ents, principally from the lower part of Lancaster county, found their way to this settlement; since then they constitute a great proportion of the present population. They speak the language of their fathers, but of late years the English has the preference with many whose grandparents immigrated from Germany,'

For the benefit of these Germans, who soon intermarried and united their religious worship and social life with their Scotch-Irish neighbors, for their good Rev. Jacob Weymer and others, Reformed ministers, visited Chambersburg, Greencastle, Grindstone Hill and other places, where Reformed churches were established as early as 1784. A Reformed church stood on Stenger's hill, below town, as early as 1790. The old brick church, to the east of town, much of the material of which also is used in the erection of the new church edifice (1876) was built in 1819, by the Presbyterians and Reformed united. Thus, in point of morals, religion and true piety, the inhabitants of this county can boast of a noble ancestry.

Of course there are many exceptions to this estimate of moral character. Theft, robbery, horse-racing, intemperance and other vices were also known in those days. The old stone jail in Chambersburg, built two stories high in 1798, was often "filled to overflowing" with criminals confined for debt. This punishment many regarded as the fruit of indolence and intemperance. This may be all true enough. Evil is hereditary. Sin goes with the race. Wherever the foot of man treads their evil and sin keep apace, if not with a faster at least with an equal step with the march of virtue. And yet history generally credits this noble ancestry as being exemplary in moral integrity and the practice of the Christian graces--education and religion. The school and the church-these were the two cardinal marks of the primitive settlements of these hills by our pioneer fathers.

Rev. Dr. M. Brown, for a long time President of Jefferson College, who studied theology under old Dr. King, of Mercersburg, pastor of that church from 1769 to 1813, has this testimony, 66 'that in all his extensive travels in the United States he found no population equal in virtue and intelligence to the people of the Cumberland valley."

So, too, Rev. Dr. James Brownson, of Washington, Pa.,

whose maternal grandfather laid out the town of Mercersburg, expressing his regret in not being able to be present at this centennial celebration, uses these words: "Not for silver or gold would I barter away my lineal descent from such a race. "So noble a planting in one of the best and most beautiful regions in our county, by a race unsurpassed in intelligence, culture, patriotism and piety, and such a development and progress, extending over 150 years since the first white settlement, are worthy of being held up to the grateful admiration of the descendents of a matchless ancestry."

Such testimony, in favor of integrity and true morality, is worthy of special regard.

Patriotism, too, was a crowning virtue. McCauley, in his history of '76, says: "Not a Tory was to be found in the whole Conococheague settlement."

No one present to-day need be ashamed of his ScotchIrish ancestry.

But these early settlers experienced all the sad consequences common to frontier life. Homes were hardly secured, the land tilled, or barns built, till these homes were burnt by savage Indians, the grain destroyed, cattle killed, and wife and children carried into cruel captivity.

"For eight or ten years after General Braddock's defeat, July, 1755, the whole frontier of your county was exposed to the incursions of Indian war parties," who would secretly surprise the inhabitants; shoot down the cattle, massacre the men, women and children, or carry them away into the horrors of cruel captivity. Here Border Life, and the narratives of Col. James Smith, John McCullough, Col. Crawford, and others, are full of most thrilling interest. These noble patriots gave their lives for our good and for our homes. This leads us to our last point.

III. Civilization and national freedom the price of blood. On the Fourth of July, 1876, eight years ago, we celebrated the centennial of our National Independence. It was right and proper on that joyous occasion that we should have poems, orations, historical readings, Declaration of Independence recited, the highest forms of mechanical art that genius could invent; all this, along with military

processions, bands of music, banners afloat, flags waving, national toasts, responses and firing of guns-all this joyous festivity to impress upon the mind and heart of every man, woman and child in the land that our National Freedom is a reality, and this reality the price of blood. Citizen sovereignty is a problem in civil government the old monarchies of Europe can't solve; but our Pilgrim Fathers solved it; but they did it with treasure, bloodshed, death!

So these fertile hills and these grand old homesteads in this fertile county are ours only by the toil, hardships, labor, and fearful sufferings and bloodshed of our Germanic, Scotch-Irish ancestry.

This great truth, human perfection and true religious freedom, are the price of blood, history, redemption and science all clearly proclaim. The Apostles died for the truth they preached. The reformers bled and suffered for the truth of the Gospel. "The blood of martyrs is the seed of the church." The idea of spiritual freedom from sin and death is a plant too celestial, too heaven born to grow on the soil of the human heart without the watering of blood to ensure its growth. The Disciples felt this, they knew this. They were willing every one of them to suffer martyrdom for the cause of Christ. They knew that righteousness, truth and eternal life are ours only by the death and crucifixion of their Master. Christ crucified contained the seed of a new creation. Sin and pride were the cruel monsters that drove the spear into His side. The Saviour's truth and purity were too holy and divine to germinate in the dead stock of humanity without the shedding of blood to ensure its growth. Christ's death is the germ of life. "If I be lifted up I will draw all men unto Me." Via Crucis, via Lucis.

So, too, in the sphere of intellect. No freedom from this darkness of ignorance and superstition except by toil, hardship, and even self-sacrifice and death. Robert Fulton, in 1807, was hissed at, laughed at and mocked when he sought to launch forth his first steamboat on the waters of the Hudson. Columbus is called the madman because he seeks the discovery of another world. Galileo, in Italy, is imprisoned because he seeks the improvement of astronomy. E*

And even that holy man, Paul, as he stood on Mar's Hill, is called a Jewish babbler because he reasoned of "the resurrection and the life to come.

History, too, is full of the same truth. States perish, nations die, all the forms of life are mutable, only that the living spirit of humanity may go forward with new energy and create out of these smouldering ruins new forms of life and activity. The decay of Greece is the life of Rome, and the eruption of the northern barbarians, who lay all Roman civilization in the dust, gives life to the Germanic nations and the Anglo-Saxon race. Death is the condition of life. So in the history of civilization and in the progress of civil freedom. The wars of George III., the long years of cruel Indian warfare and the hardships of border life, all prove that our peaceful homes and these fertile valleys which we now so richly enjoy are the price of blood! They are redeemed for us from savage rule and the cruel tomahawk, only by toil, hardship and sacrifices the most horrible, such as only true courage, martyr-heroism and earnest piety could endure.

Mark well, therefore, the resting place of the man who fell a sacrifice to education and offered his life a ransom for the lives of innocent children! Keep green the graves of our patriot fathers, who spent their treasure and shed their blood to secure to us the fertile fields of this rich old county, whose history to-day reaches up to the hoary foot-prints of a hundred years!

Follow closely in the steps and pathway of a most worthy ancestry, who loved God, studied His word, kept the commandments, believed in His Son, confessed His name, and everywhere dotted this whole county with the church and the school-house; and then God will be honored, our children blessed and freedom perpetuated.

Our mountain homes, the fruit of their blood and the scalps of their children!

Oh! sing to-day as you never sang before—

SERMON OF REV. J. W. KNAPPENBerger, a. M., PREACHED IN TRINITY REFORMED CHURCH, MERCERSBUrg, Pa., SEPTEMBER 7, 1884.

PSALM 90. Last clause of the 9th verse. "We spend our years as a tale that is told."

After speaking of the antiquity of the psalm, its beauty and sublimity and rich meaning, of the custom of telling tales among Eastern people and when all were told how short they would seem in thinking of them, we spoke as follows:

And just so in many respects is it with our lives. They are like tales that have been told. How short they seem! How quickly do they pass away! Three score years and ten roll into eternity, before we are aware of it. As we think of our past history, the oldest among us, how dim and indistinct, do the most prominent facts in our lives stand out in memory! You, whose hair has been silvered with the weight of years, and even those of you, who have only reached the middle mile stone of your life, try to recall the scenes and incidents and experiences of your early years, those which happened under the parental roof, when father, mother, brothers and sisters were with you, when you gathered together, it may be, around the family altar, when you ate, drank, laughed and talked, played and toiled with one another, when you rejoiced together on some notable interesting occasion, or wept with them over some great sorrow; or when with bowed head and sorrowing hearts, you stood together around an open grave, which received one after another of those, who were to you most dear. How you mourned their departure! How you missed them when you got back home; how sad you all were then and how time gradually healed the wound, which death had made!

Or think, if you please, of the companions and associates of your early years, of those who went to school with you,— of the lessons, which you studied and recited together, of incidents that happened, indeed of all the things connected with those early, interesting days, and as you dwell in meditation upon them does not your whole past life,—all the facts, incidents and experiences,— —seem very much like a