Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 25.djvu/98

80 righteousness, were due to the example and the instruction of the unworldly ministers of the gospel.

The sentiment that actuates the distinguished citizen who has made the generous gift, and that draws together this assemblage, bids us lift our eyes from the daily tasks of life and visualize things of the spirit; we turn to thoughts of the essential nobility of the nature of man, and consider how in all ages and in all countries there have arisen those who at sacrifice of self have given themselves freely for the welfare of others.

Let us then in reverent spirit incline our hearts to prayer, while the Invocation will be pronounced by the Rev. Thomas J. Villers, D. D., President of the Portland Council of Churches.

Thou God of our fathers, we thank Thee for this great monument, which brings to our memory the heroic days of the pioneers,—the men and women who laid in faith and sacrifice the religious and educational and governmental foundations of our commonwealth.

Especially do we thank Thee today for the old time preachers, who carried Thy gospel to unchurched communities and lonely frontiers,—Thy servants who opened vast new territories to Christianity and civilization, and in so doing gladly endured exhausting hardships, not even counting their lives dear unto themselves, as compared with the joy of fulfilling the commission which they had received from the Lord Jesus.

We thank Thee not only for the sections which they evangelized and the churches which they organized, but also for the schools and colleges they helped to found. We thank Thee for their influence in establishing law and order,—that when the plastic elements of this western world were rounding into form, their loyal hands shaped it according to Thy pattern.