7.  Jesus calls us by the future of the race.  Life proceeds to life.  Eternity is what is just before.  Immortality is a native concept for the soul.  Beyond this hampered half-existence, the soul demands life, freedom, growth, and power.

We stand between two worlds.  Behind us is the engulfed Past, wherein generations vanish, as the wake of ships at sea.  Before us is the Future, in the dawn-mist of hovering glory, and surprise.  Looking out over eternity, that billowy expanse, do we not see rising, clear though shadowy, a vast Permanence, Completion, Realization, in which the soul of man shall have endless progress and delight?  This is the Promise held out by all the ages, and the future toward which all the thoughts and dreams of man converge.  It is glorious to be a living soul, and to know that this great race—­life is yet to be!

At the threshold of each new century stands Jesus, star-encircled, with a voice above the ages and a crown above the spheres,—­Jesus, saying, FOLLOW ME!

III.  PROCESSIONAL:  THE CHURCH OF GOD

     [AURELIA]

     The Church’s one foundation
       Is Jesus Christ her Lord;
     She is His new creation
       By water and the Word: 
     From heaven He came and sought her
       To be His Holy Bride;
     With His own blood He bought her
       And for her life He died.

     Though with a scornful wonder
       Men see her sore opprest,
     By schisms rent asunder,
       By heresies distrest;
     Yet saints their watch are keeping,
       Their cry goes up, “How long?”
     And soon the night of weeping
       Shall be the morn of song.

     ’Mid toil and tribulation,
       And tumult of her war,
     She waits the consummation
       Of peace for evermore;
     Till with the vision glorious
       Her longing eyes are blest,
     And the great Church victorious
       Shall be the Church at rest._

     SAMUEL JOHN STONE

FIRST:  RECONSTRUCTION

The subject that is being carefully considered by many thinking men and women to-day is this:  the place and prospects of the Christian Church.  All about us we hear the cry that the Church is declining, and may eventually pass away; that it does not gain new members in proportion to its need, nor hold the attention and allegiance of those already enrolled.  Are these things true?  If so, how may better things be brought to pass?  To share in the civilization that has come from nineteen hundred years of the work of the Church, and to be unwilling to lift a pound’s weight of the present burden, in order to pass on to others our precious heritage, is certainly a selfish and unworthy course.  It is better to ask, What is my work in the upbuilding of the Church?  What can I do to further the Royal Progress of the Church of God?