and your own ambassador, the Hon. Mr. Bayard, wrote to me, the day after we met on board that same ship Chicago, at a reception given by the Admiral, "This grip of the hand between the two nations is good for all honest men.” * Permit me to speak a few words now as to the subject and object of my addresses. It is thought by those at whose call I come, that, having lived a long life amid circumstances different to your own, and also different from each other, in castles and in cottages, in cities and villages, with all sorts and conditions of men, prince and peasant, with ecclesiastics and sportsmen, with authors and artists, soldiers and sailors, farmers, gardeners, artisans, rich and poor, old and young, I might interest you in some of the incidents and individuals which have impressed me most; and that I might offer to you from my observation and experience information, which you are desirous to receive, or you would hardly be here to-night, concerning our men and women, our habits and customs, our institutions and avocations, our gravities and gaieties in the small island over the sea. It may amuse and entertain you to notice the similarities and the divergences, the contrast and the congruity between our surroundings and your own. The final and financial purpose of my addresses is to help the Restoration of the Cathedral, of which I am Dean, and if I have good success, some religious work in America also. We have lost from agricultural distress nearly half our income, and are turned into mendicant friars on behalf of our beautiful churches. One little incident, suggested by the association of a Dean and cathedral restoration, I am constrained to narrate, before I enter seriously upon the subject of my first lecture; and let me entreat you to forgive me, and not to denounce me as frivolous, or in my anecdotage, if I am carried away now and then by my irresistible love of the humorous, because I can no more suppress a good story when it rises to my lips, than a moneyless schoolboy can repress a sigh when he passes a confectioner's shop. "Well! be the graceless lineaments confest! I do enjoy this beauteous, bounteous earth; Within the limits of becoming mirth.” My centre of gravity is the pulpit, but I hold myself free on the platform to pass at will from grave to gay, from lively to severe. I am an optimist (I made this statement at a public meeting some little time ago, and the local reporter informed the public that "the worthy Dean went on to say that he was an oculist"), and I oft remember with admiration Haydn's answer to the question of Carpani, How is it that your music is so bright and happy? Because, replied Haydn, all things around me, all GOD'S works, are so bright and happy, with beauty, and goodness, and love. And so, once upon a time, there was a Dean, so fond and proud of his cathedral, that he came by degrees to think and speak of it as though he were the sole proprietor; and one evening, just before the conclusion of a lecture on Thought-Reading, at which he presided, he came upon the platform, with much dignity of demeanour, with his arms crossed upon his breast, and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I have much pleasure in informing you that Mr. Cumberland has intimated to me his most kind intention to devote any profits, which may accrue from his lecture, to the restoration of my western front." II. ECCLESIASTICAL. The American Episcopate - Bishops of To-day - The Church of England Fifty Years Ago - In the Villages — The Fabric — Services Sermons - Music - The Transformation. You will acknowledge, I am sure, a grace of congruity, when as an ecclesiastic I address you, in the first instance, concerning the Church to which I belong, and may I not add to which so many of you, her great, great-grandchildren, belong also? Ten years ago it was my privilege to be present at Aberdeen to celebrate the centenary of the consecration of Dr. Samuel Seabury, as first Bishop of Connecticut. His successor was there, with other bishops of your Protestant Episcopal Church. "We took sweet counsel together, and walked in the House of GOD as friends;" and the words of the Psalmist made music in our ears, "Behold, how good and joyful a thing it is, brethren, to dwell together in unity." In 1787, Dr. Provost, Bishop of New York, and Dr. White of Pennsylvania, were consecrated by Dr. Moore, the Primate of all England, and other bishops; in 1790, Dr. Mattison, Bishop of Virginia. And so, in the century that is past and in the ages to come, there has been and there shall be this intercourse of holy love. In the year 1872, as a sign of this sacred sympathy, a magnificent alms-dish for the offerings of the faithful was sent from the Church of America to the Church of England by the hands of Bishop George Augustus Selwyn, with the inscription, Orbis veteri novus, occidens orienti, filia matri. This offering was presented in St. Paul's Cathedral by Bishop Selwyn and Bishop McIlvaine of Ohio, to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and on the following day, the famous Fourth of July, the day on which the great American nation achieved its political freedom, Bishop Selwyn telegraphed to Bishop Potter of New York, "The Alms-basin has been presented. Independence is not disunion.” Moreover, I have the happiness of a personal acquaintance with several of your bishops ("The American bishops," Archbishop Trench said, during a Pan-Anglican Conference, "seem to me about the ablest body of men I ever met"), have had the honour of welcoming some to my home, and have received from them many most genial invitations to visit them while I am in the States. And it was a clergyman in the diocese of New York from whom I received the earnest entreaty to come over and give these lectures, which finally confirmed my desire. He wrote from Rochester to Rochester, as Rector of the Church of St. Andrew in America, to the Dean of the Cathedral of St. Andrew in England (for such was our original dedication), and when I sent my reply it seemed as if heart spoke to heart, and brother clasped the hand of brother "One the object of our journey, One the gladness of rejoicing, On the far eternal shore." |