The Fall Campaign

     The Fair is in the past tense, the Fall Campaign is in the future tense. Buffalo has welcomed the world, our streets have been crowded, our hotels and homes filled, our street cars overloaded; the tide of human life has ebbed away. “What is written is written.” We have been very busy in serving men and women. Our furniture is worn, and many of us are tired. We now turn as a Church to distinctively Christian work. “And when he had come to himself he said, I will arise and go to my Father.” Let us come to ourselves, and to our Father. Let us not be content to enter our homes, settle in our old way and spend the winter doing nothing for the City of Buffalo. Let us come to our Father, find what he has for us to enjoy and to do. Buffalo never needed pure and undefiled religion more than she needs it now. From her streets one man has gone to be with God, to wear a martyr’s crown; another has gone to his own place, scorched in body by the electric current, in soul by the awful flames of sin and hate. Both are beyond our sympathy and help, but the raw material for others like both these is all about us.
     The product of the Christian home, church, Sunday-school, has gone; the product of the saloon and anarchy has gone; the church and the saloon remain. We know the one will be busy night and day, all days debauching and degrading men and women; let the other be just as busy saving and building up. Rally to your church home and work. Remember the prayer-meetings, Sunday-school, Sabbath services. Come, bring friends, welcome strangers, try to lead men and women to Christ.
     “Thy will be done” was the last prayer of our dying President. We have sung the hymn, “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” as a nation. Nearness to God and doing God’s will means service of man in the name of Christ. Let us incarnate our prayer and song in deeds of service.