which each must safeguard, and which each must hand down to the other, stronger, more meet for the Master's service, more fitted to be a spiritual house for God's children.
I cannot but feel that this duty to which you are called now is one which God has given you. Changes are sometimes trying, but the changes which you propose to make do not tend to break with the past, but to bind you more closely to it. It is not simply a work of historical interest, this work of restoration; it is rather one prompted by the desire to be true to a trust, to hand down to the generation that is to succeed, the Church of their fathers, as their fathers knew it, with its architecture unmarred, with the simple beauty and dignity which its builders sought to express in their work.
When the work is done, it will not mean that all is done, but it will simply mean that you are better prepared to continue your work on the spiritual building, on the upraising of a spiritual temple to God. Into the Church restored you will bring all the traditions of the long historic past. Nay, what are dearer still, all the sacred memories and associations of your own life. You will still find as you kneel at the Table of the Lord, the thoughts of those whom you have loved long since and lost awhile, and still have the consciousness of fellowship with them.
May God bless the undertaking to the furtherance of His glory, to the upbuilding of His Church, to the spiritual welfare of His people. May you feel that even in seeking to beautify the material temple you are entering upon no new work, but "are building the house that was builded these many years ago, and since that time even until now hath been in building and is not yet finished." May a prayer come from each heart for God's blessing, that the glory of the latter house may be greater than that of the former."
O God of our fathers, defend
The place that we love,
Let mercy and blessing descend
Like dew from above.
