The same wise and prudent forecast which provided against one possible contingency provided also against another, and in its provision exhibited a truer comprehension of what the Church of Christ, as a spiritual Kingdom, really was than any statesman and many prelates in England seem to have then attained. Says one who was present at Woodbury, writing to a friend who became the second Bishop of Massachusetts: "We clergy have even gone so far as to instruct Dr. Seabury, if none of the regular bishops of the Church of England will ordain him, to go down to Scotland and receive ordination from a non-juring bishop." [Footnote: Letter of the Rev. Daniel Fogg to the Rev. Samuel Parker; _Connecticut Church Documents,_ ii. 213.] I am in no wise concerned to deny that the thought of applying to the Scottish bishops may have been an entirely original thought in the mind of more than one person in England in the years 1783 and 1784. But there can be no doubt--for the fact is proved, not by unwritten reminiscences after a lapse of years, but by contemporary documents--that this purpose was in the minds of our clergy long before it could have been conceived in England; before, indeed, it was known there that Seabury would seek consecration at the hands of the English prelacy. The line and limits which I have prescribed to myself in this discourse forbid me to speak as I fain would speak of my great predecessor. That privilege will belong to the preacher of next year. But I may say, and say it with all reverence, that if ever in our eventful history the guiding hand of God appears, it seems to me to manifest itself in the election of our first bishop. Doubtless brave men lived before Agamemnon, but Agamemnon was not the less brave for that. Doubtless there were strong men and true men here before Seabury--had there not been, there would have been no place for him--but there was none stronger and none truer than himself. He was misrepresented by some and misunderstood by others in his lifetime. He has been misunderstood and misrepresented since. But all that is over. Thanks to his careful biographer and to his own unstudied revelations of himself, men know him better now. The voice of detraction is silent, and there are none to contradict us when we say of him: "His body is buried in peace, but his name liveth forevermore." My brethren, we shall have lingered to little purpose among these memories of the past, unless we take away with us something for the present hour with its duties and responsibilities. Two thoughts seem to me to rise prominently to view from the survey we have been making; two voices speak to us from those past years. First we learn the lesson--it has already been spoken of--that only by the true-hearted and faithful discharge of the lowly duty, can we rise up to, or make real, the lofty aim. Said pious George Herbert: "Pitch thy behaviour low, thy projects high, So shalt thou humble and magnanimous be."