Waterbury evening Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1887-1895, 1894-02-07
HIS TRIBUTE TO CHILDS
Bishop Potter's Eloquent Eulogy
of the Great Publisher.
THE SIMPLE FUNERAL SERVICES.
The Service to Humanity Done by the
Philanthropist Editor In Making a Mod
ell Newspaper strikingly Brought Out In
Bishop POtter's Remarks.


Bishop Potter's Remarks.
PHILADELPHIA, Feb. THE funeral serv-
Ices of the late George w. Childs, held in
St. James church, were notable because
of the extreme simplicity of the ceremony,
the presence of II host of distinguished
men from all parts of the country and the
evident sincerity of the grief felt by the
thousands who were in or about the sane
tuary.
The ceremonies included brief services at
the house, a solemn procession on foot to
the church, where public rites We're held,
and a touching eulogy delivered by the
Right Rev. Henry B. Potter, bishop of
New York. Then came the funeral cor
tege to Woodland cemetery, where all that
was mortal of the great hearted philan
thropist was laid away in the marble maui
solemn of the Drexel family, side by side
with the dust of the late Anthony j. DreX-
ell, whom he loved as one man seldom loves
another.
The services at the cemetery were private
and very brief There was prayer and
the casket was placed in the crypt pre-
pared for it. Mr.. Paul cast upon the coffin
the symbolical handful of earth, and the
mortal remains of George w. Childs were
consigned to the tomb.
blShOp tOtterS EulO&y.
Bishop Potter, in the course of his eu
logy, said: There are lives that stand so
out and apart from their fellow men, not
it may be, because of their ambitious pace
or colossal performances, but because of
the sweet and gracious dignity of service
of life that was constant illustration of
the love of God and of man, which is the
essence of all religion, that we cannot put
them or that which is mortal Of them away
out of our sight without somehow telling
to other ears and hearts the words that
burn and the thoughts that throb in our
our own. So it is here today.
George ChilGs-singularly suggestive
namel How sweet and filial was the char
acter of the man! George Childs, a citizen
and son of Philadelphia, has lived here
among you all these years to illustrate
traits in his going out and coming i'll SO
eminent that we come here today they
cry ont in the language of that old ritual
that some of us are familiar with, All,
alas, my brother!
For myself l shall always think of Mr.
ChilGs as a great, consistent, potential
public teacher. l have not the slightest
idea from any personal knowledge how
much or little he wrote, but as one looks
into the face of the tremendous enginery
of the public press of our time he can
not but be conscious that behind the men
who wrote in it are the men who, because
they own it, dictate its public policy and
its private utterances.
Il venture to think the day when the
services of George w. Childs will be for
gotten in this conspicuous particular
alas, one is sometimes tempted to think it
n unique particular!-will never come.
From first to last the man whose body
lies there illustrated in this great
community in which he lived and then all
around the wOrld-that it was possible to
make a daily public print pure and sweet
and wholesome thing, fit to come into any
Christian home aud yet to make it the
vehicle of all necessary intelligence, the
illustration in itself of the proper per-
formance of public enterprise, and most of
all to make il positively power for good,
an advocate the side of eternal right
eousness, n friend of every good cause, a
champion of every righteous enterprise.
His Work IA Noble One.
believe me, men and brethren, the sig
niticance of the fact is never in this COM
munity to be forgotten, the courage that
it cost, the large faith that it involved, the
steadfast patience under pressure of which
you and l know nothing; the clear, calm,
consistent ordering of great public organ
of opinion and vehicle of the worlds intel
lgence so that wherever it went it left no
foul faint behind it, no sting in the human
heart, no brutal word, no vulgar insinua-
ton, but in telling the story of the world S
daily history it could lift men up to nobler
ideals and make them long to realize them
in themselves Again, l think you and l
will remember the friend whose body lies
here this afternoon because while on one
hand he organized it wisely and ruled it so
ably, he illustrated on the other that sin
gular felicity of combining and harmonic
ing the relations of capital and labor"
The bishop concluded his remarks by
stating that Mr.. Chlds had illustrated in
his daily life and walk all the dignity and
graciousness of a private citizen, while at
the same time he had demonstrated that a
private citizen could take part in public
affairs purely and solely for the benefit of
the public without thought of himself,
and that in his private life he was model
to all. He concluded with this adjuration:
BLESSED be God for the lives of such
men and for their memories! Men and
women of Philadelphia, remember such a
life and reproduce it in your own"