The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1898-10-07
BISHOP PoTTER's WARNING.
o,,ossd IN rmneria,ism-yiews Calculated
for the Instruction of Brethren Less wen
Poised.

Poised.
Bishop Potter presided over the annual
convention of the Protestant Episcopa-
diocese of New York, which began its sesl
sions in Grace church Wednesday.
Passages in his annual address were of
national interest, as follows:-
The nation has had much, during the
past few months. to blind and lntoxioate
II IT, has won an easy victory over all
effetg:and decrepit adversary in which no
snlendors of individual heroism. nor
tri11mnhs of naval skill-and in thess we
may indulge just pride-ought to blind
our ewes to the fact that we have had
very easy task against very feeble foe,
And now, with unexpected fruits of VIC
| tory in our hands, what, men are asking
are we going to do with them?
| Nav. rather. the solemn question is.
what are they going to do with us? Upon
what wild course of sa.called imperialism
are they going to launch people, many
of whom are dizzy already with the dream
| of colonial gains, and who expect to re-
peat in distant islands some such history
as our conquered enemy wrote long ago
| in blood and plumber in her colonies here
and in South America. We have, indeed,
our Congress to direct this race for EN-
pire, and our gaunt and physically
wrecked sons and brothers by tens of
thousands at home to show us how they
will DO It'll At such a time as never
before, the church Of God Is called upon.
command, to speak the words of truth
/ and soberness, and of righteous
ness, temperance and judgment to oome
"a Judgment for nations as well as in
dividuals, till impetuosity is sobered and
chastened; and until a people In peril Of
being wrecked upon an untrled sea can
be made to pause and think. The things
that this community and this nation alike
supremely need are not more territory.
more avenues Of trade more places for
place hunters, more pensions for idlers,
more subject races to prey upon-bu5 a
dawning consciousness of what, in indi-
yidual and in national life, Rre a people
indispensable moral foundations, those
great spiritual forces on which alone men
or nations are built
For these forces, men and brethren, and
for nothing less, does the church of God
stand. Let us see to 1T that we think OF
ourselves with the humanity that may
we'll become US; but let us see to it. no
less, that we recognize in the august
powers of which, in season and out Of
season, the church of God is put In trust,
that one supreme force that can alone
purify and enlighten and degenerate the
soul Of man or the fabric of human So
cieoy With such a trust, in such time,
how vigtlant, how fearless, how faithful
to God, to his truth, to our fellow men,
we ought to bel May he make us so fy
the power of the Holy Ghosti
1 began this address by invoking upon
you the apostolic blessing OF peace. l
cannot conclude it without lifting your
thoughts for moment to a wider horizon
than our own; that larger circumference
that binds us in one family with all the
nations of the world. From one of them
has lately come a message SO strange, so
unexpected, and above all, SO profoundly
significant, that it does not seem easy to
exaggerate either it's Importance or it's
timeliness. / am speaking, of course, of
the recent ukase of the emperor of Russia
proposing a conference of the great powers
to consider the subject of international
disarmament. / am not at all unmindful
let ms say, of the reception which this
memorable proposition has met at the
hands of foreign diplomatsts and native
pro-imperialists. I am as little unaware
of the gentle and often kindly scepticism
with which it has been greeted by many
clever and acute minds in both hemis-
pheres, whose attitude to all great nation
al questions has come to be one sof good
natured cynicism, and whose philosophy
of life is summed up in Carlyle's axiom
that brute force is the master Of the
world.
For myself, do not believe that axiom;
and I think that Christian ought to
be ashamed to believe it, Nor do l believe
that, because some people have dismissed
the present young sovereign of Russia as
a dreamer and visionary, you and l are
called upon to dismiss his remarkable ut.
terence as unworthy of serious considera
ton. This world has forever been divided
between the dreamers and the practical,
people-''the men who have seen visions
H. L, hat hac 1o,rr o% h., wi
ion andsthe visionary" But sooner or lat
err, once and again, oil round the world,
some such dreamer has struck a great
note, the clear and penetrating resonance
of which has walked and rousd the nations.
Most opportune is it, 1 think, that. in
the ear of q nation already dizzy with the
dream of what it may achieve by con-
quests through force OF arms, there should
sound that strong, temperate, and most
cogently reasoned message which rings
through the ukase of the emperor OF Rus
sia 1t is an unanSwerable Indictment of
the enormous folly and essential madness
of the international racs for increased ar
maments-ships and forts, and men, piled
up in ever greatening proportions, until
at last the utmost limit of nations re-
sources in men and money has been
reached; the last man has been dragged
from his family; the last shekel has been
borrowed from reluctant creditors, and
the empire or the republic makes It's WIG
plunge at length into irredeemable bank
ruptcy. And this is called Statesman.
ship and 1.-THE wisdom of diplomacy" as
against the visionary dreams of an i'm
aginative sentlmentalisml For myself, it
is letter described in those very recent
words of a singularly clear, hard-headed.
and acute English statesman, whom no
body will accuse Of being visionary or a
dreamer, 1 mean Sir William Vernon
HarcoGrt. who pronounced the present
rivalry of the great powers of the world
in the matter Of ships and men as simply
''inssnsate folly r.
Has such folly bewitched and blinded
us2 Has the lust of empire and the pas
sion Of cong uest made the people so mad
that it cannot see the mischief and the
misery that such policy is destine to en-
tail? Is it true, above all, that the fol-
lowers of him who came to teach men
how to beat their swords into plowshares
and their spars into pruning-hooks are
eager instead of striving to abolish the
bloody and brutal duell of nations, to re-
enthrone 1t? Are ''peace and happiness,
truth and justice, religion and piety,"
to prevail among us by QUITTING one an
Others throatsp For one, disawn so
barbaroas conception of our calling in