Lewis James Heatwole

“ The past is irrecoverable, the dim future may yet show up its uncertainties; but the present is still ours, and may God give our leaders a sustaining grace to meet the oppositions and perplexities of each day and year as they come. May our vision of the future never be dimmed or obscured by opportunities lost, or the failure to realize the rewards of duties well done. ”

“ A Church that has been able, in the face of such tremendous losses, with the insurmountable difficulties in the past that were to be overcome, and still hold fast to its integrity in spite of the great disadvantage of being scattered over twenty-six states and three Canadian provinces, must yet have a golden future before it. God surely has wonderful things in store for a people whose pathway in the past has been so strewn with misfortunes. ”

“ No other Christian body perhaps, has sustained a greater proportionate loss in number, both by dismemberment from the parent body, and from material rightfully to be claimed as her own, going from her borders as a contributing growth to other denominations. This tremendous drain upon her material as shown by the second table, to say nothing of what has gone elsewhere, has brought on a condition by which she can number her adherents only by thousands today, where there might have been millions! ”