been given. It was a severe test to which the church was put, but it
stood it nobly. Again when Dr. Abbott was pastor the same question was
asked. Ten years of successful life is the sufficient answer to that.
Now again the question comes up under the pastoral care of Dr. Hillis.

My answer to this last question as to the others is, that the life of
Plymouth Church does not depend upon any one man, however great he may
be. It would be difficult to find three men more different, each from
the other, than the three who have filled Plymouth pulpit. Yet after all
the general type of the church life has not changed, nor has its
attitude toward the surrounding city and the wider national life taken
on a different character. The emphasis now, as always, is on Christian
living, in the assurance that out of that living will come Christian
thinking. Each in his own way, but each with the same purpose and the
same result, has preached the gospel of life. The form of that life has
varied, but the variation has been occasioned by the need of adaptation
to the general type of church life, as illustrated on every hand.
Plymouth has simply shown its ability to meet new conditions in itself.

So also with regard to the broader relation to public life. It is now,
as it always has been, the natural and the expected thing that every
great cause, for righteousness and peace, should send its advocates to
Brooklyn and that they should have a welcome in Plymouth pulpit. A
significant illustration of this occurred but recently at the opening of
the great Peace Congress. The two churches that were identified with it
more than any others were Plymouth and Broadway Tabernacle. Probably no
pastor in the country is more widely known for his practical interest in
public affairs than is Dr. Hillis, and wherever he goes from the
Atlantic to the Pacific he is welcomed both for himself and as the
pastor of Plymouth Church. The simple fact is it is the same old
Plymouth. It has grown up with the country, has had its share in the
making of the country, whether in the strife of war or in the urgency
for peace, and has made for itself a name that will stand, like Faneuil
Hall in Boston, or Independence Hall in Philadelphia, for all time to
come.

This permanency, however, will be as its strength has been in the wise
management of the church in its various departments. The problem of a
city church located as Plymouth is must be to-day very different from
t