The Washington herald., 1911-06-04
IN THE RELIGIOUS WORLD

| the people-that is the sense in which the
cathedral affords the greatest preaching
! place in America. one Of the greatest In
| the world. The man chosen to deliver
this message. or to select those who will
| deliver 1t, is the Rev. DR.. William NJ.
Grosvenor, still four years under fifty
years Of age, and one born and bred in
the city. not the country.
The Rev. DR.. Grosvenor was educated
| at Williams College and Berkeley. a small
divinity school at Middletown, Conn.
spent a short time as assistant at a
church in Brooklyn that is attended by
the fashionable and well-to-do, and then
went TO Lenox. Mass, a place where
many young man has been tried out
People Of power and influence come to
know young ministers there, and many
Of real ability are discovered there and
advanced elsewhere. Succeeding at Len
OK. young Grosvenor was chosen. fifteen
years ago and when he was only thirty
| one. to be rector of the Church of the
Incarnation, New York, succeeding the
| Rev. DR.. Arthur Brooks, a brother OF
Phillips Brooks. Admiral Farragut, Ad-
| miral Mahan. and other naval officers
have belonged there. Other members are
! the Reids, Of whom is the present Am.
bassador to England. and many business
and professional people Of similar rank
in real achievement
Incarnation parish under DR.. Grosvenor
has grown in equipment and in working
| membership, for plenty OF these wealthy
New York men. as we'll as women, give
time to personal work. in gifts to all sorts
or causes, so that amounts presented
each year to outside objects far exceed
| amounts expended at the Incarnation IT.
self. But DR.. Grosvenor has been much
| more than rector of a parish. He has
been and is the holder OF perhaps the
| more important all-around positions in
the Diocese OF New York and in the Epis-
| copal Church itself. A mere list of these
positions would take paragraph to
recite- Yet SO broad is he that within the
year he took steps legally to compel cleo
ton OF men in rotation in order that he
and few others might not monopolize
the chief places. He carried the matter
| TO success, and now in New York, as in
hardly any other diocese the occupants
of great positions are ineligible for re-
election. New men must be honored and
developed.
1t is instructive to note that the man
selected to preach in the greatest pulpit
in the New World has not won his sue
cess heretofore as d preacher. He is not
known as a preacher. He has never been
regarded by his congregation, by New
York. or by his church as a preacher Of
unusual merit. Students in theology
may learn a lesson. Dr. Grosvenor was
selected to be dean of the Cathedral OF
st. John the Divine and to preach or d.
rect the preaching in this great pulpit be-
cause of religious conditions in New
York and America - that is. he was
chosen because Of his preparation and
accumulated equipment and not because
OF unusual ability to deliver what he
knows. He can actually deliver a sermon
as well as most others, perhaps. but 1t is
not as an orator. not as the possessor Of
remarkable voice. not because OF physi-
cal presence. that he steps into one Of
the great places in the religious world
1t is because he is himself the message
With all of his ability. his private income
his command OF wealth. he is a bachelor
and two sisters preside over his home
To an extent never known before New
York City has lately drawn upon able
ministers of the rest of the country to
receive her big salaries and I'LL her IA
nous pulpits. New York's Protestant
churches are the largest in the world,
IN number OF members, in
financial incomes. in salaries paid TO
preachers. and in gifts to missions, any
churches of any name in London or Paris,
Berlin or Rome Within a very short
time New York has called to her pulpits
ten ministers to whom II pays S123,0 900 a
year in the aggregate. One Of those II
brought from Birmingham. England, and
one Is New York born. The other eight
came from other American cities
In every one OF the eight cases the men
called were doing important work in