I shall still less
attempt to discover the open secret of his rare and unique charm and
attractiveness as a man; and I shall least of all endeavor to forecast
the place which history will give to him among the leaders and
builders of our age. Brief as was his ministry in his higher office,
and to our view all too soon ended, I shall be content to speak of him
as a bishop,--of his divine right, as I profoundly believe, to a place
in the episcopate, and of the preeminent value of his distinctive and
incomparable witness to the highest aim and purpose of that office.
And first of all let me say a word in regard to the way in which he
came to it. When chosen to the episcopate of this diocese, your late
bishop had already, at least once, as we all know, declined the
office. It was well known to those who knew him best that, as he had
viewed it for a large part of his ministry, it was a work for which
he had no especial sympathy either as to its tasks, or, as he had
understood them, its opportunities.
But the time undoubtedly came when, as to this, he modified his
earlier opinions; and the time came too, as I am most glad to think,
when he was led to feel that if he were called to such an office he
might find in it an opportunity for widening his own sympathies and
for estimating more justly those with whom previously he had believed
himself to have little in common.
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