To the pastor & members of the Second Congregational Church in the year of our Lord 2001.

Dear Brothers & Sisters.

We who are living to-day send greeting to you- our children's children's children; to those who in the year when this shall be read have sought this climate for their health; to those who shall be born in the church - born in the flesh & in the spirit; to all who shall be trained & converted elsewhere; to all the members, we wish you much peace & peace from our Lord Jesus Christ - much enlargement of service, of faith & hope & love!

We should be most happy to tell you just what you would most wish to know, - of ourselves, our problems & difficulties, our joys & failures, our favorable & unfavorable characteristics. But you will not be able to ask us, & we cannot look forward to your day to find out. We hope the church records of our faithful & efficient church clerk, Bor. Herbert K. Wing [?], will be kept in which may be found a list of members of this date & a history of the business transacted by our church. I here give you a list of members of our Young People's Society called the Y.P.S.C.E. (Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor).

Miss Margarita Alley (in college), Miss Susie Barnhart, Miss Cora Barnhart, Miss Rosa Barnhart, Mr. & Mrs. F.A. Bartholomew, Agnes Brown, Walter C. Byber (in college), Clyde M. Butts, Tina Cooper, Rev. James Cooper, Miss Milicent Gaines, Miss Anna Cook, Lucian P. Curtis, Ed Hensley (in college), Ed Hall (""), Chas Hall (""), Clyde M. Hornell (""), Miss Ida B. Palmer, Miss Margaret Walters, Miss Ingersoll, H.K. Wing, Miss Clara Jenkins, Mrs. Kate Kiplinger, Walter A. Lindsley (in college), Miss Olin Nord, Miss Lucy McShaw, Miss Maude Nethers, Rev. M.D. Ormes, Miss Emma Rohn, Miss Bessie Sperry, Arthur Stayton, Miss Fannie Stow, Miss Bessie Sinsher, Miss Ada Sargent, Miss Corinne Tickerman, Clarence Tickerman, Miss Myrtle Triew.

Associate Members
Miss Pearl Cassidy
Arthur Stow

Our service this evening was as follows: -

Leader H.K. Wing
President Fannie Stow
Vice "" Clyde Hornell
Secretary Walter Byber
Treasurer Corinne Tickerman

Hymns sung: - "He leadeth me O blessed thought!"
"Just as I am without one plea"
"Holy Ghost Light Dinner"
Bro. Charles Alley lead in prayer.
Then "Gaining & Losing" Mark 10:28-31.
Singing "Take time to be Holy" The secretary this read to all of members - each one responding this being the custom for consecration meeting- (a meeting held on the first Sunday evening of every month.)

Other hymns which were sung are here given: -
"My life, my love I give to thee"
"We praise thee O God for the Son of thy Love"
"I will sing the wondrous story of the Christ who died for me"
"There are lonely hearts to cherish while the days are going by"

This meeting was held one hour before the hour for beginning the evening service.

The names of our Sunday School teachers are here given: -

Rev. James Cooper, Mrs. Kiplinger, Mr. Thomas J. Jones, Lucian P. Curtis, Mr. Atkinson, Mr. & Mrs. Coleman, Mr. Robinson, Miss Lopsley, Mr. F.A. Sperry, Bessie Sperry, Mr. H.K. Wing, Minnie Falbert, Mrs. Whueler, Ida B. Palmer, Mrs. Fannie Wilson, Miss Harmony Wordsworth, Mr. Charles Alley, Corinne Tickerman, Fannie Stow.

Sunday School Program.

Opening with two or three hymns

Prayer. Reading of the lesson from the Bible. Another hymn. New [?] passing to classes. We hope it will be possible soon - at least before your day to have a better series of lessons resulting in a better completer [sic] more spiritual knowledge of the Bible.

As to our property, I the pastor have been responsible for the most of it outside the church membership. Our church building costing not much less than $6,000 was paid for within a year of its completion in 1890. We built our parsonage the following winter at a cost of $4500 - (house & lot). I raised $500 at the time; - we then borrowed $4000 & have carried the interest 6% for all these years. I paid it in lieu of rent. Two or three years ago I raised $700 among personal friends outside the church. A year ago last spring one of our members Miss Sarah F. Butchilder died without heirs & left the church $1000 to apply on the mortgage: Last spring Miss Ruth H. Bristol - who with her husband, Rev. R.G. Bristol, a blessed preacher, were among those most anxious to establish the second church in this city - gave the church $1500 to apply on the same debt, the church to pay 6% interest during her lifetime. She died before the first interest payment became due. This reduced our debt to $800 which we have now almost raised. Mrs. Bristol also deeded to the church two city lots worth nearly $2000 & made a pledge of $500 altogether to apply on a memorial chapel which may be built on the east end of the present church lot.

The church choir which is an unusually good one & which has never had any trouble whatever is made up as follows: -

Organist Miss Kate England, Bass A.G. Stow (Leader), Bass Frank Stow, Alto Helen Rahm, Alto Fannie Stow, Soprano Corinne Tickerman, Soprano Minnie Falbert, Tenors W.C. Byber, Arthur Stayton.

We have enjoyed our twelve years of church life. They have been happy years of earnest effort & quiet growth, we have the same rancor [?] that you will doubtless have; for people seek our city & climate for health, join the church, live long enough for us to become attached to them & then pass away. Certain queries arise in my mind: - will the present church building be standing when you reach our scenes of activity? (Business hours are being built here & there along the street). Will it still have the same name? Will we return as the century proceeds to longer pastorates? Will there be a teacher in the church whose business will be to look exclusively after the religious instruction in the Bible & Christian doctrine of the entire church, including children? Will the work of the pastor be made easier, giving him more time for study? This church property has been gathered together not so much from the people of the church as from the pastors personal friends outside, from the generous members of the First Church, also from benevolently disposed individuals outside of both churches. I pray that the time may come when all repairs, improvements, additions & current expenses may come entirely from within the church membership. It has not been easy to train this church to Christian giving and a large devoted Christian service because so many have undertaken to pay more for their homes on the installment plan than they are able to; because so many are invalids; because so many are very poor, and because the membership coming from the fringes of other congregations often have not been at all trained. The members are also very widely scattered in the city, not very many members lining near the church. May it be different in your day. I could enter upon an extended description of the officers of the church our grief in the loss of Mm. F. Byber at an early age. Miss Sarah F. Bitchelder. Mrs. Ruth H. Bristol as well as her husband. Rev. R.G. Bristol the blind preacher. Graham Odle and many others who have figured largely in the building up of our enterprise. But you will be as busy as we are and I must not tax your patience. Besides the box will very shortly be closed & sealed. The letter which I have written most deliberately is a letter addressed to the ministers of Colo. Springs. This letter grew out of a suggestion made at the exercises of dedication yesterday and has been written as rapidly & hurriedly as possible.

One or two other items may be of interest to you. Our hymn book we have used since our organization is "Laudes Domine." Our order of service in the morning at our eleven o'clock service is as follows: - Voluntary on the organ, Doxology, Invocation, Singing the "Gloria" Hymn, Scripture reading, Anthem by the choir, long Prayer, Hymn, Notices & offering followed by a word of prayer. Sermon prayer, Hymn, Benediction. In the evening the service is shorter & simpler.

Finally we are devoted to your interests. We are building as well as we know keeping accurate records, training our children in the Sunday school, Endeavor society and in the pastor's class. We are trying to apprehend the truth as it is in Christ trying to receive the power of the Holy Spirit & hold by his light & leading. We are trying to improve the city -- get all the water we can. We live not along for ourselves, but for you. Fare ye well, Be true to us, to yourselves, to you posterity, to your city, to your country, to your church, to your savior & God, and we have hope that we shall meet you in that golden land beyond.

Sincerely & faithfully your father in the faith,

Manly D. Ormes

Founder & first pastor of the church. The only other officer who has seen continuous service with me is Mr. F.A. Sperry who has always been a trustee.

Our church is represented in the higher counsels of the city & county. W.E. Parker was County Commissioner. H.K. Wing & Mm. N. Ruby are justices of the peace. Mm. F. Byber was principal of the Liller School. We have several school teachers in our membership. Prof. Atherton Noyes is an instructor in Colorado College. The pastor has served on the school board of the district almost five years has been President of the El Paso Co. Bible Society & for several years has been permanent secretary of the Ministers' Association of the City. He won the tennis tournament in this city during his first year's residence here.

Colorado Springs Colo. Aug 3d 1901
At the parsonage of the Second Congregational Church 409 So. Tejon

To the ministers residing in Colorado Springs in the year 2001; Greeting! Dear Brethren:

Through the suggestion, and by the generosity of one of our distinguished fellow-townsmen, Mr. Louis R. Ehrich, a few of us are permitted to send a word to those who shall be standing in the churches of this city one hundred years hence. Perhaps-before beginning the letter a word concerning Mr. Ehrich will not be out of place. He is a graduate of Yale College. He sought and has recovered his health in this climate. A man of large means, of the most generous impulses, of irreproachable and independent character, of great public spirit, the city is justly proud of him. Though of Jewish birth, he is a Christian, being a regular attendant upon the services of the Unitarian Church in the city.

From time to time the points of emphasis in theology, the excellencies and defects of Christian and church life change. If one is sufficiently interested he may learn the exact theological condition by our theological publications of this date. But briefly this is understood as a generation not given to serious theological study. Our immediate fathers modified and humanized and broadened the older Calvinism. Today we have grown less dogmatic on many of the doctrines of the older theological systems. We preach little but the fundamental and essential doctrines-those which have been preached in all ages-which have been common to all ages. Our emphasis is today upon ethics, and the humanities. We apply the precepts of the Bible to every day life. We try to stir up enthusiasm for Righteousness. We exalt goodness. We exhort men to walk by faith and not by sight, to accept with resignation and confidence, even joy the misfortunes and sorrows of life. We strive to get our people in this day of rapidly made fortunes, of universal effort to be rich, to keep clear and free of materialism. It is said by many ministers as well as laymen that under the influence of the doctrine of evolution and of the larger hope for the future of all people on the earth, our sense of sin has been weakened. Feeling this now there is a general attempt being made to correct the tendency.

Under the head of the administration of religious affairs I may say that we feel that much money and talent are being wasted. Often in villages through denominational strife there are as many churches as there are hundreds in population. This is due to the denominational pride of state superintendents and secretaries, and also to the unwillingness of Christians of different names in small localities to give up the non- essential for the sake of Christian strength and usefulness. Also in cities churches and Sunday schools are started without consulting any central body of ministers and laymen who might have moral if not official authority to locate new churches and to limit the number to the apparent need. Our wonder today is-whether there shall some time be such a central body-and whether it shall have only moral or also official authority. We are also wondering whether we shall return to the times of the apostles in this particular and have but one church-or whether Christian union will be reached by a closer federation and cooperation so as to reach practical church union in matters of local, state, national, and universal church extension.

There are not wanting signs that better times are already at hand in this respect. All nonconforming churches in England are coming nearer together and cooperating as never before. In this country we are following not far behind them. All this results partly from the desire to separate the essentials from the nonessentials, from the work of the Christian Endeavor Societies of young people, from the influence of the Young Men's Christian Association, the great Ecumenical Missionary Conference. These organizations are having the same influence in the Christian world that combinations of capital, and the labor unions are having in the industrial and commercial world.

Under the head of practical church affairs I am minded to ask such questions as these: -What will be the state of the temperance question one hundred years hence? Now teetotalism is the prevailing custom among the humbler Christians as well as among the more spiritually minded of all classes. There has grown up recently those who use spirituous liquors in moderation. The political party called the Prohibition Party does not commend itself to the judgment or the wisdom of the vast majority of our church members and has not grown any for a great many years. Shall we return in the time to come to the older attitude? Keep the present customs or reach some middle ground? To say the least the drinking of liquor is the cause of more harm and sin than all other evils combined.

Will the church be supported any differently than it is today? In larger, wealthier churches as a rule by pew rental; in other churches more voluntary offerings made weekly in envelopes.

Will the curiosity known to us as "Christian Science" hold its own, increasing its sway or disappear altogether? If it disappears, what else will have taken its place?

Will you have much the same routine as pastors that we today go through? Today there are too many demands made upon us-social, intellectual and professional. Our calling probably doubles the amount done in churches in the east of corresponding size, for the city is a hospital city as it doubtless always will be. A high hope just now with many of us is for a Sanitarium or institution where the poor who are sick may have the best care regardless of when they are able to pay or able to earn. May the sick men of the future or the city itself provide such a charity.

We today are looking forward to a time when Bible instruction both in and out of the weekly Sunday or Bible School will be put upon as high and scientific a basis as instruction in the public schools and institutions of higher learning.

Will the number of services be the same with you as with us? Today the Sunday Evening or so-called Second service is a great trial to the vast majority of ministers and the most active church workers. Some solve it by popular lectures or entertainments, or services largely of the best music to be secured. In the city there is usually always one or two who practice the entertainment method-and who thus draw to their own churches those people who are not strongly attached and active anywhere.

Today the minister is asking for more time for meditation and study-for self- preservation and self-preparation for the great work of preaching the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. May you be able to secure it-where we have been unable! I should like, as I may be able, to be an invisible member of your ministers' meeting in the year 2001. To look about upon your quarters, to hear your good stories, to listen to your addresses. I should like to sit in a pew in the Second Congregational Church and hear the preacher for the day-to look about to see whether any of my descendants are worshipping there-to watch the length of the sermon-to follow the order of service and to see upon what the preacher puts his emphasis. Today our ministers meet in poorly ventilated and sometimes dingy church parlors. We are all looking forward to a pleasant room in the new Young Men's Christian Association Building now in process of erection, which ought to stand 100 years.

We greet you across the space of one hundred years. We send to you the truth and the hopes of the fathers modified by our thinking and our experience. We hope our children and their descendants will amid our mistakes, improve upon our grasp of the truth, live more upon the mountains than we have been able, walk more closely with God, be more generous than our people-and make greater speed in extending the Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Yours in the bonds of Christ and of the church visible and invisible,

Manly D. Ormes

Founder and minister since Aug. 6,1889, of the Second Congregational Church of this city-also member of the Board of Education since 1896. Also President of the El Paso Co. Bible Society for ten years past.

Manly D. Ormes born in Tuscola, Michigan of Orson J. & Harriet Toogood Ormes. April 25, 1858.

Married Jane Eleanor Reddie of Philadelphia May 6-1890.

Their children are

Ferguson Reddie born in Colorado Springs Nov 27-1890.

Jean Harriet born in Colo Spgs Feb 25, 1892. Margaret Rachel born in " " Oct 25, 1894 & died on Aug. 3d 1895

Eleanor Francis born in Colo Spgs Oct 26 or 25/ 1898

The photograph included is a picture of M.D. Ormes & daughter, Eleanor Francis