Some three decades ago, in an old Pennsylvania town, was celebrated the centennial of human liberty and of American independence. On that occasion much was said, and rightly, of Washington, Adams and Jefferson, and of the Boston tea party, the Declaration of Independence, Old Liberty Bell, and the stirring scenes of Revolutionary times; but vain would have been the lives of our Revolutionary heroes had they not been linked in successive sequence to the Websters, Clays and Calhouns, and to the Lincolns, Grants and Lees who afterward contributed to the nation's enlargement, prosperity and unification.

      So we are met to-day, in another one of Pennsylvania's thriving cities, to commemorate another liberty centennial. Our orators have much to say, and rightly, of Thomas and Alexander Campbell, of Walter Scott and Barton Stone, and of the "Declaration and Address," the Christian Association of Washington, and the old Brush Run and Cane Ridge Churches. But these pioneer fathers and their deeds of faith and valor have their significance, not merely in the principles advocated, but also in relation of their lives to others following.

      These first fathers labored and others entered into their labors. They laid [368] foundations and others budded thereon, each taking heed how he budded. It is given me to-day to have you pause and pay tribute, not to the founders, but to the builders, of this great brotherhood. So multitudinous are the makers of this mighty movement, that these Centennial Convention platforms catalogue them in sections. Other voices are at this moment speaking golden words of worthy praise for these heroes of our faith, who have so valiantly wrought in the East and South lands. It is for us to do reverence to the "pathfinders" of our faith in their "winning of the West" to this plea for the restoration of New Testament, apostolic Christianity.

      Time fails me to even read the catalogue of their names, and such as are hereinafter mentioned are nowhere exhaustive, and everywhere and always representative.

      Thus by faith Samuel Rogers became the first preacher in the Christian faith in Missouri; and heirs with him of the same work and promise are Thomas Allen, Jacob Creath, G. W. Longan, Alexander Proctor, T. P. Haley, J. H. Garrison, and others who remain with us to-day, though many are fallen asleep.

      By faith, Jonas Hartzell forsook Ohio, not fearing the wrath of the storm king nor the dangers and privations of pioneer life, and with N. A. McConnell, John Rigdon, D. N. Haggard, G. T. Carpenter, D. R. Lucas, Francis M. Drake, and others, laid broad and deep the foundations of the kingdom of God in Iowa.

      By faith, Pardee Butler became a sojourner in the land of "Bleeding Kansas," dwelling in dugouts along with John O'Kane, John Boggs and John Bauserman, who through faith subdued slavery, wrought righteousness and prohibition, escaping the edge of the sword. These, with others, were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain the victory of the gospel and establish an unsectarian, undenominational New Testament church of Christ in the free and virgin soil of the great plains of the West.

      By faith, D. R. Dungan entered the land of promise, teaching school and preaching the gospel in Nebraska in territorial times. By faith, he became a missionary under the American Christian Missionary Society in 1865, and with others, like R. C. Darrow and C. P. Evans, traveled horseback, swam streams, endured drouths, withstood grasshopper plagues and braved blizzards, that they might know the joy of leavening a mighty commonwealth with the faith of the gospel and the plea for Christian union; and, following these, there passes in splendid review a glorious group led by the high-minded, modest chancellor who graces this session as its presiding officer, Wm. P. Aylesworth. The sacrifices of these men, offered in faith, made secure forever an educated, consecrated and trained ministry for the churches north and west of the great Father of Waters.

      And what shall I more say, for time fails me to tell of Bertie Stover, Martin

G. K. LEWIS.

Streator, John Hay, Baird Craig, Leonard Thompson, Ben Tyler, and others, in the mountain States; of B. F. Clay, W. H. Bagby, O. F. McHargue and Galen Wood, and their kind, in large and lonely Utah, Idaho and Montana; and of W. F. Cowden, J. F. Ghormley, E. C. Sanderson, R. E. Dunlap, Morton L. Rose, J. A. L. Romig, and kindred souls, in the Pacific and Canadian Northwest; and of Frederic Grimm, W. H. Salver, A. B. Carpenter and W. E. Spicer in the Southwestern lands of sun, sand, silence; or far away on California's golden strand, lapped by the sunset sea, of Thompson and McCorkle, of Robert Graham, T. D. Garvin, J. H. McCullough, Eugene Ware, Robert McHatton, W. H. Martin, Dr. Kendrick, B. F. Coulter, J. P. Ralstin, H. E. Ward, Oscar Sweeney, and hundreds such, who through faith subdued kingdoms of sin, wrought righteousness and plead earnestly for loyalty and liberty and love in the gospel of Jesus Christ?

      The history of the triumphal march of our great King across the centuries and the continents furnishes no greater [369] heroes and heroines than the devoted missionaries on the firing-line of the great West. We have prayed and counseled with them at their modest hearthstones, and we know. We do ourselves and this great brotherhood honor as we pay tribute to their loyalty and heroism. Brethren, the patient, persistent, prayerful life of the home missionaries as well as the blood of the foreign martyrs is the seed of the church. Blessed are these who have wrought!

[CCR 368-370]