpetual delight of his friends and the wonder and admiration of all who heard him. Beside his superior mental and spiritual endowments, he had many personal characteristics that contributed largely to his suc

cess.

His manner was simple and direct, in just keeping with his character. His style was incisive, confident and persuasive, easily challenging a ready and eager attention. His voice was a rich tenor, clear and penetrating, yet sympathetic and restful, easy to listen to and lingering long. His words came with rare spontaneity and fluency, and were usually set with beautiful imagery and delicate fancy.

His preaching, withal, was earnest, lucid, fervent, forceful and always to a point. It abounded in a wonderful wealth of thought and a wide range of poetic and practical illustration. It was ever pervaded with a fine spiritual sense that indicated a rare insight into the deep things of God, and it bore the stamp of an originality that gave it the authority of a "Thus saith the Lord."

Yet through it all was ever heard the one strain to which the whole was keyed: the Kingdom is here, we must bring it in; the people must see that the Kingdom of Heaven can be made the Kingdom of Earth; the Abundant Life is the just due of all classes and conditions of people; it is the rightful heritage of every child born into the world, and it is ours to see that he comes to his own; the common life—the life of the many-can be elevated, spiritualized and transfigured by finding upon what foundations of duty it rests, and showing to what vast issues it is bound.

Therefore, the common people heard him gladly heard him with a great leap of the heart that said we, too, are men and women and can do these things.

The question with him was not "How can the Church reach the masses?" but "How can the masses reach the Church?" He believed many of them would like to come. He thought an open door with a warm welcome and contact with honest human hearts given to the service of Jesus Christ, would attract them. In this he was not mistaken. The services were always well attended, often filling the church and making it neces-sary to close the doors and turn many away.

But preaching the word was not enough. He wasnot content with being a seer into the deep and the hidden, a sayer of the true and needful thing; but he must perform his part as a doer of the Word. The broken-hearted were not healed, the captives were yet imprisoned, the blind could not see, and many had not yet heard the good news.

Life is joy, he said; it is thought, beauty and recreation, as well as religion. Education, literature, art, music, charity, are all parts of the great whole for which the Church must care. These elements, and many others, were incorporated into the church, and by. an elastic organization developed into a veritable institution of culture within its gates. To enlarge the scope of life to the many who were in some way bound, was the object, and its beneficial influence has been felt far beyond the limits of the church and the city.

Education in all its forms was an immanent and constant theme. His interest in it never abated, nor did his efforts to promote it ever tire. His first appearance in the city outside of his pulpit was to lecture to the teachers of the public schools on education-The Science of Childhood. When Jesus announced the value of the

individual soul, the great reason for educating every one was given. The Child of God must know his rights and understand his duties.

He felt that the work must begin with the children. and the young. A little child is the symbol of Christianity and late news from God. "Unless ye become as little children ye can not enter the Kingdom of Heaven." Children are the hope of the world, and every one of them divinely born. They must be kept pure, if possible, as when dropped from the Infinite Heart. The Church must not be to them a dreadful and gloomy place, but a familiar and pleasant home. They must love to come to it, associating it with thoughts of play and good times, as well as with thoughts of God. Childlife and Church-life must, therefore, be interwoven. The Church must include the children and supplement the kindergarten and the school by giving them a large place in its thought.

Besides the Sunday-school he gave them the first word in every morning service, which they attended constantly and in large numbers. This prelude or children's sermon was a feature of the day. He provided special services at Christmas and Easter, and arranged for them flower days, days in the woods, June picnics, Autumn festivals, special socials, romps and dolls' receptions.

The Sunday-school has some peculiar and original features. It is in large part the creation of the Pastor's personal influence and effort, and is a true scion of the Church. For years he attended it every Sunday morning. He would lead the singing and the other general exercises, and directed largely the work of the different classes. His talks to the School were appropriate and felicitious, and touched with master-hand the questions that lie close to the life of the young. His

prayers offered with the children were most touching and beautiful.

He made special effort to keep the older children and young people in the School by suggesting lines of study in which he thought they would be interested. He believed that pupils should pass from these higher classes into the church as naturally as a boy glides from twenty to twenty-one into all the privileges and powers of citizenship. So he formed a confirmation class each year of those who desired to enter it, and after instructing the members of it in regard to the Christian life, its potentialities and its duties, received them into membership in the church.

Plymouth Institute is also a child of the Church, and a part of it. Though its work be wholly secular, it enlarges life, builds up character, quickens sympathies and brings the Church nearer to the people. Organized originally to give young people and others employed during the day an opportunity for study and improvement in the evening, it has grown largely in many directions. It has given attention to a great variety of subjects, ranging from arithmetic, penmanship, shorthand and physical culture, through history, travel, civil government, German and French, to studies in Emerson and Browning, Homer and Dante. Its work of a distinctive literary character is of a very high order.

Its reading room, supplied with all the latest publications, has been open and free to all. Its historical lectures, some eight or ten each year, intended especially for the young, have been listened to by thousands with enthusiasm and delight. This was one of the many rills that fed the general Church-stream.

The Church at large and popular amusements have long been divorced. Plymouth lecture course was instituted to heal this breach. Its object is to connect

the idea of the Church with popular instruction and the re-creation of life. The committee aimed to present the best there is at the least cost. How well they succeeded the public can testify. The very best lecturers, readers and musicians of this country and of Europe have followed one another, each year, upon its platform. To rest the tired, to encourage the desponding, to quicken the dull, is certainly a legitimate work of the Church. It flows directly from the conception of life that Jesus held.

The song-service and illustrated sermon were pioneer work, but successful from the first. The house was filled each time with a quiet audience, attentive and sympathetic, made up largely of those who would not attend church under ordinary conditions. They came in answer to a demand. The illustrated sermon brought noble art and beautiful pictures to the service of religion. The life of Jesus was illuminated by it, the old story made new; the holy fields were retrodden and the scenes that he saw made real. The picture is the oldest form of record and communication, and has never lost its power. The eye, as well as the ear, is a gateway of the soul. That which is beautiful, as well as that which is true, can lift up and inspire.

Mention should be made of the Ladies' Union, with its varied features of social and benevolent work, the Young People's Circle, the King's Daughters, and the monthly Church-Supper, which were features and factors in the life of the church instituted by Mr. McCulloch.

No survey of the work can be anything but superficial. Life comes on currents we can not see, and flows in channels far beyond our reach or knowledge. No statistics can gather its influence, nor tabulate the results of it. Here is an attempt to bring the abundant life of Christ into all human experiences, and

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