I know that you have not placed me here on account of my tact and business ability to manage this conference well.  Had I possessed these qualities in a marked degree, you would no doubt have taken notice of them before this time.  I know that you only wish to pay a token of respect to a plain old soldier before he lays aside his harness, and, brethren, I thank you for that.

For forty-four years I have enjoyed sweet and uninterrupted fellowship in this brotherhood.  For over forty years my voice has been heard in the preaching of the Gospel of the Grace of God.  For close on thirty years all my time has been given to the proclamation and defense of New Testament truth as held by us as a people.  Every year has added strength to the conviction that God has led me to take my stand among the people who of all the people on the earth are making the best and most consistent effort to get back to the religion established by Christ and his apostles.  I therefore bless the day that I became one of you.

Had our position been wrong, I have given myself every opportunity of knowing it.  Circumstances have compelled me to examine our foundations again and again.  I have been called upon to defend our faith, when attacked, times not a few.  Whatever may be the effect that I have had upon others, my own confidence has been increased at every turn.  To-day I am certain that if the New Testament is right, we can not be far wrong; and if the New Testament can not be trusted, there is an end to the whole matter.  But the claims of Christ and the truth of the New Testament are matters upon which a doubt never rises.  As years roll on, it becomes more easy to believe and harder to doubt.  Knowledge, reason, and experience now supply such varied yet harmonious and converging lines of evidence that a doubt seems impossible.  Difficulties we may have, and perhaps must have, as long as we live, but we can certainly rise above the fog land of doubt.  Considering all this, it gives me more pleasure to preside over this gathering than over any other voluntary gathering on earth.  It is a voluntary gathering.  We do not profess to be here by Divine appointment.  It is a meeting of heaven’s freemen to consider the best means of advancing the will of God among men.  While met, may we all act in a manner worthy of the great object which brings us together.

Faith, forbearance and watchfulness will be required as long as we live, if we wish to keep the unity of the faith in the bond of peace.  All those who set out for a complete return to Jerusalem have not held on their way; some have gone a long way back and others are going.  What has happened in other lands may happen here, unless we watch and are faithful.  The more carefully we look into matters, we shall be the less inclined to move.  Putting all God’s arrangements faithfully and earnestly to the test, and comparing them with others, increases our faith in them.  Faithfulness increases faith.  This keeps growing upon you till you become certain that only God’s means will accomplish God’s ends.  Sectarianism, tested by experience, is a failure.