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 The Continuity of the Life of the Church

Sermon Preached by Rev. B. D. Tucker, D. D., at Bruton Church, May 14, 1905, inaugurating the work of restoration.

"We are the servants of the God of Heaven and earth, and build the House that was builded these many years ago, and since that time even until now, hath it been in building, and yet it is not finished." Ezra vi: verses 11-16.

One of the characteristic marks of the times in which we live is a growing reverence for the past, an increased interest in the beginning of things, an acknowledgment of the dependence of the present upon the past, and a recognition of the link that binds one generation to another.

In all departments of thought, in the study of science, in the great field of history, in the investigation of social institutions there is this emphasizing of the principle of continuity.

It was not so in the first half of the last century. There was a tendency, which found its most marked expression during the period of the French Revolution. to uproot everything which men held sacred, to break with the past. It was a generation which asserted its independence of all that had gone before, which discarded institutions that had been years in erecting, and which aspired to start the work afresh.

The sober second thought of mankind soon re-asserted itself, and men in our day have begun to estimate at its real value all that has gone before. We realize that there must be progress, advancement, re-adaptations to changes and conditions, but in order that progress should be real, there must be candid recognition of the work which has been already done and which is an essential part of the whole. This continuity of all things, this linking of what is with what has