e and come to my aid,
if I so desired. I need not say I took special pleasure in
this letter, which disclosed so unmistakably the honest and
brave heart of the man, who was then in his difficult office
fighting wild beasts at Ephesus. But I did not need to accept
his offer.

I was angrily denounced. But the leading Republican papers
soon came to my support. The Republican political leaders
generally, though quietly, approved what I had said and done.
The generous and just heart of the American people was stirred,
and the result was that the movement, inspired by bigotry
and intolerance, lost its force, languished for a year or
two, and was little heard of afterward.

I dare say that the same causes which excited it may provoke
a similar movement more than once hereafter. But I believe
it will fail as that failed.

I know how prone men are, especially old men, in telling
the story of their lives, to over-estimate the value and the
consequence of the things in which they have taken a part.
But I think I am not extravagant in claiming that the overthrow
of this dangerous delusion was of great value not only to
the Republican Party, but to the cause of religious liberty
in this country, and that the success of the A. P. A. would
have been the destruction of both.

CHAPTER XXX
THE ENGLISH MISSION

I may as well put on record here a matter which I suppose
has never been made public. When in President Hayes's time
Mr. Welsh resigned the English Mission, Mr. Lowell, then in
Spain, was strongly recommended for the place. Mr. Evarts,
Secretary of State, was quite unwilling to have Mr. Lowell
appointed. I fancied that Mr. Evarts might have been influenced
somewhat by his reluctance to appoint a Harvard man. He was
an exceedingly pleasant-natured man, with no bitterness in
him. But he entered with a good deal of zeal into the not
unhealthy rivalry between the two famous Universities, Harvard
and Yale. Of course I did not like that notion. President
Hayes had an exceedingly friendly feeling for Harvard. He
had studied at the Harvard Law School, and later had the degree
of Doctor of Laws there. Mr. Lowell hesitated about accepting
the duty. I said to the President: "In the matter of the
English Mission, if Mr. Lowell declines, I have a suggestion
to make which Mr. Evarts, I am afraid, won't like very well.
But I wish to ask you to consider it, Evarts or no Evarts."
My relations with both of them made thi