In the presence of these well-known facts, the report of the committee adds another chapter to the Book of Acts. It gladdens our hearts with thrilling music--the music of ringing sickle and reaper's song. From all over this mighty field, from mountain, and savannah, and shore, and plain, we hear the resonant footsteps of advancing troops--a solid regiment of converts marching in the army of our Christ and into the fellowship of his Congregational Church. I want you to notice that this church which we have planted in the South is just the kind of a church to take these people and assimilate them, to save them and to preserve them to their highest usefulness. And why? In the first place, because it is a church that will take them in. I saw the other day this inscription over a great arch erected in honor of our Pan-American guests in the city of Cleveland, "Welcome All Americans." Well, the Congregational Church has put three talismanic letters over the portal of every church that it has planted in the South and in the West, "A.M.A.--All mankind acceptable."
Every convert in our work has cosmopolitan views respecting the brotherhood of man. This means that one thousand people have seated themselves before an apostolic communion table. White, black, red and yellow, side by side in harmony before the broken memorials of the life of love. The spirit of color-caste is a post-apostolic devil. The most eminent convert of the evangelist Philip was as black as a middle vein of Massilon coal. Perhaps that is why they met in the desert and the spirit compassionately caught Philip away. The purest church and the purest ray of sunshine are alike--they absorb the seven colors of the spectrum. When the Creator flung the rainbow like a silken scarf over the shoulder of the summer cloud, he drew his color-line. Pentecostal blessings fell at Jerusalem, and have fallen ever since on the cosmopolitan church.
The second feature of this church that adapts it to ours field is the open Bible. Every convert is armed with the shining sword--the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, like the sword in the hand of the angel at Eden's gate, turning every way at once.
You do not hear of immorality, gross and fearful, within the precincts of our Congregational churches. You do not hear of our people walking up the hills of the beatitudes over the broken tables of the law. The written word, like the Incarnate, goes into our congregations and drives out all the sellers of oxen and of doves. The Word, also, is the protection of these people against their greatest foe of this day--the encroaching power of the Church of Rome. Do you know that that ancient foe of liberty is stalking all across the twelve States of the South? Do you know what it means to have the Church of Rome take in hand these people of lowly and of feeble intelligence? We do not have to crossover to Austria or Italy in order to discern her aims, for the Nun of Kenmare has alighted upon our shores, and her alarming words are running through the land. Rome knows no color prejudice, and the foot of that great despotic power can rest just as easily upon a skin that is black as upon a neck that is of the purest alabaster. And the Congregational Church down South is the only champion against this papal see, for she has an aisle wide enough for five races of mankind to march up to her communion table, while the sword of the Spirit guards her portals.