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In different points in its life, the Philadelphia congregation known as Beacon has been a Sunday school mission, a nesting congregation, a mother church with its own college, a church in schism, and a new church development. A persistent thread in the fabric of Philadelphia's Kensington neighborhood, its population waxed and waned by turns, for 146 years.

Beacon began life in 1871 as a Sunday school mission of the First Presbyterian Church of Kensington. In 1872, the growing church bought a parcel of land from...

During recent installation of new brick for what will become the Stated Clerks Square, masons removed from inside the sundial in our front lawn a metal cylinder two feet high and eight inches in circumference. I had had no idea that we owned a time capsule, but naturally we do. The institution is 154 years old; it will continue to disgorge secrets.

Patrons occasionally ask us questions about time capsules: Where should we put our time capsule? What should it be made out of? What should we put in it? It's probably best...