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ADDRESS OF THE SECRETARY

When a ship returns from a voyage, those who are interested in that voyage may learn something about it by reading the ship's log, in which are narrated the various important incidents of the time that has elapsed. But, if one desired to know the real import of the voyage, the heart-history of the captain and crew, and the people that they may have met, the romance and purpose of it all, he would have need of a vivid imagination to read between the lines and into the words of the catalogue of facts to see the real things that were expressed there.

Our denomination has come again into port, and we have listened to the reading of the log. I am going to try, as best I can, to give a picture of the heart-history and the purpose that lie back of the facts that have been laid before us.

Here we have gathered and expended something over one hundred thousand dollars; we have aided churches in every part of the continent; caused the coming into being of churches that did not exist before; have sent our word over this country and every quarter of the globe in the printed page; have sent our preachers to many a locality, there to give the added power of personality, and the preached word which re-enforces so strongly the printed page. To interpret these facts to

you, I desire to put, and try to answer, four questions.

The first is, Why have we done these things? Why is it worth while to found churches, to send out our ministers, and print these many pages offering our conception of life and God? Why is it worth while for anybody to sacrifice himself for anything of this sort? Why has it been worth while for ministers to work on and on for half the pay that any one of them could earn at some other occupation? Why is it worth while for any of us to bear our personal cross and go on through life, forgetting our selfish desires and purposes and striving to work for the brotherhood to which we belong? Why have we done it?

My answer is, and I think it goes deeper than any other answer, the reason is, because we are immortals, because that kind of conduct befits immortals, and there are no other creatures that act in doing those things as the immortals love to act. We ought (and we are doing it) to lay more and more decisive emphasis on the recognition of the fact that we are doing all these things because the pride of our race points to them.

What is our race? We are children of God; and since that time when our Leader, in his boyhood, first set forth the fact that he claimed allegiance to his Father, and said to his earthly father and mother, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" the same pride of spiritual relationship that he had has commanded men to the nobleness of engaging in their Father's business. That is the reason why we are doing these things,-we creatures that do not perish,

beings who never know defeat in the cause to which the immortals really desire to devote themselves. Crowd a human soul into any circumstances, and sooner or later it will conquer those circumstances if they be oppressive and evil, and come out into the freedom of his Father's house. Every Mowgli will grow out of the jungle, if the jungle does not itself throw him forth to take his rightful place in the world and live as an immortal should.

Now, in an effort to live as immortals should, what have we been trying to do? This is my second question. What are we striving for? The answer I conceive to be equally simple, if you grant the power of my answer to the first question. We have been trying steadfastly to line up the immortals, to make every soul recognize that he is an immortal and owes allegiance to the things of God. We have been trying to transform the butterfly life that so many people live, flitting from sweet to sweet, from personal joy to personal joy, and cringing before every cold blast, timidly hiding whenever the sun is overcast. We want to change this state of mind. This is one fundamental thing we are after,-to line up the immortals, so that they may know they are immortals and accept the responsibilities of their sonship to God. Do I claim too much when I say that the Church is the only organization which is based frankly and completely on our immortality? It claims our allegiance because we are immortals. The Church is not an institution formed simply by the experience of the past. The Church is not merely a system of belief or a method of adminis

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