DC 146 
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 SERMON PREACHED 
 IN THE 
 
 CHURCH OF THE MESSIAH 
 
 Greene and Clermont Avenues 
 BROOKLYN-NEW YORK 
 
 SUNDAY, MAY 13, 1917 
 
 BY THE RECTOR 
 
 REV. ST. CLAIR HESTER, D.D. 
 
 (PRINTED BY REQUEST) 
 
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 The Lafayette Memorial 
 
 Prospect Park, Brooklyn' New York 
 Unveiled by JOSEPH JOFFRE 
 
 Marshal of France 
 
 MAY 10th, 1917 
 
 THE MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE 
 This statue was erected and presented by 
 
 HENPvY HAKTEAU 
 
 a distinguished citizen of Brooklyn, to be an enduring tribute to the 
 memory of one who as friend and companion of the immortal 
 Washington, fought to establish in our country those vital principles 
 of Liberty and human brotherhood, which he afterward labored to 
 establish in his own. 
 
 Inscription upon front of the base. 
 
Sllfp l&tv. e>t. ailair ^taUr, l.B. 
 
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Text Joshua 18 :40. Israel gave an inheritance to Joshua. 
 
 But Joshua first gave valuable prolonged and highly important 
 service to Israel. Virtue is sure of a reward. It may not come 
 quickly but it comes. It may not be in material form but in 
 what counts for more, moral and spiritual obhgation. It may 
 not reach complete expression in the life-time of the one who 
 earns and deserves it, but because an obligation, surviving and 
 continuing in the hearts of those he leaves behind, it grows with 
 the passing years and becomes endowed with immortality. 
 
 Joshua and Lafayette— a hero of the old dispensation and 
 a hero of the new. It seems a far cry from one to the other. 
 But study the careers, the characters, the achievements of these 
 two men and the dissimilarities will become less glaring and the 
 resemblances more striking than at the first mention of their 
 names. Both were decidedly men of war, both were distinguished 
 leaders in their day, both held positions of the highest responsi- 
 bility and trust, both were brave to the point of rashness, both 
 performed services which will Hve undimmed on the pages of 
 history, both have been acclaimed and commended by all succeed- 
 ing generations. Both came forth from an old to a new country 
 to aid in building up a new nation and both lived to see their 
 efforts crowned with the most extraordinary success. Joshua's 
 military achievements were the greater but Lafayette's were the 
 more disinterested. 
 
 Israel gave an inheritance to Joshua, America through the 
 generosity of a citizen and with the co-operation of the officials 
 and people of its greatest city on May 10th, gave an inheritance 
 to Lafayette. In Joshua's case it was a city to dwell in and to 
 have and hold as his own and while he was yet alive. In La- 
 fayette's case it was and is a perpetual gratitude and affection of 
 a people, testified to and demonstrated nearly a hundred years 
 after his death. The proudly fluttering banners, the bursts of 
 martial music, the enthusiasm of a vast concourse of people, the 
 merry shouts of little children, the likeness moulded in enduring 
 bronze, all these taken together may be conceived of as an address 
 
LAFAYETTE. THE APOSTLE OF LIBERTY 
 
 to the soul of Lafayette, "we do not forget, we do not forget, 
 our praise, our honor, our appreciation is your inheritance and 
 it is human, because inshrined in the heart of humanity it can 
 never cease to be." 
 
 There is a pecuhar fitness in the people of this Church of 
 the Messiah listening to words about the great man in whose 
 honor a memorial has been unveiled so recently in our Borough 
 by a Marshal of France. For one reason which may be men- 
 tioned nowhere else, because Henry Harteau, who provided for 
 the memorial in his will was an enrolled parishioner of this 
 church for more than fifteen years, 1880-1895. My predecessor, 
 the late Rev. Dr. Charles R. Baker, was an intimate friend of 
 his and ofificiated on the occasion when his mortal remains were 
 laid to rest. His wife, Mrs. Margaret N. Harteau, it was my 
 privilege to know well and visit frequently and when the end 
 came to enter her name upon a memorial to our departed mem- 
 bers. Mr. Harteau was of French descent, a distinguished citizen 
 of Brooklyn, active and useful in the service of the public and 
 died happy in the thought that he had done something to per- 
 petuate America's appreciation of the services of the great apostle 
 of liberty who came to her rescue in the time of her weakness 
 and need. We rejoice that Henry Harteau was moved by a fine 
 sense of honor to whom honor is due to provide funds for the 
 erection of this memorial. Like him we believe that the valuable 
 services rendered to our country by this truly great and self- 
 sacrificing man at the most critical time in its history piled up 
 a debt of obligation which continues undiminished and undis- 
 charged through all succeeding generations. 
 
 Let me review as briefly as possible the life and labors of 
 the man whose memory our sometime parishioner, our fellow 
 citizens and our distinguished visitors have delighted to honor. 
 
 The Marquis de Lafayette was born in the Castle of Chav- 
 aniac, the seat of his mother's family in Auvergne, September 6, 
 1757. His father, a Colonel of Grenadiers, fell at the battle 
 of Minden, and his mother and her father, the Marquis de la 
 Riviere, both died Mobile he was at the College du Plessis in 
 Paris, leaving him the absolute master of a fortune of $30,000 a 
 
maim 
 
 LAFAYETTE, THE APOSTLE OF LIBERTY 
 
 year. August 31, 1774, he married Marie Adrienne de Noailles, 
 daughter of the Due d'Ayen, and grand-daughter of the Due de 
 Noailles. By this alliance he was introduced into the exclusive 
 set that revolved about the person of Louis XVI and the young 
 queen Marie Antoinette. He would accept no post in the royal 
 household, his serious and earnest nature recoiling from the 
 arts and accomplishments of the gallant and the courtier. When 
 he heard of the revolt of the colonies on the far side of the 
 Atlantic "his heart was enlisted" and after consultation with 
 the American Commissioner, Mr. Dean, determined to proceed 
 thither and enlist in their cause. Unable to procure passage on 
 any ship, he fitted out one at his own expense. The dissuasions 
 of friends, the efforts of his family and even the express order 
 of the King did not avail to stop him. He succeeded in escaping 
 from the guards sent to arrest and detain him and in reaching 
 his ship at Bordeaux. Though pursued on the high seas by 
 British men-of-war, he managed to elude them and landed on 
 the shore of the Pedee River in South CaroHna, June 14, 1777. 
 With his companion, Baron DeKalb, he made the long journey 
 to Philadelphia and arrived there during the sitting of the Con- 
 tinental Congress. He offered his services with the request that 
 he be made a general. His offer met with rude repulse and he 
 was told that he could not be put over older men who had earned 
 promotion by good service in the field. But when he offered 
 to serve without pay and as a volunteer without rank he received 
 the coveted appointment. It was a dark hour of the Revolution. 
 New York and Newport were in the hands of the enemy. Ticon- 
 deroga had fallen, Lord Howe was about to attack Philadelphia, 
 the American army was small and poorly equipped, but all this 
 made no difference with him. "His heart was enlisted." He 
 became a firm friend and volunteer Aid de Camp on the staff 
 of General Washington and followed him loyally to the end of 
 the contest. At the battle of Brandy wine, while attempting to 
 rally the broken American line, he received a bullet in his leg. 
 On other occasions he further distinguished himself and finally, 
 upon the recommendation of the Commander-in-Chief, he was 
 placed in command of a division of Virginia militia. He re- 
 
LAFAYETTE. THE APOSTLE OF LIBERTY 
 
 mained with the army during the terrible winter at Valley Forge. 
 This experience doubtless influenced him to seek help for the 
 desperate cause of the colonies. Returning to France in 1779 
 he was instrumental in securing an auxiliary force of several 
 thousand men for service in North America. The result with 
 this reinforcement is known to all the world. The French fleet 
 under Count de Grasse and the French land forces under La- 
 fayette and Viomenil co-operated with such good efifect with our 
 forces that Lord Cornwallis was forced to surrender at York- 
 town and the Revolution attained its object of making the United 
 States free and independent. 
 
 Upon his return to France Lafayette was received with great 
 popular enthusiasm, even the King who had forbidden him to 
 go to America forgetting his displeasure and making him a 
 marshal of France. He was particularly useful at this juncture 
 in helping our representatives negotiate a treaty of peace and in 
 securing for our country a substantial and badly needed loan. 
 In 1784 he revisited America. After spending a fortnight with 
 General Washington at Mount Vernon he journeyed through 
 the principal cities of the country, his reception everywhere 
 resembling a triumphal progress. 
 
 His enthusiasm for liberty and the halo of the reputation he 
 had won in America enabled him to play a leading part in the 
 early stages of the French Revolution. He was a member of 
 the States General or National Assembly when he offered his 
 famous revolutionary manifesto known as the rights of men and 
 citizens. He was made Vice-President and later on Commander- 
 in-Chief of the National Guard, and after the removal of the 
 seat of government from Paris was the most popular as well 
 as the most powerful man in the Kingdom. When the mob 
 marched out to Versailles, thirsting for the blood of royalty, and 
 Marie Antoinette appeared upon the balcony, a pathetic figure 
 in her helplessness, though Lafayette knew the deadly pur- 
 pose of those present and saw guns leveled upon her and that 
 in befriending her he was risking his own life, he stood by her 
 and courteously raised her hand to his lips and thus for the time 
 being saved her from violence. His opposition to the fanatical 
 
LAFAYETTE, THE APOSTLE OF LIBERTY 
 
 Jacobins and his stand for reason, moderation and humane meas- 
 ures made him unpopular with the extremists who became 
 supreme. Eventually he was compelled to flee the country and 
 falling into the hands of the Austrians remained their prisoner 
 for five weary years until Napoleon secured his release in 1797. 
 After the fall of the great Corsican, Lafayette served his country 
 in various capacities, as member of the Chamber of Deputies, 
 and as Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard. In 1824, 
 forty years after his former visit, at the invitation of President 
 Monroe, he again visited the United States. No guest of the 
 nation was ever received with greater reverence or affection. He 
 was looked upon as the hero of twO' continents. 
 
 The then venerable Lafayette laid the cornerstone of the 
 Bunker Hill monument during this visit, on which occasion 
 Daniel Webster referred to him in an eloquent apostrophe as "the 
 man who had conducted the spark of liberty from the new world 
 to the old." It was a solemn and sacred moment during this visit 
 when he stood alone and with bowed head by the grave of Wash- 
 ington. Over the dust of the great dead the patriot of France 
 paid the homage of his tears. Though an aristocrat by birth and 
 blood, though descended from a noble and ancient line, though 
 the associate and intimate of kings and queens and the most 
 exalted of the earth, he was democratic in his tastes and habits, 
 the friend and champion of the common people, never assumed 
 airs of superiority, the same modest, fearless, exemplary char- 
 acter in all situations, unaffected by rank, fame or adulation. 
 Two incidents illustrate this side of his nature. He eagerly 
 seconded the proposal to abolish all titles of nobility when the 
 republican era was being inaugurated in France, and never after 
 that permitted himself to be addressed as marquis. Again when 
 Napoleon wanted to make him a Peer of France he declined 
 the dignity and accepted, instead, a mandate to serve in the 
 Chamber of Deputies. 
 
 Love for our country and what it stands for was never better 
 expressed than in a letter to his wife written on board his ship, 
 the "Victory," when on his way to enhst in our struggle for 
 freedom : "From love to me become a good American ; the wel- 
 
LAFAYETTE. THE APOSTLE OF LIBERTY 
 
 fare of America is closely bound up with the welfare of all 
 mankind, it is about to become the safe asylum of virtue, toler- 
 ance, equality and peaceful liberty." He backed up these fine 
 words with deeds equally fine and entirely convincing. By the 
 time he left America at the close of the Revolution he had ex- 
 pended in the service of Congress 700,000 francs, a fortune in- 
 those days, perhaps more than any other individual had given, 
 a free gift to the cause of liberty. Though born to wealth, he 
 was not spoiled by it, using it freely to advance the general good 
 of mankind rather than to promote his own interests or to 
 minister to his personal enjoyments. 
 
 One of the pleasing things about him to all Americans was 
 the affectionate friendship which existed between himself and 
 General Washington. He looked up to Washington as to a 
 father as well as a chief and Washington regarded him with a 
 tenderness truly paternal. Lafayette named his eldest son 
 George Washington and never omitted any opportunity to tes- 
 tify his love and veneration for the illustrious American. 
 Franklin was equally fond of him and once wrote General Wash- 
 ington asking him, for the sake of his young and anxious wife, 
 not to expose his life except in an important and decisive 
 engagement. 
 
 Reverses, discouragements, defeats did not cool his ardor or 
 alter his determination once his soul was committed. When he 
 was laying plans to come to America, alarming and distressing 
 news reached Paris — the retreat from Long Island, the loss of 
 New York, the battle of White Plains, a triumphal army of 
 33,000 English and Hessians driving a disheartened band of 
 3,000 militia across New Jersey — even some of the Americans 
 tried to persuade him that it was useless to go, that all was lost. 
 But he said to Mr. Dean, "We must feel confidence for the 
 future, it is especially in the hour of danger that I wish to share 
 your fortunes." 
 
 "May this immense temple of freedom ever stand a lesson 
 to oppression, an example to the oppressed, as a sanctuary for 
 the rights of mankind." These were the glowing words in which 
 Lafayette, the great apostle of liberty and fighter for freedom. 
 
LAFAYETTE, THE APOSTLE OF LIBERTY 
 
 bade farewell to the first Congress of the United States which 
 his sword had helped to bring into being. What more impres- 
 sive closing could there be to this hasty review than these prayer- 
 ful words ? Freedom and the rights of mankind by his bravery, 
 his untiring zeal, his blood and treasure freely expended, he helped 
 very materially to make this country the temple of the one and 
 the sanctuary of the other. It is a priceless inheritance which de- 
 scends to the Americans of this generation, and they as worthy 
 sons of worthy sires are duty bound to protect and defend it and 
 to bequeath it as a blessing unimpaired to their posterity. More 
 than this let it be America's mission to enlarge the scope of its 
 beneficence, to make it to shine as a light to them that sit in dark- 
 ness and in the shadow of death, a light of guidance, of help, of 
 inspiration to the oppressed and despairing people of every land. 
 Lafayette helped to give us this splendid inheritance. As proof 
 and demonstration of our appreciation of it let us so perform and 
 conclude our part in this great world war that all mankind may 
 see our good works and get the benefits of our sacrifice and serv- 
 ice and be inspired to feel kindher one towards another and to 
 give greater glory to the God and Father of us all. What this 
 noble Frenchman did for our nation may our nation, under God, 
 be permitted to do in some large measure for all nations, for all 
 mankind. 
 
 His life may serve as an inspiration, an inspiration par- 
 ticularly needed at. this eventful time, to make sacrifices and, if 
 need be, to sufifer in furtherance of the great cause for which 
 he and since his time his nation has stood, the cause of Hberty, 
 equality and fraternity. Other generations of Americans have 
 poured out their blood and treasure freely and without hesita- 
 tion to upbuild these principles of pure democracy and high 
 civilization, and now the opportunity has come for our gene- 
 ration to take our place and do our part following in the foot- 
 steps of our worthy forbears. To make the whole world safe 
 for democracy, to give the common people freedom to elect and 
 execute systems of government in accord with their preference 
 and rights, to put an end to the interminable and intolerable fears 
 and plottings, suspicions and preparations that lead to wars, to 
 
LAFAYETTE, THE APOSTLE OF LIBERTY 
 
 establish a victorious league of honor among nations, to restore 
 and then maintain the peace of the world — are there not here 
 things worth sacrificing and suffering and fighting for? Can we 
 for a single moment be in any doubt as to what the brave La- 
 fayette would do were he alive to face with us the present world 
 crisis? What he did for our nation, our nation, true to its soul, 
 he helped to create, has opportunity under God to help do for 
 all nations. The cause of the people is the cause of God. Jesus 
 Christ gave His life in an effort to save mankind from sorrow, 
 sin and death. Is not a nation following His example, helping 
 to complete His work when it devotes itself, without thought 
 of or desire for material gain, to the suppression and eradica- 
 tion of systems, forces, ambitions and purposes, that stand in 
 the way of humanity's progress in justice, happiness and peace? 
 I believe so and if I did not I would oppose this last terrible 
 extreme of force with all the energy of which I am capable. 
 But I see in our nation's decision to enter the conflict something 
 of that noble disinterestedness, that consideration for the weak 
 and needy which have influenced men of like soul with La- 
 fayette who through the ages have formed connecting links in 
 a spiritual chain that reaches back to the soul of Him who, in 
 behalf of man's redemption, yielded up the ghost on the cross 
 of Calvary. 
 
 The happiness and well being of mankind are bound up with 
 the future of democracy and we believe with Lafayette that it 
 is the destiny of America to be the stronghold and inspiration 
 of this universal democracy. France, the homeland of Lafayette, 
 our sister republic, is bleeding to death. Mr. Balfour says that 
 on the fate of France depends the fate of the world. The call 
 to the rescue has been sounded by our President. Every instinct 
 of gratitude and generosity impels us to respond quickly, gladly, 
 with men, munitions, money, with all our power. For its own 
 sake, for Lafayette's sake, let us register our unbreakable deter- 
 mination that La Belle France shall not be destroyed. In this 
 world crisis God puts an issue before us so plainly, so unes- 
 capably that the alternative is either fight in the cause of suffering 
 
LAFAYETTE, THE APOSTLE OF LIBERTY 
 
 humanity or become yourselves sufferers and perish with the 
 other sufferers. 
 
 Where the spirit of the Lord is there is hberty. The spirit 
 of the Lord God was in the soul of the great Lafayette, the spirit 
 of the Lord God energizes and operates in the soul of America 
 today. May the spirit of the Lord God possess and fill and 
 ennoble the soul of all men everywhere until the time shall come 
 when the nations of this world become the Kingdoms of our 
 Lord and His Christ and the horror of war and hating shall be 
 no more, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away and all tears 
 shall be wiped away from the faces of God's long-suffering 
 children, and we shall have a new world wherein dwelleth right- 
 eousness, and all men shall have opportunity to enjoy life, liberty 
 and the pursuit of happiness and to share in the blessings of 
 brotherhood, love and peace. 
 
 (La reconnaissance m'oblige.) 
 
BROOKLYN EAGLE PRESS 
 
030 268 361 "