20 CENTENNIAL HISTORY
Many a poor fellow never rides during his lifetime in so fine a carriage as the one in which he takes his last ride with a minister in front of him and an undertaker behind-an honor likewise which he neither covets nor puts forth conscious effort to achieve-but which comes to him who waits. These are among the things that are thrust upon us-elements in that greatness into which one is neither born nor achieves. For which reasons am I here to untie the little package of my felicitations, and I am sure you will bear with me, for does not one who speaks wisely say that "ye bear with the foolish gladly, being wise yourselves," a gracious compliment which the Apostle and some others pay to their audiences. (1) There are many felicitations which in behalf of our "sisterhood" of Churches I would bring you-but very appropriately this first, your age-a hundred years-and you still live! No one of us here today rejoiced with you in that new, great flush of joy when you laid the foundations of your first temple a century ago. I was not present myself, and yet I can well imagine it to have been a day of great rejoicing. The morning stars sang over you, and the hill-top saints shouted for joy. A good man surprised me yesterday by two assertions: -1st, He had deliberately left California for the East after a residence there of seven years; and secondly, after residing in New Haven for two years, declared he was in no hurry at all to go to heaven-evidently preferring the City of Elms to the City of Golden Streets. But afterwards learning that he was a retired army chaplain, retired on two-third pay while he stayed in the flesh, I could better appreciate his preference. We do not wonder as we climb these verdant hills today why Orange people persist in living as long as they can and are never contented in living elsewhere. "Liberty loves the hills," and some other good things do as well. A hundred years are a good while to live-too long for some things, not long enough for all things. A good many things have happened during the past hundred years in this wide, wide world, and even up here