But, Mr. President, though all this is true, the seeds of our liberty,
our toleration, our free institutions, our "Church, not established by
law, but establishing itself in the hearts of men," were all in the
simple and single devotion of the truth so far as it was revealed to
them, which was the supreme characteristic of our New England
forefathers. With them religion and the Church meant supremely personal
religion, and obedience to the personal conscience. It meant truth and
righteousness, obedience and purity, reverence and intelligence in the
family, in the shop, in the field, and on the bench. It meant compassion
and charity toward the savages among whom they found themselves, and
good works as the daily outcome of a faith which, if stern, was
steadfast and undaunted.

And so, Mr. President, however the sentiments and opinions of our
ancestors may seem to have differed from ours, those New England
ancestors did believe in a church that included and incarnated those
ideas of charity and love and brotherhood to which you have referred;
and if, to-day, the Church of New York, whatever name it may bear, is to
be maintained, as one of your distinguished guests has said, not for
ornament but for use, it is because the hard, practical, and yet, when
the occasion demanded, large-minded and open-hearted spirit of the New
England ancestors shall be in it. [Applause.] Said an English swell
footman, with his calves nearly as large as his waist, having been
called upon by the lady of the house to carry a coal-scuttle from the
cellar to the second story, "Madam, ham I for use, or ham I for
hornament?" [Laughter.]

I believe it to be the mind of the men of New England ancestry who live
in New York to-day, that the Church, if it is to exist here, shall exist
for use, and not for ornament; that it shall exist to make our streets
cleaner, to make our tenement-houses better built and better drained and
better ventilated; to respect the rights of the poor man in regard to
fresh air and light, as well as the rights of the rich man. And in order
that it shall do these things, and that the Church of New York shall
exist not for ornament but for use, I, as one of the descendants of New
England ancestors, ask no better thing for it than that it shall have,
not only among those who fill its pulpits, men of New England ancestry,
but also among those who sit in its pews men of New England brains and
New England sympathies, and New England