The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-12-07
BISHOP POTTER'S ADDRESS
fcontinued from First Page.)

(Continued from First PageJ
I field president of the Church club, and
spoke as follows:
I was asked to come here and discuss
divorce, but I chose instead the
subject Of this evening, because OF It's
y r,f,r amount Importance. Divorce, drunk
Il ennesqs crime, corruption in cities all
have one root, the lust of money. This
is our American disease, do l. say, nay,
an American madness. For what is
4 The one eager dominant hunger which
in one form or other is expressing It
self through one characteristic combi-
nation conspiracy or another salutes us
from end to end OF this broad lana
1T is the passion, the hunger, the greed
sof gain. 1t is that more than any other
single influence determines our policies,
shapes our manners, inspires our max
inns. Touch what member you will in
1 the great body polite; challenge what
method you will in the complicated web
/ of our Industrial, political, social life
and you will find the question of gain
behind it. Listen to what scandal you
may in the haunts of politicians, in the
camps Of soldiers, in the halls of fash
ion. the final standard in the whole
business may usually be expressed by
a dollar mark. Listen to the talk of
children as they measure and compare
their elders; hear group of young girls
whose fresh youth one would think
ought in the matter of their most tender
and sacred affections to be as free from
sordid instinct as from the faint of
a. goddess cynicism, and you will find
aox thpir n11ina and NOT
Ito be had without it, any more than a
Circassian slave in the market of Bag
dad. Go where you will talk with
whom you will, with clergymen esti-
mating the promise of field for spirit
ual labor, with women rating the claims
aof other women, upon their social recog-
milton, with the heads of great univer-
stiles paralyzed with fright lest the in
discretion of some plain spoken
professor who tells his age the
truth in an hour when it
sorely needs to hear it, shall cut
down the revenues of the college-it is
no matter, that commercial question
is at the bottom of it and decides usual
1y all the others.
The situation, grave and threatening
a.s 1t is to all that is best in nations
life. is the result of causes that are not
far to seek. They are to be found in
the spirit of the age, In the conditions of
our national life, and in the standard
of our personal values.
And first in the spirit of the age. In
what is it that this age differs may be
asked from other ages that have gone
before it, Well, its chief difference, 1
should be disposed to say is in its pop
ular ideals. ] do not ask you to follow
me this evening over some wide range
of historical review, though I wish I
might show you how the history of the
Huguenots of France, and earlier of our
ancestors in contending with King John
for Magma Charta illustrates what I
have in mind, but take down from your
alcoves and read again Motley's history
of the Dutch Republic, or Bushnelrs
incomparable essay on the Founders of
the Republic. Great is their uncon-
seriousness, and you will understand
what mean. We may shout until we
are black in the face that we are the
greatest and the bravest and the big
gest and the strongest and the richest
nation in Christendom, but there comes
a strange hush in the voice and a
strange awe in the heart as we turn
back and read of what kind of stuff the
first corners to these shores mainly