secular and religious alike, not who made them, nor when they were made, nor who has believed them; but what solid foundations of tested fact are under them; what Rock of Ages they rest on? It is impartial; it has no animus; it covers the whole field of human inquiry and human faith. We are not then to be surprised, offended, or alarmed, when popular thought among our own people demands that what the Christian proffers to heart or intellect for rectifying the world should undergo that treatment. The Nation wants, for reaching that sublime destiny toward which it is groping and moving, great, positive facts, resting on foundations that can not be moved. There is a demand for them. The people will have no shifting sands. The massive essentials of our common Christianity seem to meet the case. They were hewed and shaped and placed for us by One who created human mind and knows human need. To those who receive them, they vindicate their own right to be. The Bible, where they lie, as ore in the mine, is a solid unit of uplifting force. The whole of it makes toward one end. Let it be dissected. Let doubting "criticism" go through that part which Christ called "the Books of Moses," and prove to itself that Moses had little or nothing to do with them; go through "the prophets," as He called them, and show with equal satisfaction that they have no right to be called prophets; through "the Psalms of David," as He called and sung them, and find for itself on them no imprint of David or seal of God; and still the Old Bible with the New somehow keeps its unity to the hearts of men, and goes on "making toward righteousness" and lifting them up toward God's light. Brought to honest trial in our lives, it gives truth to it creates great, positive faiths. Here are strength and happiness to troubled nations; here rest and peace, courage, hope, tranquillity to suffering men!

To-day our minds go back across the century to that little band of patriotic pioneers who, for the sake of the nation as well as themselves, broke ground for civilization on this spot beside "the beautiful river." Of their heroic character and achievements you have already heard. They came from their Eastern homes with high resolve. Imperial States, one after another, should rise out of that almost unbroken wilderness

stretching toward the setting sun. Those States should be dedicated to human freedom. Unfettered religion, pure morals, a broad and universal education, public and private security under protection of equal law, industry, thrift and plenty should here be the inheritance of their children forever. They were planning great things. Prophetic hope lent them inspiring visions. They were "building better than they knew."

But their visions are yet no more than half fulfilled. The progress of nations in the higher things is slow. The swing of the pendulum is but once in a century, and we die waiting a vibration. God is a patient toiler. We haste and murmur. His life is eternity; ours a flicker of time. He waits to fortify advances; a point once gained is secure. He is changing the world from within, and the results are not base-metal plated which might wear thin, but transmuted to wear bright to the last. The great convictions, faiths, principles of His kingdom are slow-wrought experiences. Only these enter life as chyle the blood. With mingled goodness and severity He is slowly and patiently bringing men to that state where heaven comes down to earth. The centuries drop out of His hand, but He toils on quietly. No haste mars the smoothness or finish of His work. Righteousness, truth, go down to-day under the majority; but majorities, the nation, must then go into His smelting pot. He always wins who sides with God. The dynamics of physical laws, the expanding or contractile forces of races, the operations of social conditions may be made, if we will, to interpret for us this involvel, complex, slow, and yet sublimely evident onwardness and upwardness of our human progress. But the grandeur of it is gone then! We need to recognize a Something higher, moving on side by side with us, and breaking through upon the human field by the weight and tenderness of its mightier personality an invisible Divine Presence - our God and Father-working "all things after the counsel of his own will" to bring out, in the fullness of times, a readjusted world!

Such visions as these, it would seem, inspired and animated those pioneers of a century ago, and gave them patience to labor and to wait. This whole American nation now needs to be

strengthened for its great place and work on earth by faiths as great and positive, by visions as high and clear. So inspired. and strengthened, to what splendid glory of character shall it not advance in those new centuries before us? We may not be able to measure, but we cannot fail to see on what a vast pattern God is moulding our national form. We are compelled to believe in a destiny which no other nation has dared to desire or dream as its own! Cramped within no insular limits, we have secured the best part of this Western world. The very center of the human family, we divide and yet unite the whole. The best blood of the most vigorous races flows in our veins and nourishes our national life. The cherished hopes of ages are bound up with our success. The prayers of nations, whose children are gathered here, are ours. A government created for freedom, equal justice and generous education - distributed and guarded by an almost divinely inspired wisdom; religion unfettered and unweakened by alliance with the State, at work without pause on every interest of human life and deeply incorporated with the convictions of the nation as it is profoundly associated with all its history — these are some of those massive foundations on which our structure and future greatness stand.

Are we ready to accept and administer this trust for mankind which has come down to us from the fathers and noble pioneers, and which they in turn received from God, the greater Founder of our nation? The grandeur of the trust and the honor was never exceeded.

ADDRESSES OF SUNDAY EVENING, APRIL EIGHTH.

ADDRESS OF REV. A. L. CHAPIN, D. D.

MY CHRISTIAN FRIENDS AND FELLOW CITIZENS: My connection with this celebration is so peculiar that I shall crave a moment simply to explain it. This occasion has been looked. forward to by many of your people and not by the people of Marietta or the people of Ohio alone.

Many months ago, Dr. Andrews, whom I chanced to meet, spoke to me of the occasion to come in the course of a couple of years. It has been my duty for some years to be a student and a teacher of the Constitution of the United States, and of the Ordinance of 1787. I told him my interest in both these documents which are essentially the same was such that I should be here if I could be. So I am here on personal considerations, with a view to learn what I can about that which is the fundamental document of authority to our Government.

As you have just been told, the Council of Congregational Churches, which met a year ago last fall, have looked forward to this occasion, and named five of their number with a request that they would be here to represent their interests, and to speak for them, if it might be, in regard to the great principles which are here involved. I am happy to say that one of my colleagues is here with me- Dr. Sturtevant; the other three

are not.

But a few days ago, I received from the Governor of our State Hon. Jeremiah Rusk—a commission requesting me to come here to represent the State; the youngest sister of the States which have grown out of this ordinance and its history. I think I stand here in a peculiar position, a commissioner from one of the States and from the Church Council; and in these capacities I wish to say a word or two.

First, with ref

erence to that great fundamental document of our nation, from which it derives all its authority, which was meant to be, which

has been, and which I believe is destined to be the continued source of authority and of life to the nation for a great while

to come.

I have long been confident that the Ordinance of 1787 was essentially a part of the Constitution, necessary to it - a true exponent of it, throwing light upon it, and giving force to it. What I have heard here respecting the history of that document and all the contingent history has convinced me more and more. I have been charmed by what was here presented; and I want to say here, as I mean to say everywhere, when I have a chance to say it, to all those who are engaged in teaching the Constitution of the United States, take the Ordinance of 1787, and with it the Constitution, which is incomplete without it. The ordinance throws light upon the Constitution, and shows just those things which every youth needs to understand in order to be a true-hearted citizen of the United States. I carry that away with me as one thing of the things of this meeting. I hope others will do the same thing, and feel more than repaid for it.

Then, as representing the State of Wisconsin: Forty-five years ago I landed at the port of Milwaukee. Milwaukee was advanced a little beyond what Marietta was a hundred years ago; yet it is out of very small things we are come. All these years I have watched the development of city and State, and I am here to testify that Wisconsin owes what she is to-day, and what she may hope to become, to the fact that she was a member of this territory, which was covered by the Ordinance of 1787. I have seen there the blessed result of having that ordinance established established and fixed beyond recall. At the time when I landed in Wisconsin the chief settlement of that state was on the west side of the State. Perhaps it came up the Mississippi river from the Southern States; in love with slavery they would have been glad to have introduced it into Wisconsin, but they could not do it. There was a barrier that fixed it and settled forever the freedom of that State in which we all rejoice. And so the precious principles of the constitution as they come. in that ordinance, have guided the organization of the constitu