Ohio History Journal

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The Presbyterians of Ohio

The Presbyterians of Ohio.            211

 

 

ABSTRACT     OF   THE    SERMON     ON  "THE     PRESBY-

TERIANS OF OHIO."

 

BY REV. SYLVESTER F. SCOVEL, PRESIDENT OF WOOSTER UNIVERSITY,

WOOSTER, OHIO, PREACHED IN THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.

The Christian is a cosmopolitan. Every land is his father-

land since God is his father. So every Christian is brother to all

other Christians. Yet we may have a just concern which shall

be special for our country and our church.

We have a century of Presbyterian experience behind us,

and each one of the Centennial occasions which have been oc-

curring since 1776 (and all have been useful in many ways), in-

vites us to consider the facts and lessons of that experience.

The Centennial record of any religious body cannot be repre-

sented by processions and pageantry however elaborate. Not to

the eye but to the heart must we appeal. We go deeper even

than the references to ancient places of worship or their for-

gotten customs. We must find the teacher and the truth, the

communicant and his conduct, the home life and the school of

the Sabbath and of the week day. We must linger beside the

couch of the sick and beside the open tomb and the shadowed

homes. We must go out from these centers to the sure but often

silent influences which have told upon manners, and standard of

conduct and social life, and upon law and order, and even upon

legislation and administration. We must trace footfalls that are

not heard primarily on the hurried streets, and search out the

hidden causes in thought and feeling of much that we admire

externally.

The motives for Centennial review are potent and dignified.

The present reaps the fruit of the past, and is the product of

the past to be understood fully only in its procuring causes. The

noble men of other days were the friends of many, the kindred

of some.   The heritage of Christian life and character which

any long record brings to view is the Church's true glory, the

proof of the presence and power of Christ, her divine head, and

of the spirit her divine heart. Moreover, the complex elements

of our life of to - day need to look steadily at the simpler life of