News from the Field – Update on Church of Our Father Feb 1889

The Unitarian – A Monthly Magazine of Liberal Christianity
Feb, 1889
News from the Field

Atlanta, Ca.—Services at the Church of Our Father are held morning and evening. A series of sermons on “The Credentials of Christ” having been completed, a course for the winter has begun, comprising doctrinal discourses on Man. God, Christ, Hell and Heaven, on evenings alternate with a service of Song, including a five-minutes’ sermon.

In the closing discourse of the Old Year Mr. Chaney earnestly urged the devotional spirit and practice as the only sure basis for church success. The Sunday school and Parish Festival at Christmas was an occasion full of interest and enthusiasm, the chapel being crowded with happy faces. The church was finely decorated this year entirely with holly and cedar; and the children’s singing of carols around the great Christmas tree was especially enjoyed.

The women of the church meet every Thursday for church and charitable work, and the Post-Office Mission under the management of Mrs. A. V. Gude is extending its already large work.

There is hardly an educational or charitable or literary movement in this city which has not received most important aid from Rev. Mr. Chaney’s good sense and experience and culture.

One of the most vigorous of the younger associations, the Atlanta Literature and Art Circle, of which he is president, having lost its last year’s quarters at the Young Men’s Library by fire, holds its fortnightly meetings at the chapel.

The best talent of this already musical and literary city is thoroughly interested in making; the evenings a success, and its treatment of the following subjects has been of the highest order of excellence: Longfellow, Schumann and his compositions, Sidney Lanier, Schubert, American Folk-stories and Songs, Wagner.

There is a deep and earnest interest in religious subjects among the people in this section, although until the planting of the Unitarian church here, Liberal Christianity was either unknown or thoroughly misunderstood and dreaded. Its influence is now steadily and strongly extending. The church is and always has been a free church.

Source:  The Unitarian found in Google Books Feb 1889, Volume 4, Page 91-92