Proceedings of the Twelftb Annual Meeting

OF THE

General Society Daughters of the Revolution,

Held at New York, N. Y., May 10-15, 1903.

CHURCH SERVICE.

The Twelfth Annual Meeting of the General Society Daughters of the Revolution was most fittingly opened with a service held Sunday afternoon, May 10th, at Old St. Paul's Chapel, Broadway, New York City. This venerable edifice is the only Colonial Church Building in New York City, and hither immediately after his inauguration as First President of the United States, April 30, 1789, George Washington with both Houses of Congress came in procession to attend a solemn service. While the seat of Government remained in New York, Washington was a regular attendant of St. Paul's Chapel. It seemed therefore, eminently appropriate that the Daughters of the Revolution should begin their convention with a service of praise and prayer within walls so associated with memories of the past.

The rather sombre interior of the church was brightened by the tasteful decorations consisting of the national colors and the American Flag, interspersed with festoons of buff and blue, the colors of the Society. The altar was decorated with flowers and from the chancel arch hung the buff aud blue banner bearing the insignia of the Daughters of the Revolution. Invitations had been extended to other patriotic societies and there were delegations present from the following: Society of Mayflower Descendants, Society of Colonial Wars, Colonial Dames of America, Descendants of Colonial Governors, National Society of Colonial Dames of America, Colonial Dames of the 17th Century, Society of the Cincinnati, Sons of the Revolution, Society of the Wars of 1812, United States Daughters of 1812, Order of Founders and Patriots, Daughters of Founders and Patriots, Huguenot Society, Holland Society, Holland Dames, Order of Foreign Wars, Aztec Club of 1847, New England Society, Loyal Legion, American Flag Association and Grand Army of the Republic. The City Government, Columbia College and the University of the City of New York were also represented.

The Sons of the Revolution of the State of New York very kindly lent their assistance at the service and the following members served as Marshal, Aides and Aisle Committee. Marshal, William Grave Bates. Aides: John Augustus Barnard, George De Forrest Barton, George Elsworth Dunscombe, DeWitt Clinton Falls, Francis Effinger Laimbeer, T. J. Oakley

Rhinelander, William Moore Stilwell, Jr. Aisle Committee: William Philips Baker, James Franklin Barker, M. D., Oliver Grant Barton, Benjamin W. B. Brown, William Bunker, Banyer Clarkson, Robert Grier Cooke, Henry Russell Drowne, Morris Patterson Ferris, S. Vernon Mann, Philip Rhinelander, Arthur F. Schermerhorn, Edward Gilbert Schermerhorn, Clarence Storm, Frederick Edgar Underhill, Herman Knickerbocker Viele, Charles Hornblower Woodruff, Jr., Frederick Sanford Woodruff, Talbot Olyphant, Chairman.

3

The Daughters assembled in the Parish House and at four o'clock entered the church in procession, preceded by the Sons of the Revolution and the officiating clergy,-The Rev. Robert Morris Kemp of St. Paul's Chapel; the Rev. Charles E. Brugler, Chaplain of the Society of Colonial Wars; the Rev. William R. Huntington, D. D., D. C. L.; the Rev. F. L. Humphreys, S. T. D., Assistant Chaplain of the Society of the Sons of the Revolution; the Rev. Donald Sage Mackay, D. D.; the Rev. Joseph Reynolds; the Rev. Daniel F. Warren, D. D.; the Rev. Laurance F. Bower, and the Rev. Frederick B. Crozier. As the procession entered the choir the processional hymu The Son of God Goes Forth to War." Then followed the service specially prepared for the Society by the Rev. Mr. Kemp. The Lesson was read by the Rev. Donald Sage Mackay, D. D., and the other portions of the service were conducted by the Rev. Dr. Huntington and the Rev. Mr. Brugler. The preacher was the Rev. Robert Morris Kemp whose stirring discourse follows complete:

sang

GENESIS XXIX: 26. "It must not be so done in our Country."

In this shrine, the place of so many memorable events in the history of our land, it seems to me, there is an especial appropriateness in the assembling of ourselves together here, that we may worship the God of all ages, and of every land, and that we may pay our adoration and allegiance to Him, and gain thus the fitting inspiration as a prelude to your meeting together, with patriotic impulses summoning your earnest endeavors toward a priceless goal. This has brought you here from every quarter of our broad land, may God be thanked for it. Here, where the Father of our Country worshipped, an example of devotion to his God as well as to his Fatherland, is the place where our minds may well be lost in the contemplation of the progress, or the lack of it, toward those ideals for which, and in behalf of which, he and his contemporaries lived and died. There is that, and there ought to be, in a historic shrine which binds us reverently to all that for which it stands. This same church building sounded with the prayers and rang with the praises of those forefathers who left to us the legacy of their shown duty to God and to their fellow-men. Here rest all that remains on earth of some of those who shed blood for Country's sake thus testifying to the motives which actuated their lives. Beneath our Altar lie the ashes of the patriot and martyr Montgomery, to whose memory the government has set the monument which stands against yonder wall. The very ground around us is sacred as it holds those of illustrious name and heroism. Theirs was the doing, ours but the commemoration; theirs was the teaching, ours but the learning of the lesson taught.

Patriotism in its broad sense, as I read it, is the true love of Country, and it requires of us quite as much that we cling to that which is righteous,

laudable, and honorable in that which is old, as that we eagerly press forward to take the next step of progress in that which is new, to keep apace or in the van of the greatest nations of the world. Patriotic societies such as ours have, I take it, no part, as they have no reason, with our past honorable traditions and heritages, for establishing an aristocracy of birth in this land dedicated by our forefathers as one of equal rights and privileges to all, than they do and have in condoning that far more reprehensible aristocracy of wealth which often appears to be showing its hideous mien among us, and which seems often emphasized in the marriage of our fair young womanhood to the titles of impecunious, often miscalled, noblemen. Is this not disloyal to the blood our founders shed? Equal rights and privileges was the watchword of our ancestors which led to deeds of sacrifice and valor on our forefathers part; and to emulate their examples and to be led to devotion to their principles of action are the traits which shall make such bodies of people as this the honorable descendants of such a mighty band of patriots and freemen who gave to our land its birth, and the lasting impress of whose deeds shall alone, even in our material strength, foster and protect it. We must cling to the old for fear that in the progress toward the new we slip away from the matchless ideals. Remember that while there has been and perhaps ought to be a disestablishment of Church and State in order that the light of God's truth may shine into every mind in the way and through the means which shall most truly reach the heart of man; yet there can never be a divorcing of our love of Country from that which rightly rules and governs it all with a true love of God. I can never believe that one can well salute his country's flag who knows not how to reverence the cross of Jesus Christ. The true patriot is he who stands for the best interest of the Government in the name and for the sake of our Fathers' God and ours. He must fight against the license of the libertine in that perfect freedom of the service of God. Then all partizanship and policy will fade, all self-congratulation and self-praise will sink into insignificance before that higher duty of love for fellow-man. Whenever then there comes the battle cry for endeavor against any assailing foe all patriotic hearts shall beat into an unison of deeds that shall be all accomplishing.

Short as has been the life of this our native land we are centuries old when viewed in the light of progress, and now and again flushed with the pride of success we have overstepped the line of demarkation between what is right and what the knowledge of power may enable us to achieve. The conditions of life are changing among us with a rapidity which when closely viewed is amazing and startling as we truly comprehend the possibilities with the requirements as well. Indulgences and luxuries and waste mystify the beholder of a decade's increase. The flood-gates of immigration which empty upon our shores an unrestrained horde of humanity seem ever open. The new comers many of them are bred with the lowest instincts and have but the crudest education. All this is fast separating our citizenship into classes which soon it must be found, unless checked, can neither be allowed to have the same rights nor equal privileges. There is, I believe, no room here for a pessimism which fears; but there is truly a need for an awakening, ere it be too late, of those with the patriotic blood coursing through their veins, who shall be as the balance wheels of

the engine, the governors with influence and by deeds who shall in mighty array arise when loose customs and evil habits assail the land either from within or without and with trumpet tones proclaim, "it must not be so done in our Country." Let there be no blind fealty to the mistakes of those of old, but rather a reverent devotion to those principles which gave them their opportunity for the sacrifice of their lives that their ideals might be made the real-and for this we can, if we are true, but show our appreciation in an imitation of sentiment and a readiness at all times for action. Day after day we read and see much which in the end is largely influenced and truly ruled by what we call a public sentiment. Let this public sentiment be forever controlled by those of native birth, bound together for this work in such societies as yours, and those like to it, and there will be no need as yet of any fear for this dear land of ours. Let there be no yielding to the European sentiment of a debasing of the day of God to meet the tastes of the foreign born for the self-indulgent pleasure of a holiday for man. Beloved liberty is and never can be license, but liberty is and always must be the fair flower of a reverent and a perfect self control. Where is the mad rush for self-assertion and self-interest and self-indulgence leading us? if it be not far away from the courtesy and the gentleness and the courtly manners of the former time. To exert the influence of a mighty body of our best women always so that it shall command and insist upon that refined consideration for others and that uniform respect for womankind, which in earlier days we knew, is alone a work worthy of the great efforts of such a society as yours. It bodes naught but ill when we must needs read and know of societies of honorable reputation and lineage yielding in public places to man's self-indulgent cravings even against the protest of refined and cultivated women so as to permit in manners and customs what would have shocked our ancestors of good breeding and learning. We cannot escape in our contact with our fellows their ignorant presumptions and the carelessnesses of their ill-breeding, but we need never to humor and encourage them. What an accomplishment could be made if we might, with all we treasure as worthy our imitation in the courtly manners of those of old, stand firm against all the innovating and appalling habits of this latter generation of men. It may often require now a bravery quite as magnificent as the storming of a fortress or the fighting of a foreign foe; but if ever now accomplished in this great land of ours, it must be so done by brave women of birth and refinement and of a patriotism like unto yours. The American woman stands as nowhere else on the very pinnacle of influence. Hers is the power to sway, such as the women of no other land have ever known. Men will be led by her for they have learned her right and her capability and if she will ever strive to lead aright nought can come between her and the goal she ought to know. God keep her ever in the path of gentleness and of virtue and of truth.

Go forward then good women in the work you have well begun. In honoring the past, you save the present and protect the time to come. Bring back the customs and the manners of the time now gone. Stand for that refinement which you represent till all our citizenship shall recognize one's heritage and position through the charming grace and the kindly manner that will attract and then entice the craving imitation of all. Let