AN ANNIVERSARY.
Atchison, Kansas, November 2, 1885.
Rev. Linus Blakesley—My Dear Sir: When you so kindly invited me to be present at the anniversary exercises of the Congregational Church, I did not remember that Monday evening was the eve of annual election. I must, therefore, either forego a pleasure I had promised myself, or fail in discharging that highest duty of American citizenship, attendance at the polls on election day. I think you will agree that I ought to do what I have decided to do—remain at home until after election.
“The Thirtieth Anniversary of the First Congregational Church of Topeka!” That antedates the State nearly six years. Topeka was then little more than a name on the map, if, indeed, it had yet attained that distinction. And Kansas, a strange, unknown country, representing an idea more than the metes and bounds of a future great State, was just beginning to be discussed, written about and wondered at, as it has been during all the years that have since come and gone. Mr. Whittier was a prophet when, a year before your church was established, he sang:
“We go to plant her common schools
On distant prairie swells,
And give the Sabbath of the wild
The music of her bells.
“Upbearing, like the ark of old,
The Bible in our van,