Secretary. Woman's Home Mission Circle-Mrs. Stevens, President; Mrs. Wright, Secretary. Young People's Society-J. W. Curtiss, President; Hattie M. Hodge, Secretary. Temple Builders-Helen Woodin, President; Grace Goble, Secretary. SCHEDULE OF BENEVOLENT CONTRIBUTIONS. Second Sunday in June-Subscriptions for Ministers' Home. Payable first Sunday in July. Second Sunday in September-Subscriptions for State Missions. Payable first Sunday in October. Second Sunday in November-Subscriptions for Home Missions. Payable second Sunday in December. Second Sunday in January-Subscriptions for Foreign Missions. Payable second Sunday in February. Second Sunday in March-Subscriptions for Ministerial Education. Payable second Sunday in April. Last Sunday in Each Month-Collection for expenses of the Sunday School. PLAN OF FINANCE A definite weekly or monthly contribution from every member. Pews not rented, but assigned to contributors by lot. A number of the best pews reserved for strangers and students. REGULAR SERVICES. Preaching Service-Sunday at 10:30 A. м. and 7:30 P. M. Young Girls' Meeting-Tuesday, 4 P. M. Young Christians' Band for Bible Study-Monday, 7 P. M. General Prayer Meeting-Wednesday, 7:30 P. M. Covenant Meeting-Wednesday evening preceding first Sunday of each month. The Lord's Supper-First Sunday of each month. Ladies' Missionary Society-Friday, 3 P. M. Trustees' Meeting-Following the Covenant Meeting. The pastor will gladly receive at his home, or visit at their homes, those wishing counsel upon religious matters, or those in trouble or affliction, or strangers, whether members of the church or not. His mornings are reserved for study; his afternoons and evenings usually devoted to calling, or to the meeting of appointments at his home. RIDAY evening, May 1st, is set for our Annual Roll Call, and for the offerings for the annuity raised by the Ladies' Society. Tea will be served at 6 o'clock. Be present to answer your name, and bring in an envelope, some offering and a verse of Scripture. Fuller announcements will be given from the pulpit and in the local papers. THE ANNUAL MEETING. Our Annual Meeting was held April 6th. Changes in offices are noted in the Directory. Many of our officers retired after many years of admirable service, notably Professor Beman, who has performed, as Treasurer, service in extent and value, not generally known in the church. Brother Stark, for five years our faithful and efficient Sunday school Superintendent; Professor Chute, who has kept the accounts of the school running like clock work for years; and Brother J. R. Sage, who has led the songs of two generations in church and Sunday school. The following is a synopsis of reports received: PASTOR'S REPORT. Occupied his own pulpit 44 Sundays. Spent two weeks with weak churches in the Upper Peninsula. Spent 10 days in evangelistic service with First Church, Zanesville, O. Served on Board of Visitors, Morgan Park Theological Seminary, April, 1890. Delivered two lectures before Rochester, (N. Y.) Theological Seminary, December, 1890. Attended: Washtenaw Association, May, 1890; National Anniversaries, Chicago, May, 1890; State Convention, Detroit, October, 1890; Sunday School Convention, Kalamazoo and Hillsdale, March, 1891. Funerals, 17; marriages, 14; baptized 42. Has edited the ANN ARBOR BAPTIST for a third year. Sermons have been preached in our church this year also, by President A. H. Strong, D. D., of Rochester, N. Y.; Professor E. B. Hulbert, D. D., of Morgan Park, Ill.; Rev. Dr. Z. Grenell, of Detroit; Rev. J. C. Carman, of Zanesville, O. (who rendered valuable aid by ten days of evangelistic service in March, 1891), Rev. J. L. Cheney, Ph. D., of Ypsilanti, and others. (CONTINUED ON PAGE 4.) BOOKS WORTH READING. BY DR. JAMES STALKER, M. A. IMAGO CHRISTI. "In the best books great men talk to us, with us, and give us their most precious thoughts. Books are the voices of the distant and the dead; they give to all who will faithfully use them the society and the presence of the best and greatest of our race. They are soothing or cheering companions in solitude, illness, and affliction." ONE DR. CHANNING. NE of these "soothing companions in solitude" is "The Imitation of Christ," by Thomas a Kempis. For centuries it has been like a Divine Evangel, soothing sorrows, "reconciling life's smile and tear," calming feverish brows with a cooling palm, stilling the throbs of wounded pride, and filling the hours of pain and darkness with a sweet image of the "Man of Sorrows" and the "Healer of the Nations." Both the Catholic and the Protestant heart have plucked of its golden fruits, and have found them sweet to their taste, "sweeter than the honey and the honeycomb." The secret of its popularity lies in the fact that it was written by a man who had found the secret of life. As we turn its pages we exclaim: "Here is one who, after weary wanderings and many conflicts such as we have to experience, has attained the Peace of God." Having found this Peace himself he leads us, by a kind hand, to the Great PeaceGiver, Jesus Christ. 1 "The book has been written down by a hand that waited for the heart's promptings; it is the chronicle of solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust and triumph-not written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consolations." But yet, with all the merits of "De Imitatione Christi," it does not supply a picture of Christ that will satisfy the whole of the life of the Nineteenth Century. The Christ of a Kempis is the Christ of a believer, who has wrenched himself loose from all the ties, complications, and temptations of the outward world, and has to battle henceforth with foes. within-anguish, doubt, pride, self-love, evil thoughts and secret desires: "He who would approve himself wise in good earnest, must first by a just contempt of the world, raise himself to the desires and endeavors after the Kingdom of God." But we "are in the world," and live in what a Kempis considers as the Territory of the Evil One, mingling with its throngs; bearing its burdens; battling against its foes, striving against streams of evil which threaten our individualism as well as our inwardness, we hopefully work for the appearance of the golden sunbeams of the day When the war-drum beats no longer, and the battle flags are furled, In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the World. How are we to walk aright, to work, bear, and suffer in such a world? Dr. Stalker answers this in his "Imago Christi," by planting in the midst of life as it is, the pure, calm, heroic image of Christ. Christ to him is the great sun which shines into the darkness of every age, "an ideal character, which, through all the changes of eighteen centuries, has filled the hearts of men with an impassioned love, and has shown itself capable of acting on all ages, nations, temperaments, and conditions." The relig ion of Christ, as put forth in this book, is a divine leaven, which is to transform and assimilate the individual, the family, society, and the nations to His Image. It is a spirit which is to infuse inspiration through the whole being, intellect, as well as the conscience and the will, taking under its purifying influence all the passions, the affections, the relationships, and conditions of life, imparting fresh interest to common existence, "exalting and expanding practical energy, refining and adorning social manners, adding cheerfulness as well as purity to friendly intercourse, and blessing us by its universally enlivening agency," until the whole of the world becomes an echo of Christ's voice, and a reflection of God's countenance. "In His thirty years, there came through the shifting clouds and broken gleams of human life, a new and steady light, which has never faded or faltered or feared eclipse: a light as far above the brightness of this day as it outshone the righteousness of Scribes or Pharisees, or the morality of Cicero or Tacitus." This is one of the great differences between these two books. The Christ of Thomas a Kempis is the Christ of the cloister, of the silent tumult of the spirit, whilst to Dr. Stalker He is the Redeemer of daily life and toil. The monk listens, and hears the voice: "Depart ye. Go out from thence," and believes "It is truly a misery to live upon earth;" whilst the Nineteenth Century Preacher listens to the words of the Master: "Ye are the light of the World," and cheerfully believes that He who is most human works best for man. And that of the Son of Man it may be said as of no other so completely, No exact historical image of Christ can be found in "De Imitatione Christi," but Dr. Stalker has constructed from the Gospel narratives a life-like picture of the Perfect Son of Man, which touches our life in all its departments. Dividing the circle of human life into segments, each of which represents an extensive sphere of experience and duty, he follows Christ through them one after another, in order to see how he conducted Himself in each, and thereby how to conduct ourselves in the same. "It is thus a kind of Christian Ethics with a practical and devotional aim." Christ is exhibited in the home, in the Church, in the state, in society, as a friend, a man of prayer, a student of scripture, a worker, a sufferer, a philanthropist, a winner of souls, a preacher, a controversialist, a man of feeling, and as an influence. In the treatment of these pictures Dr. Stalker exhibits the same power and charm as a literary artist, as he made manifest in his popular works, "The Life of Christ," and "The Life of St. Paul." A many-sided culture, a wealth of pregnant aphorisms and vivid description, and a heart which is in loving touch with Christ and man, manifest themselves on every page. The pages of the book are beacon lights, guiding us on our life's journey, and we cannot long peruse them without feeling that The world is not a blank to us Nor blot: it means intensely, and means good, To us it is God's world; and our vocation is to make God's will be done in all departments of its life, and to make His word run on all its highways and byeways. Not only in the cloister the rapt soul Dwells with Him, or beneath the midnight stars, To where the crown awaits him and the palm. As a specimen of what the reader can expect to find in these suggestive, beautiful, and devout pages, we append the following extracts: To lift up the soul to God calms and enobles it. Character flows from the well-spring of prayer. Many a preacher misses the mark because, though he knows books, he does not know man. A man who scamps his work degrades himself. The Bible can be converted into a prison in which God is confined, or a museum in which the spiritual life is preserved as an antiquarian curiosity. Souls have to be won, and this requires a winning way-a kind of winsomeness-in, those who seek them. Work is but one-half of life; suffering is the other. There is a hemisphere of the world in the sunshine of work, but there is another in the shadow of suffering. The passing of Jesus through the country was like the passing of a magnet over a floor where there are pieces of iron; it drew the souls which had affinity for the divine life to Himself. Christ's life is the final rebuke to such shallow respect of persons, and will remain forever to the despised and lowly-born, a guide to show how, by worth of character and wealth of service to God and man, they may shut the mouths of gainsayers, and win a place in the love and honor of the world. Like two coals burning feebly apart, which, when flung together, make a merry blaze, so mind and mind burn as they touch, and emit splendors which nothing but this contact could evoke. He is ignorant of one of the most glorious prerogatives of manhood who does not carry, treasured in his mind, the recollections of such golden hours of the feast of reason and the flow of soul. Happy is that country whose best life has been drained into some ideal cause, and whose greatest names are those who have lavished heir strength on this object. The deeds and sayings of these heroes ought, next to the Bible, be the chief spiritual nourishment of her children; and the young ambition of her choicest minds should be concentrated on watering the seeds which they sowed, and completing the enterprises which they inaugurated. One-half of the worry and confusion of life arises from doing things at the wrong time, the mind being either weakened by borrowing to-day the trouble of to-morrow, or exhausted by having on hand not only to-day's work, but that which ought to have been done yesterday. God never wants us to do more in a day than we have time for; and the day will be found to have room enough for its own work, if it is not encumbered with the day past, or the care of the day to come. The Society contributed the usual $140 for the baptized, and one received on experience, besides six payment of the Cowles annuity. During the year five teas were served, and the Society also furnished the supper for the Sunday school Christmas entertainment. received by letter. Two others were baptized in the previous month as first fruits of the harvest, and still others are expected to follow in the near future. The church has had the most general reviving ex There was $79.08 collected from the Free Will perienced in some years. The list of names of new offering of March 28, 1890. members will be given next month. |