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PREACHED IN ST. PAUL'S CHAPEL
New York City
FEBRUARY 22nd. 1922
BY
The Right Reverend
FREDERICK BURGESS, D.D„ L.L.D.
Bishop of Long Island
This service is held annually in St. Paul's under the auspices of
®I)0 ^ulgrati? Justttution
IN HONOR OF
George Washington

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Issued by the American Branch of
THE SULGRAVE INSTITUTION
233 BROADWAY. NEW YORK
February 1922

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PREACHED IN ST, PAUL'S CHAPEL
New York City
FEBRUARY 22nd. 1922
BY
The Right Reverend
FREDERICK BURGESS, D.D., L.L,D.
Bishop of Long Island
This service is held annually in St, Paul's under the auspices of
©iy? ^ttlgraw Jttsitttuttnn
IN HONOR OF
George Washington

^

Issued by the American Branch of
THE SULGRAVE INSTITUTION
233 BROADWAY, NEW YORK
February 1922

ECCLESIASTICUS XXXII : 8, 9,
"Blessed is the rich that is found w ithout
blemish, and hath not gone after gold. W ho
is he? and we will call him blessed, for won
derful things hath he done among his people."

In July, 1920, it was my privilege to be present in Lon
don at the meeting presided over by Lord Bryce, when the
Hon. Elihu Root, in a speech of great power, presented the
replica of St. Gaudens' statue of Lincoln to the people of
Great Britain. It was then accepted by the Prime Minister,
the Hon, Lloyd George, No one who stood in the rain that
afternoon before Westminster Abbey and witnessed the
unveiling of this noble monument and listened to the singing
by the Abbey Choir of our national anthem could forget the
scene or feel anything but gratitude to the Sulgrave Institu
tion which had inspired this gift to London,
Therefore, when I received this courteous invitation to
preach before you on Washington's Birthday, I was happy
to accept, although I cannot claim to be an expert in history
and had but short time in which to formulate my thoughts
in regard to one whose personalit}^, in spite of the fact that
his acts were in the full light of day, is shrouded in mystery.
Yet I believe that we may find new incentives to patriotism
and higher views of our duties to our Country even by an
imperfect study of the Founder of our Republic, There
seemed no better text than this from that treasury of ethical
thoughts, the Book of Ecclesiasticus. The man who refused
to receive any salary for his services as General in Chief of
the Army and who in the darkest hour of the war offered
to sacrifice his whole large fortune in its service can be
described in no more fitting words than these, "Blessed is
the rich that is found without blemish and hath not gone
after gold. Who is he? and we will call him blessed, for
wonderful things hath he done among his people,"
I am thinking of him today as a Christian and Church-
3

man. To doubt the sincerity of his devotion to the Epis
copal Church would be to make a hypocrite of one of the
bravest men that ever lived, and that is a psychological im
possibility. After his inauguration in the old City Hall in
Wall Street on April 30th, 1789, accompanied by the whole
official body he walked to this Chapel, where he was received
by Bishop Provoost and appropriate prayers were read ask
ing the blessing of God upon the first President of the
United States. This impressive fact can not be too strongly
or too frequently emphasized.
The Episcopal Church was at that time hopelessly un
popular. In England the Bishops had voted in Parliament
unanimously for the coercion of the Colonies, and the sym
pathizers with the Revolution had to be sought for among
the Non-conformists. In America, with only very few ex
ceptions, the Clergy of the Episcopal Church persisted in a
strict interpretation of their ordination vows and in praying
publicly for the King, while many prominent families in the
Episcopal Church were strongly Tory in their sympathies.
Franklin had one way of dealing with this problem. When
the Committee of Safety in Philadelphia was asked to call
upon the Episcopal Clergy to refrain from prayers for the
King, Franklin made this ironical reply, which must have
resulted in laying the matter on the table, "The measure is
quite unnecessary, for the Episcopal Clergy, to my certain
knowledge, have been constantly praying these twenty
years that God would give to the King and his Council
wisdom, and we know that not the least notice has ever been
taken of that prayer." But, while Franklin thus made hght
of the difficulty with his ready wit, Washington, during the
short time he held military possession of New York, took a
different method. He sent word to Dr. Inglis, the Rector of
Trinity, telling him that he wished to attend St. Paul's
Chapel and asking him to discontinue the royal petition.
He received a blunt refusal. We hardly know, as we reflect
on the incident, which to admire the more, the courage of
the Priest who stood by his conviction or the magnanimity
of the Commander in Chief who made no retaliation. The

attempt afterwards made to drown out the service by a
military band introduced into this Chapel was an act proba
bly of mischievous soldiers.
I have dwelt on this service of consecration because of
its peculiar significance in our estimate of Washington's
character. What a man does at such a solemn moment in
his life has a deep meaning. He was a man who sometimes
liked display, whose horses were always handsome, who
drove often in state such as was equalled by no one else in
America, but he was the last man to use religion for display.
That service was held because he loved his Church and
wanted its aid in the supreme hour of his life. It gives the
clue to his conduct both as commander and as a statesman.
We can see his character as a General when we com
pare him with Napoleon and with Cromwell. Napoleon was
the man of destiny, believing in his "star," as he said. If
he had a religion it was sharply divorced from any morality.
"What are a hundred thousand men to me?" he asked, after
the Russian retreat. To make himself the Emperor of Eu
rope was his only aim, and it is true of him that he waded
"Through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind."
Cromwell was deeply religious, but his religion was that
of the Old Testament. He made England great and power
ful, but it was by subjecting almost half the people to his
iron will, Washington sought nothing for himself. He
entered the cause of America to defend the rights of all the
citizens. To make America a place where all men should
have equal rights and equal opportunity was the cause for
which he was ready to give his life.
I would that I had the skill and the time to tell of his
victories and defeats. I would Hke to tell of that masterly
retreat from Brooklyn Heights, when the enemy had almost
broken through his entrenchments and when the British
Navy was threatening his rear, how boat after boat went
out into the darkness of the night carrying men, horses, an-d
guns, the General himself superintending the whole move-
5

ment and leaving in the last boat. When morning broke
the enemy had the Heights, but the American Army was
safe. Could we picture him at Valley Forge in the darkest
hour, his soldiers without food, with torn and scanty cloth
ing, covering their naked feet with strips of blanket, and
with the snow stained with the blood from their feet as they
marched, we should know what heroism is. And yet with
that same Army when the Spring had passed he won the
Battle of Monmouth. Did he pray then? Ah, who can
doubt? We do not need the picture which is put in our
schools to tell us that. Not in that picturesque attitude, not
with spotless uniform and well-fed horse. No, but thin and
gaunt, and by himself on many a cheerless freezing night
he prayed to God to hear him when Congress was deaf to
his manly appeals.
It has been claimed that his conduct toward Andre was
not Christian. Lincoln would have pardoned him. Perhaps
so. But Lincoln was not a General, At this time the Com
mander of West Point had deserted, treachery was lurking
within the lines of the Army, the enemy was gloating over
his approachirig triumph; it was no time from a military
standpoint for clemency, and unless we condemn war en
tirely, the General was justified in his action. In England
there were people who thought differently. A Miss Seward,
a third rate poetess, wrote a sonnet in which she upbraided
Washington's barbarous act and his "Nero thirst for blood."
Years afterward, when one of his aides was visiting Eng
land, Washington commissioned him to seek out Miss
Seward, to try to show her his own view-point and to tell
her that that decision was the hardest and saddest he had
ever had to make.
The tomb of Andre is in Westminster Abbey, the statue
of Nathan Hale stands on the Campus at New Haven. The
examples of these two young men, equally brave, generous,
patriotic, condemned to an equally ignominious death, seem
now, after the lapse of these many years, to unite the two
peoples whom they represent in a closer bond of respect if
not of affection.

The difficulties in the spiritual life of a Christian soldier
were increased in the Colonies in the eighteenth century,
just as they were in France three years ago, by the sad
divisions of our common Christianity. This was Washing
ton's way of meeting the need of Communion which he felt
as in Morristown he awaited a day of battle. The only
Church was Presbyterian. He asked the Minister of the
Church if he could receive the Communion. "Most cer
tainly," the Clergyman answered, "ours is not the Presby
terian table, but the Lord's table." "I am glad of that,"
answered Washington, "that is as it should be"; and ac
cordingly, the account says, he took his place among the
communicants. Have I been making him out a saint? I should be sorry
to do so, for saints are very unreal persons to most men. He
drank altogether too much for a 20th Century saint here in
America. His letters are too full of particulars about his
madeira and clarets and enlarge altogether too much on the
promise of that kind of entertainment to his friends when
they shall visit Mt. Vernon. Then, too, he had a violent
temper, which, if it once got out of control of his strong
will, manifested itself in oaths and threats such as made the
offender tremble. He was fond of women's society and of
dancing, but there is no truth in any of the slanders against
his purity of life. He honored woman and he was true, as
in everything else, so also to his marriage vows. He had a
certain kind of hauteur, he was aristocratic in his feelings.
I regret to say it to the members of your Society, he did not
take a very great interest in the question of his Sulgrave
ancestry. Perhaps it was quite enough for him to know-
that his family had for three generations been settled on
Virginia land and to claim the title of a gentleman. It
was not only as a general but as a gentleman that he sent
back unopened the letter which Lord Howe had sent him,
directed without the title due him, and he continued to do
it until the Englishman learned his lesson. As a Conti
nental officer, he had suffered many slights and insults and
some wrongs from the King's regulars, and I suppose now
7

he took some satisfaction in asserting his claim to respect.
It is wonderful to see how he struggled to raise the standard
and rank of his whole army. He put a stop to the custom of
the choosing of the officers by the soldiers, and insisted that
the officers appointed should be of gentle birth and breeding.
"In your choice of officers," he wrote to his colonels, "take
none but gentlemen." I wonder what would have been his
definition of that word. The 15th Psalm has been called
the gentleman's Psalm, and as we read it every verse seems
to fit into his unstained and honorable career. "He that
hath used no deceit in his tongue, nor done evil to his neigh
bor, and hath not slandered his neighbor. He that sweareth
unto his neighbor and disappointeth him not though it were
to his own hindrance. He that hath not given his money
upon usury nor taken reward against the innocent." Cer
tainly with this standard George Washington needs no
proud pedigree to establish his right to bear the arms of a
gentleman. He gave, too, as a gentleman. When his friend, La
fayette, was thrown into a French prison, though ready
money was hard for him to get at that time, he immediately
sent what was a large sum for that day to his friend's wife.
When, toward the end of his life, a pestilence came to Penn
sylvania, he sent to Bishop White a large gift for the suf
ferers, but strictly enjoined him that his name was not to be
mentioned in connection with the offering.
"And thus he bore without abuse
The grand old name of gentleman.
Defamed by every charlatan.
And soil'd with all ignoble use."
If Washington was the Christian soldier, he was no less
the Christian statesman. We must always remember that
he was reserved and self-controlled. He had none of the
poet's gifts of expression. He could not reveal himself as
Lincoln could sometimes in some lightning phrase which
seemed almost to give a glimpse into the recesses of his soul,
but the flash not lasting long enough to reveal the mystery.

We have to judge Washington by his deeds rather than by
any autobiographical data, and we know that the task which
was given him in organizing the Government of the people
of the United States was even harder than that of securing
our independence by arms. He had enemies on all sides and
they attacked his character and ability mercilessly. Bacon
says of calumny that "if you throw enough dirt some of it
will stick." But that was not true of Washington. No one
really believed the lies which were written and spoken and
whispered. And now after all these years his faithfulness,
his honor, his truth, bear witness to the greatness of his
Christian character.
There are two classes of statesmen. The one is repre
sented by the man who always has his ear to the ground; he
is listening to the grumblings, the murmurs, which indicate
the will of his constituents. Such men in Congress or in
Parliament are to be won by no arguments for the truth, but
only by overwhelming proof of public opinion. They will
vote for a measure not because it is right or vote it down not
because it is wrong, but what they want to know is whether
its rejection or acceptance will gain the needed votes for
election. This is the bane of modern democracy, and we
can see governments in every country putting aside
needed reform or permitting unworthy measures to prevail
because they are unwilling to go down to defeat. In a
despotic government this class is to be found among the
statesmen who cringe and curtsy before the sovereign's will.
Shakespeare represents the great Cardinal Woolsey as such,
and no one can forget the remorse when at last the royal
displeasure has brought about his fall:
"Ah Cromwell, Cromwell, had I but served my God as
I have served my King,
He would not in my day have left me naked to my ene
mies." But the other class is made up of men of strong
character and sublime faith. It is not votes or honors that
they want but truth and honor. They will fail, if fail they
must, grandly. But their acts are their own, Chatham may
9

have to go out of office, Burke may never have a portfolio,
but such men will speak their strong words and do their
brave acts without fear of loss. Would that our Country
would breed more men of independence and that our people
would hold them in power!
Such a statesman was Washington. For eight years he
held the rudder of the Ship of State. Lie asked all whom he
respected for advice, but never for one moment did he turn
the vessel's prow in any direction which he did not think
was right. As I look at his life today, I think his Farewell
Address best represents his ideal and that the American
people will do well not to forget his admonitions. It has
been claimed that Hamilton aided him in writing it. That
may be true. There are few of us who would not welcome
the aid of a friendly critic's pruning hand in our composi
tion. But the ideas are all his own. They ring true to every
event in his life. In it he speaks of religion and morality as
the firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. "Let
us," he says, "not continue to indulge the supposition that
morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever
may be conceded to the influence of refined education on
minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both
forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in
exclusion of religious principles." That is as true now as
it was then. According to Gibbon, during the last years of
the Roman Republic, all religions were regarded by the peo
ple as equally true, by the philosophers as equally false, and
by the statesmen as equally useful. May the time never
come in America when Washington's example has been so
far forgotten that such a cynical statement can even ap
proximate to the truth.
But the Farewell Address concerns itself greatly with
foreign countries and the relation which the new Republic
should hold to them, Washington warns his people against
"permanent antipathies" or "passionate attachments" to
other nations. In certain respects the world has changed
since that day. It is no longer true, as he asserted, that we
have a detached and distinct situation. He could not fore-
10

see that it would in a hundred years be possible for men in
New York and Philadelphia to read at their breakfast tables
the same editorials which were published in the great jour
nals of London and Paris that very morning, that in less
than a week we could with fast steamers land on the shores
of England and of France. But with all the changes of time
nevertheless his advice was supremely wise, for it was to
refuse those permanent alliances with any foreign country
which would commit this Nation to war without the consent
of the people. He knew the history of his own day; he knew
that governments were wont to make secret treaties and
open treaties committing their people to war with all its
horrors for the sake of gain. Against such aUiances Wash
ington's warning still stands, as clear and strong as it was
on the day when he laid down the burden of government.
But the great Conference which has just been held in
the city which bears his name is absolutely true to the spirit
of his words. Beside the settling of the questions of the
Pacific, the Conference had a three-fold object. First, it
was to limit the cost of armament. The great nations of the
world are expending on their armies and their navies vast
and increasing sums, which have to be taken from educa
tion, religion, the arts and the pursuits of peace. The Con
ference has limited the submarine and forbidden it to do in
human things by attacking the merchant vessels. But, best
of all, it has forbidden, in words which can not be mistaken,
the use of poisonous gases, which are more barbarous in
their effects than any torture devised by Tamerlane or by
the North American Indian. In all this the statesmen who
participated in this Conference are worthy successors of
Washington. They are on the side of God rather than of
the brute. If materialism is our only religion and gold is
our god, then there is no escape from war, and war of the
deadliest, crudest character; but if men are made in the
image of God and if, as Washington beheved, the religion
of Jesus is the faith by which men are to live, then a step
forward has been taken in the history of mankind by this
Conference, I asked a prominent officer if he thought the
11

submarine had been curbed and asphyxiating gases abol
ished. "Until the next war," was his cynical and laconic
reply. But that is not true unless the peoples of these na
tions lose their faith in God. If we are brutes, then the
jungle raised to the highest power of efficiency is what we
aim at. But if we are men, then our ideal must be to
"Move upward, working out the beast,
And let the ape and tiger die."
The Priest, then, and the Statesman join together as
doing the highest work of patriotism by preserving to the
citizens of our country the faith in righteousness of God.
If the belief in the personal God Who rules the life of nations
and of men. Who condemns treachery and murder, lust and
greed and pride, and Who will reward faithfulness in a
nation, if that belief is lost in our Republic, there can be only
a dark outlook and the next war will be the war of brutes
almost superhuman in their merciless power and intellectual
equipment. You men of the Sulgrave Institution stand for the Eng
lish language and for a closer union of the peoples of the
English-speaking race. It is a noble ideal. Let us hope
that English may become the language, as we say, of diplo
macy, but may it be the diplomacy of honor and straight
speaking, with its words sincere and clear as the light of
day. The English language will help to bind the peo
ple of America in the truest union, and the Church which
had Washington's allegiance will become in the Providence
of God an increasing power in the lives of our citizens.
Towards this ideal your Society is leading us on, by bring
ing the great men of the countries of both hemispheres into
clearer light. In this way we shall reach Washington's
thought not of extreme antipathies or loves between na
tions, but of friendliness and sympathy. Mutual aid be
tween nations, as between individuals, must be the law of
progress. It is not the survival of the physically strongest
which will make a country great, but the survival of the
highest, of love and kindness, of purity and truth, which will
12

carry forward the evolution, as God intended it to be, of the
human race.
Treaties are not the most powerful bonds between na
tions. Even when they are not regarded as scraps of paper,
they are abrogated either by time or mutual consent, or
they have no longer any appeal to the popular imagination.
But the most binding forces among nations are in common
ideals of truth and national honor. The English speaking
peoples of the world have something to unite them in their
language. But, if the highest principles of political free
dom and truth belong to us all, there will be something far
stronger than a treaty holding us back from retaliation
when war threatens to invade our coasts, Washington
fought for the natural inherent rights of men. All the great
English statesmen and warriors have had the same lofty
aim. The people have their rights, and first and foremost
they have their right to the facts, the facts which govern
ments in time of war are tempted to hold back, or which a
subservient or controlled press is not free to publish. Give
the facts, full, accurate, complete, to the American and the
English people, and I believe that one motive will rise in
their hearts, and that their Governments will forthwith
unite in work which will bring nearer the Kingdom of God,
At any rate if this spiritual union is not between the two
great peoples of the earth, it will be in vain that we make
treaties or hold conferences or lay the foundation of inter
national law. The fulfilment of all these great undertakings
will depend at last upon the moraUty, the honesty, the sin
cerity the faithfulness of the nations, and that, as Wash
ington shows by life and example, depends upon the faith
of God To see this truth on Washington's Birthday must
have added to our patriotism the one thing which lifts it
above all frantic boast and foolish word into the sphere of
the humble, contrite, honest heart of the servants of God.

13

Olljf i>ulgratt^ Jnfitttuttnn
(American Branch)
233 Broadway
New York
Chancellor: Alton B. Parker
Chairman: John A. Stewart
Treasurer: L. Gordon Hamersley
Secretary: Andrew B. Humphrey
Mb. Thomas R. Marshall, Hon. Chairman
Theodore Roosevelt (in memorlam)
William Howard Taft, New Haven, Conn.
Charles Evans Hughes, New York
James M. Beck, New York
George W. Burleigh, New York
Joseph G. Butler, Jr., Youngstown, Ohio
CoL. Bennehan Cameron, Staggville, N. O.
William A. Clark, New York
Mrs. William Ruffin Cox, Richmond, Va.
John W. Davi.=;, New York
Charles Stewart Davison, New York
Mrs. j, Malcolm Forbes, Boston, Mass.
James Cardinal Gibbons, B.altimore, Md.
(in memoriam)
Samuel Gompers, Washington, D. C.
L. Gordon Hamerslet, New York
W. O. Hart, New Orleans, La.
liDWAHD W. Hatch, New York
Dr. John Gbier Hibben, Princeton, N. J.
Herbert C. Hoover, Washington, D. 0.
Andrew B. Humphrey, New York
Alba B. Johnson, Philadelphia, Pa.
Dr. George F. Kukz, New York
Mrs. Joseph R. Lamar, Atlanta, Ga.
Mrs. Peter W. Meldrim, Savannah, Ga.
Robert C. Morris, New York
Perley Morse, New York
Alton B. Parker, New York
General John J. Pershing
Mrs. Thomas J. Preston, Jr., Princeton, N. J.
Louis Livingston Seaman, New York
Albert Shaw, New York
Rear-Admiral William S. Sims
Charles P. Taft, Cincinnati, Ohio
T. Kennard Thomson, New York
Dr. Roland G. Usher, St. Louis, Mo.
George E. Vincent, New York
Mrs. Eva Follet Warner, Bridgeport, Conn.
W. Lanier Washington, New York
Major-General Leonard Wood, Chicago, 111.
British Branch: LONDON
(including Anglo-American Society)
Honorary Treasurer : Lord Weardale
Secretary: H. S. Perrts
Bnarh nf (^amxixats
Honorary Chairman and Member ex-officio:
H. E. The American Ambassador Sir W. George Watson, Bt.
(The Hon. George Harvey) Sir Sidney Lee, D. Litt.
Marquess op Crewe, K. G. Sir Harry Brittain, K.B.E., MP.
Earl Curzon of Kedleston, K. Q. Sir Sam Fay
Earl Spencer, K. G. Mr. J. L. Garvin
Viscount Bryce, 0. M. (in memoriam) Mr. .John Blair MacAfee
Viscount Burnham Lady (Arthur) Herbert
Viscount Northcliffb Lady Lee of Fareham
Lord Weardale Mrs. Woodhull Martin
Rt. Hon. Sir William Mather Countess of Sandwich
14

FORMED -
First : To foster friendship and to prevent misunderstanding
among English speaking peoples;
Second: To inform our mutual peoples in the arts and
practices of peaceful intercourse, for the benefit of our respective
nations, and as a help and an example to all mankind ;
Third: To encourage, promote and promulgate the basic
sentiments of democracy ;
Fourth : To bring together into a closer community of in
terest those societies, associations and general organizations, to
gether with all individuals, that are engaged in any work which
tends towards the understanding of the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic point
of view, culture, laws and related institutions ;
Fifth : To aid in upholding and maintaining the fundamental
institutions of the English speaking world and in fostering the
ideals which inspired their creation ;
Sixth : To maintain buildings as centers from which can be
prosecuted and carried on the work in connection with the above-
mentioned objects and purposes.

PROGRAM
Maintain Sulgrave (Washington) Manor, and Bredon's Nor
ton Manor (England) ;
Issue publications;
Establish Sulgrave Institution lectureship ;
General lectureship bureau ;
Exchange scholars secondary schools ;
Interchange working newspaper men ;
Maintenance and extension fund— Sulgrave Alanor ;
Pulpit, college exchange, etc. ;
Maintenance fund Bredon's Norton.

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