lly rescued the songsters
of the world--in part, at any rate. The heavenly orchestra, with its
exquisite prelude of dawn and its tremulous evensong, was spared.

Many years ago Thomas Carlyle described us as "forty million Americans,
mostly fools." He declared we would flounder on the ballot-box, and that
the right of suffrage would be the ruin of this Government. The "forty
million of fools" had done tolerably well for the small amount of brain
Carlyle permitted them.

Better and better did America become to me as the years went by. I never
wanted to live anywhere else. Many believed that Christ was about to
return to His reign on earth, and I felt confident that if such a divine
descent could be, it would come from American skies. I did not believe
that Christ would descend from European skies, amidst alien thrones. I
foresaw the time when the Democracy of Americans would be lifted so that
the President's chair could be set aside as a relic; when penitentiaries
would be broken-down ruins; almshouses forsaken, because all would be
rich, and hospitals abandoned, because all would be well.

If Christ were really coming, as many believed, the moment of earthly
paradise was at hand.

THE ELEVENTH MILESTONE

1886-1887

The balance of power in Brooklyn and New York during my lifetime had
always been with the pulpit. I was in my fifty-fourth year, and had
shared honours with the most devout and fearless ministers of the Gospel
so long that when two monster receptions were proposed, in celebration
of the services of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher and Rev. R.S. Storrs, D.D., I
became almost wickedly proud of the privileges of my associations. These
two eminent men were in the seventies. Dr. Storrs had been installed
pastor of the Church of Pilgrims in 1846; Mr. Beecher pastor of Plymouth
Church in 1847. They were both stalwart in body then, both New
Englanders, both Congregationalists, mighty men, genial as a morning in
June. Both world-renowned, but different. Different in stature, in
temperament, in theology. They had reached the fortieth year of pastoral
service. No movement for the welfare of Brooklyn in all these years was
without the benediction of their names.

The pulpit had accomplished wonders. In Brooklyn alone look at the
pulpit-builders. There were Rev. George W. Bethune of the Dutch Reformed
Church, Rev. Dr. Samuel H. Cox, Rev. W. Ichabod Spencer, Rev. Dr. Samuel
Thayer Speer of the Presbyterian Church, D