24 CENTENNIAL HISTORY
been invaded by one or more other kinds of saints and churches! If such efforts have been made, they must have proved ineffectual. I never heard of them. I judge, therefore, that the administration of this church has been of a generous and broadminded character-swung out upon the ample and sympathetic gospel of Jesus Christ-interpreted in such fashion as to command the judgment and conscience of the community. While everybody may be related in some way to everybody else, yet it by no means follows that everybody up here thinks everybody else's thoughts-rather than his own. No doubt there have been diverse opinions. No doubt there have been arguments and debates-each trying to convince the other, but with small effect, and yet all those differences and discussions have been held within the four walls of this one church for a century. And it is to be hoped that the same effective unity may be preserved for the century to come. A beautiful motto has been expressed by the apostle who said: "Let there be no divisions among you." We extend to you the strong hand of a renewed fellowship, hoping that the next century's beginning may find the Orange Church not only a century older, but a century stronger. It is a great thing to think in centuries! But a century is only a single thought with Him who inhabiteth eternity; and why may not we, too, thank God if we may think His thoughts after Him? During the century you and I shall get through singing, and praying, and preaching, but if you and I do our work well, there shall be others coming after us-our spiritual children-who will take up our song, and our prayer, and our sermon, and they will sing better, and pray better, and preach better, and we, looking over the battlements of the heavenly city, will see this church and the other churches shining and glowing under the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ like the gold leaf shining on the dome of the old temple, or on the shimmering shield of Minerva.