One of the events in Church matters, towards the close of this year, was a pastoral letter of the Episcopal Bishops against Church fairs.  So many churches were holding fairs then, they were a recognised social attribute of the Church family.  This letter aroused the question as to whether it was right or wrong to have Church fairs, and the newspapers became very fretful about it.  I defended the Church fairs, because I felt that if they were conducted on Christian principles they were the means of an universal sociality and spiritual strength.  So far as I had been acquainted with them, they had made the Church purer, better.  Some fairs may end in a fight; they are badly managed, perhaps.  A Church fair, officered by Christian women, held within Christian hours, conducted on Christian plans, I approved, the pastoral letter of the Episcopal Bishops notwithstanding.

Just when we were in the midst of this religious tempest of small finances, the will of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt came up in the court for discussion.  The whole world was anxious then to know if the Vanderbilt will could be broken.  After battling half a century with diseases enough to kill ten men, Mr. Vanderbilt died, an octogenarian, leaving over $100,000,000—­$95,000,000 to his eldest son—­$5,000,000 to his wife, and the remainder to his other children and relations, with here and there a slight recognition of some humane or religious institution.  I said then that the will could not be broken, because $95,000,000 in this country seemed too mighty for $5,000,000.  It was a strange will, and if Mr. Vanderbilt had been his own executor of it, without lawyers’ interference, I believe it would have been different.  It suggests a comparison with George Peabody, who executed the distribution of his property without legal talent.  Peabody gave $250,000 for a library in his own town in Massachusetts, and in his will left $10,000 to the Baltimore Institute, $20,000 to the poor of London, $10,000 to Harvard, $150,000 to Yale, $50,000 to Salem, Massachusetts, and $3,000,000 to the education of the people of the South in this country.  No wonder he refused a baronetcy which the Queen of England offered him, he was a king—­the king of human benefaction.  That Vanderbilt will was the seven days wonder of its time.

It made way only for the President’s message issued the first week in December, 1877.  It was, in fact, Mr. Hayes’s repudiation of a dishonest measure prepared by members of Congress to pay off our national debt in silver instead of in gold as had been promised.

The newspapers received the President’s message with indifferent opinion.  “It is disappointing,” said one.  “As a piece of composition it is terse and well written,” said another.  “The President used a good many big words to say very little,” said another.  “President Hayes will secure a respectful hearing by the ability and character of this document,” said another.  “Leaving out his bragging over his policy of pacification and concerning things he claims to have done, the space remaining will be very small,” said another.