Dedication

Episcopal bishops from Haiti, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Illinois, in purple and white robes and violet birettas, a group of Army and Naval officers in uniform, and the speakers of the day--Elihu Root, Governor Smith, Sir Campbell Stuart--in high silk hats and sleek frock coats, followed a young crucifer and 100 Eton-collared choir boys in white surplices and purple cassocks up the aisle of the partly finished Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Manhattan, to range themselves along the south wall, while Bishop William Manning, gripping his golden pastoral staff, accompanied by the more notable guests, mounted the platform and began to say a prayer, which was broadcasted to several million people by means of a microphone placed in front of his mouth. The occasion was one of the most important which had ever taken place in that Cathedral, being none other than a dedication of the foundation stone of the enormous nave designed by Architect Ralph Adams Cram.

Bishop Manning spoke first. Said he: "On this historic day we resolve that the work which we have taken in hand for the greater glory of God shall never . . . be allowed to stop."

Governor Smith, a Catholic, was next introduced. Said he: "I voice the benediction of the state of New York upon this structure."

The Rev. Dr. S. Parkes Cadman, President of the Federated Council of Churches of Christ in America: "I bring the loving and earnest congratulations . . . of forty million Protestants."

Elihu Root, Sir Campbell Stuart, expressed befitting sentiment. The moment for the actual dedication had come.

Bishop Manning, with a silver trowel in his hand, strode down the aisle in swishing panoply until he confronted an enormous block of golden Poughkeepsie granite propped up in the south end of the Cathedral by a block and tackle. Trustee George W. Wickersham described how, in the pit prepared for the stone, lay a copper box, 18 inches long, lined with tin, filled with relics of the Church, lists of contributors, newspapers, American coins. Then, while the people repeated the Lord's Prayer, the Bishop traced the sign of the cross upon the rock with his trowel; Architect Cram gave a signal to his men; the block and tackle twitched the stone aloft, lowered it reverently into place upon the box. Now there was only one more thing to do. The Bishop picked up a heavy mahogany mallet. Three times he smote the stone and in reverberating accents intoned:

"In the faith of Jesus Christ we lay this foundation stone, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, that here true faith and brotherly love may flourish and abound, and that this place may be a house of prayer for all people, forever to the glory and praise of Christ our Lord."