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4 THE PRESBYTER
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Today they have three churches there, one with
333 members, one with seventy-five, and one with over
six hundred. A little further Cn.ifti 1
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stream, coming out of the mountains. Two tacks went
into the map, and today one of them represents a
church of 170 members and the other of 330. At
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uuumti mcy siarieu an enort, and today that church
reports a thousand members.
On the North side of Pike's Peak is the Ute Pass,
which leads up into the interior mountains and parks
of Colorado, such as Manitou, the Garden of the gods,
the Cheyenne Canon, etc. In October, 1870, Mr. Gage
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sermon at Colorado Springs. The latter now has fourteen
hundred members and several offshoots.
Mr. Gage continues to tell?but we let him tell his
own story:
The presbytery directed Mr. Jackson and myself to organize
a church at Canon City as soon as we saw the way open.
_ . We drove all one night from Colorado Springs, some fifty
miles, sleeping and driving by turns, and came to Canon City,
where the Arkansas river breaks from the mountains Tho?
was an abundance of water and a sheltered valley, and the
best coal, and subsequently the richest gold mines?then undiscovered?in
the State. We saw from these conditions that
a town of Importance was bound to come. There was already
a small village of one short street in existence. There was
no railroad nearer than fifty miles, and a more forlorn place
I never saw.
But the conditions, in spite of appearances, made a town
inevitable. We organized with a small membership, and to day
the Presbyterian Church of Canon City reports eight hundred
and eighty-two members, and nearly one thousand in its
Sabbath-school. In those early days "Helen Hunt" wrote,
"You never know how bored you are till you get out of Canon
City." But now it is one of the prettiest, most prosperous
and best towns in nil th? Ttnito^
Already, in 1870, there was a small town at Pueblo, a place
where a town of importance had to be. The configuration of
the country required a town Just there, and nowhere else. So
Mr. Jackson organized a church in Pueblo with five members.
Two of hem lived in the village, and one ten miles, and two
others twenty ipiles in the country. But that organization
held the place for our church as population came, as it did
and must; so that today we have five, possibly six Presbyterian
churches, with the old First Church, of which I had the
pleasure to be pastor for seven years, counting over five hundred
members.
\\ liat bheldon Jackson did for the West, Josephus
Johnson and his fellow laborers were doing in Texas.
Just such work is being done today by our Church in
Oklahoma. And the vast territories of New Mexico
are now looking to us for like Home Mission ministries.
This work has been placed b.y our Assembly under
the care of the Committee of Home Missions, of which
Dr. S. L. Morris is secretary. The Assembly has asked
our people to gather during the month of Tanuarv the
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money that is needed to prosecute this work on our
borders. We will do it.
Let us remember that the work in Colorado did not
yield its large fruitage in its first few years. But the
fact that the Presbyterian Church was the first to begin
work in the Rocky Mountains explains the fact
that today it is the leading denomination in that part
of the country.
IAN OF THE SOUTH December 29, 1909.
USING THE RULING ELDERS.
The venerable Synod of Mississippi did a most wise
and practical thing: when it lately took stens looking
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towards the utilization of that great force of the
Church which lies in the ruling eldership. Realizing
that the ruling elders can not well be sent out to conduct
meetings or supply vacant churches, it recommends
that they be more used in the churches which
nave pastors, so that these pastors may be temporarily
released for evangelistic work or to care for unsupplied
fields.
The ruling elder is not a "layman," or a "lay member"
of the church. He is an official of the highest
type, the equal in authority, in every church court, of
the ordained minister. His office gives the very title
of our Church, a Church governed by "presbyters."
His vow at ordination pledges him to a work which
the "layman" can not perform. His duties, as defined
in the standards to which he has given solemn subscription,
are of the highest spiritual type, differing
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also "in word and doctrine." Upon him as much as
upon the minister, depends the peace, unity, purity and
progress of the church. By the nature of his office, its
duties, his vows, the expectation of the Church and
the call of Christ, he is not a "layman."
Ruling elders should watch diligently over the flock
committed to their care, visit the people at their
homes, instruct the ignorant, comfort the mourner,
pray with and for the people, order collections for
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people for worship when there is no minister?these
are some of the duties which arc laid upon them, which
they agree at ordination to perform, and in the performance
of which they may expect the rich reward
which God has promised. Every one of them gives
the ruling elder a dignity and honor, in its faithful
discharge, which lift him into an exalted place before
the world and in the Church of God. And with the
dignity and honor come both a responsibility and a
promise. God will help him just in nrooortion to
the difficulty and exaltation of the place if he enters
upon his duties with humble trust and resolution.
The splendid manhood and gifts which are to be
found in the ruling eldership of our churches, not in
Mississippi only, but throughout our Zion, might be
used in keeping the work of the settled churches going
while their pastors are given a little time for outside
work, to go into "the regions beyond", which are
not so very far "beyond" after all. And the membership
of our churches should be taught to look upon
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happy part of the wise provision which God has made
for the greater progress of his Church. The people
will soon learn to appreciate this eldership work and
to rejoce in its as God's means for building his Church.
They will soon feel all the more the duty upon them
to wait upon the Lord in the services conducted by
these brethren, and their hearts will glow, and their
elders' hearts with them, when the glad tidings are
Drought ot the results of the more widely extended
ministry of the pastors whom they have released for a
time to this larger work.
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