"]
"My friends," he began, "there are moments in our experience when
we live a lifetime--moments when the hair of our heads turns gray,
a soul dies within a laving body, or a dead one rises, shakes off
its grave clothes, and lifts its head in the sunlight.
"From this hour I am a free man. I will live what I am, and speak
what I feel to be the truth. The truth shall be its own justification.
I will wear no robes, mumble no ceremonies, call no man Rabbi, and
permit no man to call me Rabbi. I proclaim the universal priesthood
of believers.
"While I am your pastor the Kitchen Mission in which we have gathered
the poor on the East Side will be closed at the hour of service,
and all God's children shall enter this house because it is their
Father's!"
Van Meter shrank back in his pew as a ripple of applause ran round
the galleries.
"If men ask a sign to-day whether the Church of the living God
exists in New York, what is our answer?
"Look about you. New York is the centre of the commerce, society,
art, literature and politics of the Western World. Her port, in
which fly the flags of every nation, is the gateway of two worlds.
The feet of four millions daily press her pavements.
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