I noticed in the papers this afternoon a despatch from Washington, saying that Congress would immediately pass a bill restoring to our gold coinage the motto “In God We Trust.”  I’m glad of that; I’m glad of that.  I was troubled when that motto was removed.  Sure enough, the prosperities of the whole nation went down in a heap when we ceased to trust in God in that conspicuously advertised way.  I knew there would be trouble.  And if Pierpont Morgan hadn’t stepped in—­Bishop Lawrence may now add to his message to the old country that we are now trusting in God again.  So we can discharge Mr. Morgan from his office with honor.

Mr. Reid said an hour or so ago something about my ruining my activities last summer.  They are not ruined, they are renewed.  I am stronger now —­much stronger.  I suppose that the spiritual uplift I received increased my physical power more than anything I ever had before.  I was dancing last night at 1.30 o’clock.

Mr. Choate has mentioned Mr. Reid’s predecessors.  Mr. Choate’s head is full of history, and some of it is true, too.  I enjoyed hearing him tell about the list of the men who had the place before he did.  He mentioned a long list of those predecessors, people I never heard of before, and elected five of them to the Presidency by his own vote.  I’m glad and proud to find Mr. Reid in that high position, because he didn’t look it when I knew him forty years ago.  I was talking to Reid the other day, and he showed me my autograph on an old paper twenty years old.  I didn’t know I had an autograph twenty years ago.  Nobody ever asked me for it.

I remember a dinner I had long ago with Whitelaw Reid and John Hay at Reid’s expense.  I had another last summer when I was in London at the embassy that Choate blackguards so.  I’d like to live there.

Some people say they couldn’t live on the salary, but I could live on the salary and the nation together.  Some of us don’t appreciate what this country can do.  There’s John Hay, Reid, Choate, and me.  This is the only country in the world where youth, talent, and energy can reach such heights.  It shows what we could do without means, and what people can do with talent and energy when they find it in people like us.

When I first came to New York they were all struggling young men, and I am glad to see that they have got on in the world.  I knew John Hay when I had no white hairs in my head and more hair than Reid has now.  Those were days of joy and hope.  Reid and Hay were on the staff of the Tribune.  I went there once in that old building, and I looked all around and I finally found a door ajar and looked in.  It wasn’t Reid or Hay there, but it was Horace Greeley.  Those were in the days when Horace Greeley was a king.  That was the first time I ever saw him and the last.

I was admiring him when he stopped and seemed to realize that there was a fine presence there somewhere.  He tried to smile, but he was out of smiles.  He looked at me a moment, and said: