St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-07-22

BY RT. REV. F. D. HUNTINGTON, d. D.
Speech at the annual banquet of the
Business Mems Association of Syracuse,
in reply to the following toast:
''Of right and wrong he taught
Truths as refined as ever Athens heard;
And (strange to say he practicsd what he
preached"
Bishop Huntington said: During
residence of almost quarter of cen
fury among you it has struck me, again
and again, how strong and how quick
this community is in its commercial in
stincts, Not only are the signs and
trophies of your enterprise evident in
whole tracts of city dwellings with
swarming families, where in 'G9 were
breezy pastures and neglected low
lands; not only have you absorbed
your neighbors and uni fed your sub
urbs, and far more than doubled your
population from within and without;
not only have you .put your will power
and sagacity into solid warehouses and
buZzing factories, but there has been
conspicuous certain cheerful genius
for not knowing when the ''times" are
bad and refusing to he beaten-which is
apt to be the way of brave commanders
and Irresistible armies. The turns of
financial pinch have come and gone.
with no panic in your hearts or gloom
on your faces. This elastic and pIeserv-
alive energy is natures plan of being
saved by hope" and it works in the
market as we'll as the church. You seem
to have it as ''salt city" characteristic.
One of the objects of business mems
association, l suppose. is to take into
account the conditions that develop
business power and business success.
Let ME deferentially suggest as such a
condition, and not secondary one, the
manifesting of a definite civic manhood
in the leading class, the class to which
you belong.
If the question were to be put to you
here: Gentlemen, what does business
in Syracuse chiefly need to make it
what you would wish it to be? / can
imagine that there might be several
answers such as these: 20 we need
more capital free for investment: we
need cheaper TRANSFORMATION, holder
ventures, smoother roads, stricter
economy, different politics. more unit
ed public spirit" Granted that these
are very desirable. Yet, having consid-
cred more carefully, would not most OF
you say. Eyes, but there is another
thing more needed than any or all of
them" Suppose that, along with you r
activity, your alertnesS, your aptness
for seiZing opportunities, your ra Lying
talent, your push ana pull in building
and trafficking, you place a force
that lies beneath. behind and within
than
fewer signals on the streets, in brown
stone or marble or gliding, hidden
strength which yet upholds and uplifts,
blends and balances, ennobles and
crowns every interest, every movement,
every element of municipal or civil
glory, in town or state. Does bushes s
prosperity depend on anything NOR e
than it depends on business character?
Should this city OF ours covet anything
quite so keenly as a personal citizenship
independent, principled, undesirable,
unbribable, too steady for any gusts Of
popular agitation, too large for any
party, too disinterested for self-ad-
vantage, too confident for fear.
You think l am going to preach.
''That is bishops business" you say;
''if we merchants are apt TO talk shop
the minister is pretty sure to talk pull
pit" Well, my friends, sometimes and
in some places | want SO mu CHI chance
to preach that / wish | were not
preacher. But if my notion of preach
ing is correct; il the preachers real
business is to put himself close along
side of the people, speaking to them of
what is In them, and certain to be
found in them, because he finds it in
himself. speaking to them of what
they are actually thinking of and feel
ing for, and caring about, deep down;
ii he deals, i. e., not with Pigments or
fancies or theories, but with veritieS,
then | don't know why there should be
any banquet or shop or Office or caucus
where bit Of sermon is lmpertinent.
Do not suspect ME of the pour profess
sionalism of exhorting you to be less
mindful OF your business, less diligent,
intent, enthusiastic, wide awake in it
than you are. l want not to be profess
sional. None OF us want cant any
where. certainly not at dinner table.
John Sterling, the radiant young En-
glishman who made one of the set of
splendid scholars and grand thinkers
with Coleridge and Charles Lamb and
Wordsworth and HaZlitt, whose brief
biography Carlisle thought it worth
while to write when he wrote pure'En-
glish, instead of the Carlylese dialect
that you see in his French Revolu-
tion," but who. whenever he wrote,
wonderfully aroused US who were young
students in America fifty or sixty years
ago-Sterling said: First find yoar
cant; then put it off," He need not
have said the last. for cant turned into
reality is put OFF, already. And is not
not this a reality-that wherever you
find men who live and act by q habit in
them OF definite convictions, convictions
on the burning questions of peoples
life, on matters of principle and policy
both. on duty and honor, and veracity
and equity, convictions against shallow
sentiment and subseryiency to fashion,
or crying aloud with q multitude, there
you find masters and leaders of other
men, the superior order, in Office at given
time or out of office, the true fathers of a
city, the true founders of state? One
Of the American statesmen of the last
generation, greater as a lawyer than
as senator, and as brilliant in talk as at
the bar, Rufus Choate, said in eulogy
of his friend and counselor, Daniel
Webster, "Greatest of men are the
builders Of empires" But the builders
of empires or republics have to build
first the mystical and mighty common.
wealth of manhood in their own brain
and heart. l think | have noticed that
country towns, villages, neighborhoeds,
no less than nations, owe their best
and lasting character to few individual
business men in them, so compact
in substance, so sound in Judgment,
so firm and reYerent in their daily hon.