MEMORIAL HYMN.

Eternal Being! Source of all, and Lord!
Humbly we bow beneath thy sovereign sway;
Both joy and woe at thy resistless word,
Brighten and cloud each creature's fleeting day.

But not to us, O God, is now this faith

Fraught with the doubt and fear our fathers saw;
We follow one who, from thy Spirit's breath,
Caught the glad message,

Love works through my Law.”

He, like thy Christ, thy name, the Father, found;
He, like thy Christ, in man thy child discerned ;
Wide as the world, he saw thy Grace abound;
Saw, and to men with eager spirit turned.

Prophet of Grace, of human dignity ;

Truth's bold evangel; foe to every wrong;
Brave by thy might to set the bond man free;
Girt with a power to make the freeman strong!

Father, may we, with like devoted zeal,

Live for the faith that Law Divine is just;
Strive for the life that aims at human weal;
Hasten Christ's day of perfect love and trust.

"DR. CHANNING CENTENARY."

Washington, D.C., 1880.

PART TWO

MID-LIFE MEMORABILIA

CHAPTER FIRST

OF THE WASHINGTON MINISTRY

After returning from Germany in 1875, I was unable for a year, because of certain private obligations, to seek a pastorate. But in the winter of 1876, I was one of the ministers asked to preach for the "First Unitarian Church" in Washington, D.C. Early in the next year, Feb. 9th, 1877, I was invited to a temporary occupancy of the pulpit of that Church. The Washington Unitarian Society was, at the time, entering upon one of the most interesting, probably the most important, of the eras in its history.

a. The First Unitarian Church of Washington, D.C.For more than fifty years this Church had had place in the national Capital, and had borne witness there to a rational Christian faith. It had been subjected inevitably to many hardships, and had passed, with varying degrees of success, through many vicissitudes. After the Civil War, however, when the renewed national prosperity began to affect Washington City,-evident in an extraordinary increase of its population and of its social importance in relation to the whole country, the desire arose among the Unitarian

Churches, generally, to have a representative denominational Society in the "Federal City."

This desire became so strong that in the National Unitarian Conference, held at Saratoga, N.Y. in the autumn of 1876, a resolution was passed that made the wish practicable. The Churches there represented promised to give $30,000 towards the erection of a suitable Church building in Washington, "on condition that a like sum should be furnished by the local church, and the building finished and dedicated free of debt."

Happily, at the time when I was invited to a temporary ministry of the Church, the prospect for a successful answer to the proposition of the Conference was almost clear. In those days the Society occupied the old Church building, on the corner of Sixth and D streets. This building had been the Church home from the year 1822. But, located where it was, it had become widely separated from the residence regions of the city as they were gradually moved Northwestward. For this reason, somewhat, there was a decreased attendance at the Sunday services. A more serious obstacle to the Society's prosperity had been occasioned because of lamentable dissensions arising at the approach of the recent Civil War. Thereby, some members of the Society had been alienated from one another and the Church attendance lessened. Then, there were some other, minor, causes of division which later had been seriously felt.

a. Beginning of my Washington Ministry.-When I went to Washington there was a devoted, but small, body of regular attendants at the Church. In the community, however, a considerable number of persons who had once been either active members of the Society, or its friends,