Unrequited knighthood of the nineteenth century is the theme of this hour. Knight means man-at-arms serving on horseback and pledged to perform certain honorable services. The French use the word "chevalier," from which we get our word "chivalry." The knighthood of the Middle Ages was fashioned after the equites of Rome, a military organization forming part of the Roman cavalry. Cicero says, "They comprised the flower of Roman chivalry, the ornament of Rome, the firmamentum of the republic."

      Our most vivid knowledge of the knighthood of the middle centuries is derived from romances and chronicles where naively told stories reveal all the glory of a chivalrous age. In its earliest days it was but part of the feudal system, and could boast but little of that nobleness which afterward distinguished it. Its real history begins with the Crusades, when it assumed a voluntary character. Younger sons of noble families enlisted under standards of wealthy lords in whose service they might hope such honor and even riches as would raise them to an equality with their elder brothers. During the Crusades knighthood became blended and almost identified with religion. Every knight pledged himself to aid in recovering the Holy Land; fighting infidels was religious service; death while wearing the cross was assurance of speedy entrance into paradise. Even monks under vows of poverty, chastity and obedience became fiercest and foremost in battle. The valor of their deeds increased not so much their own glory, but that of the order to which they belonged. Such devotion to a common interest doubtless had some influence over the secular warriors, and aroused that esprit-de-corps which made knighthood a [254] universal brotherhood--a divine calling.

      Many orders were founded, became powerful and even rich, and eventually, through their very opulency, lost the original motives of their formation, and, arousing the jealousy of kings and nobles, passed sooner or later into decay and death. Yet in their death they left an aroma of high ideals, heroic achievement and personal purity, like the fragrance of a flower given in pledge of a holy love, and treasured through all the years in book or box of a bureau drawer. Knighthood as a distinctive order is dead, but the spirit of knighthood lives. In the lives of men and women who lay themselves unselfishly upon some altar of personal sacrifice in the interests of a high ideal, knighthood finds its resurrection, and the spirit of knighthood its incarnation.

      The world still has its heroes who enshrine in their hearts all that nobility of purpose, abandon of self and zeal of splendid endeavor which characterized chivalry in its loftiest expression. Seated on no plunging charger, encased in no glittering armor, marching to no martial music, cheered by no companions-at-arms, but in the quiet of a sequestered life, with such equipment with which they have been endowed, confronted by the drudgery of a daily routine stretching out into the interminable years, they go forward in the fact of stubborn circumstance to the accomplishment of life's duties in the fear of God and the hope of ultimate victory. Wherever men toil with strength of body or strength of mind for that which makes for the best life of their kind, that ministry is sacred and holy. Man serves God by serving men. There is no ministry but the ministry of man to man.

      From the day the Christ King called his first followers from the seashore, and "they left all and followed him," the ministry for his disciples has meant "in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness." The line of true apostolic succession has remained unbroken in those who have given themselves body, soul and spirit to their sacred office. In the words of that princely address of Vernon Stauffer's at New Orleans last year, "Surely there has been nothing nobler, nothing more glorious about the history of the kingdom than the way in which the heralds of the cross have accepted wounds and heartaches and misfortune and poverty for the gospel's sake . . . They have gone forth to the distant outposts, and there they have waged their warfare and died alone. They have been moved with a compelling passion, as they stood in the midst of the needy multitude, that out of the very vehemence of their intercession and entire self-forgetfulness of their toil, their very vitality has been exhausted, and all their life's energies have been drained . . . They have spent themselves, and their all, in the following of a cross 'that turns not back,' until, reduced to weakness, to helplessness, and to hunger, like the old servant who held up her crust, they could only say, 'All this and Christ!'"

      Not unduly eulogistic would I be to-day in praise of those whose cause I

HOWARD T. CREE.

plead, but candor compels the statement that no class has laid us under larger tribute than this composed of those who have laid their lives on the altar of Christian service, not counting their homes, happiness, health or aught dear unto themselves in their efforts to establish the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

      As a brotherhood we are assembled for a centennial celebration. We may be pardoned a spirit of noble pride in the achievements of these hundred years. We glory, yet in no spirit of personal aggrandizement, but that the contribution we have tried to make to the religious world has met with such splendid acceptance. To whom are we indebted for such results as greet us to-day? All praise to the present-day preachers who hold up the standards of a New Testament gospel; thank God for the men giving themselves to the proclamation of a first-century [255] evangelism, but God forbid we should forget that "others have labored and we have entered into their labors." To-day greets the harvest of an earlier sowing. This Centennial is possible through the heroic knighthood of an earlier generation. They are with us to-day--the "Old Guard," "the pioneers" and "veterans" they are called, names not to conjure with, but holy in their suggestion and association. Reference to them must be in the terms of a military vocabulary. Who is not touched to tears as the thinning lines of limping veterans with unsteady step and bowed backs march feebly forward on Memorial Day to the cemetery, "the bivouac of the dead"? But veterans are here, if not prevented by reason of infirmity or (and shall I say it?) perhaps of poverty; their spirits come trooping these halls and aisles clad in the white robes of righteousness, all bearing in their bodies "the marks of the Lord Jesus." Not their labors, but they, in themselves, are our inheritance, left in their weakness to perform some ministry in our midst, move tender, more precious and more Christlike perhaps than any in the days of their stalwart strength. How dare we in the love-light of their eyes deny that Davidic principle, "As his part is who goeth down to battle, so shall his part be who tarrieth by the stuff"? Understand me, my brethren, they are not the objects of our generous charity, but subjects for simple justice.

      In the interests of this class of old and worn-out saints of the sanctuary, knights of a modern century, we can waive all discussion of the more general problem of caring for the old. Neither will it do to blandly assert that the church is a spiritual organization, and therefore the material support of its members is not germane, however insistent. We are a Scriptural people. "Where the Bible speaks we speak, where the Bible is silent we are silent." We simply must believe "the laborer is worthy of his hire," and "even so hath the Lord ordained that those who preach the gospel must live of the gospel." The son's love for his father is a sentiment, an emotion, but unless that emotion clothes itself in acts of loving care and material assistance, it is unworthy the holy name by which it is called. Serving is an essential of love even to the point of sacrifice. Nor does the Scriptural ordinance of ministerial support obtain only so long as the minister remains in active service. He whose active life has been given to the ministry of the church surely stands on the same foundation principle of support in old age as he who has given himself to the honest accumulation of worldly wealth. The business man at the inactive period of life does not retire for his support to the world's charity, but to the profit of his life's labor. So should the church whose life and power the minister has enriched by his best labors be the security for his old age.

      Let us have done with such words as "ministerial relief." Let us be fair. Let the cause by its justice rise to the dignity of a proper terminology. "Ministerial Relief"--truly "cut these words and they will bleed! . . . We see the disabled veterans of the Lord's ministry. Behold what tragic helplessness, what unrequited toil!" Consider our obligation to them as "relief" and we shall continue to dole out a pittance, enough perchance to keep the wolf from the door, but provide no comforts so essential for declining years. The Presbyterians call this their "honor roll," and the money paid these preachers the "honorarium." Can not we discover some expression more worthy of such a ministry? "Home Missions" is spoken, and tens of thousands of dollars pour into the treasury. "Foreign Missions!" we exclaim, and hundred of thousands is the reply. Is there not some "open sesame" for this most sacred ministry? Whether we shall discover such word or not, is not the need in itself sufficiently appealing, when fairly faced, to force a generous response? Fourteen years ago our Board was organized. How well it has served its purpose let the scores whom it has helped testify. If there be eloquence in falling tears, speech in quickened pulsebeat or utterance in smiling faces, then the pathway of this ministry is vocal with the grateful praise of the old men and women to whom the quarterly remittance of never more than twenty-five dollars has meant more than our minds can measure. Listen! Here are letters that [256] throb with passion: "Dear Bro. Orcutt: Yours just received containing draft for twenty dollars. Oh! what a joy and comfort to know we have loved ones to care for us and help us in our distress. My cancer was in my temple and I can hardly see to write, and my hand trembles so I can hardly write at all, but my poor, troubled heart was made glad this morning. Not a nickel and in debt, but my burden is lifted, the sun shines again. Praise God from whom all blessings flow." Here is another: "Please accept my thanks for your letter and the draft for twenty-five dollars for the present quarter. Also let me thank you from my heart for your words of greeting and cheer. We old fellows standing in the shadows of the departed years are, perhaps, sometimes apt to feel ourselves a kind of superfluous remnant of better days whom somebody has to look after and who might think it were better if we were out of the way and off expense; but here you come every quarter, not only not wishing us out of the way and off your hands, but with words of cheer and comfort; not only bidding us live, but wishing us to be in health and be happy." All this our niggardly pittance has purchased. We call ourselves a great brotherhood, but have we treated the "Old Guard" brotherly? In the North Georgia Conference of the Methodist Church as much as four hundred dollars per annum is paid each superannuary in return for past services. Their polity provides during active pears no preacher without a pulpit and at the latter end no preacher without a salary. The Presbyterians are but little behind, paying a maximum of three hundred dollars, and last year the General Assembly at Kansas City recommended that just as soon as possible it be increased fifty per cent. "What do we more than others?" Claiming the restoration of apostolic Christianity in doctrine, ordinances and life, however well we may have succeeded in the first two, our non-support of the aged soldiers of the cross creates a question as to whether we have begun to approximate the last.

      Let us say to these older men, Your life and labors are our legacy, love leaps to meet your needs, valiantly have you served our common cause; nobly will we esteem you, not in words merely, but in those deeds of devotion of which you were our shining example. In such terms will we express our appreciation that no longer shall you remain the Unrequited Knights of the Nineteenth Century, to the shame of the church and the anguish of your own hearts. [257]

[CCR 254-257]