The lectures he delivered at Kenyon College in 1901 and at Yale University in 1902 showed that Potter had read John Stuart Mackenzie, Introduction to Social Philosophy, George Howell, Trade-Unionism, New and Old, Edward Bibbens & Eleanor Marx Aveling, Working Class Movement in America, Geoffrey Drage's Labor Problem, Shailer Mathews' Social Teaching of Jesus, William Hurrell Mallock, Labor and the Popular Welfare, the three volumes Sir Frederick Morton Eden, State of the Poor, the works of Frederick Denison Maurice, Charles Kingsley, and Thomas Hughes, and "other like books".

After seven years as rector, when Potter resigned, the vestry wrote him, "Before you came among us, we well remember the dissentient views that obtained not only in our own body but in the congregation which we represent".

The vestry of Trinity Church gave Potter a letter thanking him for "the uninterrupted prosperity spiritual and secular" he had brought to the parish.

George F. Nelson, who was Potter's assistant at Grace Church, attributes the progress to the fact that "the Rector and his Vestry were brethren dwelling together in unity.

"[62] In October 1875, Potter called Sister Louise, a member of the Sisterhood of the Holy Communion, as Parish Visitor at Grace Chapel, and she accepted.

These included St. Catherine's Guild, Industrial School, St. Luke's Association, Ladies' Benevolent Society, Woman's Missionary Society, Grace House Library and Reading Room, Day Nursery, Grace House by the Sea in Far Rockaway, Long Island, St. Agnes Guild, and Ladies' Domestic Missionary Relief Association.

In his last sermon, he said, "looking back today, after fifteen years and more, I rejoice to remember that this parish has at least striven to be plenteous in peace, affluent in faith, worship and good works.

The Mission was carrying out "the idea of Advent season," namely, "preaching, personal urgency, confession of sin, communion with God in the blessed sacrament of His son."

Therefore, Potter set two other goals for the Society: (1) it would work for "the rejuvenation of the Afro-American character" in the United States, and (2) it would send "black missionaries" to Africa to teach and to convert to Christianity.

However, in the 1890s, there was a "counter attack aimed at erasing African Americans' participation in politics and the economy" by disenfranchisement in every southern state, by Jim Crow laws segregating public facilities, and by lynching.

[84][85] Potter's attempt to reform the Society was met with criticism from people like Wendell Phillips Garrison editor of The Nation, and his fund-raising efforts failed.

He made a final fund-raising effort in New York City in small meetings organized by two of his priests Percy Stickney Grant and David H. Greer, but again without success.

In 1907, the year before he died, Potter "incurred odium" during the General Convention held in Richmond, Virginia "by asking a colored clergyman to be a guest at his table.

He said that "after a busy Sunday morning," Potter arrived and "for an hour he poured out his great soul before that audience of colored men and women.

later used the document as its inspiration, especially its statement that "what the laborer wants from his employer is fair and fraternal dealing, not alms-giving; and a recognition of his manhood rather than a condescension to his inferiority."

Potter wrote a letter to William Randolph Hearst suggesting "a symposium of clever men discussing the question of wages, common ownership of plants and land—anything to make the people think.

"[100] In 1907, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, "as a result largely of Bishop Potter's influence," action was taken to form diocesan Social Service Commissions.

While in England, he gave "an address at Lambeth Palace commemorating the centennial of the organization of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States," and he preached in three cathedrals.

Two former presidents were present along with "an assembly of officers of the Cabinet, senators, members of Congress, and notable citizens, including a score of governors of states."

The New York Times wrote that "the most remarkable address brought out by the centennial celebration was the sermon by Bishop Potter at St. Paul's Chapel.

"[113] The full sermon can be read at A Form of Prayer and Thanksgiving to Almighty God delivered on Tuesday, April 30, 1889, the one hundredth anniversary of the inauguration of George Washington.

These characteristics made him one of the Protestant preachers, along with Henry Ward Beecher and Lyman Abbott, most often called upon for "major public functions.

May you live far into the next century, and help greatly to make the world purer, sweeter and happier than it now is.The other letter came from the American author Henry van Dyke, who wrote, "I want to say to you, beneficent prelate, that there is not a preacher nor a church of any order in New York that does not reap a substantial benefit from the fact that you are the bishop of this diocese, and therefore we are all, in our several modes and manners, gratefully yours.

In spite of the fact that Potter had thought that the United States action was morally "a colossal blunder," after his return to New York, he said, "We have got the responsibility of governing the Philippines, for better or for worse...

[121] Seth Low gave Potter "credit for an increased public desire for reform in civil service appointments" by his 1889 Centennial Sermon in St. Paul's Chapel.

Delegates looked for Potter because they viewed him "as not only the greatest representative of American churchmen but as one of whom any English speaking Christian might be proud."

Many religious leaders attended the funeral: Jewish, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Russian Orthodox, and the Persian, Greek, and Armenian Churches.

A July 1908 editorial in The New York Times about Potter included the following words:[143]He felt profoundly the brotherhood of the race, and he manifested courage, force, independence of judgment, and great unselfishness in the application of the principle to the relations of daily life.

Apart from the more specific duties of the Church, nothing engaged more intimately and passionately all the energies of his nature than systematic work for the practical application of the ideal of brotherhood to the aid of those to whom it is usually extended only in pale and ineffectual theory.In 1908, a Memorial Meeting sponsored by the People's Institute was held in the Cooper Union.

A third speaker Seth Low, once president of Columbia University and mayor of New York, declared that Potter "so eagerly helped the lowly because he claimed kinship with them.