The Century Chest Collection

Prayer and Invocation from Century Chest Service, Reverend Newton Hester Royer

(Transcribed from the original)

Prayer offered at "Century Chest" service by the Pastor.
April 22nd 1913.

Almighty God, our gracious heavenly Father, we are gathered here in thy sanctuary on this singular occasion to perpetuate the remembrance of the signal events of the past and the opinions, convictions and customs of our generation and we invoke thy blessing on our efforts.

Thou, with Whom the darkness and the light are both alike; with whom a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day; with whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning and Who art the same, yesterday, today and forever, Thou knowest better than we how fickle in judgment, how capricious in purpose and how inconstant in effort the children of men are.

Thou who art changeless and who dwellest in the high and lofty places of the earth, teach us the variable character and the ephemeral nature of all things here below.

"It passeth away" is stamped on every temporal thing but he that doeth the will of the Lord shall abide forever.
Thy people of old carried the bones of their beloved Joseph to the land of their fathers; they gathered stones and builded altars as memorials to commemorate the mercy and faithfulness and loving-kindness of the Lord their God to them. So we have been moved, by the spirit which prompted them, to preserve for our posterity the ideals which we strive to attain, the hopes which we cherish and the achievements which thou hast enabled us to bring to completion.

We pray that the beauty of the Lord our God may rest on the earnest labors of these faithful women, in whose hearts was conceived this "Century Chest" idea and who have been encouraged to prosecute their work out of reverence for the things which should be revered.

2. As we today reap what our fathers planted and as our age is richer in mind an in heart because of the sufferings and the hardships which they endured, so may future generations glean the harvests of our sowing, may they profit by our errors and become inspired by our triumphs and may that which to us is but a vague dream, or a fond hope or an earnest prayer, to them be a valuable realization and a glorious fulfilment.

We pray that the people who shall populate this city a century hence and who shall hear the reproduction of the songs to be sung and the addresses to be made tonight, may listen with that attention and reverence which should characterize those who hear voices as from the dead, but who, when they lived, served well their generation and then fell asleep.

Thou, who alone knowest what any day may bring forth, hast knowledge of what shall be the state of humanity after another hundred years have passed silently into history; but we ask that there may be a perpetual unfolding of the human race, a gradual and unceasing evolution of that which is best and highest in human life and may the kingdom continue to come and thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven.

We humbly offer these petitions in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to Whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, we ascribe all praise, and power, and glory and dominion forever and forever, AMEN.

April 22 1913:
Newton H. Royer

Invocation – Rev. Newton H. Royer, D. D., Pastor