At first thought, men might be tempted to see in this colossal structure, whose roof is so much nearer the sky a symbol of "the power of the press," which is alleged to be more influential than the pulpit. One political gentleman whom I knew well--even he who in 1893, raised the stars and stripes over Hawaii--affirmed in my hearing, that "one newspaper was equal to three pulpits". Yes, but that depends on which newspaper and which pulpit. It is certain that in the eyes of some, printing machinery and type, and daily square miles of inked paper, for which whole forests have been destroyed, have more moral potency than worship, prayer, and preaching. Yet against this modern parable of the mustard seed become a tree, phenomenal and imposing, we have happily also the Master's parable of the leaven, or of might unseen, of a kingdom coming "without observation". "Things seen", even when dazzling are not really as potent as those which transform the life. It could add little or nothing to the reputation of John Chambers, to put on paper with ink his words that kindled our souls. Yet, "did not our hearts burn within us" when we heard? Can we forget them? Was not his a life unto life? "He being dead yet speaketh." So then, whether standing in the shadow of the great edifice--typical of the soaring twentieth century--or setting foot on its roof high in air, many fathoms higher in the deeps of space than where once we sat or stood, and thence gazing upon the sea of humanity beneath, or over the great city set between the two silver streams, and ever fascinating and beautiful with boyhood's memories, let us stop to recall the past. Let us think of that busy and potent life of John Chambers (1797-1875), and of that First Independent Church (1825-1873), which, like a spiritual storage battery, still supplies the power that pulses in many thousand souls. Man and edifice, though vanished from earth, give by their visible potencies or inspiring memories, in churches and Sunday Schools, in hallowed homes and beautiful careers of men and women, even to the fourth generation, the shining and convincing evidence of an earthly immortality, of life unto life. In the ever widening circles of eternity, that unspent influence will be felt.