Sermon Summary – Rev. Chaney Church of our Father One Year Anniversary

Mr. Chaney preached an anniversary sermon yesterday, it being just a year since his church was dedicated. The text was Matt. v 43, “He commanded that something be given her to eat,” “Life is the gift of God,” he said, “but it is the ward of man.” The sole command of Jesus to the household of Jairus on the restoration of his daughter was that something be given her to eat. This is a striking presentation of the truth that the life which is given by God most be fed and sustained by the ministry of man. The purpose of the discourse was to apply this truth to spiritual life, and show how necessary it was after the soul of man had been turned from self-seeking to seeking God, that it shall be fed with a true worship, sincere prayer, humane deeds and an active Christian life.

Everybody in the congregation, he said, had known what it was, either momently or habitually, to turn from a life of selfishness to one of love. At first the life of selfishness was every man’s necessity. It was the safeguard of his infancy. But, by and by, he come to a time when he caught sight of the glory and sweetness of living for others and honoring the power that made it in its likeness. This was what was called the second birth. It lay at the foundation of all true religion. But this once gained, the equally important matter of feeding this new life remained. For this end the church existed. It offered Worship, charitable labor and religious friendship, and these were the meat and drink of the awakened soul.

The preacher then described the aims and methods of his church, and showed how helpfully interested in its work the Unitarian church at large had been.

There was all the charm of infancy in its young life. Its strength was a constant surprise and its weakness was never the weakness of old age, the premonition of decay, but spoke of a young child that was finding its feet.

The Unitarian church of New England had done a now-recognised service to Christianity, in tempering the heat and terrors of Calvinism. The same service needed doing in other sections of our common country. The Methodist preacher, Father Taylor, had said to his brethren: “If you send Emerson to hell, he will change the climate there.” Precisely that has been done in the orthodoxy of the north by the presence of Unitarianism there. It will do no harm but good, if the same service can be repeated elsewhere.

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