The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1889-05-10
miscellaneous.
Bishop P0tter's Address.


The following extracts are from the ad
dress of Bishop Potter, of New York, at the
Inauguration services in St. Paul's Church
New York, April Both:
Out from airs dense and foul with the
coarse passions and coarser rivalries of self
seeking men, we turn aside ms from the
crowd and glare of some vulgar highway
swarmiDg with pushing and ill-bred throngs
and tawdry and clamorous with bedizened
booths and noisy Speech into some cool and
shaded wood where straight to heaven some
majestic oak lifts its tall form, its roots i'm.
bedded deep among the unchanging rocks
its upper branches sweeping the upper airs
and holding like commune with the stars
and, as we think of him for whom we here
thank God, we say, "Such an one, in native
majesty he was ruler, wise and strong and
fearless, in the sight of God and men, because
by the ennobling grace of God he had learned
first of all to conquer every mean and selfish
and sef-seeking aim, and to rule himsefw
The conception of the national Govern
ment as huge machine, existing mainly for
the purpose of rewarding partisan services
this was conception so alien to the charac-
ter and conduct Of Washington and his as
sociates that it seems grotesque even to speak
VI IL. II mOulu uG lDttltStluE W Imagine Tile
first President of the United States confront
ed with some one who had ventured to APP
proach him upon the basis of what are now
commonly known as practical politics." But
the conception is impossible. The lOathing
the outraged majesty with which he would
have hidden such Il creature to BECOME is fore
Swallowed by the gentle dignity with which,
just before his Inauguration, replying to one
who had the strongest claims upon his friend.
ship, and who had applied to him during the
progress of the presidential campaign" as
we should say, for the promise of an appoint
ment to office, he wrote:
"Should it be my fate to administer the
the government | will go to the chair under
no Encouragement of any kind or nature
whatever. And when in it'll will to the
best of my judgment. discharge the duties
of the office with that impartaity and zeal
for the public good which ought never to
suffer connections OF blood or friendship to
have the least sway On decisions of a public
nature"
On this high level moved the first Presi-
dent of the republic To it must we who are
the heirs of her sacred interests be not un.
willing to ascend, if we are to guard our
glorious hertage
And this all the more because the pers
which confront us are so much graver and
more portentOus than those which then i'm
pended There is (if we are not afraid of the
wholesome medicine that there is in consent
ing to see it, an element Of infinite sadness
In the effort which we are making to-day.
Ransacking the annals of our fathers as we
have been doing for the last few months, a
busy and well-meaning assduity would fain
reproduce the scene, the scenery, the situa-
tion, of an hundred years agol Vain and
impotent endeavor! 1t is as though out of
the lineaments of living men we would fain
produce another Washington. We may disn-
ter the vanished draperies, we may revive
the stately minuet, we may rehabil!-
tate the old scenes, but the march of a CEN
tuay cannot be halted or reversed, and the
enormous change in the situation can
neither be disguised nor ignored. Then we
were, though not all of us sprung from one
nationality, practically one people. Now,
that steadily deteriorating process against
whose dangers great thinker of our own
generation warned his countrymen Just fifty
years ago, goes on, on every hand, apace.
"The constant importation" wrote the
author of 1.-The Veal of Nations" las now,
in this country, Of the lowest orders of peo-
pie from abroad to dilute The quality of our
national manhood, is q sad and beggarly pros
tituton of the nobest gift ever conferred on
a people. Who shall respect people who
do not respect their own blood? And how
shall national spirit, or any determined and
prOportionate character, arise out of so many
low-bred associations and coarse-grained
lemperamcnts, imported from every cline
1t was, (indeed), in keeping, that Pan, who
was the son Of everybody, was the ugiest OF
the gods"
And again Another enormous difference
| h.t,, 81 ln.r NC, l.
the anniversary is seen in the enor-
nous difference in the nature and influ-
ence of the forces that determine our national
and political destiny. Then ideas ruled
the hour. To-day there are indeed, ideas
that rule our hour, but they must be mer.
charitable ideas. The growth OF wealth, the
prevalence OF luxury, the massing of large
material forces, which by their very exist.
ence are q standing menace to the freedom
and integrity of the individual, the infinite
swagger of our American speech and man
ners, mistaking bgness for greatness, and sad
ly contounding gain and goodness, all this is
contrast to the austere simplicity the I'M
purchasable integrity Of the first days and
first men of our republic, which makes it inn
possible to reproduce to-day either the tenn
per or the conduct of our fathers.
AS we turn the pages backward, and come
upbH luC stblJ vi bHC OUtll Ndy Vi aDIll Ill tuC
year of our Lord 1850, there is certain
stateliness in the air, a certain Ceremonious-
ness in the manners, which we have Danish
ed long ago. We have exchanged the Wash
ington dignity for the Jetiersonian simplicity,
which was, in truth, only another name for
the Jacksonan vulgarity. And what have
we gotten in exchange for III In the elder
States and dynasties they had the trappings
of royalty and the pomp and splendor of the
Kings person to fill mems hearts with 10y
atty. Well, we have dispensed with the old
titular dignities. Let us take care that we do
not part with that tremendous force tor which
they stood II there be not ttular royalty,
all the more need is there for personal royalty.
Ifthere is to be no nobility of descent
all the more Indispensable is it that there
should be nobility of ascent, a character in
them that bear rule, 80 fine and high and
| pure, that as men come within the circle OF
its influence they Involuntary pay homage
to that whi3 is the one preeminent distinc-
ton, the Royalty of Virtue
One hundred years ago there knelt within
these walls a man to whom, above all others
| in its history, this nation is indebted. An
| Englishman by race and lineage, he ncarnat-
ed in his own person and character every
best trait aud attribute that have made the
Anglo-Saxon name a glory to its children
and terror to its enemies throughout the