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 I Cl 39 (5/97)
 
 OF THE 
 
 INTER-STATE ORATORICAL CONTESTS, 
 
 AND 
 
 BIOGRAPHIES OF CONTESTANTS. 
 
 COMPILED AND EDITED BY 
 
 CHARLES EDGAR PRATHER. 
 
 TOPE K A, KANSAS. 
 
 1891.
 
 Copyright, 1891, by 
 CHARLES EDGAR PRATHER.
 
 A SOUVENIR. 
 
 THIS volume has been compiled as a Souvenir of the Inter- 
 State Oratorical Association, inasmuch as this association was 
 the first formed for the advancement of the study of oratory. 
 These pages contain the grand and superior productions de 
 livered on the annual events of this association, rendered in 
 competition among college students since its origin, in the year 
 of 1874. And deem this association worthy that has aided the 
 science of oratory whereby it has become a powerful branch 
 of knowledge.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 AFTER much delay and long continuous labor I take great 
 pleasure in now presenting this Souvenir of the Inter-State 
 Oratorical Association to the public. The work deserves much 
 favor. It is worthy to be studied for its history, its philosophy, 
 and its precepts. The orations are the exquisite productions 
 of the best minds in college circles delivered annually in contest 
 before the association. So, to the young orator whose victory 
 in the arena of debate has contributed to the world such speci 
 mens of learning and eloquence, to say nothing of its marvelous 
 influence, retribute your grateful admiration. In this work I 
 have introduced the successful orators one after another ac 
 cording as they took their respective positions in the succeeding 
 reign with brief biographical sketches and excellent engraved 
 likenesses, which increase the interest and value of the book. 
 The chapters on "Oratory and Orators," and "Plagiarism," 
 written in a brilliant manner by prominent educators of the 
 day, are highly appropriate and instructive, and merit the 
 popular praise of the public as well as the student. Accord 
 ingly from the desire to meet the frequent applications made 
 for these prize orations became the purpose of compiling this 
 volume, which I kindly dedicate to the orators and their rela 
 tives and friends. CHAS E PRATHER . 
 
 TOPEKA, KAN., January, 1891.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Si/ 
 
 ?AGE 
 
 Historical Introduction ........................ 7 
 
 Constitution of the Inter State Oratorical Association ........... II 
 
 The Heart, the Source of Power .................... 15 
 
 British Rule in India .......... ............... 21 
 
 Culture, a Basis of Brotherhood .................... 3 1 
 
 Two Races in Ireland ...................... 37 
 
 The World s Conquerors ....................... 42 
 
 Beatrice and Margaret ........................ 48 
 
 Satan and Mephistopheles ...................... 53 
 
 Faith and Doubt as Motors of Action ...... .. ........... 5^ 
 
 he Loneliness of Genius ....................... 66 
 
 Dante ............................... 72 
 
 ......... ....................... 7 8 
 
 Mahometanism and its Enemies .................... 87 
 
 >*Poe ................................. 94 
 
 The Evolution of Government ..................... 99 
 
 .- The Philosophy of Scepticism ..................... 105 
 
 Progress, its Sources and its Laws ................... Ill 
 
 The Old and the New Civilizations ................... 117 
 
 The Cause of the Gracchi ....................... 122 
 
 The Political Mission of Puritanism ........ , ......... 128 
 
 The Saxon Element in Civilization ................... 134 
 
 Judas Iscariot ............................ 141 
 
 The Unity of Science and Religion ................... 145 
 
 The Conflict of Labor and Capital ................... 150 
 
 Schiller and Germany ........................ 157 
 
 Conservatism, an Essential Element of Progress ............. 164 
 
 Mob and Law ............................ 171 
 
 John Brown ............................. 177 
 
 The Man and the State ........................ 183 
 
 Principles of Political Parties ..................... 190 
 
 The Defender of the Constitution ................... 107 
 
 The Philosophy of Inequality ..................... 202 
 
 Riot and Revolution ......................... 208 
 
 The Puritan and the Cavalier in Our National Life ............ 215 
 
 Our English Language ........................ 22 1 
 
 Orators and Oratory ......................... 231 
 
 , Plagiarism .............................. 237
 
 HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THERE always exists in ambitious natures an inborn desire 
 to excel, and never does this desire become more prominent 
 than during the years spent in college. And since this rivalry 
 has existed in nearly every educational institution, there has 
 been arranged some method of testing the much-desired su 
 periority. This has been in nearly if not all cases a contest of 
 physical power and endurance. It is now an open question as 
 to the beneficial results from inter-collegiate contests in boat, 
 ing, ball games and similar sports. 
 
 It remained for the Adelphi Society, of Knox College- 
 Galesburg, Illinois, to crown all former efforts in conceiving 
 another outlet for this restless and impetuous spirit of rivalry, 
 by testing intellectual merit through the eloquence of oratory; 
 and to this society should be given the honor of our present 
 Inter-State Oratorical Association. 
 
 Invitations from the members of the Adelphi Society were 
 sent to the following institutions to join a contest in oratory: 
 Illinois State Industrial University, and Chicago University, of 
 Illinois; Iowa State University, and Iowa College, of Iowa; 
 Wisconsin State University, and Beloit College, of Wisconsin. 
 These invitations were accepted by all except the Wisconsin 
 State University, whose faculty refused, and Monmouth College, 
 of Illinois, was substituted. The following is the invitation 
 
 verbatim: 
 
 GALESBURG, November 4, 1873. 
 To the Honorable and Students: 
 
 SIRS The Adelphi Literary Society, of Knox College, feeling that it 
 would be for the mutual benefit of " Western colleges " to engage in friendly 
 rivalry, and preferring the culture of the rostrum to the oar, desires to sub 
 mit for your consideration the following proposition: 
 
 1st. The Adelphi Society offers two prizes in oratory, to consist of one 
 hundred dollars and seventy-five dollars respectively, to be open for com 
 petition to the following-named universities and colleges, each institution 
 furnishing one orator: Illinois State Industrial University, of Illinois; Iowa
 
 8 Winning Orations. 
 
 State University, and Iowa College, of Iowa; and Wisconsin State Uni 
 versity, and Beloit College, of Wisconsin. 
 
 2d. The contest will be held under the auspices of the Adelphi Literary 
 Society, of Knox College, in the Galesburg Opera House, on the evening of 
 February 27, 1874. 
 
 3d. The Governors of the three States represented shall each select one 
 man, and these three men so appointed shall appoint the awarding com 
 mittee. 
 
 4th. In marking the contestants the judges shall take into consideration 
 excellence of thought, style of composition, and delivery, marking each on a 
 scale of ten. T.he person receiving the highest average mark shall be en 
 titled to first prize, and the one receiving the next highest, to the second 
 prize. 
 
 5th. At the close of the contest the committee of award shall place their 
 marks, in sealed envelopes, in the hands of the chairman, without any con- 
 fering together or comparing of marks. 
 
 6th. A committee of three, selected from the audience by the contest 
 ants, shall receive the marks from the chairman, take their sums, and 
 announce the successful contestants. 
 
 7th. The Adelphi Society further agrees to pay the railroad fare of the 
 contestants to and from Galesburg. 
 
 8th. As soon as the names of the contestants are reported to the Adelphi 
 Committee they will cast lots for positions on the programme, and report 
 the positions, as drawn, to each of the contestants. 
 
 By order of the society. 
 
 F. I. MOULTON, 
 
 HENRY W. READ, 
 GEO. A. LAWRENCE, 
 
 Committee. 
 
 The contemplation of this event gave birth to the idea of 
 forming an association for the purpose of continuing contests 
 in oratory. Accordingly other invitations were issued to the 
 same institutions, requesting each to send a delegation to a 
 convention, to be held in Galesburg, at 2 o clock p. M., of the 
 2/th of February. These invitations were also accepted, and 
 the convention was held at the appointed time in the handsome 
 parlors of the Union Hotel. 
 
 Mr. Geo. Sutherland, of Chicago University, was chosen 
 president, and Mr. F. I. Moulton, of Knox College, secretary. 
 After some discussion and mature deliberation it was decided to 
 make the association an Inter-State Oratorical Association, in 
 the following manner: The chief colleges in each of the several 
 States, namely, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Indiana, 
 and Ohio, were to form themselves into separate State associa 
 tions, and hold contests between the colleges of their State.
 
 Historical Introduction. Q 
 
 The successful orator in each of the State contests should be 
 the contestant at an inter-State contest. The State associations 
 and contests to be distinct organizations from the inter-State 
 association. 
 
 A constitution was then drawn up for an association of the 
 colleges represented, which was to serve as a preliminary to 
 the inter-State organization, thereby giving the representative 
 colleges a temporary organization. As officers of the same the 
 following were elected: President, H. C. Adams, of Iowa Col 
 lege; vice president, J. B. Dimond, of Illinois State Industrial 
 University; Secretary, A. R. Sprague, of Eeloit College; treas 
 urer, R. T. Wilson, of Iowa State University. The formation of 
 an inter-State association could not be realized, as Michigan, 
 Indiana and Ohio were not represented. The convention de 
 cided by ballot that the next inter-collegiate contest should be 
 held at Iowa City, under the auspices of the Iowa State Univer 
 sity; and the making of necessary arrangements for the coming 
 occasion was left in the hands of an executive committee. 
 Thus a temporary organization being effected the convention 
 adjourned to a further time. 
 
 The first contest in oratory took place in the evening of the 
 27th of February, 1874, in the City Opera House of Galesburg. 
 The meeting was marked by the largest audience ever congre 
 gated in the city. The programme opened with an overture 
 by the Grand Orchestra. 
 
 F. I. Moulton, president of the Aclelphi Society, then in 
 troduced Mr. H. C. Adams, of Iowa College, Grinnell, Iowa. 
 Subject: "The Student and the Mysterious," which the speaker 
 rendered with true grace and eloquence. Mr. A. G. McCoy, 
 of Monmouth College, Monmouth, 111., followed Mr. Adams. 
 His subject, " Conservatism," was of a political nature, and the 
 speaker s style was energetic. 
 
 Mrs. Chas. G. Hurd rendered the "Cavatima from Lucia di 
 Lammermoor," an operatic solo that was highly appreciated, 
 after which Mr. T. Edward Egbert, of Chicago University, 
 Chicago, 111., appeared. His theme, "The Heart, the Source 
 of Power," won for him the first prize. Mr. Frank E. Brush, of 
 Iowa State University, Iowa City, Iowa, next addressed the audi 
 ence on the subject of "Ideas; their Power and Permanence." 
 It was an erudite production, and Mr. Brush a natural orator.
 
 io Winning Orations. 
 
 The "Blue Danube Waltzes," by the Grand Orchestra, was 
 given next place on the programme, at the conclusion of which 
 Mr. Geo. T. Foster, of Beloit College, Beloit, Wis., discoursed 
 "The British Rule in India," which was pronounced the second 
 best oration. The last orator, Mr. W. W. Wharry, of the Ill 
 inois State Industrial University, Champaign, 111., came forward 
 with the subject of "Labor and Liberty; or, the Mission of 
 America," which he delivered in an easy manner, and retired 
 amid applause. 
 
 While the judges who had been appointed, according to 
 agreement, by the Governors of the three States represented in 
 the contest, withdrew for decision, Mrs. Hurd sang the favorite- 
 ballad, "Five O clock in the Morning." The judges appointed 
 were: Dr. A. Burns, president of Simpson Centenary College, 
 Indianola, Iowa; Prof. A. Stetson, of Normal University, Bloom- 
 ington, 111.; and Judge A. A. Smith, of Galesburg, 111. The 
 prizes were awarded to Messrs. T. Edward Egbert and Geo. T. 
 Foster. 
 
 Thus closed one of the greatest events in college history, 
 the result of which is to-day an honor to our educational in 
 stitutions. 
 
 A meeting called to convene in Chicago, June 9, 1874, was 
 largely attended, and the plans for the permanent organization 
 of the Inter-State Oratorical Association were completed and 
 perfected. It now includes sixty-three colleges, comprising 
 the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, 
 Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado.
 
 CONSTITUTION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 INTER-STATE ORATORICAL ASSOCIATION. 
 
 ARTICLE I. 
 
 This organization shall be known as the " Inter-State Oratorical Associ 
 ation," and shall consist of the Collegiate Associations of Illinois, Iowa, 
 Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, and such 
 other State associations as shall be admitted by a two-thirds vote of the 
 delegates present at any annual convention. 
 
 ARTICLE II. 
 
 SECTION I. The object of this association shall be to hold contests in 
 oratory, and such other literary contests, at such times and places as shall 
 be decided upon by the association at its annual convention. 
 
 SEC. 2. In the contests of this association each State shall be represented 
 by the successful contestant at its annual contest: PROVIDED, He be an un 
 dergraduate of the collegiate course at the time of such State contest. 
 
 ARTICLE III. 
 
 SECTION r. The officers of this association shall consist of a president, 
 vice president, and secretary, ( who shall also be treasurer,) who shall con 
 stitute the executive committee of the association. All nominations of 
 officers of the association shall be by informal ballot, and an election shall 
 follow by ballot upon the three names receiving the highest number of 
 votes, a majority of all votes being necessary for a choice. 
 
 SEC. 2. The officers of the association on their retirement from office, 
 and ex-orators, shall be honorary members of the association. 
 
 ARTICLE IV. 
 
 SECTION I. It shall be the duty of the president to preside at all meet 
 ings. In case of a tie in voting, he shall cast the deciding vote. He shall 
 also have power to call a special meeting at the written request of four State 
 associations, giving at least thirty days notice to each State association of 
 such meeting. 
 
 SEC. 2. The duties of the secretary shall be such as are common to that 
 office, and any other duties that the association may authorize. He shall 
 have printed yearly one thousand (1,000) copies of the constitution, and shall 
 send one hundred (100) copies to the secretary of each State association. 
 As treasurer, he shall keep the accounts of the association, and pay all bills
 
 1 2 Winning Orations. 
 
 audited and allowed by the executive committee. He shall be required to 
 deposit with the president of the association a bond for $ 1,000. He shall 
 receiv.e as remuneration for his services the sum of $25. 
 
 SEC. 3. The contests of the association shall be under the control of the 
 executive committee. It shall be the duty of the executive committee to 
 audit all accounts before they are presented to the association. 
 
 ARTICLE V. 
 
 SECTION I. Six persons shall be chosen each year by the executive 
 committee, to act as judges of the literary contest of that year; and each 
 State association shall be notified of their appointment at least six weeks 
 before the contest. 
 
 SEC. 2. The judges shall not in any way be connected with the institu 
 tions represented in the contest, nor shall any two judges be selected from 
 the same State. Nor shall any judge on delivery be selected from the State 
 in which the contest is held, except in case of extreme emergency. 
 
 SEC. 3. Any judge shall be removed upon the protest of any State asso 
 ciation made in writing, within thirty days after his appointment, the reason 
 for such protest being given in writing; PROVIDED, No State shall be allowed 
 more than two protests. 
 
 SEC. 4. The judges selected shall be divided into two equal sections, A 
 and B: the judges of section A to grade on the merits of thought and com 
 position, and the judges of section B to grade on delivery, without consulta 
 tion, each judge giving one grade, which shall be on the scale of 100. 
 
 SEC. 5. The secretary of the association, at least two weeks before the 
 contest, shall forward a copy of each oration to each of the judges in section 
 A, who shall grade them, and send sealed copies of their grades to the vice 
 president and secretary of the association, so as to reach them at least two 
 days before the contest; said marks to remain sealed until after delivery to 
 the secretary of the marks of the judges of section B. But neither the names 
 of the authors of the orations, nor the institution represented, shall be known 
 by the judges of section A. 
 
 SEC. 6. At the close of the contest, the president and secretary shall 
 take the grades of all the judges for each contestant. The grades of each 
 judge shall be ranked I, 2, 3, 4, etc. The orator ranked first by four or more 
 of the judges shall be awarded first prize. If no orator is thus ranked first, 
 the orator, the sum of whose ranks is least, shall be awarded first prize. In 
 case of a tie, the orator receiving the highest grand average shall receive 
 the first prize. The first prize having been awarded, the grades of the re 
 maining orators shall be again ranked i, 2, 3, 4, etc., and the second prize 
 determined in the same manner as the first. The president shall then an 
 nounce the result. The markings of the judges shall be published in at 
 least one daily paper. ARTICLE VI . 
 
 SECTION i. In the contests of this association no oration shall contain 
 mor*e than two thousand (2,000) words, and it shall be the duty of the secre 
 tary to construe this article strictly to the letter, and to return any orations 
 exceeding the above limit to the secretary of the State from which such 
 oration is sent.
 
 Constitution. \ ^ 
 
 SEC. 2. Any outline, synopsis, analysis or explanation attached to an 
 oration shall be considered and counted as a part thereof. 
 
 SEC. 3. The several contestants shall send one hundred (100) printed 
 copies of their orations to the secretary of this association, so they shall 
 reach the secretary at least three weeks before the contest. One (i) copy 
 shall be sent to each of the judges of section A, as directed in article V. 
 section 5 of this constitution. The remaining copies shall be distributed by 
 the secretary of the Inter-State Association to the secretaries of the various 
 State associations, in sufficient number that each local association compos 
 ing the State association may receive a copy of all the inter-State orations. 
 
 SEC. 4. The orations for the inter-State contest shall be printed by the 
 State association according to the following uniform standard: They shall 
 be set in brevier type, the body of each page being four (4) inches wide and 
 six (6) inches long, with a margin one and one-half (i>^) inches in width. 
 Ninety (90) copies of the orations shall contain the name and college of the 
 author, and ten (10) copies shall be printed with name and college omitted. 
 
 ARTICLE VII. 
 
 SECTION I. The annual convention shall meet in the afternoon of the 
 day on which the contest is held, and the following day in the forenoon, in 
 which convention each State shall be entitled to three (3) votes. 
 
 SEC. 2. No delegate shall be entitled to a seat in the convention whose 
 credentials shall not have been signed by the president and secretary of 
 his State association. 
 
 ARTICLE VIII. 
 
 Any State in this association failing to send a representative to any 
 annual contest without furnishing a satisfactory reason shall be excluded 
 from the association. 
 
 ARTICLE IX. 
 
 The names of the orators engaged in the contest, and copies of the 
 orations, also the names and markings of the judges, shall be kept on 
 record by the secretary. 
 
 ARTICLE X. 
 
 SECTION i. The association shall pay all necessary expenses connected 
 with the contest, including prizes, and all necessary expenses of judges, the 
 president and secretary, and vice president when acting as president. 
 
 SEC. 2. Such an admittance fee to the oratorical contest shall be charged 
 as the executive committee shall deem proper. 
 
 SEC. 3. Each State association shall, at least thirty days before the 
 inter-State contest, deposit with the treasurer of the Inter-State Association 
 the sum of twenty-five (25) dollars, which shall be subject to use by the 
 executive committee in case of a deficit at the inter-State contest. Any 
 State association failing to comply with this provision, without sufficient 
 reason being given, shall be denied representation in the next contest and 
 convention. 
 
 SEC. 4. Within ten days succeeding each annual contest all surplus 
 funds exceeding twenty-five (25) dollars, which shall remain in the inter- 
 State treasury, shall be divided equally among the State associations, and
 
 14 Winning Orations. 
 
 be deposited with their respective treasurers. Should there be any deficit 
 it shall be met by an equal tax upon the State associations. 
 
 SEC. 5. As testimonials of success in the contest? of this association 
 there shall be awarded as first honor SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLARS; as second 
 
 honor, FIFTY DOLLARS. 
 
 ARTICLE XI. 
 
 SECTION i. This constitution may be amended at an annual meeting of 
 the association by a two-thirds vote. 
 
 SEC. 2. The organ of this association, in the future, shall be annually a 
 college newspaper published where the next contest is held, and it shall be 
 the duty of the secretary to keep standing in that paper each year the list 
 of officers of the Inter-State Association and the secretaries of the several 
 State associations. Any bulletin or correspondence in reference to the inter- 
 State contest shall be sent to the editors of that paper. 
 
 SEC. 3. All questions involving parliamentary forms, not provided for 
 by the constitution, shall be referred to " Roberts Rules of Order." 
 
 AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 ARTICLE I. 
 
 SECTION I. The State whose orator appears first on the programme 
 shall be entitled to the presidency. 
 
 SEC. 2. The State whose orator appears fourth on the programme shall 
 be entitled to the vice presidency, and shall have the location of the next 
 contest. 
 
 SEC. 3. The State whose orator appears seventh on the programme shall 
 be entitled to the secretary and treasurership.

 
 THE HEART, THE SOURCE OF POWER. 
 
 By T. EDWARD EGBERT, of Chicago University. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 The subject of this sketch, T. Edward Egbert, was born 
 near Georgetown, Ohio, March 26, 1848. When eight years of 
 age his parents moved to Woodford County, Illinois, and 
 settled on the prairie to make a farm. Here he attended 
 chool but fourteen weeks in nine years. Truly it may be 
 said his advantages were very meager in his youthful days. 
 However, life on a farm secured to him a sturdy physique, and 
 such principles of independence and economy as are necessary 
 in life. In the fall of 1865 he prepared to take a college course. 
 At the end of five weeks his father s sudden death called him 
 home. This sad experience compelled Mr. Egbert to remain 
 on the farm three additional years. In September, 1868, he 
 returned to the preparatory department, taking up the studies 
 one year in advance of his former studies. The next year, at 
 the age of twenty-two, he entered the freshman class of the 
 Chicago University, and graduated in four years as bachelor 
 of arts. He was the first member of the freshman class ini 
 tiated in the Chicago chapter of the D. K. E. fraternity, and is 
 still an enthusiastic member. He was unusually active in his 
 literary societies, never declining an appointment, either regu 
 lar or impromptu. In June, 1873, while a student, he delivered 
 an oration entitled "The Voice and the Pen," and later one on 
 the subject of "The Hercules of Civilization," and received 
 very flattering comments from the press. His most notable 
 oration, "The Heart, the Source of Power," he delivered at the 
 inter-State oratorical contest at Galesburg, Illinois, where he 
 attracted great admiration, and was considered foremost among 
 them all. Mr. Egbert possesses by nature the elements of an 
 orator an imposing figure, a ready utterance, and a full-toned 
 
 ( 5)
 
 1 6 Winning Orations. 
 
 melodious voice. At the organization of the Illinois Oratorical 
 Association he was elected chairman, and likewise of the meet 
 ing at the Tremont House, in Chicago, when the Inter-State 
 Oratorical Association was formed. Immediately upon leaving 
 college he entered the Union Theological Seminary, at Chicago, 
 graduating in May, 1877, thereafter devoting five years to the 
 ministry of the gospel in the Baptist denomination. In 1881 
 he resigned the pastorate of the second largest church in In 
 diana, because of financial embarrassment resulting from the 
 failure of a business in which he was interested. Although a 
 severe blow he has ever since been laboring to re-establish his 
 former possessions. He married Miss Maggie Baker, one of 
 Chicago s accomplished ladies, in June, 1875. Mr - Egbert has 
 lost none of his interest in oratorical days in the colleges. His 
 oration, on the following pages, has never before appeared in 
 print, and is worthy of careful perusal. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, at Galesburg, Illinois, 
 February, 1874, taking first prize. Judges: Dr. A. BURNS, Prof. A. STETSON, 
 Judge A. A. SMITH. 
 
 Orpheus, poet, philosopher, master of the lyre, is a name 
 immortal in classic song. The skill with which he struck the 
 tensile chords is fabled to have been such, that the unconscious 
 rocks and trees left their places and moved to the time of the 
 air he played; and the beasts of the mountains, bewitched of 
 their ferocity and charmed to friendship, gathered lovingly at 
 his feet at the sound of those chords, the sweet harmonies of 
 whose notes beneath the touch of the divinely ingenius artist 
 were like the chanting of the gods. 
 
 Heart-bruised and disconsolate at the loss of his bride, 
 Eurydice, fatally stung by a venemous serpent, he resolved on 
 descent into the under world, that if possible he might oppose 
 the cruel rulers there, and obtain permission for the return of 
 his nymph-spouse to their mountain home. 
 
 Armed with his lyre, strung with tedious care, he trustfully 
 entered the realm of hades and essayed entrance to the palace 
 of Pluto. 
 
 At the thrice-guarded gates further advance was denied.
 
 TJie Heart, the -Source of Power. 17 
 
 The prayer from the depths of his hungry soul he poured 
 over the sensitive strings of his second love, the lyre. At the 
 first note from the "golden shell" the chariot wheels of the 
 gods stood fast, Tantalus forgot the infernal torment of his 
 insatiable thirst, the vulture ceased to tear the constantly re 
 produced vitals of Titios, the palace gates turned upon their 
 golden hinges, and Pluto, melted into sympathy with the bereft 
 soul that sobbed out the story of its lonely sorrow on the harp 
 strings, granted the prayer. Eurydice was released. 
 
 This scrap of mythology reveals to us, that according to the 
 judgment of men of that far-away day of its authorship, the 
 power of perfect art was unlimited. Was that conception un 
 warranted? May it not be that the only limit of the ministry 
 of art is the attainment of the artist. The principal realm of 
 the ministry of art is the affections, the emotions, the passions. 
 Art is not primarily a teacher. Its concern is not to instruct 
 in fundamental truths or radical principles. It does not engage 
 in intellectual controversies, or go to war. It forever appeals 
 to what is already known and freely granted, or by the win- 
 someness of its appeals disarms the contentiously disposed. 
 Its ministry is invariably to its friends; toward the unfriendly 
 it is speechless forever. It silences the opposer, or remains 
 silent toward him. 
 
 The ministry of music to man is through a single sense; 
 painting and sculpture through another. The art of arts, that 
 art of which all others are part expressions, appeals to the 
 wJiole man, to head and heart, reason, affections and emotions, 
 calling into highest and holiest activity the choicest qualities 
 and noblest power of his being. 
 
 This is the art of oratory. 
 
 Books the vaults in which have been accumulated the 
 gains of the intellectual toilers of the ages have contributed 
 immensely to the progress of mankind. Teachers, too, often 
 like nature s forces, have wrought in silence, but in might, in 
 the world s advancement. But in the long march from canni 
 balism to civilization, from barbarism to Christianity; from the 
 Egypt of slavery of body to masters, and of mind to priests, to 
 the Canaan of liberty both the pillar of cloud and fire, that 
 has been both guidance and cheer to the leaden-hearted and 
 heavy-footed multitudes in the weary ages that lay between the
 
 1 8 Winning Orations. 
 
 start toward the better state and the attainment of it, has been 
 the oratory of those ages. 
 
 The trumpet that has aroused the sluggish from lethargy to 
 activity, the faint-hearted from submission to oppression, to 
 resistance of it, that has cheered the slave of appetite on in 
 the struggle for kingship over self, has been the voice of the 
 orator. 
 
 This art, without the possibility of aid of strings, or mallet 
 and chisel, or paints and canvas, with truth its subject, the soul 
 of man its immediate object, has been the herculean force in 
 the world among men. What is the secret of its power? 
 Masters in the sciences tell us that the source of energy in the 
 natural world is heat. In the realm of the arts it is true be 
 yond dispute that the deeper the pathos, the sweeter the poem. 
 The sobs of a wounded heart awaken the tenderest responses, 
 and stir the deepest emotions. The more impassioned the 
 song, the greater the enchantment. The intenser the passion 
 portrayed, the more captivating the picture. The fire burning 
 in the soul of painter or sculptor glows from the canvas, or 
 radiates from the marble to which the artist tried to transfer 
 the picture carried in his soul. In poems, paintings and stat- 
 uary are registered, as upon a thermometer, the temperature 
 of the passion of their artist creators at the hour of the trans 
 fer of the picture from soul to material. As the field of the 
 orator s art is wider, its sphere broader, so are its obstacles 
 more, its difficulties greater. Its range is the whole gamut of 
 man s nature. Sight, the avenue through which the painter 
 and sculptor reach the soul; hearing, the gateway of the musi 
 cian to the temple within, are at the orator s disposal, as well 
 as every element of the intellectual and moral nature, every 
 emotion of the soul. Every fibre of man s being recognizes 
 his touch, and responds to his call. 
 
 But truth cannot often be painted, nor principles chiseled. 
 Herein lies one of the difficulties. In oratory the soul charged 
 with a great thought, or a cruth, must ordinarily discard all 
 media, and express itself immediately. Mind in immediate 
 contact with mind, and soul to soul, is the attitude in oratory. 
 In the material world, we observe again, heat is the source of 
 energy. In the arts, in general, heart intensity is the measure 
 of effectiveness. In this particular art it is pre-eminently true
 
 The Heart, the Source of Power. 19 
 
 that triumphs in it are where one soul on fire with truth sets 
 others aflame by immediately communicating that truth to 
 them. The results of the communication are usually in pro 
 portion to the grasp of the truth upon the soul of the orator, 
 and the intensity of his earnestness in delivering it to others. 
 Highly emotional states, that spring from deep and clear con 
 victions of truth that are well expressed, are followed by action 
 in the direction dictated by the truth-giving origin to the 
 emotional state. No harp string, or chord of lyre, is so ex- 
 quisitively sensitive and responsive to a master s touch as the 
 emotions of man. 
 
 Horace, that old master of human nature, long ago wrote 
 in substance: 
 
 "Answeringly the face of man laughs 
 To those that laugh indeed, and weep to those that weep." 
 
 Thoughts are expressed by words. The emotions have 
 their own peculiar unworded language of mystical signs. Each 
 emotion, every shade of emotion, each passion, every mood of 
 mind, has its own peculiar dialect of symbolical signs, which 
 express even the most delicate shades of quality and intensity 
 of feeling. It is by these that the emotions and passions com 
 municate themselves from orator to auditors, definitely ex 
 pressed, and thoroughly understood. However much the 
 thought of the orator may be misunderstood, misinterpreted, 
 and misapplied, the emotions never are. Genuine feeling ex 
 presses itself accurately, and is understood definitely. So is 
 pretended feeling at once detected, and instantly condemned. 
 We need not look at a thermometer to see whether the tem 
 perature is ninety above or thirty below. We feel, and so 
 know the difference. So does an audience intuitively and 
 unconsciously take the temperature of an orator accurately. 
 The string of the piano is deaf and mute to all tones except 
 the one to which it is strung. 
 
 The emotions make no answer to arguments directed to the 
 head, but heart does answer heart in the same pitch as that in 
 which it is addressed. The breeze against the sails propels the 
 ship, and the pressure of steam in the chest gives motion to 
 the engine; so do the emotions acting upon the will beget 
 action in the direction in which they impel. The flight of the 
 ship and the speed of the engine show the velocity of the
 
 2O Winning Orations. 
 
 wind and pressure of the steam. So does the disposition of 
 an audience to act responsively to the persuasions of an orator 
 furnish the infallible test of the effectiveness of the oration. 
 
 Higher compliment was never paid an orator than the cry of 
 the Athenians at the close of one of Demosthenes s harangues, 
 "Let us march against Philip." The dissatisfaction among the 
 American colonists at the injustice and oppression of the 
 mother country was general, but the indignities were endured 
 without protest till those whirlwinds of fiery indignation burst 
 from the breasts of the Otises and the Henrys, who in holy 
 recklessness dared denounce tyranny in their own king. It 
 was the manly courage, the sublime heroism, the lofty patriot 
 ism of these forest Demostheneses, ringing out across the col 
 onies, that lighted the fires of liberty on the hearth-stones in 
 the cabins of the people throughout the land. With courage 
 aroused, and determination fixed, with patriotism aflame, the 
 rallying of the people through those long years of privation 
 was to the standards which those "master spirits of storm 
 had lifted on high." From these few souls issued streams of 
 patriotic fire, which spread from hearth to hearth, till the homes 
 of the New World felt its influence, and every patriot was aglow 
 with its holy warmth. These few outspoken haters of tyranny; 
 the few whose petition was "give me liberty or give me 
 death" became the inspiration of millions. The earnest- 
 hearted few, ardently desiring liberty for the colonies, domi 
 nated by the single purpose of having it whatever might be the 
 cost, by virtue of that desire and that determination became 
 leaders of millions of others. 
 
 In all those weary years from Bunker Hill to Yorktown, in 
 the uncomplaining sufferings of hunger and cold, in the quiet 
 endurance of anguish in the hospitals of painful suffering, who 
 can not read the impress and hear the echo of that sublime 
 sentiment, " give me liberty or give me death." So has it always 
 been, and while human nature remains what it is, it will always 
 be, that he who leads the way from the worse to the better, 
 that he who charms, sweetens, thrills, and betters other s lives, 
 carries in his heart the source of power.
 
 BRITISH RULE IN INDIA. 
 
 By GEORGE T. FOSTER, of Beloit College. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 George T. Foster, the successful competitor for the second 
 prize of the first inter-State oratorical contest, in 1874, was 
 born August 3, 1852, at Lancaster, Grant County, Wisconsin. 
 At an early age his parents sent him to the Lancaster Institute, 
 a private academy founded under the management of Sherman 
 Page, the man who subsequently as circuit judge in Mower 
 County, Minnesota, gained notoriety. His next experience 
 was as a student at Beloit College. In the preparatory depart 
 ment of this institution he was under John P. Fisk as master. 
 During his college course for two years he was a roommate 
 of E. D. Eaton, D. D., now president of the college, and for 
 three years a classmate of Chicago s famous criminal lawyer, 
 Wm. S. Forrest. In 1873 he was offered an appointment to 
 West Point by J. Allen Barber, then member of Congress, but 
 declined, which action he has never regretted. After graduat 
 ing in 1875 he was principal successively of the high schools 
 at Potosi and New Lisbon, Wisconsin, and at Cherokee, Iowa. 
 Three years later he was married to Miss Lizzie G. Eunor, of 
 Potosi, Wisconsin, who graduated as valedictorian of the class 
 of 1873 from Sinsinawa Mound College. Besides winning the 
 second prize for oratory at the inter-State oratorical contest 
 of 1874, he also received the freshman prize for declamation 
 in 1872, at Beloit College. He delivered the master s oration 
 in 1878, and will return this year to deliver the alumni oration. 
 Mr. Foster has of late years delivered a great number of ora 
 tions and lectures, and is known as a popular and eloquent 
 speaker. His voice is full, and remarkably flexible. During 
 a portion of his time from 1875 to 1878 he read law in the office 
 of Barber & Clementson, Lancaster, Wisconsin, and at this 
 
 (21)
 
 22 Winning Orations. 
 
 writing he is successfully engaged in the profession of law at 
 Cherokee, Iowa, where he is universally respected, and it is 
 hoped many more years of successful life are yet before him. 
 The oration which follows is admitted to be his masterpiece. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, at Galesburg, Illinois, 
 February, 1874, taking second prize. Judges: Dr. A. BURNS, Prof. A. STF.T- 
 SON, Judge A. A. SMITH. 
 
 Mystery has peculiar charms. India has ever been mantled 
 with blank mysteries. Her earlier history is lost in imagina 
 tive stories and romantic fables. The legend that antiquity s 
 greatest woman, Semiramis, invaded India, and the fact that 
 Alexander subdued a part of the country, stand out against 
 the remaining gloom like rockets against the blackness of 
 night. In some unknown way the nations of remote antiquity 
 were supplied from India with the precious metals, the rarest 
 gems, "purple and fine linen." The knights of the Middle 
 Ages obtained their "Damascus" blades from beyond the 
 Indus. Nowadays India sends forth her troops of unsurpassed 
 jugglers, who apparently have revived the old black arts of 
 magic, and the American belles sport their camel s hair shawls, 
 woven in the sunny vales of Cashmere. 
 
 Not merely for curiosity does India possess charms and 
 interest. Beneath her mysteries the scholar and the student 
 discover matter for the deepest study. For the consideration 
 of the scholar, India presents the oldest language of which we 
 have any records, the Sanskrit, whose origin points back to a 
 time near the confusion of tongues at the tower of Babel. To 
 the student, she offers the study of her history, graven upon 
 her ruined temples, upon the fallen columns and broken arches 
 of her ancient royalty. Europe, having long possessed the 
 trade of all the Orient, has grown familiar with questions con 
 nected with Asia. Until quite recently Americans have had 
 little reason to allow their attention to wander across the 
 Pacific Ocean, and for us, therefore, these questions at least 
 possess the charm of novelty. Since the completion of the 
 Union Pacific Railroad, the most direct route from eastern 
 Asia to Europe lies directly through the heart of our country
 
 British Rule in India. 23 
 
 from San Francisco to New York. Trade and travel arc al 
 ready forming a beaten track in this direction. The spices 
 and silks of the East are finding their way to Europe along 
 this route. There is thus held before America the dazzling 
 prize of controlling the intercourse between Europe on the one 
 hand, and India, China, Japan, and the East Indies on the 
 other. If the United States can acquire and hold this trade, the 
 merchant fleets of the world will flock to our marts of com 
 merce on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and our multiplied 
 canals and railways "bearing the commerce of nations," will 
 make our country the emporium of the world. 
 
 As we are thus drawn toward India, we feel a greater inter 
 est in the questions of her history. We cannot help thinking 
 that she is destined to play a prominent part in the coming 
 centuries. This seems reasonable, in view of her vast popula 
 tion, which is as great as that of all North America, all South 
 America, Great Britain and Ireland, Spain, Russia, and all the 
 islands of the world. 
 
 "Know ye the land of the cedar and vine, 
 Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine; 
 Where the light wings of zephyr, oppressed with perfume, 
 Wax faint o er the gardens of Gul in her bloom; 
 Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit, 
 And the voice of the nightingale never is mute; 
 Where the tints of the earth, and the hues of the sky, 
 In color, though varied, in beauty may vie? . . . 
 Tis the clime of the East; tis the land of the Sun." 
 
 Nature, with lavish hand, has bestowed upon that country 
 endowments susceptible of indefinite improvement. But have 
 they been improved by the rule to which India is subject? 
 Many people, from reading the great orations that were made 
 on this subject about a hundred years ago, have almost con 
 cluded that it would have been better for the Hindoos had 
 the British remained forever away. Yet, on contrasting their 
 present with their past condition, there remains little room for 
 doubt that, by England, India has been elevated to a position 
 of rapid growth in civil institutions, mental acquirements, and 
 moral strength. This is shown by facts more eloquent than 
 words, by statistics more irresistible than arguments. 
 
 Two views may be taken of India. The first, previous to 
 the British conquest. Five hundred years ago the clouds,
 
 24 Winning Orations. 
 
 which had shrouded India for fifty centuries began to rise. 
 As they lifted they revealed a sight never witnessed elsewhere 
 in history. The tyranny and superstition of man were here 
 struggling against the overflowing bounties of nature. It was 
 a country teeming with population, having within its power 
 great wealth; but, sunk to the lowest depths of heathenism, 
 the rites of human sacrifice, the burning of widows, the killing 
 of children, self-torture, and suicide, were then practiced with 
 the inflexible strictness of Pharisees. The distinctions of caste 
 were far more rigidly observed than now. The whole country 
 swarmed with robbers. There existed a large sect whose re 
 ligion was murder; who killed strangers, friends, and relatives, 
 as a religious duty. 
 
 In one respect, India, at that time, bore a striking resem 
 blance to Persia. In both countries large districts of land had 
 been tilled from time immemorial. As a consequence, the 
 fertility of the soil had been much reduced. Successive gener 
 ations had cleared the country of all timber. This affected the 
 atmosphere, and produced a scarcity of rain. Droughts, in their 
 turn, destroyed all remaining vegetation, and dried up all the 
 productive power of the earth. Rains became unknown, fam 
 ines became the regular occurrence, and the once fertile soil 
 was rapidly becoming marked with somber hues of devouring 
 deserts. As the inhabitants had no connection with the out 
 side world, and thus could receive no assistance from abroad, 
 so whenever their crop of rice failed devastating famines re 
 sulted, and there was nothing left for them but to lie down and 
 die. Famine succeeded famine in rapid succession, attended 
 in almost every case by pestilence in the form of Asiatic 
 cholera. Persia, Northern India, were thus becoming an unin 
 habited, unproductive wilderness. The entire country was 
 divided into innumerable petty districts, each governed by an 
 absolute despotism, tyrannical and cruel as only an oriental 
 despotism can be; nine-tenths of the population reduced to 
 servitude by the oppression of the Eastern tax-gatherer. The 
 history of these small governments is little else than an inter 
 minable series of revolutions. Seldom did a rule last a lifetime, 
 Each division carried on a continual predatory warfare with 
 each of its neighbors. All was rebellion, anarchy, and chaos. 
 Internal wars were finishing up the work of famine, pestilence,
 
 British Rule in India. 25 
 
 oppression, and superstition. A country in this mutinous state 
 presented an easy conquest to the fierce warrior-tribe north of 
 the Himalayas, and west of the Indus. Hence we see them 
 pouring down through the passes of the mountains. First 
 came the Persian hordes; their ravages were followed by the 
 long-continued invasions of the ferocious Afghans. After these 
 succeeded the inroads of the Rajpoots, mercenary soldiers, 
 Seiks, Jahrets, and Mahratos. Before these shaggy demons 
 of the wilderness, the Indian peasants who escaped the sword 
 fled to the wilder neighborhood of the hyena and tiger. Ter 
 rible as was this scourge for India, the worst was reserved until 
 the last. Mohammedan kings had resolved on the conversion 
 of the Hindoos to the faith of Islam. In this they failed. 
 Exasperated with defeat, they determined to exterminate the 
 Hindoos. In this they met with better success. With eastern 
 devotion they girded themselves for the work. They swept 
 the country as with the besom of destruction. A single king 
 led twelve separate expeditions into India. Death seldom 
 reaped such a harvest. The work of extermination seemed 
 approaching its consummation, when the Mohammedans tired 
 of their own bloody work. Scarcely had they retired, when, 
 from the tableland of Asia, the home of the Huns, there came 
 the cruel Tartars, led by Tamerlane Timoor. He was the con 
 queror who sought fame by erecting monuments of human 
 bones; who seemed to have a passion for that style of archi 
 tecture. Of him the historian says: "When Tamerlane had 
 finished building his pyramid of seventy thousand human 
 skulls, and was seen standing at the gates of Damascus, glitter 
 ing in his steel, with his battle-ax on his shoulder, till his 
 fierce hosts filed out to new victories and carnage in southern 
 India, the pale looker-on might have fancied that nature was 
 in her death-throes; for havoc and despair had taken posses 
 sion of the earth, and the sun of manhood seem setting in a 
 sea of blood." Thanks to the muse of history that she never 
 permitted the details of those horrors to be chronicled. It is 
 well that a career marked by columns and pyramids of human 
 skulls should forever remain a mystery. The despotism thus 
 founded, maintaining its strength until the British accession, 
 filled out a period of three thousand years in which India 
 made not a single step in advancement, and which presents
 
 26 Winning Orations. 
 
 not a single redeeming feature. This is the first view which 
 history gives of India. 
 
 The second view dates from the British accession. The 
 remedy which England applied to Indian degradation, though 
 it has been effective, and though eventually it will prove com 
 plete, yet was not immediate in good results. The atrocities 
 of some of her rulers have sullied the honor of the English 
 nation, and have left upon her records a stain so indelible that 
 years of just rule have not been sufficient to wipe it out. The 
 world shudders at the stories of the Rohilla war, of the plun 
 dering of the Begums of Oude, of the hiring out of British 
 soldiers to a heathen despot, and of the cruel punishment in 
 flicted on captives taken in the Sepoy rebellion, when they 
 were strapped to the mouths of cannons and blown to pieces. 
 It is a matter of shame that the East India Company was per 
 mitted for so long a time to practice monopoly and extortion; 
 it is a matter of shame that, for a short time, they prohibited 
 Christian missionaries from their borders; and it is a matter of 
 shame that they once decorated Hindoo temples, thus patron 
 izing idolatry. But when we reflect that Burke, Sheridan, and 
 Fox lived to see redressed all the wrongs of India, and that 
 country placed under as pure a rule as even those great critics 
 could wish; when we consider that the opposition to mission 
 aries aroused the Christians to such strenuous efforts as only 
 that opposition could have aroused; when, through the vicissi 
 tudes of her history, there begins to gleam forth as in lines of 
 fire "the tracing of God s finger," then the evils of British rule 
 sink into nothingness compared with the untold horrors of the 
 previous rule of Mohammedans and Tartars. If the British 
 have been guilty of some wrongs, they have overshadowed 
 each one of them by huge mountains of benefits. 
 
 First, let us look at the civil and physical benefits which 
 they have conferred on India. That which they found neces 
 sary to accomplish at the outset was the establishment of a 
 government sufficiently strong to quell internal rebellions, and 
 to render the country safe from foreign invasion. This was 
 done thoroughly and completely. The natives were trained to 
 obedience to home-rule, and to self-defense against aggressive 
 tribes. The Decoits, the robber-bands, were disorganized, and 
 their leaders transported to foreign lands. The Thugs, the
 
 British Rule in India. 27 
 
 sect whose religion was murder, were exterminated. The rites 
 of human sacrifice, of the suttee, and of infanticide, were sup 
 pressed by the most stringent laws. We hear no more of 
 foreign invasions, and the country which so long had been 
 turbulent with anarchy was now free to enjoy the blessing of 
 peace. 
 
 England next turned her attention to the prevention of 
 famines. To provide means of transportation she built canals 
 all through the rainless regions of India. One of these is five 
 times as large as the Erie canal. Year after year these great 
 arteries were lined with canal boats laden with provisions for 
 the starving millions of India. Year after year saw the silent 
 progress of vegetation creeping up from the banks of the 
 canals, and stealing silently over the surrounding country. 
 Year after year found the British engaged in the work of irri 
 gation, in cleaning out, repairing, enlarging old reservoirs, and 
 building new ones. Year after year young trees were brought 
 from distant forests, and planted on the banks of the canals, 
 until at length these various influences combined to produce 
 there what had hitherto been unknown they produced rain. 
 With astonishing success, England at once introduced from 
 her island home, barley, oats, corn, and wheat. Large tracts 
 of Hindoostan, which once were inhabited by a perishing pop 
 ulation, and where were only the bleached and drifting sands 
 of the desert, .are now inhabited by an enlightened people, are 
 covered with waving fields of golden grain, and blossom with 
 perpetual harvests. 
 
 The critics of England estimate the number of natives 
 killed in the wars of India, since the British conquest, at the 
 extravagant figure of 3,000,000. The advocates of British rule 
 can point to 30,000,000 Hindoos saved by England from the 
 horrors of famine. We have seen that one hundred years ago 
 Persia and India lay side by side in the physical condition 
 of the country. Persia remained independent, and in 1872, 
 3,000,000 of her inhabitants perished from famine. India fell 
 to Great Britian, and in 1872 her newly developed resources 
 were employed in sending relief to the dying nation of Persia. 
 
 As yet it is not a foregone conclusion, that the rainfall in 
 all parts of Hindoostan will be great enough to render abun 
 dant crops certain each year. It has sometimes happened
 
 28 Winning Orations. 
 
 there, as in our own land, that while in the greater part of the 
 country there have been plenteous harvests, yet in a single 
 district the crops have been an entire failure. The want of 
 provisions, consequent upon drought, is felt at this very time 
 in the district of Bengal. But we learn that breadstuff s and 
 rice are going from the other parts of India into that needy 
 province at the rate of 10,000 tons per week. A drought in 
 that country can never again produce a depopulation famine. 
 These are some of the things which Englishmen have done 
 for India. They have laid open to her the manufacture of 
 India-rubber. They have checked the consuming of her forests 
 for fuel, have taught the natives from the timber to build 
 ships for European navies, and have gone down into the bowels 
 of the earth to disclose to the wondering natives that they 
 have an infinite wealth of coal. They have improved and en 
 larged the manufacture of indigo, silk, and opium. Opium! 
 whose culture has, in some respects, largely benefited India. 
 It is commonly supposed that it has not, but statistics show 
 that, while the growth of the poppy has vastly increased, the 
 actual consumption of opium in India has scarcely increased 
 at all. The culture of the poppy supplies with employment 
 great communities of idlers, and its sale to the Chinese has 
 become a source of great revenue. The English have brought 
 the tea-plant from China, the sugar-cane from the West Indies, 
 and they have taught the naked savage to raise them both. 
 They brought the cotton-plant from the West Indies, and they 
 taught the natives its cultivation. They brought sheep from 
 Australia; they brought looms from London; they have taught 
 the natives from the cotton and the wool to weave cloth which 
 they make into clothing, which they have taught the natives to 
 wear. England has also improved the mental state of India. 
 Vast sums of money are expended annually in the work of 
 education. A system of free schools is maintained by the 
 local governments and missionaries, and in aid of this the 
 central government annually devotes over 500,000 sterling. 
 There is scarcely a town in all India that is without its schools 
 and its hospitals, as is shown by the fact that there are in 
 operation there three universities, 300 colleges, and 25,000 
 schools, attended by nearly a million children. Some of the 
 native Hindoos are among the best physicians and civil en-
 
 British Rule in India. 29 
 
 gineers in the world. Her scholars rank among the first. 
 Take, for instance, the great Sheshadre, who is now visiting 
 this country. She has a native press as free as ours, and as 
 extensive as that of many European governments. In the 
 City of Calcutta there are published between fifty and sixty 
 periodicals, which sell at the low price of one-fourth of a cent 
 per copy. Truly India is attaining the glory of what Carlyle 
 would call "her writing period." 
 
 India has also been elevated morally. This work, however, 
 has progressed slowly when compared with her civil and intel 
 lectual advancement. But we must remember that India was 
 in bondage for 3,000 years, and that in a single century England 
 could no more break down the barriers of superstition and the 
 distinctions of caste than she could roll down the Himalayas 
 into the Indian Ocean. But in spite of gigantic obstacles the 
 work has advanced. 
 
 No one can estimate the influence which Western improve 
 ment has upon the Hindoo mind. We have an illustration of 
 it in the effect produced by the introduction of railroads. 
 The locomotive has traversed all India; it has thundered along 
 the banks of the Ganges; its scream has been heard within the 
 shadows of the Himalayas; it has been the means of an ex 
 tended intercourse among the people; with its iron frame it 
 has crushed right through superstition, and it has produced 
 freedom of thought. It is the belief of the high caste Brah 
 mins, that if they are brought in contact with those of a lower 
 caste they will be shut out of heaven. With this for a plea, 
 they petitioned the railroad managers to run caste cars. The 
 railroads officials, who are quite as wise for their own interest 
 in India as they are in Illinois, replied: 
 
 "REVEREND SIRS: We shall run not caste cars, but class cars. 
 You pay your money, and you take your choice." 
 
 This was the severest blow that Brahminism ever received. 
 At that reply thousands of idols fell from their pedestals like 
 Dagon of old, and to-day are kicked about the streets of Bom 
 bay and Calcutta. Soon every night-owl of India shall have a 
 discarded image to roost upon, and every mole a broken idol 
 beneath which to burrow. 
 
 Yes, the awakening of India is near. The Himalayas no 
 longer look down upon a land impotent in stagnation. The
 
 3<D Winning Orations. 
 
 Ganges no longer flows to the sea, drowning with its swift- 
 rushing current the cries of the infant thrown to the crocodile, 
 or the frantic shout of the devotee who flings himself from a 
 precipice into its waters; but the mighty river moves on in 
 majesty to the sacred chime of bells ringing from Christian 
 churches, to the grand music of water-wheels, to the hum of 
 factories, and to the thunders of the locomotive. The vast 
 plains of Hindoostan are being peopled with the followers of 
 the Cross. Haste! oh, haste! you who would have your name 
 enrolled among those who have contributed to the regeneration 
 of India, for soon, very soon the choirs in our churches shall 
 have no cause to chant the thrilling hymn telling us that there 
 comes a cry for help 
 
 "From Greenland s icy mountains 
 And India s coral strands." 
 
 From Cashmere to Cape Comorin the seeds of freedom are 
 springing into vigorous life. The land of the sun is steadily 
 rising to that place among modern nations which she held 
 among the ancients while Abraham was sojourning in Egypt, 
 and Semiramis was building Babylon. She already sends dele 
 gates to the Evangelical Alliance, and as the British Empire 
 turns gradually into a grand republic, India will be prepared to 
 send representatives to the British Parliament, or shall stand 
 free, prepared to send representatives to the "Parliament of 
 Man."
 
 CULTURE, A BASIS OF BROTHERHOOD. 
 
 By THOMAS I. COULTAS, of Illinois Wesleyan University. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 Thomas Isaac Coultas was born in Scott County, Illinois, 
 May 5, 1853, and is of English parentage. He is the youngest 
 of seven children. When six years of age his father died, leav 
 ing the care of the farm and rearing of the children almost 
 entirely upon his mother. Her force and nobleness of char 
 acter had marked influence over her children, and she early 
 led them into Christian lives. She thought Thomas was des 
 tined to the service of the ministry, and at an early age he 
 conceived the same impression, ofttimes standing on a chair 
 and preaching to the neighbors who came in, insisting, however, 
 that the service was not complete without the collection. He 
 first attended a country school, and at the age of fourteen he 
 entered the Winchester High School, where in two years he 
 finished the course. At sixteen years of age he was urged to 
 accept license to preach, and the country school-houses and 
 village churches were crowded to hear the boy-preacher. The 
 success with which he met in this field of labor deterred his in 
 tention to enter college, but led him to enter the regular min 
 istry, and in September, 1869, was admitted into the Illinois 
 conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. As a clergy 
 man he served two years in Sangamon and Champaign counties. 
 He then entered the Illinois Wesleyan University to complete 
 his education, graduating in the classical course June 15, 1875, 
 three years subsequently receiving the master s degree. In the 
 fall of 1875 he was united in marriage with Miss Angie Morri 
 son, daughter of Henry B and Caroline (Sears) Morrison, then 
 residing in Bloomington, Illinois, now in Coin, Iowa. Three 
 children now comprise the family. Mr. Coultas has ever since 
 continued laboring in the ministry, occuping pulpits at Pitts- 
 field, Quincy, Hillsboro, and Clinton, in Illinois. He was also
 
 32 Winning Orations. 
 
 pastor of the First Methodist Episcopal Church, Decatur, Illi 
 nois, for three years, and there was general regret when by 
 limitation of church law his pastorate ceased. Thence he was 
 sent to the Kimber Church, Danville, Illinois, and was just 
 entering upon his third year as pastor of this church when he 
 received an invitation from the First Church, St. Paul, Minne 
 sota, to become their pastor. The presiding bishop made the 
 appointment. But in a short period of time, finding the work 
 was not congenial to him, and the effect of the severe winters 
 on the health of his family, he requested the authorities to 
 transfer him back into the territory he left, whereupon he was 
 stationed at the Centenary Church, Terre Haute, Indiana, and 
 was received with enthusiasm by the congregation. This is 
 one of the largest and most prosperous churches in Indiana. 
 Rev. Coultas is a preacher of great ability. As an orator he 
 possesses marked characteristics. His sentences are ornate 
 and vigorous; his thoughts are logical and closely connected, 
 thus making it easy for his auditors to know his meaning, and 
 quickly to recognize that he advocates what he believes. His 
 oratory is of the Wendell Phillips style. He deals but seldom 
 in pathos, rarely in wit, and does not rise to the dramatic, but 
 is impassioned and earnest. Rev. Coultas is in the prime of 
 manhood, and his physical strength and intellectual vigor fore 
 tell many years of influence and usefulness. The oration here 
 given was delivered when a senior of the Illinois Wesleyan 
 University, at the contest of 1875, held in Indianapolis, Indiana. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, at Indianapolis, Indi 
 ana, May, 1875, taking first prize. Judges: Prof. G. THAYER, Rev. C. C. 
 BURNETT, U. D., Hon. EDWAKD SEARLING, Gen. T. M. BROWNE. 
 
 The introduction of evil into the world brought countless 
 woes, the dissolution of the human family following in their 
 sad train. And viewing man through the medium of history, 
 as it unfolds his cold seclusiveness, and exhibits wild, warring, 
 struggling, surging humanity coming up the path of ages, we 
 are prone to say, the family relations will never be restored. 
 To him who reads, but pauses not to reason; to him who sees 
 humanity only as delineated on history s page, but knows
 
 Culture, a Basis of Brottierhood. 33 
 
 nothing of the principles unfolded by ethics and philosophy, 
 how dark and foreboding the picture! Despair possesses him 
 as he reads the first page of human career, for in the first family 
 is a murder, and the first soul entering heaven s gates is driven 
 from earth by the hand of violence. Here are seen whole em 
 pires torn and rent in pieces; whole armies mown down on a 
 thousand bloody fields; thrones shaken to their foundations; 
 hearts bleeding with sorrow; even the church, loaded with 
 depravity s pestilential vapor, bearing the impress of evil; 
 popes, prelates, and priests, led on by the powers of hell, 
 grappling the secular sword until "the whole creation groaneth 
 and travaileth in pain," under the dominion of human passion. 
 Sad indeed is the picture; but we are not without hope. 
 Culture her garments yet wet with the dew of dawning day, 
 her face luminous with the hopes of triumph, unveiling to our 
 astonished vision the measure of human possibility, on the 
 basis of mental and moral attainment proclaims the brother 
 hood of man. Culture is bringing about a fraternity of minds. 
 Cultured minds must commune with each other, for upon this 
 depends the march of intellect. Miles and oceans cannot 
 separate them, neither can centuries divide them. Thoughts 
 expressed ages ago are thrilling the souls of millions to-day; 
 and although the grave has long since opened to receive the 
 speaker, he still lives, as human hearts beat in sympathy with 
 his utterances, and human lips reiterate them again and again. 
 In fighting the fierce battle of life, in walking up the same 
 pathway, in entering into similar investigations, a harmony of 
 sentiments, and identity of interests, have united the votaries of 
 intellect in a brotherhood as sacred and consummate as the 
 union of angels. Aristotle, in his scientific researches, investi 
 gated the wonders of animal life, unfolded many mysterious 
 phenomena, gave us more enlarged ideas of man s relations to 
 nature, more exalted conceptions of the plans of creation. 
 All this, too, did Agassiz. Hence, through the medium of 
 science these two men communed with each other, and across 
 the chasms of centuries clasped the hand of brotherhood. 
 Shakespeare, Milton, and Bryant walked up the same pathway, 
 hand in hand with Virgil, Homer, and Isaiah; and, feeling the 
 inspiration of the ancient muse, they soared to loftier themes. 
 Blackstone and Kent breathed the spirit of liberty from the
 
 34 Winning Orations. 
 
 free hills of Greece; gathered greatness from the studied 
 justice of Cicero and Justinian; received mightier animation 
 from the inspired law of Moses, thus linking them together in 
 sacred fraternity. The glorious hymn of victory which Moses 
 sang and Miriam echoed back on the shores of the Red sea; 
 the strains of Jeremiah, tear-steeped in the prophet s own 
 sorrow; the heart-burst of grief from the trembling strings of 
 David s harp; the rich melodies breaking forth from the lips 
 of a Handel or Mozart, blending with a thousand voices from 
 moorland and mountain sides, proclaim the brotherhood of 
 song, and with mightier expression declare that impulses, 
 wants, and woes of humanity are as the impulses, wants, and 
 woes of one man. As culture advances, secrets unfolded from 
 nature, powers delved from the earth, wisdom drawn from the 
 skies, conspire to break down barriers of prejudice and unite 
 mankind in enduring fraternity. The philosopher who reads 
 in nature the hand-writing of Deity; the metaphysician who 
 reduces chaotic thought to principles; the poet whose harp is 
 the universe, and who plays on the strings of a million hearts; 
 the artist who visits the spirit land and brings down to our 
 grosser sense its archetypes of ideal beauty, sit together as one 
 family, joined in one unity of purpose to elevate the race, and 
 together are throwing open the portals of learning for the on 
 coming nations. 
 
 1 Science and religion, too, join hands standing upon a com 
 mon level, not contradictory, but vindicative, one of the other; 
 not by lowering religion to man s former misconception of 
 science, but by lifting our conception of science to the plane 
 of spiritual and divine truth. The final religion and the final 
 science will own brotherhood. While religion will stand forth 
 better understood, shining out in clearer lines, science will be 
 heard saying, "The earth is the Lord s and the fullness thereof." 
 Culture is uniting the nations, demolishing those barriers which 
 ignorance and prejudice have reared; spurning that narrow- 
 minded patriotism which confines its regards to a peculiar 
 nation, with impartial benevolence culture embraces every 
 man as kinsman and brother. However much the nations may 
 have been at war with each other in the past, the signs of the 
 times certainly indicate the near approach of that era when it 
 will be recognized that "God hath made of one blood all nations
 
 Culture, a Basis of Brotherhood. 35 
 
 of men." Profound and metaphysical Germany, artistic and 
 imaginative France, practical and energetic America, bluff and 
 sturdy old England, though distinct in customs and peculiar 
 ities are not divergent in thought and purpose. God is letting 
 loose an army of thinkers in the world, and they arc bringing 
 the nations together. Science, commerce, religion, new facil 
 ities of intercourse, electricity converting the world into a 
 whispering gallery, the abolition of slavery, the spirit of liberty 
 bursting forth in both hemispheres, new friendships, new inter 
 ests, are overcoming the old antipathy of nations, silently 
 spreading the sentiment of human brotherhood, and the con 
 viction that the welfare of each is the happiness of all. We 
 as Americans are proud of our country. Justly so; we are the 
 model government of earth. But a nation is not made in a day. 
 We are more than one hundred years old. This model govern 
 ment is but the expansion and outgrowth of the past. One truth 
 after another, slowly rising from the bosom of bygone centuries, 
 has contributed to make for us this precious heritage. We have 
 come up the pathway of generations, through toil and vicissi 
 tude, through the smoke of battle and the rage of passion, by 
 the way of free Athens and free Rome and sacred Palestine. 
 Noble men led us ages ago, who never breathed the free air of 
 America or planted foot on our sacred soil. In view of this, 
 we hail Asia as our birth-place; we grasp with firmer friendship 
 the electric hand of Europe, beneath the foaming Atlantic, 
 and forever severing the shackles of slavery, we open wide the 
 doors for the admission of Africa into our sacred brotherhood. 
 Culture is moral, and in the effulgence of its light the unity of 
 Christianity is being recognized, and the churches are converg 
 ing. It is here culture attains its highest dignity and its truest 
 worth. The first and grand condition of true culture is an un 
 selfish love of truth, which is the very soul of Christian virtue. 
 Culture inspires love and faith, and these, centering in a com 
 mon Lord, bind together the Christian world. It reveals a 
 divine cause, and leads to a recognition of common origin. 
 It opens the word of life, and brings the church to a common 
 tribunal. Denominational distinction may exist as long as 
 time, but sectarian prejudice is already becoming a thing of 
 the past, and fraternal hands are being clasped across the 
 crumbling walls of partition. The meeting of the Evangelical
 
 36 Winning Orations. 
 
 Alliance in Brooklyn was the meeting of Christianity. Those 
 men with cultured minds and cultured hearts were her worthy 
 representatives; and as they came from Belgium and Greece, 
 from Britain and France, it was no more our noble delegates 
 who took them by the hand, and said to them, "Welcome," 
 than it was Luther and Latimer, and Calvin and Wesley, who 
 lived and worked together upon our free soil, through the rich 
 results of their prayers and faith, as exhibited in a free religion, 
 a free church, and a free nation. Above the platform in the 
 Alliance hall was written Christianity s expressive motto: 
 "Unum corpus snmus in Christo," while in every heart was felt, 
 we are met 
 
 " Where names and sects and parties fall, 
 And Jesus Christ is all in all." 
 
 Three of these noble men are gone. Two, from the decks 
 of the Ville du Havre, sank beneath Atlantic s foaming billows, 
 but "their works do follow them." Under the influence set in 
 motion at that Alliance, the clash of religious sentiment is 
 ceasing, Christians are uniting against a common foe, and the 
 churches are converging. Love is mightier than logic, and as 
 Christian hearts are being deluged with love they are becom 
 ing one, as "the Father and Son are one." Those of the min 
 istry, too, with cultured minds and cultured hearts, are soaring 
 above the narrow creed and catechism, and, as with the voice 
 of one man, are crying out to humanity, "Behold, behold the 
 Lamb!" From the banks of the Ganges; "from Greenland s 
 icy mountains and India s coral strands;" from the shores of 
 the Pacific, and where flow the waters of the Nile; from Alpine 
 heights, and New England s palatial residences, comes the 
 legitimate response, "I see, I see the star!" And over every 
 barrier they are coining they are coming to clasp hands 
 around the cross of one common Redeemer, until soon in 
 Heaven s courts will be heard the glad announcement, "The 
 morning dawneth!" O Culture, noble is thy work! thy dignity 
 is the brightest manifestation of divinity; yea, the symbol of 
 God s infinity, for no limit can be set to thy unfolding. Human 
 ity, as a unit, comes and bows at thy tribunal, acknowledging 
 the sway of thy scepter, and marshaled under thy banner 
 marches forward to conquer death and hell, and with thee to 
 scale the battlements of glory.
 
 THE TWO RACES IN IRELAND. 
 
 By THOMAS W. GRAYDON, of Iowa State University. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 Thomas W. Graydon is a native of Ireland. Naturally he 
 was very scholastic, but through the advice of the eminent 
 oculist, Sir William Wilde, of Dublin, Ireland, at the age of 
 fifteen he was compelled to relinquish his studies and love of 
 books to rescue his eyesight, which had become much impaired 
 from excessive usage. This affliction has ever been one of the 
 difficulties he has had to struggle with. At eighteen years of 
 age he came to America, and settled on a farm in Illinois. 
 Recovering sufficiently he entered Griswold College, Daven 
 port, Iowa, in 1871, where he graduated. In 1872 he entered 
 the Iowa State University, graduating there in 1875. ^ was 
 while a student of this university he was the representative to 
 the inter-State oratorical contest, and where he was admired 
 in the many points of eloquence and oratory. The following 
 year he located in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he began the 
 practice of medicine. In 1885 he represented Hamilton County 
 in the Legislature, declining the renomination in 1887. In 1888 
 he was appointed by Governor Foraker on the old board of 
 public affairs, where he served until the board was abolished, 
 in the spring of 1890. By a special session of the Ohio Legis 
 lature, in October, 1890, the mayor was given the appointing 
 of a board of city affairs. Dr. Graydon was again assigned to 
 that position. He is very active in political affairs, and quite 
 influential in the municipal government of Cincinnati. Dr. 
 Graydon has a large and lucrative medical practice, and is a 
 man of excellent qualities. The following oration, delivered 
 by him May 13, 1875, shows his original talent, and presents one 
 of the most favorable specimens of college orations. 
 
 (37)
 
 38 Winning Orations. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, at Indianapolis, Indi 
 ana, May, 1875, taking second prize. Judges: Prof. G. THAYER, Rev. C. C. 
 BURNETT, D. D., Hon. EDWARD SEARLING, Gen. T. M. BROWNE. 
 
 Our attention was lately called to Ireland by the Froude-and- 
 Burke discussion. Probably few think Mr. Froude has justified 
 the English invasion of Ireland. But who has justified the 
 Roman invasion of Britain, the Saxon, the Danish, the Norman; 
 or the extermination of the Indians on this continent? His 
 tory presents us terrible scenes countries overrun, peoples 
 enslaved, oppressions, annihilations. We cannot justify the 
 inflicted wrongs, we do approve the results. The English his 
 torian and the Catholic priest judge history by different stand 
 ards. The one, Carlyle s worthy disciple, comes saying: "The 
 two civilizations conflicted- the stronger and higher and the 
 stronger, because the higher, prevailed." His opponent, the 
 Dominican monk, tells us of penal laws and violated treaties, 
 a proscribed priesthood and a degraded people, the peasant 
 murdered in his burning cottage and the wail of his children in 
 the midnight air, and asks our judgment. The standard by 
 which Mr. Froude judges history is the Fatalist s, the Utilita 
 rian s, and that of Mother Nature, who is always rejoiced to 
 have the strong race crush out the weak. Father Burke s 
 standard is more in harmony with the common notions of 
 justice. The Englishman s defense of his country is a defense 
 of the laws of progress; of the times, not past, when "might 
 makes right." The priest s complaint is an indictment of 
 "Specific Gravity," "The Persistence of Force," "The Survival 
 of the Fittest;" England s justification the right of the tiger 
 to his evening meal; Ireland s plea the claim of the poor 
 victim to its life. When we shall have reconciled Fate and 
 Free-will, and settled the respective rights of the wild beast 
 and his prey, we shall have satisfactorily judged the English 
 conquest and occupation of Ireland. 
 
 There are three periods of Ireland s history of peculiar in 
 terest to the student of political or social science. The first is 
 that of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, when the English colonists 
 in Ireland adopted the Reformed faith, thus infusing a new 
 element of discord, and making what was a war of races also
 
 The Tu o Races in Ireland. 39 
 
 a war of religions. The second period is the last quarter of 
 the eighteenth century, when the Irish Parliament enjoyed a 
 nominal independence. The third is the present, marked by 
 Air. Gladstone s Ballot Act. Briefly to consider these three 
 periods is our task. When the Northern nations of Europe 
 embraced Protestantism, hatred of her oppressors helped keep 
 Ireland true to the church of the Middle Ages. Besides, 
 Catholicism, appealing to our emotional nature, and cherishing 
 an ideal of glowing faith, was intrinsically congenial to the 
 Irish character. Only strong peoples assimilate strong creeds. 
 The relentless logic of Calvin was for the Scotch, not the Irish 
 race. The explanation, then, of Ireland s present state lies in 
 the fact, that since the Reformation the colonists and the native 
 Irish have been as clearly divided in religion as in race. 
 
 In the eighteenth century we find the original inhabitants 
 deprived of their ancestral holdings, excluded from every 
 office and voice in the government, disarmed, persecuted and 
 outlawed, their religion proscribed, and their priests under ban, 
 subject to the most odious penal laws, without the means, and 
 almost without the will, to better themselves. On the other 
 hand, the Protestant colonists, the ruling class, had been alter 
 nately caressed and taxed by England, as her fears or her 
 avarice dictated. They were literally the "Irish garrison." 
 They governed the country, and were themselves governed 
 for England s aggrandizement. When, by their enterprise, any 
 export or manufacture threatened England s interest, it was 
 immediately suppressed. Their commerce with the American 
 colonies had been prohibited, the exportation of cattle for 
 bidden, and when they turned to the manufacture of woolen 
 goods the trade in wool was completely annihilated. But these 
 descendants of Cavalier, Roundhead, and Williamite these 
 colonists with their old Anglo-Saxon obstinacy were not the 
 men to endure such treatment. They had been trained in a 
 severe school, one fitted to develop the virtues, as the vices, of 
 a superior people. Justly, or unjustly, their fathers had won 
 the land by the sword, and they had been compelled to hold it 
 by the same means. Surrounded by numbers who were uni 
 formly their enemies, and whom they considered their inferiors, 
 they had maintained their position by superior intelligence, 
 vigilance, and courage. No doubt they were arbitrary and
 
 40 Whining Orations. 
 
 somewhat despotic, yet generous, proud, and self-reliant. Such 
 men the Irish Parliament of the eighteenth century represented, 
 so far as it represented anything outside the British cabinet. 
 In 1779-82 these men demanded the independence of their 
 Parliament, and England, weakened by her American and 
 European wars, graciously granted to 100,000 armed volunteers 
 what she had ever denied to the claims of justice. Yes, Eng 
 land, in her weakness, granted the boon of independent legis 
 lation, to snatch it again by the so-called union of iSoo 
 a union conceived in the fine brain of that prince of moral 
 prime ministers, William Pitt, warmed to life by the fanatical 
 Tory reaction that followed the French Revolution, and 
 ushered into the world by shameless intrigue and statecraft, 
 by bravado and threats, by offers of safety to the Irish Prot 
 estant Church, and subtle promises of Catholic emancipation 
 promises which the subsequent action of king and ministers 
 compels us to believe were never meant to be fulfilled. 
 
 In the past, the union of politics and religion has been the 
 curse of Ireland. Mr. Gladstone, by the Ballot Act and the 
 disestablishment of the Irish Church, did much to seculari/.c 
 Irish politics. By the ballot Act he rescued the voter from 
 the power of both landlord and priest; by the disestablishment 
 of the Irish Church he estranged England s warmest supporters, 
 the ultra-Episcopalians, and united the liberal Protestants with 
 the Catholics in the Home Rule party. The motto of the 
 Home Rulers is " Home legislation in internal affairs." They 
 claim an independence similar to that enjoyed by each State 
 of the American Union. They have learned from the past. 
 They remember that once the great heart of England was 
 moved to pity Ireland, when, in 1782, she granted a nominally 
 independent Parliament to the demands of an armed people; 
 they remember, too, another occasion, when the British prime 
 minister, the victor of Waterloo, presented the Catholic eman 
 cipation bill to George IV., and said: "Your Majesty, it is forced 
 on you and me; you must sign the paper, or prepare for civil 
 war and rebellion in Ireland." With these records the Home 
 Rulers know what to expect from England s generosity. 
 
 Prejudices of Saxon descent may unfit me for judging, yet, 
 from an intimate knowledge of the Celtic character, I must say 
 that Ireland is not now fitted for self-government; that she will
 
 The Tivo Races in Ireland. 4 1 
 
 be fitted for it when public opinion makes it possible, I hope 
 and believe. When that day of her independence comes, it 
 will have come, not through the sword, but through the voice 
 and the pen, through the burial of old jealousies and discords 
 of home, and the ultimate aid of English republicanism. Re 
 lying on these means alone the reformers are hopefully labor 
 ing on laboring for the time when religion shall no longer be 
 a factor in politics; when the two races shall be assimilated by 
 common interests; when with the rash enthusiasm of the Celt, 
 tempered by the steadiness of the more self-restrained Saxon, 
 the whole Irish people shall be a united, independent people 
 a people with a secular political life. Visions of bygone times 
 cheer them in the noble struggle, as among the dying echoes 
 of the past century they hear the halls of the old Parliament 
 house ringing with the voices of the patriot leaders, with the 
 voices of the heroic Flood and the high-minded Grattan men 
 whose spotless integrity was as well recognized by French and 
 English contemporaries as by their own countrymen men, 
 the halo of whose genius sheds an immortal radiance o er the 
 few short years of their country s independence, while even yet 
 their transcendent forms towering through the mists of British 
 corruption and treachery seem to point ever upward to those 
 clear heights, where calm, grand, over-arched and begirt with 
 the eternal sunlight sit the pure goddesses of their adoration 
 Patriotism, Justice, Truth.
 
 THE WORLD S CONQUERORS. 
 
 By CHARLES T. NOLAND, of Central College. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, at Chicago, Illinois, 
 May, 1876, taking first prize. Judges: Hon. THOS. A. HENDRICKS, Messrs. 
 J. O. BRODHEAD, W. F. POSLE. 
 
 The leading characteristic of our times is a strong tendency 
 to expansion and universality. We have turned from the nar 
 rowness and restrictions of the past; and instead of idolizing 
 successful individuals, we praise the motives which actuated 
 them, and crown as conquerors the principles which they have 
 worked out to a successful result. The age of hero-worship is 
 past, and we regard men merely as the creatures of circum 
 stances; and, with Cicero, are ready, not to praise Regulus for 
 his self-sacrifice, but to ascribe all credit to his times. 
 
 We admire Newton, who proclaimed and expounded the 
 laws of gravitation; but we immediately account for his success 
 by saying that preceding events and circumstances pointed 
 directly to this conclusion; that, as the lofty mountain-peak 
 first receives the beams of the morning sun, which after a time 
 bathes even the deepest valleys with its life-giving light, so 
 Newton, by his superior intellectual height, first caught the 
 rays of that mighty scientific principle, whose light was sure 
 soon to burst upon the minds of all. The discovery was bound 
 to be made by some one, and Newton was that lucky one. 
 Men live by believing something; and when we quit our belief 
 in heroes, we but transfer it to those truths and principles in 
 whose behalf the laboring and fighting, the dying and triumph 
 ing made these heroes what they were. The world s conquerors 
 which we now worship are Science, Invention, and Religion. 
 
 When, in olden times, the Capuchin friar was about to speak 
 to the multitude concerning the life of some saint, he held 
 before the gaze of his hearers some relic of him a lock of his 
 hair, a shred of his garment, a drop of his blood. I have no 
 
 (42)
 
 The World s Conquerors. 43 
 
 sympathetic souvenirs to present to you, but can only show 
 you a few trophies of victory. 
 
 Science how eventful is its history! How noble are its 
 achievements! How comprehensive are its truths. 
 
 The founding of the Alexandrian Museum, at Alexandria 
 in old Egypt, was the real birth of Science. From this humble 
 origin, in a now darkened and depressed land, arose a power 
 which has conquered time, annihilated space, given new beliefs 
 for the present, new hopes for the future. Men have delved 
 into the deep mysteries which shroud the past, and have dis 
 proved the old theory that the world was created just six 
 thousand years ago have found the site of ancient Troy, and 
 once more allow mortal eyes to view the beauties of the palace 
 of Priam. With rough and unfeeling hands they have de 
 stroyed the mighty legends of Rome s early days, torn to shreds 
 the Spanish fictions concerning the new world, and tell the as 
 tonished people that Prescott s History of the Conquest of 
 Mexico is but a petty story founded on the cunningly devised 
 statements of Spanish priests and chroniclers. With wistful 
 eyes they are peering into the future, and with tolerable accu 
 racy are prognosticating the weather. They have discovered 
 new worlds in the realms of space, and explained the laws 
 which cause them to move in their silent and awful grandeur. 
 They are driving dogmatism and intolerance from our midst, 
 and recognize the existence of fanaticism in only one form 
 an enthusiastic search after the truth. Science has increased 
 the longevity of our race. What, I am asked, live longer in 
 this fast age than our sedate forefathers did in their quiet days 
 of the past. Yes; the fastness of the age, deleterious as it may 
 be, is more than counterbalanced by scientific discoveries in 
 medicine and hygiene. Since the time of the Reformation, as 
 is proven by statistics, the average length of human life has 
 been nearly doubled. Such are a few of the victories of 
 science; yet, how incomplete is the record! I have said 
 nothing of the science of navigation and the discovery of a new 
 continent; nothing of the advancement in the science of gov 
 ernment and political economy, which has culminated in the 
 grandest and best of governmental systems the one under 
 which we live; nothing of the great discoveries in chemistry, 
 magnetism, and electricity; nothing of the laws of acoustics,
 
 44 Winning Orations. 
 
 and the great advantages arising from ventilation. In short, 
 nearly everything bears the imprint of science. Nothing is so 
 small as to escape its notice; nothing too great for it to under 
 take. Unfettered and free, as it now is, it will continue to 
 bestow its blessings on humanity, and the bloodless victories 
 already accomplished will shine with a cumulative radiance 
 when the present, "like streaks of a morning cloud, shall have 
 melted into the infinite azure of the past." 
 
 Perhaps, of all the world s conquerors, none possesses so 
 many trophies of victory as Invention. The art of writing is 
 the most miraculous of all the inventions which the cunnincr 
 
 c" 
 
 brain of man has yet devised. The soul of the whole past lies 
 in books, and it may with truth be said that the writers of 
 books are "the dead but sceptered sovereigns, who still rule 
 our spirits from their urns." In former times learning was only 
 obtained by traveling over the then known world; now you 
 need but go to the nearest college. Truly the greatest univer 
 sity of modern times is a well-selected collection of books. 
 Printing is but a mere form of writing, and from this invention 
 newspapers are a necessary consequence. Who can estimate 
 the power of the press? When the sands of the ocean are 
 numbered, when space is measured, and the limits of eternity 
 are defined, then may we attempt to compute the power of 
 this mighty engine of civilization, this one achievement of the 
 noble conqueror. Formerly parliaments and congresses de 
 cided what the people should do; but now, through the agency 
 of the press, the people decide what parliaments and congresses 
 shall do. This fact presents to us another great truth in regard 
 to this mighty invention, i. e., printing necessarily makes 
 democracy. It is inevitable. History shows this. What is 
 the tendency of the whole of Europe? The decay of monarch- 
 ism. The people gradually are demanding liberty, equality, 
 and justice, and sooner or later the demand will be met. I 
 need not relate more of the many conquests of invention; the 
 world knows them, for they exist all around us in such abun 
 dance that this has been very properly styled the age of 
 mechanical invention. We use these inventions without know 
 ing or caring for the originators of them. We care not whether 
 Oersted invented the telegraph, and Morse gained the credit 
 for it; we care not whether John Fitch first constructed a
 
 The World s Conquerors. 45 
 
 steamboat, and Robert Fulton acquired the fame we have 
 the result. The thousands of inventive geniuses who now sleep 
 in secluded and unhonored graves, with their pallid faces 
 turned toward the tips of daisies, and no epitaphs to mark their 
 last resting-places, all bear witness to the great fact that the 
 the world now worships principles and not men. 
 
 It is difficult to tell what religion has done for the world, 
 because there has been no period when a religion of some 
 kind has not existed. Every religion that has had any influ 
 ence or met with any favor from the people, has had some 
 truth in it, and that truth, small though it sometimes was, has 
 always exerted a beneficial influence. But the principal form 
 to which I wish to direct your attention is what is known as 
 the Christian religion. The church has agitated all the prob 
 lems of great interest to man philosophical, historical, and 
 political; hence has had great influence upon modern civili/a- 
 tion. And the fact is evident that the moral and intellectual 
 progress of Europe has been essentially theological. Religion 
 being a friend to civil liberty, has supplied its place where that 
 boon has been wanting. Legislative science owes its all to 
 religion. 
 
 The first code of laws known to the world was the Mosaic. 
 Since that time all branches of law, commercial, international, 
 and civil, have been greatly modified and improved; but the 
 fundamental principle the great outlines of legislative science 
 are found in the civil polity of the Jews. Milman, one of 
 the greatest historians, has well said in this connection, that 
 "the Hebrew law-giver has exercised a more extensive and 
 permanent influence over the destinies of mankind than any 
 other individual in the annals of the world." Shall I speak of 
 the ennobling spirit of Christianity, of the influences of its 
 moral teachings, of its consolation to those in distress, of its 
 admonitions to those in prosperity? Religion is to society 
 what the sun is to the world. Once let that bright luminary 
 be quenched and we could not by any artificial light or heat 
 illuminate or fertilize the earth. 
 
 Let us now look at the relation existing between the con 
 querors, science and religion. Of late we hear much about the 
 "inevitable conflict," "the conflict of the ages," "the warfare 
 between science and religion." If there is an antagonism be-
 
 46 Winning Orations. 
 
 tvveen them, we must choose sides, for in so important a 
 struggle, one which so nearly concerns us, we cannot be neutral 
 lookers-on. We cannot hug the quiet of the swamp we must 
 seek the current which will either bear us to the dreaded cata 
 ract or glide us into the peaceful harbor. 
 
 But these expressions are misnomers, or rather they arc 
 names for a thing that does not exist. How can there be a 
 variance between two truths? The whole trouble is this: Some 
 scientists have mistaken what religion is, and some religionists 
 have mistaken what science is. There is a conflict, a strife be 
 tween bigoted religionists and over-zealous scientists; but true 
 religion and true science have nothing to do with it. 
 
 Religion is not your or my interpretation of certain passages 
 in the Bible, for these interpretations may be wrong, as has been 
 the case with a thousand others. What you or I may assert as 
 a principle of science is not to be so received until it has been 
 demonstrated beyond cavil by scientific men. So long as there 
 is a dispute between scientists concerning a thing, it may or 
 may not be a principle of science. You cannot build up a 
 science from the Bible, and just as surely you cannot destroy 
 one, for there is nothing there with which either to build or 
 destroy. It is not a scientific book. Would that this discrim 
 ination had been made hundreds of years ago the shrieks of 
 many a martyr would never have been heard, much of the 
 noble blood which has bathed our world would never have 
 been shed, and thousands of illustrious names would shine in 
 the bright galaxy of history which now are unknown and their 
 fame unsung. 
 
 In conclusion let me say, that entering as we are now upon 
 the Centennial Celebration of American Independence, while 
 we sing loudly our paeons for the victories of arms which gave 
 us our freedom, let us not forget the many conquests of peace 
 which have given us our culture, our progress, our stability as 
 a nation. Let science, invention, and religion spread their 
 trophies, gathered from every part of this country, before the 
 assembled nations. Let us harmonize all sectional differences 
 and disputes, forget the dark cloud of fratricidal war which 
 once hung loweringly o er our fair land, and strike hands 
 around our country s common altar of thanksgiving. Our 
 nation can purge itself from its weaknesses, its follies, and its
 
 Jlie World s Conquerors. 47 
 
 corruptions; so let it do, and with renewed youth and vigor 
 spring forward to make the future as the past, and ever yet 
 more glorious. Let the mighty conquerors of the first century 
 go forth to yet grander triumphs; let Science and Invention 
 subdue and subsidize to their purposes our forests and rivers, 
 our mountains and prairies, and lakes; while Religion, untram- 
 meled by civil laws or ecclesiastical bigotries, but bathed anew 
 in the sunlight of its own pure heaven, and baptized with the 
 spirit of the one Universal Father of us all, sheds its purifying 
 and ennobling radiance over hill and valley, over mansion and 
 cottage then shall each successive year and age and century 
 but mark the progress and perfect the triumphs so well begun.
 
 BEATRICE AND MARGARET. 
 
 By Miss I. AURA A. KKNT, of Antioch College. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 In 1876 Miss Laura A. Kent represented the State of Ohio, 
 and Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio, at the inter-State 
 oratorical contest, and is the only lady in the history of the 
 Inter-State Oratorical Association who received honors. Not 
 to attain notoriety or even a recognition as an aspirant for 
 personal honors did Miss Kent enter the contest, but for the 
 sake of her college, and to her college her womanly modesty 
 ascribes all the glory. The Chicago Tribune, referring to the 
 contest, says: "Only one literary subject was chosen, and that, 
 the relation between the first anil second parts of Goethe s 
 Faust, by the Antioch representative." Miss Kent married 
 Lieut. H. S. Eoster, who is now serving a three years detail as 
 professor of military science and tactics in the University of 
 Vermont. The portrait here represented was taken three years 
 subsequent to the contest. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, at Chicago, Illinois, 
 May, 1876, taking second prize. Judges: Hon. Tuos. A. HEMMUCKS, 
 Messrs. J. O. BKODHEAD, \V. F. POSLE. 
 
 No writer, since the rise of the romantic schools of litera 
 ture, when lov__h.ecam_e one of the chief themcs~a_pac.try and 
 story-lore, have so reverently worshiped and so happily em 
 bodied the highest ideas of womanhood as Dante and Goethe 
 two of the/ra poets whom every nation and every age may 
 claim as its own. 
 
 Beatrice and Margaret are, perhaps, the most exquisite 
 delineations of womanhood to be found in the literature of 
 the Christian centuries; and while so many fair divinjtjes of 
 
 (48) 
 
 I 
 \

 
 Beatrice and Margaret. 49 
 
 elder days are fading into myths, it is most pleasing to find 
 that the critical method which has dared to lay irreverent 
 hands upon the person of Jesus himself, concedes, almost with 
 out an exception, that these two characters are real flesh and 
 blood: both are essential facts, while at the same time both are 
 types of that intuitive wisdom that leads the soul from error 
 to atonement and final rest. 
 
 With the precocious, romantic ardor of his age and his 
 southern blood, Dante, in his boyhood, singled out a child of 
 eight years as the "sole lady of his heart." Through the Vita 
 Nuova we see the poet s mind and lover s heart growing 
 together in beauty and power. It was the image of the gentle 
 Beatrice that warmed and purified his soul, that inspired his 
 irenius until he became the "voice of ten silent centuries." 
 
 o 
 
 Transfigured by years of memory ^and the idealizing light of 
 imagination, she became a comforting, holy spirit, and illu 
 mined with intense joy the poet s heart, hitherto the saddest, 
 perhaps, save one, in all Christendom. 
 
 Thus it was that Dante hereafter to be known to the world 
 as the noblest of all lovers, when Dante the statesman, the 
 philosopher, the Guelphic leader, and the "Ghibelline turncoat" 
 shall be forgotten VOWED that, if it would "please Him by 
 whom all things live," he would say that of her which had 
 never yet been said of any lady." She became his Muse. It 
 was a message from her which led him down through the Gate 
 of Despair; across the Limbo that trembled with the sighs of 
 hopeless longing; past horrid Minos, Judge of Hades; into the 
 flaming City of Dis, garrisoned and guarded by demons and 
 furies; past the "Hell of Violence," where murderers and 
 tyrants are forever steeped in the boiling blood-waves of 
 Phlegethon; through the increasing horrors of Circles and 
 Evil-pits and Belts of Treachery; and then up the toilsome 
 steps of Purgatory until at last appeared, drawn in the bosom 
 of a cloud of flowers thrown by angel hands, her form clad in 
 in white, green, and red emblems of Faith, Hope, and Charity. 
 
 This sainted lady now became the poet s guide; more to 
 him than the Madonna to the ancient worshiping hermit. By 
 the subtle charm of spiritual beauty which shone from her 
 eyes, she led him upward through the nine heavenly circles to 
 the "Rose of the Blessed" and "Lake of Light." Beatrice is
 
 50 Winning Orations. 
 
 science, says one; philosophy, says another; reason, and a 
 poet s dream of the Madonna, say others. Granting that she 
 is either, or all, of these, she is yet more she stands for 
 spiritual insight, divine wisdom, and "love is the keeping of 
 her law." 
 
 Dante, more than all others, has realized, not idealized, what 
 the highest womanhood may and should become to all who 
 keep in their hearts a sacred niche for its unspotted ideal. 
 In turning to Margaret, the "crown jewel" of all Goethe s 
 womanly creation, we find a mere child, delighting in all the 
 dreams of girlish fancy and youthful affection, whose injured 
 and defenseless innocence appeals to every heart, nor finds a 
 thought of censure or a shade of reproach. Miranda s affection 
 is scarcely more frank, Desdemona s not more self-forgetting, 
 nor are Cordelia or Imogene more of the spirit of " eu igc 
 weibliche." She is at once the ideal Gretchen of Goethe s 
 first love, and the personation of Faust s own better nature. 
 From her entrance into the cathedral to the darkly-draped 
 dungeon scene, she holds all hearts to her great spiritual love 
 liness, her simple trust, and pure faith in God. Faust, prompted 
 by Mephistopheles the true devil of base impulse in every 
 heart appealed to Margaret s vanity and curiosity, the same 
 passion that made the mother of the race offend in Eden. 
 Then, rejected and deserted, she tells her sorrow to her own 
 heart in the deep love-melancholy of the spin-wheel song, 
 which forebodes the dark tragedy of the sequel in its refrain: 
 
 "Meine Ruh ist bin, 
 Mein Herz ist schwer - 
 Ich find s sie nimmer, 
 Und nimmermehr." 
 
 Tormented by the guilt that belonged to others, she sought 
 refuge in the cathedral, where she used to pray when a child; 
 but even here an evil spirit mocks and terrifies her. In the 
 wild insanity of grief, and amid the gloom of a true modern 
 epic, we see her at last in the dungeon, awaiting the stroke 
 that is to free her spirit from its dark prison-house. She heeds 
 not Faust s entreaty to escape, for it is not life that she asks, 
 but the innocence and happiness of the past; and since they 
 cannot be restored she gives herself up to the judgment of 
 God. Though doomed in the flesh, the voice of infinite love
 
 Beatrice and Margaret. 5 1 
 
 whispers, "She is saved;" for hers is more the sorrow that 
 purifies than the sin that condemns. Never was there such a 
 perfect and exquisite idyl of love the greatest theme of the 
 poet and novelist. It is the very story-essence of all that is 
 melting in pathos, thrilling in tragedy, and winning in sim 
 plicity. 
 
 Dear, beautiful Margaret! the purest ideal of womanhood 
 in its chiefest. joy and its deepest anguish. Thy sad, sweet 
 story is the allegory of the human conscience the true myt/ios 
 of the higher life of duty and spiritual devotion. In the end 
 thou wilt be avenged by subduing, yes, by saving thy betrayer! 
 The victory of love is thine! Beatrice represents the finished 
 harmony of a pure and noble soul, wherein all the best powers 
 of mind and heart are ranged on the side of truth and goodness. 
 
 Margaret symbolizes the moral powers crushed and de 
 graded by the baser elements of our nature. The gentle, holy 
 spirit is sinned against, and takes its mournful departure, leav 
 ing our souls, like Faust s, in a Walpurgis night of dissipation 
 and despair. 
 
 Yet, in themselves and their influence, these characters are 
 not essentially unlike. It was the spirit or memory of a Mar 
 garet that led Faust of the second part away from his evil 
 companionship to a life of noble self-sacrifice; while, on the 
 other hand, the world-worn Dante was at first lost in a tangled 
 forest, pursued by wild beasts, and seized with nameless fears. 
 He, too, had learned that neither pleasure, nor knowledge, nor 
 power can make man wholly unmindful of those truths 
 
 " Which, be they what they may, 
 Are yet a fountain light of all our days, 
 Are yet the master light of all our seeing 1 . 
 Upholds us, cherish, and have power to make 
 Our noisy years seem moments, in the being 
 Of the eternal silence." 
 
 Of these high, intuitive truths, Beatrice and Margaret, the 
 crown-wearer and cross-bearer, were made types symbols of 
 duty and suffering, equally potent for good and conducive to 
 perfection. 
 
 The haughty, cold-hearted Goethe was fervently, nobly, and 
 often loved. In Margaret s sad story he carefully measured 
 the utter self-sacrifice of woman s love. Into her character he
 
 52 Winning Orations. 
 
 gathered the fragrance of many crushed flowers, which haunts 
 every scene. 
 
 Dante s masterpiece shows what a noble woman may be 
 come, and suggests to man a growing consciousness of absolute 
 independence, high thought, and purity of soul. 
 
 Both these portraits were drawn by men; but let such laurels 
 as even these poets wear, dishearten no pleader for woman, for 
 better, far better, is the saint than the image, the life than the 
 book. 
 
 In one of his last lectures on Robert Burns, in the great 
 City Hall of Edinburgh, Professor Wilson told the story of a 
 proud and accomplished lady of noble birth who was wont to 
 walk at noon in her garden, when the plowman-poet, leaving 
 his team in the furrow, crept about the hedge to steal a glimpse 
 of her beauteous face. They came upon each other unawares 
 at a sudden angle. She turned away in scorn from the cower 
 ing intruder; but the poet saw only her beauty, and soon one 
 of his noblest poems was written and sent to her with apologies. 
 "And here," continued the speaker, leading forward upon the 
 stage a bowed and wrinkled, but justly proud, old lady, "here 
 is the woman who inspired Burns to write one of the rarest 
 tributes that genius ever paid to beauty." 
 
 Is it not nobler to be the muse than the poet, the Madonna 
 than the shrine? 
 
 Let men organize, administer, invent; an infinite and no less 
 noble field of work remains for woman in revealing new beauties 
 of character, in originating new "allurements to truth and new 
 incentives to virtue," in adorning the domestic and social 
 world with the art of new and simple refinements, and all the 
 hallowed influences of a higher life.
 
 SATAN AND MEPHISTOPHELES. 
 
 By OLIN A. CURTIS, of Lawrence University. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 Olin A. Curtis was born December 10, 1850, at Frankfort, 
 Maine, and educated in a thorough manner at Lawrence Uni 
 versity, Appleton, Wisconsin, and at the Boston Theological 
 School. In 1880 he joined the Wisconsin Methodist Episcopal 
 Conference, and was chosen pastor the same year of the Court 
 Street Church, Janesville, Wisconsin, remaining three years. 
 In 1883 he became pastor of the Summerfield Church, of Mil 
 waukee, Wisconsin, where he labored for three years. While 
 upon this charge he delivered the memorial oration of General 
 Grant for the City of Milwaukee. In 1886 he went to Germany, 
 and was a student in the University of Leipzig for two years. 
 Upon his return from Germany he joined the Rock River Con 
 ference, and was engaged as pastor of the Englewood Church, 
 Chicago. In February, 1889, he was elected to the chair of 
 Systematic Theology in the Theological School of Boston 
 University, which position he fills with distinguished ability. 
 He is a doctor of divinity, and a man of much intellectual 
 culture. His college oration here given was delivered at the 
 fourth annual oratorical contest, upon which occasion he was 
 the winning contestant. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, at Madison, Wisconsin, May, 
 1877, taking first prize. Judges: Messrs. LYMAN TRUMBULL, C. C. COLE, W. F. 
 VILAS, Rev. C. H. RICHARDS. 
 
 Prominent among the devils of fiction are Milton s and 
 Goethe s. Representing the same Evil Being, they are yet as 
 unlike as Macbeth and lago each character being as unique 
 as it is masterly, both becoming only the more clearly defined 
 
 (53)
 
 54 Winning Orations. 
 
 as we study the entire family of demons from Marlowe s to 
 Byron s. Whatever may have been the poet s intentions, what 
 ever may be the critic s final decision, Satan and Mephistoph- 
 eles are certainly heroes the central figures of the two poems 
 holding our attention with a grasp at once fascinating and 
 terrible. In spite of our worthy purpose to hate devils whether 
 in the body or out of the body, to be interested only in those 
 creatures and those conceptions which savor of the divine, 
 these brain-born fiends, in the presence of angels the holiest 
 and humanity the most inspiring, command our thought, en 
 chain our will, and marshal our emotions as with the mystic 
 charm of Ismeno s deadly spell. 
 
 The body of Satan, in comparison with which that of our 
 classical Hercules is pigmean, would be a burden sufficient to 
 crush any other character in fiction; but, touched by Milton s 
 remarkable genius, rendered formless and indistinct as well as 
 vast, and thus having, as Macaulay has said, "none of the fee- 
 faw-fum of Tasso and Klopstock," it seems perfectly adapted 
 to his mental features, and serves but to increase what George 
 Eliot calls "the grandeur of the wild beast." 
 
 Indeed, what body can be too enormous for Satan? Is 
 there one aspect in which he is not utterly bewildering? Can 
 we, amazed at the valor of Rinaldo and the aspirations of 
 Napoleon, comprehend this devil who "durst defy the Omni 
 potent to arms? Here is an ambition that seeks the throne of 
 God, and reaches after the scepter of eternity; a courage that 
 feels no pain, knows no fear, dreams of no disaster; a daring 
 that sweeps through the battle as the fiery breath of a simoon; 
 a pride as obdurate as fate; an egotism absolutely infinite, 
 speaking and acting as though conscious of strength to anni 
 hilate the Almighty and splinter his dominion; a grit so ad 
 mirable that our thoughts at times all but leap the holy barriers, 
 and cry out for the overthrow of the chariots of God! 
 
 Witness the manifestation of these various characteristics. 
 Though wounded by the resistless sword of Michael, though 
 defeated, his troops scattered in wild confusion, yet Satan had 
 no thought of yielding, but cheers his comrades with more than 
 the art of a Xenophon, then invents his "devilish enginery," 
 and once more meets with fearless march the "rattling storm 
 of arrows barbed with fire." Now his complete punishment
 
 Satan and Mephistopheles. 5 5 
 
 has come. His flaming volley has been answered. His squad 
 rons have been buried under the mountains, plucked from their 
 foundations, and filing as pebbles speeding from the slingers 
 brawny arm. The Son of God, with thunders "winged with 
 red lightning and impetuous rage," has driven the rebellious 
 multitude over the crystal wall. But Satan is not subdued. 
 His arm has failed. His might has proved of no avail. His 
 followers are "overwhelmed with floods and whirlwinds of 
 tempestuous fire." His fairest hopes, like brightest skies, have 
 vanished, but his heart is still invincible. Regrets are banished. 
 Despondency and sorrow are spurned. Despising compromise; 
 unwilling to repent, though the premiership of glory would 
 come thereby; madly reckless as to results; bound to pay back 
 the Almighty; meaning to shadow all heaven with sorrow, to 
 agonize the Infinite Heart, to hush the hallelujahs before the 
 throne this Arch-Fiend determines to build up a rival kingdom 
 out of the very chaos of hell, and, forcing his entire being into 
 this one desperate purpose, he takes the black crown with that 
 sad, malignant, terrible coronation speech, "Hail, horrors! 
 Hail, infernal world!" 
 
 In striking contrast with the character of Satan is that of 
 Mephistopheles, whom Carlyle has called "the only genuine 
 devil of the.se latter times." Satan is the culmination of am 
 bition; Mephistopheles, the quintessence of skepticism. In 
 Goethe s metaphysical devil there is condensed every form of 
 doubt, from that of the deist to that of the libertine. He is 
 not only literally "the spirit that constantly denies," but, as 
 Madame cle Stael has said, "He expresses doubt itself with a 
 tone of decision, which, mixing arrogance of character with 
 uncertainty of reasoning, leaves no consistency in anything 
 but evil inclinations." With what infernal irony he sneers at 
 philosophy, declaring that an entire system may be built up 
 with words, yet advising the anxious student to write away as 
 zealously as though the Holy Ghost were dictating to him! 
 With what bitter pleasantry, what diabolical coolness, what 
 pitiless sarcasm he insinuates that love is a mere passion 
 spark from the animal; that virtue can always be bent like a reed 
 under the tread of the storm! Mephistopheles would shatter 
 every blessed hope and every cherished opinion; would blast 
 whatever of zeal, whatever of trust, whatever of affection en-
 
 56 Winning Orations, 
 
 nobles our toil and hallows our homes. Acting upon his tersely- 
 worded theory, that "everything which has originated deserves 
 to be annihilated," he would become the supreme destroyer of 
 mankind. With words that sting like scorpions, with glances 
 and motions as full of poison as were Armida s fountains, with 
 a malicious grin more consummately hellish than is the atheism 
 and blasphemy of Byron s Lucifer, this philosophical demon 
 would undermine the foundation of the sciences, affirming that 
 deduction is folly because there may be no mind, and induc 
 tion absurd because there may be no facts; would overthrow 
 religion, not with the argument of Hume, but by denying the 
 reality of reason and testimony both; would call life a gigantic 
 myth, and immortality a stupendous lie; would put an interro 
 gation point after all existence, and utter the name of God with 
 a rising inflection. 
 
 In his work of doubt and demolition, Mephistopheles ex 
 hibits an intellect vastly superior to that of Satan. The deceit 
 that led the parents of the race to ruin was Japanese jugglery 
 in comparison with the marvelous transformations by which 
 Faust and Margaret were ensnared. Mephistopheles can 
 adapt every power of his mind to any situation. Now he is 
 as jolly as King Lear s jester; now as kind and attentive as a 
 lover; now as metaphysical as Aristotle. Perfectly under 
 standing the human heart, knowing all its points of weakness, 
 just how it will meet every influence, he so transforms himself, 
 body and mind, as to touch the one successful spring and ac 
 complish the desired end. 
 
 Yet more wonderful than this adaptation is the utilization 
 of forces. Satan is grand in his prodigality; Mephistopheles 
 in his economy of power. Satan would have killed Valentine 
 with a great expenditure of rage and strength; Mephistopheles 
 does it quietly with an unseen turn of his forearm. The one 
 never does by skill what he can do by might; the other never 
 does by might what he can do by skill. Next to the Omnis 
 cient, Mephistopheles is the greatest economist in the universe. 
 He gauges the breath of his anger, and wastes not even a sneer. 
 Like Von Moltke, he plans everything, and never strikes with 
 out a map. He ruins men by the nicest mathematical calcu 
 lations, and damns women from the swift conclusions of a 
 syllogism. Where Satan would work through the mind, Mephis
 
 Satan and MepJiistoplieles. 57 
 
 topheles works through the heart, seeing this to be the shorter 
 route to death. lie draws Faust from philosophy to pleasure, 
 from thought to feeling, sending through his veins blood aflame 
 with lust, realizing that once in the fiery furnace of passion, 
 only those having with them "the form of one like unto the 
 Son of God" can possibly escape without "the smell of fire 
 having passed on them." He overcomes Margaret through 
 her affections, clearly foreseeing that to these, and to these 
 alone, she will make any sacrifice, casting even her precious 
 garland from her; yielding to the tempter till her peace is 
 gone, which she finds on earth never and never more; becom 
 ing enslaved till her heart is rich only in sad memories till 
 her loveliness has fled as a Magdalen s dream of heaven till 
 those pure 
 
 " Feelings that could once such noble life inspire, 
 Are quenched and trampled out in passion s mire." 
 
 This is Mephistopheles. Satan revengeful, willful, haughty, 
 intrepid, ambitious Satan an archangel fallen, yet still re 
 splendent with a lingering ray of his original glory like the 
 Coliseum, magnificent even as a ruin seems worthy of the 
 crown of sainthood in contrast with this mean, jeering, sar 
 castic doubter; this confident sophist; this cool, artful, cautious 
 strategist; this malignant destroyer, grinning calmly at the 
 damnation of souls; this "abortion of dirt and fire;" this 
 counterpart of the real devil who has already crowded our 
 lives with anguish, and filled this beautiful world with the 
 bitter pangs of hell.
 
 FAITH AND DOUBT AS MOTORS OF ACTION. 
 
 By S. FRANK PROUTY, of Central College. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 The subject of this sketch, Hon. S. F. Prouty, was bom 
 near Delaware, Ohio, January 17, 1854. His parents started 
 with him to Iowa in the fall of 1855, and while journeying his 
 mother died, and was buried at Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. His father, 
 with the five boys and one girl, continued the journey to Knox- 
 ville, Iowa, where the motherless children found temporary 
 homes with friends. "Little Frank" was placed in the keeping 
 of a family where he succeeded in causing a generous amount 
 of domestic infelicity. The "man of the house" fell in love 
 with the two-year-old, white-haired boy, and wanted to adopt 
 him; but "the lady of the house" took a decided dislike to "the 
 brat," and resolved that the same abode would not accommo 
 date both. It was finally resolved, in the interest of peace, 
 that Frank should move again, and he was taken to his father, 
 where he lived until he was eight years old. At this time 
 misfortune overtook the Prouty home, and the boys were told 
 that they would have to "hoe their own row." Although the 
 youngest, Frank felt as much a man as any of them, and insisted 
 on the right to fight the battles of life with his brothers. The 
 right was freely given, and since that time he has depended on 
 himself. He spent his boyhood in farming, and served as 
 apprentice under most of the enterprising "grangers" within 
 a radius of ten miles of Pella, Iowa. He attended school in 
 winter, and prosecuted his studies at night and during vacation. 
 At sixteen years of age he presented himself to the superin 
 tendent of public instruction of Mahaska County for a teacher s 
 certificate, which he procured, after passing the examination, 
 but he was too timid to ask a school board for a position. In 
 1871 he entered Central University, Pella, Iowa; then spent 
 
 (58)
 
 Faith and Doubt as Motors of Action. 59 
 
 two years at Simpson College, Indianola, Iowa, but returned 
 and finished the classical course at Central University, in 1877, 
 representing Iowa the same year at the inter-State oratorical 
 contest, held at Madison, Wisconsin, and receiving the second 
 prize. Upon his graduation he was tendered and accepted the 
 chair of Latin and natural sciences in Central University, which 
 lie occupied four years. Later he was made vice president, 
 thus has filled all offices from janitor to vice president in this 
 university. While a student and teacher he began the study 
 of law, and was admitted to the bar in 1881, and deservedly 
 enjoys the reputation of being one of the ablest lawyers in 
 Central Iowa. In 1879 he was nominated and elected, by the 
 Republican party, the representative of Marion County, Iowa. 
 Mr. Prouty is a member of the firm of Lesh, Prouty & Abbott, 
 the largest manufacturers and exporters of walnut lumber in 
 the United States. It is hoped his remarkable success will be 
 continued. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, at Madison, Wisconsin, May 
 1877, taking second prize. Judges: Messrs. LYMAN TRUMBULL, C. C. COLE, W. F. 
 VILAS, Rev. C. H. RICHARDS. 
 
 This is truly an age of doubt. The blind credulity of a few 
 centuries ago has been followed by a natural reaction. Chil 
 dren no longer passively accept the creeds and traditions of 
 their ancestors. The people have ceased to receive, without 
 question, the utterances of clergy, bishops, priests or Popes, 
 or to bow reverently to the declarations of the most lordly 
 dignitaries. Scientists receive with mistrust the theories and 
 
 o 
 
 even the data of their predecessors. 
 
 Everything, before it can be accepted, must not only be 
 submitted to the focus of reason, but also be tested through 
 the microscopic agency of distrust. First doubt, and believe 
 only when forced by evidence, is the maxim of the age. 
 
 The present spirit of investigation seeks not so much to 
 establish truth as to detect errors; not so much to confirm 
 existing creeds, theories, and institutions as to overthrow them. 
 
 The spirit of doubt has been bold and aggressive. It has 
 questioned the wisdom and perfection of nature, the genuine 
 ness of revelation, the existence of a God, the existence of
 
 60 Winning Orations. 
 
 matter or spirit, and even the existence of the doubter himself. 
 There is scarcely a fact in history that has not been questioned. 
 Not even those institutions, hoary with antiquity, and made 
 almost inviolable by the universal acceptance of past ages, 
 have been able to escape the searching blast of modern skepti 
 cism. 
 
 The fact that this age of prevailing doubt should also be 
 distinguished as an age of unequaled progress, has led a cer 
 tain class of writers who are wont to connect two contempo 
 raneous events as cause and effect, to infer and freely assert 
 that it is doubt "that is moving forward the wheels of progress." 
 One writer has gone so far as to assert that "doubt has done 
 more for the world than faith." If this be true, it is the greater 
 motor of action; for it is action that blesses and renovates the 
 world. Motion is nature s great purifier. Without it the crystal 
 stream would become the stagnant pool, the vitalizing air a 
 fetid and ruinous gas, and the universe one vast ocean of turbid 
 stagnation. Perfect cessation in the social, no less than in the 
 material, workl- generates impurity; it breeds vice and corrodes 
 virtue. 
 
 All human action flows from principles of the soul. We 
 recognize from the operations of the mind that it is apparently 
 composed of certain principles and their opposite conditions- 
 positives and negatives. Thus hope is a principle of which 
 despondency is merely the absence or perversion. So with 
 faith and doubt. One is the positive, the other the negative. 
 One is the principal, the other the opposite condition. One is 
 the natural, the other the acquired state of the mind. 
 
 But the fact that the child believes without evidence, and 
 the aged person scarcely with it; the fact that faith finds its 
 maximum in the mind of the confiding infant, and its minimum 
 in the incredulous old man, proves that faith is the innate 
 principle, and that doubt is only the result of frequent betrayals 
 and flagrant abuses of natural confidence; that faith is the 
 positive, and doubt the negative. It is a misconception when 
 we attribute to nonentities moving agency. Heat expands, 
 but cold does not contract. 
 
 Again, instead of a man s believing nothing without evi 
 dence, he naturally believes everything until evidence and the 
 results of experience cause him to doubt. It takes a preponder-
 
 Faith and Doubt as Motors of Action. 61 
 
 ance of adverse evidence of it to create doubt, but faith is the 
 gift of the Creator. Skepticism is a disease of the intellect, 
 for which the subject is responsible to the same extent that he 
 is for a disease of the body. 
 
 Believing is the normal, doubting the abnormal condition 
 of the mind. That which is abnormal may hinder, but cannot 
 promote, action. It may retard, but, on the whole, cannot 
 facilitate progress. It may tend to rest, but never to motion. 
 Here theory and fact coincide. Our tendency to act in any 
 direction is diminished just in proportion to our doubt in that 
 direction. Though skepticism in one field, as regards effects 
 or results, may turn our attention toward another, yet there 
 must be faith in that other field before there can be action. 
 It may stop from pursuing one course, but it cannot lead us 
 along another. It may cause us to reject one thing, but it 
 cannot induce us to lay hold upon another. It may restrain 
 us in one direction, but it cannot, even by a reflex operation, 
 propel us in the opposite. It may cause stagnation, but action 
 never. 
 
 Its mission is to tear down, not to build up. Its power is 
 wholly destructive, not constructive. It may, by the diversion 
 of interest and the relaxation of energy, cause the monuments 
 reared by ages to crumble, but it cannot erect others on their 
 ruins. It may cause the scientist to reject a thousand theories, 
 but it cannot stimulate him to form a single new one. Though 
 he should doubt the soundness and validity of every known 
 theory, and had no faith in any scientific investigation to de 
 velop other and better ones, there could be no actiou. Doubt 
 may destroy, but cannot restore. 
 
 On the other hand, into whatever department of human 
 enterprise we look, we find that faith is the power that moves 
 every energy employed. Without it not one act could be per 
 formed, not one thought matured, not one plan executed. 
 Without it every other faculty would become dormant, and 
 every energy of the whole man paralyzed. Faith is the great 
 motor of action. It is the wellspring of human energy. 
 
 But there is a higher form of faith than that which is cen 
 tered upon an object of pursuit, to which this class of writers 
 may refer. If they mean that such a faith has done less for 
 the world than its corresponding doubt, that irreligion has done
 
 62 Winning Orations. 
 
 more than religion, it is but necessary to appeal to history and 
 fact. In this appeal it matters not whether the faith was pure 
 and enlightened or mingled with superstition; whether it rested 
 upon a false or true Deity; upon Jehovah or an idol of benighted 
 Africa faith in its motive power is a unit. And when it is 
 centered even upon a mythical deity, it excels, in the benefac 
 tion of mankind, its corresponding doubt, as motion transcends 
 stagnation. The firm believer in any religion is endowed with 
 an enthusiasm that lifts his mind above the whole visible 
 world, above the power of perishable things, and above the 
 fear of death itself. Hence the believing world has ever 
 represented the highest activity. Religious faith has ever 
 furnished the highest stimulus for the highest energy. It 
 nerves the soul with Herculean strength in time of danger, 
 and enables men to perform the most heroic deeds. It arms 
 them with that Cyclopean power that enables them to accom 
 plish the most stupendous works, to overcome the most in 
 superable difficulties, and move resistlessly forward on the 
 highest plane of human activity. 
 
 Again, if you will turn to the smoky pages of the past, or 
 the fresher pages of the present, though you will there find it 
 recorded that religion has sacrificed thousands of human 
 victims, both upon the altar and upon the field of battle; that 
 its bigoted devotees have frequently waged war against the 
 rights of others, and, perhaps, against the rights of humanity; 
 that priestly influences have frequently stifled investigation 
 and curbed free thought yet you will there find the record of 
 few real blessings that have conic to the human race that have 
 not been borne upon the wings of some religious faith. In 
 every nation and every age it has formed the anchor of society, 
 the basis of morality, the foundation of government. If at 
 present you should dig deep beneath courts, laws, and offices, 
 you would still find it underlying and forming the basis of the 
 grandest governmental structures. Remove this, and they 
 must fall. Blot from China faith in the doctrines of Confucius, 
 and that old empire that empire which has stood there im 
 mutable through centuries, that empire which has been pre 
 served by an unchanging faith while every other government 
 in the world has fallen or undergone a revolution would 
 crumble to pieces in a fortnight. Religion is the rock upon
 
 Faith and Doubt as Motors of Action. 63 
 
 which governments must rest. It is the only cement that can 
 unite into a whole the diversified interests, or bind together 
 the factions of a widely differing people. When one of those 
 ancient forms of religion fell, it carried with it not simply 
 government, but letters, laws, and all the splendor of its civili 
 zation; all was anarchy and ruin, confusion and dissolution, 
 until another religion gained supremacy, formed another gov 
 ernment, and thus secured peace and harmony. 
 
 No government can long survive the egress of religious 
 faith from the hearts and minds of her people. Infidelity re 
 moves all restraint, lets loose all the fierce pent-up passions of 
 man s depravity, subverts the very foundations of morality, and 
 soon sweeps away the virtues of society and the institutions of 
 good government. Relaxing the higher energy, it calls into 
 activity the lower and more debasing; removing the nobler 
 stimulus, it increases the power of the ignoble. 
 
 Again, it is to this faith that the world owes its marks of 
 the higher civilization. It has established the colleges for the 
 enlightenment, and the philanthropic institutions for the ameli 
 oration of mankind. It has promoted science and true progress. 
 Instead of stifling investigation and curbing free thought, as is 
 sometimes charged, it simply moderates wild and fanciful 
 speculation. At present, at least, it is moving forward the 
 wheels of true progress, while infidelity is "throwing on the 
 brake." 
 
 It has also made the world blossom with beauty and teem 
 with grandeur. It was this that inspired Milton, Dante, Virgil, 
 Homer, Horace, and all the Hebrew seers to utter their noblest 
 strains of poetry. Examine the libraries of the world for proof 
 of the assertion that the master productions in literature, in 
 every nation and tongue, have been developed under the influ 
 ence of the same power. 
 
 Sculpture and painting arose with heathen worship, and 
 reached their culmination when Raphael and Angelo, with 
 brush and chisel, wrought out their grand conceptions of a 
 perfect yet incarnate Jehovah. 
 
 Here, too, architecture finds its origin and perfection. If 
 you were to wander far back amid the ruins of ancient archi 
 tecture, and pause before the crowning perfection of "the glory 
 of kingdoms and the beauty of the Chaldee s excellency"
 
 64 Winning Orations. 
 
 the temple of the old Babylon, rising tower above tower and col 
 umn above column to the height of six hundred feet and ask 
 what power could have reared that marvel of colossal grandeur, 
 the huge golden statute of Jupiter, resting upon the summit of 
 the topmost tower, would tell you, in language that could not 
 be mistaken, that it was faith in a divinity. If you were to 
 wander over into Northern Africa, there the pyramids, Cheops 
 and Chefrenes, the mighty monuments of antiquity, with their 
 hoary heads still towering o er the wrecks of time, would tell 
 you that it was faith in a divinity that reared them. If you 
 were to pass back to classic Greece and Rome, there the temples 
 of Delphi, of Juno, of Olympian Jove, and of Diana, the grand 
 est specimens of architectural grandeur, would tell you that it 
 was faith in a divinity that reared them. If you were to stand 
 by the pagodas of China, the cromlechs of Wales, the obelisks 
 of Egypt, the mosques of India, or the ruins of those magnificent 
 temples of ancient Mexico, they would all tell you that it was 
 faith in a divinity that reared them. If you were to interrogate 
 the finest specimens of modern architecture in the world, the 
 cathedrals of London, Milan, and Rome, with all their richness 
 of proportion and grandeur of effect, their lofty spires piercing 
 the heavens, would tell you that it was faith in a divinity that 
 reared them. Were you to repeat the interrogation to the 
 thousands of spires and colossal domes that tower heavenward 
 from Germany, France, England, and America, they would tell 
 you that it was faith in the divinity of the Galilean Carpenter 
 that reared them. This faith to-day is the mighty engine that 
 is moving the world. It is the mightiest of the mighty powers 
 that are shaping, moulding, and controlling the destiny of the 
 human race. It is the heart of the great giant of progress and 
 civilization. With every pulsation it sends life, energy, and 
 humanity through every vein. 
 
 On the other hand, every dominant religion in every nation 
 and time has had its legion of unbelievers. But what monu 
 ments of their achievements have they left us? To what really 
 noble strain of poetry have they given utterance? What fine 
 specimen of sculpture or painting have they given the world? 
 What grand or magnificent edifice have they erected? What 
 great and noble work have they accomplished for humanity? 
 What colleges or benevolent institutions have they established
 
 Faith and Doubt as Motors of Action. 65 
 
 for the enlightenment or amelioration of mankind? None! 
 We seek for them in vain among the ruins of the past or the 
 realities of the present. 
 
 Skepticism is a land of perpetual snows, where flowers never 
 bloom and the plant of humanity never grows. Doubt, where- 
 ever found, paralyzes energy and congeals the well-spring of 
 human activity. Faith gives life and energy. It is faith that 
 moves the mind; "it is mind that moved the world."
 
 THE LONELINESS OF GENIUS. 
 
 By E. A. BANCROFT, of Knox College. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 E. A. Bancroft was born November 20, 1857, at Galesburg, 
 Illinois. He prepared for college at Knox Academy, and 
 entered Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, in 1874. He took 
 second prize in declamation in both freshmen and sophomore 
 years, and took first prize in oratory in his junior year. At 
 the convention of the Illinois Inter-Collegiate Association, 
 held at Evanston, October, 1876, he was elected president. 
 He received the first prize at the Illinois contest, held at 
 Monmouth, October 18, 1877, on oration "The Need of the 
 Hour," and nine colleges were represented in this contest. 
 At the inter-State contest, in May, 1878, St. Louis, Missouri, 
 he received the first prize among six State representatives, 
 on "The Loneliness of Genius." In 1878 he was graduated 
 bachelor of arts from Knox College, and in the fall of the 
 same year entered the Columbia College Law School, New 
 York, and was graduated from it bachelor of law. In May, 
 
 1880, he was admitted to the bar of Illinois, and began the 
 practice of law at Galesburg, and is now a member of the 
 prosperous firm of Williams, Lawrence & Bancroft. In January, 
 
 1881, he argued the contested election case of Nicholas E. 
 Worthington vs. Philip S. Post, on behalf of General Post, 
 (Republican,) before the committee on elections of the 5Oth 
 Congress, for the seat in the House as representative of the 
 Tenth Congressional District of Illinois; the committee, though 
 Democratic, reported unanimously in favor of General Post. In 
 1880 Mr. Bancroft was elected presidential elector for the Tenth 
 Congressional District of Illinois, on the Republican ticket 
 The following pages contain his oration, which is worthy of 
 particular note. 
 
 (66)
 
 Tlic Loneliness of Genius. 67 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, at St. Louis, Missouri, May, 
 1878, taking first prize. Judges: Hon. A. TAFT, Bishop THOS. BOWMAN, Hon. 
 BKNJAMIN HARRISON, Hon. WM. HYDE. 
 
 Insects swarm; the lion forages alone. Swallows consort 
 in myriads; the condor dwells companionless in the awful 
 solitudes of the Cordilleras. Weakness wars with thousands; 
 might battles a Goliath. Littleness is gregarious; greatness is 
 solitary. The grandest realization of civilized society is the 
 man of genius. His individuality is of the most distinctive 
 type, and by its very intensity necessitates his insulation. But 
 what is genius? What is life? Call it transcendent mental 
 power; intensity of the intuitive and inventive faculties; say 
 that it is of the heart, innate, soul-born, incommunicable. But 
 is that all? 
 
 The mind perceives, the heart feels, and the whole being 
 vibrates with the pulsations of the great truth or strong passion, 
 struggling mightily to the birth. Then genius, by a common 
 instinct of nature in travail, withdraws from the multitude, 
 and in silence and in solitude, inswathes the bright children of 
 its soul. Not in courts nor palaces nor classic halls nor coteries 
 of the learned are deepest emotions felt or embodied, grandest 
 truths discovered, or sublimest conceptions begotten or born; 
 but from Sinai s slopes and the shores of Gennesaret, from the 
 chamber of blindness in London and the felon s cell at Bedford, 
 have come the revelations that bless mankind. 
 
 Emerson says, "Veracity derives from instinct and marks 
 superiority in organization." So we may say, lonelines derives 
 from nature and marks superiority in endowment and delicacy 
 in organism. These we conceive to be the main factors in the 
 loneliness of genius, and shall so consider them. 
 
 Superiority of endowment the first and chief cause of 
 loneliness in men of genius. 
 
 An almost necessary concomitant, the peculiar charm of 
 lofty intellects, as of mountain-peaks, is solitariness. Were 
 the hundred Alpine summits equally elevated, Mont Blanc 
 would little engage the poet s pen or the tourist s eye. But 
 peerless and cloud-wrapt, he towers in cold sublimity to com 
 panionship with the stars. So .genius, upborne by a faith that
 
 68 Winning Orations. 
 
 gazes upon the ineffable, holds lofty communion with the uni 
 versal Soul above and around it. 
 
 Think of the Prophet at Horcb; the royal Buddha in the 
 caves of India; the divine Dante wandering like the shade of 
 an unburied Greek; Gibbon weaving his chaplet of immortelles 
 by the lonely waters of Leman, and Byron gathering on the 
 deserted shores of the yEgean the jewels which to-day glitter 
 in the diadem of his fame. Oh, the solitude of great minds! 
 How they shun the crowd and seek peace and inspiration amid 
 the solemn beauties and lone sublimities of nature! They 
 wander through "the pathless woods;" they linger on the wave- 
 washed beach, awed and thrilled by the deep anthems of the 
 sea; they stand alone upon the mountain-tops and hear un- 
 terrified the voice of storms. T is a voice of nature they 
 know it well. Like the eagle, the Oioros the "lone-flyer" 
 of the Greeks, they gaze with undimmed eyes upon the sun of 
 truth. This is the loneliness of genius; or rather it is the ex 
 pression, the outward symbol, of an inherent isolation, which 
 often is hidden, yet is part as well as characteristic of all genius. 
 Like Burns, the man of genius may mingle in the busiest scenes 
 of life at the plow with simple peasants, at the board of 
 Edinburgh s nobility yet his soul is ever "like a star, and 
 dwells apart." He stands 
 
 "Among them, but not of them: in a shroud 
 Of thoughts which are not their thoughts." 
 
 Neither craving their applause nor fearing their displeasure, he 
 is self-contained without arrogance, elevated without haughti 
 ness, learned without pedantry, superior yet without vanity. 
 Beings of a nobler faith, they seem ambassadors or visitors 
 from the courts of a higher sphere, and are estranged from the 
 world by the peculiarity of their nature and their mission. 
 The laureate of loneliness was the youthful Shelley. His eye 
 caught the light of a coming dawn, and his soul the freedom 
 of a looked-for age. His life was wed to the interpretation of 
 the soul within, and the grander soul around him. He wor 
 shiped nature, ofttimes heard "the still, sad music of humanity." 
 Beside him place the unpoetic, tender-hearted Lincoln. His 
 deep, sad eyes and pensive hours gave many a token of a 
 loneliness, hidden from the popular eye, yet real and pathetic 
 beyond expression. His was a character grandly simple. Un-
 
 The Loneliness of Genius. 69 
 
 conscious and spontaneous, yet vigorous and brave, it is the 
 most unique, solitary, beautiful in our history. 
 
 The peculiarly delicate mental constitution of genius, espe 
 cially if environed by unpropitious influences, is another and a 
 frequent cause of intense lonesomeness. 
 
 Lord Byron s misanthropy and alienation illustrates this. 
 His life was made up of the widest and wildest extremes and 
 antagonisms. His nature warred \\ith its environments, and 
 his environments mocked his nature. The springs of his life- 
 were early embittered, and he felt alone in a hostile world. 
 Born amid enemies, he died amid strangers. A lyre so finely 
 strung could not be so roughly swept and no string be broken. 
 Think of our wandering Pleiad of poesy, the Byron of America. 
 With the temperament of a delicate girl he struggled with the 
 coarse natures of a great city. He was a frail and beautiful 
 exotic amid the sharp thistles, stunted pines, and gnarled oaks 
 of a northern clime a trembling faun among the uncouth 
 denizens of the farm-yard. Early and sadly Poe died as he 
 had lived alone; and the brightest star in American litera 
 ture went out in darkness. 
 
 But these men of genius are insulated more by their fineness 
 of mental mechanism and their superlative sensitiveness than 
 by the rough treatment of the world. And this utter absence 
 of sympathy is often their heaviest and keenest grief. Gray s 
 epitaph says, "He gained from heaven twas all he wished 
 a friend." Ah! that is it! Admirers, patrons, flatterers they 
 all have these; but how few have friends! And without intel 
 ligent sympathy genius is as much alone in the thoroughfares 
 or parlors of a metropolis, as by the sullen crater of yEtna or 
 the voiceless shores of the Arctic sea. 
 
 But isolation not only results from the nature but also 
 enhances the power of genius. It concentrates and matures 
 intellect and imagination; it deepens and intensates every 
 motion; it makes the soul self-centered and self-directed, and 
 it counteracts the enervating and dispersive influence of society. 
 The one law of society is "Conform," and against it the un 
 conscious spontaneity of genius must rebel. 
 
 Society discusses grave topics flippantly, or considers 
 trivial subjects seriously. Only to itself does the soul tell its 
 inmost thoughts, convictions, and emotions. Moore and Cole-
 
 70 Winning Orations. 
 
 ridge, and Dickens, by joining too often in the dissipations of 
 society, undoubtedly diminished the strength and vigor of their 
 genius, and brought their grand careers to an untimely close. 
 Although the influence of mental isolation is highly favor 
 able to intellectual development, it is often detrimental to dis 
 position and character. Melancholy is the form it commonly 
 assumes. To the youthful genius the tendencies to doubt and 
 despondency are almost irresistible. His mind at first forceful, 
 buoyant, and original, soon feels the conservatisms of the world 
 pressing upon and confining it like the fabled iron shroud. He 
 fancies himself a young Enceladus beneath an- yEtna of out 
 grown forms. If he submit as to the inevitable he sinks into a 
 
 o 
 
 gloomy pessimism in whose firmament there shines no star. 
 If he resist, his misfortune begets a bitter defiance of mankind 
 and a scornful indifference to their affairs. He is the cynic or 
 the misanthrope, the Diogenes or the Timon. 
 
 But it is when men of genius escape these phases of solitari 
 ness, and reach the sphere of a grander, nobler, purer loneliness, 
 that they attain to the ideal. When, forgetting the enmities 
 of the present, they calmly await the glory of the future; when 
 they exchange the mantle of selfish loneliness for the garb of 
 philanthropy; when, from the misery, the exile, the dungeon, 
 or the scaffold, to which an ungrateful people has consigned 
 them, there comes a voice of prayer, "Forgive them, for they 
 know not what they do," ah then their genius transcends 
 humanity becomes divine. How sublime their silence before 
 their accusers! What can they say to the ignorant and the 
 superstitious? Stand by Socrates and Bruno and feel the utter 
 folly of speech: "And when He was accused of the priests 
 and elders he answered nothing, insomuch that the governor 
 marveled greatly." 
 
 One closing thought seems voiced from the subject we have 
 discussed: it is the ministry of genius to the children of men. 
 Not useless are these God-made men on whom abides "the 
 light that never was on sea or land." Though dwelling com- 
 panionless and high, yet are they apostles of good to the mil 
 lions who tread the lowliest vales of earth. The else too 
 somber web of life they brighten with threads of purple and 
 gold. Into dull souls they breathe a quickening spirit. To the 
 groveling and earth-bound they arc angels of a nobler and
 
 The Loneliness of Genius. - \ 
 
 better life. Interpreters of deeper mysteries, they hold ajar 
 for us the doors of the ineffable. Heralding all grander truths, 
 they are the pioneers of civilization, the exponents and prophets 
 of that Golden Age for which humanity waits.
 
 DANTE. 
 
 By J. GERRY EBERHART, of Cornell College. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 J. Gerry Eberhart was born July 27, 1856, at Shrewsbury, 
 Pennsylvania, and is of Scotch-Irish and German parentage. 
 When nine years old he was converted and joined the Method 
 ist Episcopal Church. He attended academy three years at 
 Shrewsbury, and then his father placed him in Lebanon Valley 
 College, Annville, Pennsylvania, when but thirteen years old. 
 At fifteen years of age he attended Cornell College, Mt. Vernon, 
 Iowa, one year, and at seventeen years re-entered and continued 
 five years, graduating in 1878; in ctirsu he received the degree 
 master of arts. While in college he was president of the 
 oratorical association, and manifested notable interest in the lit 
 erary society, and received one of the gold medals at the inter- 
 State oratorical contest, when President Harrison was one of 
 judges. Mr. Eberhart s early ambition was in the law business, 
 but feeling toward the close of his college course especially 
 called to the ministry, he entered Drew Theological Seminary, 
 Madison, New Jersey, to prepare himself for the Master s work. 
 His began his labor in Central Pennsylvania Conference under 
 the presiding elder, and afterward joined the Rock River Con 
 ference, of Illinois. At the expiration of three years he moved 
 to Flagstaff, Arizona, the only missionary point on the Altantic 
 & Pacific Railroad from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Barstow, 
 California. One year later he located at Prescott, and was 
 chaplain of the council of the i6th legislative assembly. He 
 was sent to Central City, Colorado, by special appointment oi 
 Bishop Bowman; he was also located at Ouray, Colorado. He 
 eventually returned to the Rock River Conference, and is al 
 present located in Kent, Illinois, devoting his time to preach 
 ing and lecturing. 
 
 (72)
 
 Dante. 73 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, at St. Louis, Missouri, May, 
 1878, taking second prize. Judges: lion. A. TAFT, Bishop THOS. BOWMAN, Hon. 
 BENJAMIN HARRISON, Hon. WM. HYDE. 
 
 The history of a nation is the history of her great men. 
 Dante was the prophetic exponent of the heart of the Middle 
 Ages, the embodiment of the character, and the realization of 
 the science of his day. A character original, pathetic, and 
 angelic, whose inspired soul led the intellect in its train. Tasso, 
 Spenser, Goethe, Byron, and Milton bathed themselves in the 
 light of his resplendent genius. 
 
 Mis writings are as subtle as logic and as sublime as nature s 
 laws. The "Divina Commedia" is his masterpiece. He incor 
 porated into his immortal work the learning, philosophy, relig 
 ion, and popular traditions of the mystic age. The universe 
 was his field of labor; eternity the goal of his endeavor, and the 
 solitude of thought his studio. 
 
 A pioneer in literature, he cast upon the waters bread which 
 is feeding the starving millions to-day. Having entered the 
 "Holy of Holies" he has wandered through the labyrinths of 
 the human heart. The triple-headed dog Cerberus ceased his 
 barking, and competition fled from Dante as "from the glance 
 of destiny." To him was given the keys of the bottomless pit. 
 Devils trembled at his approach. 
 
 He lived as if seeing Him who is invisible. An angel incar 
 nate, he recognized simply mind and spirit, and was not polluted 
 by the touch of earth. 
 
 Who shall breathe a word against him, or say he was not 
 conversant with the sentiments and principles which are the 
 living springs of beauty? With one stroke of his forearm 
 having shattered the kingdom of papacy he fled from the 
 terrors of torch and dagger, and wandered an exile in all lands. 
 His persecutors coveted his fleshless palms and lifeless form 
 for their city, ready to place them in "the damp vault that 
 weeps o er royal bones." 
 
 Dante s poetry differs from Milton s as the picture-painting 
 of Mexico from the hieroglyphics of Egypt. The images of 
 Dante are concise and level with the common mind, while those 
 of Milton are elaborated for the chosen few.
 
 74 Winning Orations. 
 
 "If you examine Italian art," said Cornelius, "its decline 
 begins when painters ceased to carry Dante in their minds." 
 He was the connecting link between medieval and modern 
 literature. In him the latter had its birth. It mattered not 
 whether chasing the butterflies of youth, or all aglow with life s 
 meridian glory, the chief magistrate of Florence, the immortal 
 dreamer, or a banished hero, he was the same man of destiny. 
 Mounted on thought s fantastic pinion, he sailed from mountain- 
 top to mountain-top and from glory to glory. The populace 
 acknowledged him as prophet, priest, and king, and with trem 
 bling hand, as if in the presence of the supernatural, exclaimed, 
 "See there, the man who has been in hell!" Like Luther, he 
 had heard the cry of others, "If there is a hell, Rome is built 
 over it!" 
 
 He cringed before no foe, and, filled with that holy enthu 
 siasm, the sure premonitor of success, his fame widened, and 
 stars came out to adorn his crown. When he went out in death 
 no night followed. He lives in the bright light of his example, 
 enshrined in the hearts of a worthy posterity, and he shall be 
 forgotten only when men cease to revere genius and virtue, 
 and trample upon their cherished memorials. 
 
 America thanks to her own honored poet, Longfellow- 
 begins to appreciate the transcendent intellect and pure soul of 
 Dante. Who has not experienced the soul-subduing awe of 
 his solemnity, or been raised to the loity heights of his sub 
 limity? Who has not felt the gloomy pathos and keen sarcasm 
 and personality of his verse? He converted heathen antiquity 
 into Christian mythology, and built up a new heaven and a 
 new earth. No muse called by fancy from the fabled heights, 
 no ambition to spread a sounding name abroad, gave the world 
 the grander efforts of Dante; but we owe all to the inspiration 
 of a young and beautiful woman. 
 
 Dante once stood, as the shadow of a devil, in the back 
 ground; but, under the glowing light of modern criticism and 
 truth, he is transformed into an archangel wearing the victori 
 ous sword of a Michael, ready to smite the red dragon of the 
 seven-hilled city, though standing upon the Prince of Darkness 
 at the very mouth of hell. 
 
 As the simple light is seen on the mountain before the 
 monster Vesuvius belches destruction upon listless Pompeii, so,
 
 Dante. 75 
 
 silently, under a propitious star of the Italian constellation, 
 Dante began his state. He came a mental and moral light, 
 a savior and not a destroyer, in the fiery times to free the 
 bondsmen and point out the higher path of a Christian civili 
 zation. 
 
 His age, like ancient Pompeii, now lies buried, and only by 
 digging beneath the surface of his literature is it truthfully re 
 vealed. His literature unveils not only the history of his times, 
 but also the foundation of his creative energy, upon which he 
 reared the fabric of his fame. 
 
 He exemplified futurity to the material eye by the personi 
 fied presence of living actors. Thus, with rich hues of reality, 
 he made his scenes more impressive. He even clothed the 
 myths which shock and amuse, while they flee from our grasp 
 as "a shadow or a mocking spirit." 
 
 Dante shines by no reflected light. A star of the first mag 
 nitude, the center of all attraction, he shines in the firmament 
 of creative mind. 
 
 The images of Dante are not rude forms struggling into 
 notice, striving in vain to maintain their equilibrium. They 
 burst upon us as the first view of the sea, holding the eye by 
 their infinity, and filling us with a longing to examine them 
 with a closer gaze. 
 
 Dante loved solitude, not the solitude of slavish fear which 
 shrinks from sight, but grand and peculiar he rose like a pyra 
 mid above the gloomy desert of the fourteenth century. With 
 eyes upon the subjective phenomena, inward, yet an accurate 
 observer of the objective, he recognized the material as typical 
 only of the ideal and the divine. He stood alone, because 
 head and shoulders above his fellows. He weighed the nations 
 in the even balance of his justice. 
 
 His land is one of enchantment and wild despair. Every 
 thing wears the garb of vivid personality. The mystic chain 
 of friendship is unbroken. The trees are so many tongues. 
 The rended rocks tell their history. The myrtle into which 
 Polydorus had been metamorphosed, when struck by the 
 rude hand of desire, bleeds, and utters sorest plaints from its 
 wounded side. The animals shake pestilence from their shaggy 
 manes. The air moans in agony. The rivers run red to the 
 sea. And only by worshiping at the shrine of changeless
 
 76 Winning Orations. 
 
 Providence are we led out to the "ever-green mountains of 
 life." 
 
 Dante s devils are to be hated. They are monsters of hid 
 eous mien and immense proportions. His Lucifer does not 
 appear as an archangel ruined, but as " seraph willfully fallen" 
 He bears no marks that would solicit sympathy, but maintain 
 ing his obdurate pride is willing to wear the crown at the 
 bottomless pit, an Arch-Fiend, rather than bow to the Lord 
 Almighty. 
 
 Dante is led through the realm of Paradise by the celestial 
 smile of Beatrice, who is the embodiment of divine science. 
 Her smile deepens until high on the wings of rising faith he 
 sees "grace culminate in the ever-blessed Trinity in unity, 
 where unto is taken forevermore the glorified humanity of 
 God Incarnate." 
 
 And now the wanderer returns and seeks repose in Florence, 
 the fairest home in Italy. Ah! thou too, Florence, dost thou 
 spurn him from thy bosom? Has the common mother forgotten 
 her offspring? Is this rejection the fruit of his abundant sweat 
 and toil in thy behalf? Dante becomes the adopted child of 
 
 Ravenna. 
 
 "On thy hoary shores, fortress of fallen empire! 
 Honored sleeps the immortal exile." 
 
 Hear, fairest Italy! Arise! Shake off the dust from thy 
 garments, and take thy place in the front rank of nations! 
 "The spirits of thy sons are standing on every step of the 
 temple of genius since the twelfth century." The children 
 call thee blessed, for Dante, the immortal Dante, greatest of 
 them all, sleeps in thy bosom. Ye streams that go dancing 
 into the sea, sound his praise! Ye torrents, thunder it in your 
 awful plunge! Ye soft skies, wreath yourselves in smiles and 
 weep tears of joy! Ye silent voices of nature, whisper it to the 
 winds! Ye winds, carry it upon.your wings the world over! Ye 
 purple hills, tell it to the stars! Ye fiery battalions that tread 
 the celestial way, sing it to the music of the spheres! Dante s 
 ministers on trembling pinions wait to catch their master s 
 least commands. Time, the tomb-effacer, covers up all things 
 human. Empires rise and sink as waves of the sea. The 
 proudest works of man are short-lived, and "dust to dust" 
 concludes the noblest song. The lofty marble and bronze will
 
 Dante. 77 
 
 crumble and fall. The iron bands will burst asunder. The 
 everlasting hills will sink into nothingness. The earth will 
 vanish as a scroll. The burning orbs that gem the radiant 
 brow of night will wander "rayless and pathless;" and mid 
 night, universal midnight, will reign. 
 
 But Dante ever lives, and his spirit grows brighter by time. 
 He sung, impelled by the power that rules in Heaven, and then 
 gave his golden harp into angels keeping, and it awaits his 
 master touch to answer in sweeter strains in the morning of 
 the resurrection.
 
 IAGO. 
 
 By R. M. LA FOLLETTE, of Wisconsin State University. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 It is that great disparity between the humble log-cabin and 
 the honored chair of State which truly shows the great possi 
 bilities of an American life. Mr. La Follette s life has been 
 one of this true American type. The rapidity of his political 
 and social growth has been as marvelous as that of any Amer 
 ican statesman. Robert Marion La Follette was born in a log- 
 cabin in the town of Primrose, Dane County, Wisconsin, June 
 14, 1855. When six years of age his parents moved to Argyle, 
 in a neighboring county, where his time was divided between 
 working on a farm and attending a district school. In 1873 
 the family moved to Madison, and here he attended a private 
 academy preparatory to entering the State University, where 
 he was admitted to the freshman class in September, 18/5. 
 His early college work was characterized by his activity in the 
 debating societies, and in literary work as editor and joint- 
 owner of the university press. In his junior year he was elected 
 by the Athenean Society as its orator in junior exhibition. 
 In his senior year he represented the university in the inter- 
 State contest, at Iowa City, Iowa, winning the prize on his 
 oration " lago." This literary masterpiece, combined with its 
 faultless elocution and delivery, established his reputation as 
 a writer and orator. He took his diploma with the class of 79, 
 and entered the law school in the fall of the same year, which 
 he attended only one term, completing his law studies in an 
 office. He was admitted to the bar in 1880, and in the fall of 
 the same year was nominated and elected by the Republicans 
 district attorney of Dane County. This office he filled with 
 such conspicuous ability that at the following election, in 1882, 
 he was re-chosen by his county, notwithstanding formidable 
 opposition and the fact that the average plurality against his 
 
 (78)
 
 
 
 (/*
 
 lago. 79 
 
 ticket was over a thousand. The severest strain upon the 
 powers of a member of the legal profession comes in the trial 
 of cases. Tested thus as a master of the points of his cause, 
 in quick perception, and close discrimination in examination 
 of witnesses, and the gift of exposition to court and jury of 
 the law and facts involved, Mr. La Follette is pre-eminent. The 
 reputation earned by him as a lawyer, together with the popu 
 larity and friendships attaching to a winning and genial per 
 sonality, brought him before the people of the capital district 
 as their most desirable candidate for Congress, and in 1884 he 
 was nominated and elected congressman of the third district. 
 He was the youngest man in the 49th Congress, being but 
 twenty-nine years of age when his term commenced. He was 
 re-elected to his seat in Congress and again in 1888, and was 
 unanimously renominated by the Republicans of his district 
 in 1890, but in the political revolution ensuing upon the intro 
 duction into Wisconsin State politics of compulsory education 
 issues, made one of the numerous candidates defeated, his 
 district thereupon losing not only a faithful and tireless repre 
 sentative, but one of unimpeachable private and public char 
 acter. Among his speeches in Congress, winning him wide 
 commendation, are more particularly his discussion of th-j 
 River and Harbor Bill of 1885; his reply to Speaker Carlisle s 
 speech on the Mills Bill; his defense of the Lodge Election 
 Bill; his advocacy of the constitutional power of Congress to 
 tax manufactured compounds deleterious to health; and his 
 speech in endorsement of the Tariff Bill of 1890. Outside of 
 his public work he has been called upon to do much public 
 speaking. During his first term in Congress he was chosen to 
 make the annual address to the Howard Law School, at Wash 
 ington, to pronounce the oration at the Grant memorial exer 
 cises held at the Monona Chautauqua Assembly, and to deliver 
 a political address in Chickering Hall of New York. As a 
 campaign orator he is greatly in demand; his style is simple 
 and direct, his vocabulary copious and Anglo-Saxon, his argu 
 ment inductive, and thought clear; backing this is the gift of 
 oratory, a voice musical and magnetic, and the taste and dis 
 crimination of a trained literary mind. In 1880 Mr. La Follette 
 married Miss Belle Case, of Baraboo, Wisconsin, who had been 
 his classmate in the university, and to whom upon graduation in
 
 So Winning Orations. 
 
 1879 was awarded the Lewis Prize for the best commencement 
 oration. In addition to her university training Mrs. La Follette 
 also took a full course in the Wisconsin University Law School, 
 and was the first lady to receive a diploma from that institution. 
 She has proven herself a most worthy and inspiring sharer 
 of the honors, trials, and responsibilities of her husband s pro 
 fessional and political life. At the expiration of the present 
 Congress he will return to his home, at Madison, and resume 
 the practice of law. We predict for him a future which will 
 realize the promises and expand the reputation gained in ten 
 years of public service as lawyer, orator, and statesman. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, at Iowa City, Iowa, tak 
 ing first prize. Judges: Prof. W. H. HARRIS, General GIKON, and others. 
 
 ABSTRACT OF ARGUMENT. 
 
 1. Mental analysis of lago. 
 
 Has but two of the three constituents of the mind. 
 Loss of emotional nature has cost him his moral parts. 
 What he lacks in feeling, he has gained in knowing --he knows every 
 thing, feels nothing. 
 
 2. Originality of his methods of meanness, as shown in his relations to the 
 
 other characters of the tragedy. 
 
 Display of his intellectual acuteness his power of dissimulation, his 
 manner and his means. 
 
 3. He is a being without conscience, but his acute mind redeems him to us 
 
 as a subject. 
 
 His questioning his "reasons," the result of his mental mechanism, not 
 the protest of conscience. 
 
 4. Contrasted with Richard III. lago is more perfect as a devil, Richard 
 
 more perfect as a villain. Richard s conscience finally asserts itself; 
 lago has none, hence, is his superior in pure hellish consistency. 
 
 5. lago, Shakespeare s conception of the " Evil Principle;" hence, the vague 
 
 ness of his fate, which can be explained in no other way. It is consist 
 ent with a devil not with the villain of a tragedy. 
 
 Shakespeare s lago personifies two constitutents of mind- 
 intellect and will. These alone are the springs of his action, 
 the source of his power. What he lacks in emotion he has 
 gained in intellectual acuteness, but the result is deformity. 
 The character is not ^//-natural; it is fiendishly natural. His 
 reasoning power is abnormally developed; but he has no feel-
 
 lago. 8 1 
 
 ing, no sympathy, no affection, no fear. His is the cold pas 
 sion of intellect, whose icy touch chills the warm life in all it 
 reaches. He is an intellectual athlete, and is unceasing in his 
 mental gymnastics. His contempt for all good is supreme; 
 his greatest crime is his greatest pleasure, and his own hypoc 
 risy gladdens and intoxicates him. Whatever is most mean, 
 whatever is most hard, whatever is vilely atrocious and danger 
 ously difficult, he seizes with greedy glee. Skeptical of all 
 virtue, to him love is lechery, truth-telling stupid goodness, and 
 lying a daring to be ingenious. 
 
 The emotions are the native soil of moral life. From the 
 feelings are grown great ethical truths one by one, forming at 
 last the grand body of moral law. But lago is emotionally a 
 cipher, and his poverty of sentiment and wealth of intellect 
 render him doubly dangerous. Here we have the key to his 
 character he is possessed of an inflexible will, of an intellect 
 pungent, subtle, super-sensual. He not only knows more than 
 he feels, he knows everything, feels nothing. 
 
 The other characters of the tragedy of Othello -a tragedy 
 which Macaulay pronounced Shakespeare s greatest are but 
 puppets, moving at the will of this master. He reads them at 
 a glance, by a flash of instinct. He wastes no words on Rod- 
 erigo other than to make the "fool his purse." But upon 
 Othello he plays with most subtlety, and infinitely greater zest. 
 Upon him he exercises his crafty ingenuity; and the "double 
 knavery," the "how? how?" whets him keen. Now flashes 
 forth the invisible lightning of his malignant mind, and woe to 
 all virtue within its reach. Now we see his character in all its 
 artful cunning, all its devilish cruelty. With what marvelous 
 skill he makes his first attack! He does nothing in the com 
 mon way. His methods have the merit of originality. He does 
 not assail Desdemona s virtue with a well-conned story, but is 
 seemingly surprised into an exclamation, appearing to utter his 
 suspicions by the merest accident. And when he has engaged 
 Othello s ear, note his matchless cunning; he comes and goes, 
 and comes and goes again, with his ingenious inuendoes; chang 
 ing like the chameleon, quick to take his cue from the Moor, 
 yet craftily giving direction to the other s thoughts; cursing 
 Cassio with his protestations of love, and damning Desdemona 
 while joining in a benediction to her honesty. The "constant,
 
 82 Winning Orations. 
 
 loving, noble nature" of the Moor changes quickly under the 
 "almost superhuman art" of lago; but too well he knows the 
 human mind to gorge it with suspicion; and with every dose 
 of poison gives just a little antidote. With pious self-accusa 
 tion, he says, "Tis my nature s plague to spy into abuses," and 
 oft my jealousy shapes faults that are not;" but carefully adds, 
 "It were not for your quiet nor your good to let you know my 
 thoughts;" and is equally careful to tell them; smothering with 
 one hand all suspicion of his perfidy, and kindling with the 
 other the consuming fires of the Moor s jealousy. 
 
 lago s manner of practicing on Othello is only matched by 
 the means he employs. Like the genuine devil, he destroys 
 the entire household not through some unguarded vice, but 
 through its very virtues. He sets all goodness by the ears. 
 The strength of the Moor s affection is made a fatal weakness; 
 and, more than this, the very medium of all their misery is she 
 
 "Of spirit so still and gentle that her motion 
 Blushed at herself." 
 
 lago and Desdemona! Strange, unspeakable union of oppo- 
 sites! Weird harmony of discords! Somber mingling of a 
 smile and a sneer! O the poet whose genius could compound 
 these elements without an explosion! O this "unequal con 
 trast between the powers of grossness and purity!" That Des 
 demona, whose child-like nature is a divine fusion of innocence 
 and chastity, should be played off against a moral outlaw a 
 being whose livery is "heavenly shows," and whose logic is the 
 "divinity of hell"- is a juxtaposition appalling, fascinating! 
 T is Dina in the talons of a Harpy. That virtue should be 
 turned into pitch, that "out of goodness" should be made 
 the net to enmesh them all, that innocence should become 
 the instrument of the infernal, is a "moral antithesis" that 
 preludes the oncoming of chaos. And it comes like the quick 
 night, and consummates the tragedy; while over all, in sullen 
 silence, gloats the imp of darkness. 
 
 Somewhere Thomas Carlyle has said, "There are depths in 
 man that go to the length of the lowest hell, as there are 
 heights that reach highest heaven;" but lago is a magnet 
 with only one pole, which ever points toward the infernal. 
 Why is it, then, that this character does not disgust us? Why 
 do we follow his intricate windings with such intense interest?
 
 lago. 83 
 
 Why do we tolerate him? We find the answer in his great in 
 tellect. This is the core of his character abstract intellectu 
 ality united to volitional force, devoid of all morality, divorced 
 from all feeling. He is hardly human, yet he sounds humanity 
 like a philosopher. He is wanting in ethical parts, yet he 
 makes the nicest moral distinctions. He is a fraction, yet 
 greater than a unit; a part, yet more than the whole. He is a 
 paradox. In his deep schemes we nearly forget the villain. 
 His triumph over all obstacles pins the attention to his intel 
 lectual powers. He is "instinct with thought." This redeems 
 him to us as a subject, and yields another explanation for what 
 has been termed his "little trace of conscience." His self- 
 questionings, his subtle sophisms, his cataclysm of reasons, are 
 not the weak protest of a moral part, but the logical outcome 
 of a sleepless intellect. He is emphatically a being of reasons. 
 He will do nothing except he furnish to himself the "why." 
 It is not that he requires these reasons as a "whetstone for his 
 revenge," it is not that his "resolution is too much for his con 
 science," but rather that he revels in reasons, that his hungry 
 mind will have its food. He "suspects the lusty Moor," and 
 fears "Cassio with his night-cap, too," on occasion; not that he 
 dreads to destroy either without some motive, but because his 
 mental constitution demands a reason for all things. Schlegel 
 defines wickedness as "nothing but selfishness designedly un- 
 conscientious;" but lago makes no effort to deceive himself, 
 for he says: 
 
 "When devils will their blackest sins put on, 
 
 They do suggest at first with heavenly shows, 
 
 As I do now." 
 
 He does not care to justify himself, except as an intellectual 
 satisfaction. He desires no moral vindication. In fact he 
 commits crime merely for crime s sake, and there is no sin that 
 he will not claim as his own. Think of it! a being who clutches 
 at wickedness with all the greed of a miser. Thoroughly pas 
 sionless, coldly intellectual, he is forced into the self-confession 
 that he is no libertine; yet fearful lest the admission has cost 
 him one hellish trait, he quickly adds that he stands "account 
 ant for as great a sin." This is a moral defiance sublimely 
 hideous, but hardly reconcilable in a being with even a "little 
 trace of conscience." Were there a single golden thread of
 
 84 Winning Orations. 
 
 moral sense to knit him to the good of humanity it would shine 
 forth when Desdemona,- whose only offense against him is that 
 she is pure, sinks under his cursed cunning. But it is a quality 
 he feel not, knows not, and what Coleridge calls "the motivc- 
 hnntino of a motiveless malignity ;" this constant combing of his 
 wits for reasons is simply a service performed at the mandate 
 of his craving intellect. 
 
 These are the premises from which, as a conclusion, we de 
 duce lago a character without a conscience. 
 
 Mark the "steep inequality", between him and Richard III.: 
 The Duke of Gloster, born with teeth, a twisted body, and a 
 majestic mind, cut his way through those of his own flesh to a 
 throne. Malignant and artful, hypocritical and heartless, he 
 "seems a saint when most he plays the devil." Monster, he 
 stands apart from men; he is "like himself alone," and he 
 stalks along his bloody course a solitary creation. Brave, he 
 has the audacity to defy destiny, the impudent confidence to 
 enter the lists against the Unknown. But hidden away some 
 where in his black soul is a germ of conscience, disguised as 
 superstitious fear a germ of conscience which starts forth 
 when that towering will is off guard; coming in the thin sub 
 stance of a dream, yet so terrible that the remorseful "drops 
 hang on his trembling flesh." Here is his humanity, his mortal 
 weakness, and through this the " all-powerful and ever-watch 
 ful Nemesis" hurls her lance, barbed to the shaft with retribu 
 tion. Pursued by croaking phantoms, scourged by the invisible 
 lash of violated conscience, he flings himself into the conflict, 
 and with a royal flourish, in perfect keeping with his character, 
 closes the tragedy. His death satisfies the equation of right. 
 
 Richard and lago possess some qualities in common: both 
 have mighty intellects; both are wily, cunning, crafty; both 
 dissimulers; both actors. But farther than this they are 
 profoundly unlike. Richard III. is more humanly terrible; 
 lago more devilishly perfect. Richard loves nothing human; 
 lago hates everything good. Richard is arrogant, passionate, 
 powerful, violent; lago egotistical, cold, cynical, sly. Richard 
 is fire; lago, ice. Richard III. is more objective; lago, more 
 subjective. Richard would pulverize the universe; lago would 
 like to reverse the order of things. In point of satanical finish 
 lago is Richard, and more. Richard III. murders many and
 
 I ago. 85 
 
 sweats with horror; lago few, and forgets remorse. Richard 
 III. mounts the throne of England on a score of dead bodies; 
 lago wins the throne of hell in three strides. The conscience 
 o! Richard wakes from its throne; lago has no conscience. 
 Richard III. is a monstrosity; lago, a psychological contra 
 diction. 
 
 \Ve offer lago, then, as Shakespeare s conception of the 
 "Evil Principle." And how perfect the creation! In the whole 
 course of his crime he betrays never a weakness, never a check of 
 conscience nothing to mar the elegant symmetry of his fiend- 
 ishness. From the time he lays down the postulate that "I 
 am not what I am" till he attains his infernal majority, he is 
 the same refined, pitiless, sarcastic devil. He is often surprised, 
 but he is never disconcerted. He plans, but it is because he 
 likes the mental exercise. It has been said that "deep rogues 
 take all their villainy a priori; that they do not construct plans 
 in anticipation." lago s carefully perfected schemes would 
 seem to rebuke this philosophy were it not that they appear, 
 rather, meat for his mind than directions for his diabolisms. 
 Indeed it is in those unpremised scenes where the occasion 
 fails to fit his plans, where all the odds are arrayed against him, 
 that he achieves the greatest triumph. This is nothing short 
 
 *"y-." ^/j?{ \ ^L - 
 
 of Stygian skill, and it is just here that he attains the dignity 
 of a devil. That dignity would have been sacrificed in his 
 death. By all the principles of dramatic tragedy Othello is 
 his fit executioner. Significant fact! we are only promised 
 that his "punishment shall torment him much and hold him 
 long." This is to appease the moral demand, and in its vague 
 ness the poet seeks to avoid a decline in tragic intensity. This 
 we offer as the ethical and aesthetical reason for the indefinite- 
 ness thrown about lago s fate by the dramatist. He had pushed 
 his creation to the verge of the finite: punishment was de 
 manded, none could be devised which would requite him. 
 
 The full course of tragedy, the mighty evolution of its 
 events, must yield an apt sequence, a sublime completeness, else 
 it fails in its aim. Schiller says, "Life is great only as a means 
 of accomplishing the moral law; and nothing is sublimer than 
 a criminal yielding his life because of the morality he has 
 violated." With the single exception of lago, Shakespeare 
 has availed himself of this principle. The Thane of Cawdor
 
 86 Winning Orations. 
 
 tops all his murderers with his own head; Lady Macbeth 
 bleaches in death the "damned spot" from her unclean hand; 
 Richard III. seals with his own blood on Bosworth field the 
 sublime in his career; but lago is just beyond the reach of 
 death, and we can fancy him disappearing in the darkness of 
 which he is a part. 
 
 There are two fitnesses in a villain s death the moral fit 
 ness and the tragic fitness. The one, the ethical satisfaction 
 at the inevitable recoil of the broken moral law; the other, 
 the grandeur of a finale. To condense into one moment the 
 whole of life, to put a fiat on existence, to engulf a soul in the 
 awful immensity of its own acts this is sublime; but to have 
 conceived and brought forth a being so super-physical, so 
 positively devilish, so intensely infernal, that his death would 
 be pathos this is genius. 
 
 And this lago. The polished, affable^attendant; the boon 
 companion; the supple sophist, the nimble logician; the phil 
 osopher, the moralist, the scoffing demon; the goblin whose 
 smile is a stab, and whose laugh is an infernal sneer; who has 
 sworn eternal vengeance on virtufe everywhere; who would 
 turn cosmos into chaos. This compound of .wickedness and 
 reason, this incarnation of intellect, this tartarean basilisk, is 
 the logical conclusion in a syllogism whose premises are "Hell 
 and Night." He is a criminal climax; endow him with a single 
 supernatural quality, and he stands among the devils of fiction 
 supreme.
 
 MAHOMETANISM AND ITS ENEMIES. 
 
 By J. A. BARBER, of Obcrlin College. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 J. A. Barber was born at lona, Michigan, in 1855. It was 
 at the age of twenty-two he graduated from Oberlin College, 
 Oberlin, Ohio. The following year he served as superintendent 
 of the schools at St. Marys, and then located in Toledo, and 
 became principal gf the high school, resigning at the end of 
 the year to engage in the study of law. He was admitted to 
 the bar October 3, 1882, and has since been actively engaged 
 in the practice of this profession with great success. He is 
 now prosecuting attorney of Lucas County. The oration, on 
 following pages, delivered by him while a student of Oberlin 
 College, secured to him the second prize for oratorical excel 
 lence. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, at Iowa City, Iowa, tak 
 ing second prize. Judges: Prof. \V. H. HARRIS, General GIBON, and others. 
 
 The progress of the human race has been slow but sure. 
 In the revolutions of human activity, principles, institutions, 
 and religions have sprung up, fulfilled their mission, and fallen 
 into the grave of buried epochs. 
 
 When we judge of a factor of civilization, reason demands 
 that we lay aside all prejudice. Neither can we judge by the 
 standard of our own age; but the tribunal before which every 
 institution must be tried is the condition of the human race at 
 the time of that institution. We wish to examine the religion 
 of Mahomet as a factor of human progress, and it is our purpose 
 to show that Mahometanism has had a beneficial influence upon 
 mankind. It has been but a short time that the world has been 
 fair in judging the true character of Mahomet. For eleven 
 centuries men looked upon him as a cheat and imposter and 
 
 (87)
 
 88 Winning Orations. 
 
 an enemy of mankind. Now all the greatest and most candid 
 writers agree that Mahomet stands forth as a sincere, earnest, 
 God-loving man. His soul longed to lead his people to a 
 nobler life. In like manner, the writers of the past, blinded by 
 hate or prejudice, have denounced Mahomet s religion as a 
 curse to human happiness and a barrier to human progress. 
 They have forgotten the good in his religion, and the good it 
 has accomplished. They have looked only at its evils, and 
 then told us that it has checked the progress of mankind. 
 We think that a fair examination of his religion, and its influ 
 ence, will lead us to agree with many of the ablest minds of 
 to-day that such a view of Mahometanism is wrong. The 
 religion of Mahomet changed the destinies of the world for 
 ever. One-fifth of the human souls that have lived and died 
 upon this earth for the last twelve centuries, have drawn their 
 inspiration, their happiness, and that highest and most divine 
 of all earthly joys the hope of an immortal life with an eternal 
 God from the teachings of Mecca s humble prophet. One 
 hundred and eighty millions of men live upon the earth to-day 
 whose eternal destiny is shaped by the doctrines of the camel- 
 driver of Arabia. This, then, is the problem: in the divine 
 order and harmony of the world, in the mysterious laws of 
 human progress, has the birth of Mahomet, upon which rests 
 such a burden of human destiny, been a curse? I know what 
 the truthful believers in a kind and loving Providence will say. 
 Impossible that one man could determine the eternal fortunes 
 of one-fifth of the men who have lived for twelve centuries, 
 were it not to w T ork for the highest good of God s creatures! 
 They will tell you that when Mahomet, hunted by his enemies, 
 stood a hated and helpless prisoner in the hands of the officers 
 of Medina, "when the lance of an Arab might have changed 
 the history of the world," they will tell you that something 
 more than human power stayed that lance. 
 
 But I wish to demonstrate, by the laws and facts of progress, 
 that Mahometanism has had a beneficial influence upon the 
 world. The first argument that the enemies of Mahomet bring 
 against his religion is that it is full of fundamental errors, and 
 from this they conclude that it has checked human progress. 
 No one ever held that the religion of Mahomet was perfect. 
 But we have it on the authority of all great minds that his
 
 Maho metanism and Its Enemies. 89 
 
 religion, in its conception and grandeur, stands next to Chris 
 tianity. A kind of Christianity, says Carlyle. There are great 
 and grand truths in the religion truths which appealed to the 
 noblest impulses of those wild Arabian souls. We admit that 
 there are great errors in his system, that he gave his sanction 
 to many evils; but let us remember that Mahomet found these 
 indulgences practiced unquestioned from the time his race 
 issued from the caves of barbarism. Have men denounced 
 Solon s laws? They were not perfect, yet they were the best 
 the Athenians could receive. Have men hurled their philippics 
 against Moses? He allowed polygamy. He allowed slavery. 
 He permitted the institutions of primitive society. He did not 
 abolish one of them; he could not. He mitigated their evils. 
 Mahomet did the same. He could not unmake the manners 
 of his people. He found Arabia steeped in spiritual torpor. 
 From time beyond memory the night of sin had settled around 
 them. His morality is not perfect; yet what a wonder that so 
 grand a system could be reared in twenty-five years upon the 
 ruins of one of the basest idol-worships that ever stained the 
 annals of men. So far as the logical consequence of this 
 objection is concerned we might admit it, and it would not 
 prove that Mahomet s religion had checked human progress. 
 If it can be shown that his religion was suited to the condition 
 of the times, and to that part of the race which received it, it 
 has been demonstrated that it has a beneficial influence upon 
 the world. In the most glorious epochs of ancient civilization, 
 when the human mind had reached as high a development as 
 had ever been equaled, when the youth flocked to the schools 
 of philosophy and oratory, when the muse of poetry sang her 
 loftiest strains, and the theaters echoed with the beautiful 
 conception of creative minds, at that very time the streets of 
 all the cities were adorned with the marble and the temples 
 of heathen gods. Above the azure vault of heaven, Jupiter, 
 Bacchus, and the other gods, were believed to be reveling and 
 taking part in human passion and human crime. Yet no one 
 ever said that the worship of Jupiter was detrimental to ancient 
 civilization. It formed a bond of union, without which, Max 
 Mueller says, society cannot exist. It formed a stepping-stone 
 of human progress. It was the only religion, which, in that 
 condition and part of the world, could stir the highest impulses
 
 90 Winning Orations. 
 
 of men. Thus, when we judge of the influence of Mahometan- 
 ism, we must discuss not the creed of Mahomet, but whether 
 it suited the times and people that received it. 
 
 The second argument that the enemies of Mahometanisrn 
 bring to show that it hindered human progress is, that it entered 
 Christian ground and hindered Christianity. I know that the 
 Christian religion had to give up the cradle of its infancy; and 
 when it became known, "a nerve was touched," as Gibbon says, 
 "which vibrated to the heart of Europe." Let us go back to 
 our tribunal to weigh this argument the condition of the 
 times. Palestine was bounded by the fire-worshipers and the 
 star-worshipers. Christianity had failed to weaken the idolatry 
 of those savage millions. The Christian religion itself, in the 
 East, had become paganized. In the dark night of superstition 
 and sin, it had fallen into a state of corruption and idolatry. 
 For six centuries Christianity held its sway in the East. What 
 is the uniform testimony concerning its results? It had ceased 
 its rapid conquest. It had fallen into superstition and sin. 
 Star-worship and fire-worship were unchanged. Hallam, the 
 least enthusiastic of writers, testifies that society had sunk into 
 the depths of ignorance; that, "in the shadows of this universal 
 ignorance, a thousand superstitions, like foul animals of night, 
 were propagated and nourished." If, in the light of such facts, 
 it is said that Mahomet s religion entered Christian ground, 
 we reply in the language of Milman, a great and candid writer, 
 that Islam was better, far better than the idolatrous forms of 
 Christianity which it supplanted. It is said that his religion 
 hindered Eastern progress; we answer in the words of Hallam, 
 that "Mahometanism is the only form of religion that has 
 proved itself suited to the nations of the East." How in the 
 light of history can we fling upon Mahomet the charge of hin 
 dering Eastern progress? Are all other nations of the world 
 progressive save those under his religion? Can a religion 
 which teaches the unity of God, which teaches temperance 
 and chastity, which teaches the divine principles of benevo 
 lence and prayer, check the progress of society? The worship 
 of Jupiter and Bacchus did not hinder ancient civilization, yet 
 how wrong was that worship compared with the teachings of 
 Mahomet. Historians tell us that Eastern society is what it 
 was in the time of Solomon, what it was in the time of Abraham.
 
 Mahometardsm and Its Enemies. 91 
 
 Oriental society has been non-progressive. The Chinese, the 
 most advanced, are as stationary as the pyramids of Egypt. 
 We can see but one answer to the non-progressiveness of the 
 East it is the nature, nature, nature of the race. 
 
 We will now support the affirmative of this line of argument 
 that the human race has been made happier, because Ma 
 homet, by something more than human power, issued from the 
 caravans of the desert to shape the fortunes of Ishmael s sons. 
 We argue that Mahometanism has been beneficial, first, because 
 it was a mighty reform. Generations and ages rolled into obliv 
 ion, and the wild Bedouins of the desert had remained un 
 noticed. For ages, of which the pen of the historian can never 
 write, the sun had risen upon the wandering, warring, robbing 
 tribes of the Arabian wastes. They had never dreamed of that 
 sublimest of truths there is but one God. They had never 
 enjoyed that most divine of all earthly joys the hope of an 
 immortal life with an immortal God. They had never drawn 
 a breath save under the basest idol-worship. Poor, savage, 
 half-human, half-brutish creatures! But they were not always 
 to be so. In the words of Voltaire, the turn of Arabia came. 
 Mahomet in his boyhood days had learned of God. He longed 
 to raise his people from the night of sin, and to lead them to a 
 nobler life. He could not reveal to them such a religion as 
 
 o 
 
 the voice of Judea proclaimed six hundred years before. But 
 such a religion as could come from his rude, untutored, fervent, 
 God-loving soul, he gave them. "Destroy your idols. Cast 
 off your blasphemous idolatry. Ye are mocking God. God is 
 great. He made us all. He guards us and cares for us. Serve 
 him. He alone is good. He only has power to save." This 
 inspired their wild souls with enthusiasm. They began a career 
 of progress, and there was inaugurated one of the greatest 
 reforms that ever shook the affairs of men. If you prefer to 
 hear on this point the greatest prose writer that now lives, he 
 will tell you that "to the Arab nation it was a birth of dark 
 ness into light. Arabia first became alive by means of it; 
 glancing in splendor and the light of genius, Arabia shines 
 through long ages over a great section of our world." 
 
 Again, we argue that Mahometanism has been a beneficial 
 factor of civilization, because its mission seemed to be de 
 manded by the condition of the times. We have seen how
 
 92 Winning Orations. 
 
 Christianity has fallen from its state of primitive purity. It 
 had become paganized. Heathen rites had been introduced. 
 In the East were seen men bowing to images, as heathens do to 
 their heathen-gods. The whole Eastern world was immersed 
 in ignorance and superstition. The Church was torn with dis 
 cords and dissensions. Yes, long before the "Sermon on the 
 Mount" had ceased its rapid conquest, such was the state of the 
 Christian nations. All the rest of the world was in idolatry. 
 Where was there hope? Mahomet comes. He offers them a 
 sublime monotheism. He offers them a religion which teaches 
 temperance and charity, a religion of prayer, "a really spiritual 
 religion." The Saracen sword demonstrated the majesty of 
 God, and one-fifth of the race was saved from the worship of 
 gods of wood and stone. Thus it was suited to the condition 
 of the times. I would like to give the opinion of Milman on 
 this point: "Islam is entitled to disdain the vulgar polytheism 
 of the East, the fire-worship of Persia, or either the depraved 
 forms of Judaism and Christianity." 
 
 We argue, lastly, that Mahomet s religion has made the 
 world happier, because it gave a powerful impetus to the 
 growth of the human mind. One writer charges Mahomet 
 with making progress a crime; yet for five hundred years the 
 excessive brilliancy of Arabian learning dimmed the radiance 
 of all the rest. Throughout the most inglorious period of the 
 world s history they held up the torch of learning to humanity. 
 If we can only get before our minds that "inconceivable cloud 
 of ignorance" which overspread the whole face of the world; 
 if we can only see how strong a connecting link between the 
 old civilization and the new, Arabian learning was, we shall 
 know how much this argument weighs. They roused the world 
 of its sleep of ages, unshackled the human soul, and gave a 
 new impulse to progress. It was the Arabs who, during the 
 darkest ages of Europe s history, summoned the muses of 
 poetry and history. It was the Arabs who turned the philoso 
 phy of Plato and Aristotle and the great minds of ancient 
 civilization into new channels of progress. In the science of 
 astronomy they excelled every nation that had ever inhabited 
 the earth. They invented the sciences of chemistry and al 
 gebra. All candid minds agree that Arabian learning gave a 
 wonderful impetus to the human intellect. Throughout the
 
 Mahometanism and Its Enemies. 93 
 
 Saracen Empire the streets of all the cities were adorned with 
 colleges and school-houses. Schools of philosophy and science 
 dotted portions of all continents then known. 
 
 In the light of all this, in the light of history, in the light 
 of human reason, can we conclude with the enemies of Ma 
 homet, that, in that final tribunal before the bar of God, one- 
 fifth of the men who have lived since the year 600 will rise up 
 to curse Mahomet as an eternal barrier to human happiness? 
 .Although we may not understand why the Saracen sword 
 glittered in the once fairest portion of our earth; although we 
 may not understand why the blazoned banners of the Moslems 
 waved over the birthplace of the Christian religion, why the 
 columns of Mahometan mosques now cast their shadows over 
 so large a section of the world; although we may long to see 
 the spires of the Christian church towering among those nations 
 of the East; although we may long to see the time when the 
 posterity of the wise men of the East shall again be guided by 
 the Star of Bethlehem, when the religion of Jesus shall be pro 
 claimed from the altars of Mahometan mosques yet, after 
 all, would it not be better to conclude with Richelieu, the old 
 white-haired cardinal of France 
 
 "Come, let us own it: there is One above 
 Who sways the harmonious mysteries of the world?"
 
 POE. 
 
 By L. C. HARRIS, of Iowa College. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 L. C. Harris was born June 17, 1857, at Grinnell, Iowa. His 
 early education was obtained in the Grinnell high school, and 
 later he entered Iowa College, which is also located at Grin 
 nell. While in college he entered the contest for oratorical 
 honors, and with his oration on "Foe" he was triumphant. 
 After leaving college he entered the law department of the 
 Iowa State University, completing the course in 1882. In the 
 fall of the same year he went to Dakota to engage in the law 
 and real estate business, and settled in La Moure County. He 
 resided here one year when he was elected register of deeds 
 and county clerk, which position he held until the 1st of Jan 
 uary, 1889. Mr. Harris is now practicing law, and is county 
 attorney for La Moure County. He is an efficient officer, as 
 an evidence of which he has been engaged in public work for 
 several years, and is a man of many admirable qualities. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, at Oberlin, Ohio, May, 
 1880, taking first prize. Judges: Hon. THOMAS A. HENDRICKS, Messrs. 
 OWEN, BRAND, and others. 
 
 There have appeared at different stages of the world s 
 history minds so anomalous in their nature, so totally at vari 
 ance with those surrounding them, so unnatural and equivocal 
 in their construction, that they have seemed more like errant 
 spirits from the world beyond than those possessing the attri 
 butes and propensities of common mortals. 
 
 Prominent among the names in this strange order of beings 
 occurs that of Edgar Allan Poe. He combines in a remarkable 
 
 (94)
 
 Poe. 95 
 
 degree two elements of mind seldom found united- analysis 
 and imagination. These form the ground-work of his genius; 
 they are the source of his wonderful power. No two faculties 
 could be more opposite in their effects. Their union in him 
 gives to many of his subjects the effect of what can only be 
 expressed by the contradictory phrase of the spiritually material. 
 He treats the most ideal themes in the most realistic manner. 
 He is both poet and mathematician. He conceives with all 
 the vividness of the former, but he reasons with all the coldness 
 and precision of the latter. He is living fire hedged in with ice. 
 He reduces the wildest play of passion to the most exact order, 
 lie unites the severest logic to the most exuberant fancy; the 
 heat of passion to the coldness of reason. 
 
 A too close observance of the poetical and ideal part of his 
 nature has gained for him the appellation of dreamier. He luis 
 his moods of abstraction, but he is not the typical dreamer. His 
 piercing acuteness, his minuteness of detail, his subtle distinc 
 tions, his refined reasonings, all separate him from the purely 
 meditative mind. The dreamer is passive; Poe is active. The 
 dreamer diffuses his faculties; Poe concentrates them. The 
 dreamer revels in the mysterious; Poe will have nothing to do 
 with it, only as he can explain it. The dreamer surrenders 
 himself to contemplation and reverie, till his own individuality 
 is lost in that of the objects around him; Poe never loses him 
 self in his abstraction he is most keenly alive when most 
 absorbed. 
 
 Mark the contrast between the strength, clearness, and pre 
 cision of his intellectual, and the wild disorder and disease of 
 his moral and aesthetic, faculties. He naturally possessed deli 
 cate perceptions and refined sensibilities. But what do we find 
 in his tales? A nature attuned to the harmonious and the 
 beautiful, reveling in all that is discordant and hideous; a 
 mind intoxicated by the fiendishness of its own creations, in 
 dulging all that is self-destructive; all the natural, genuine 
 emotions of the heart blighted and turned awry; hope driven 
 into the icy caves of despair; joy banished into rayless caverns 
 of gloom; poetic fervor turned into maniacal fury; feeling 
 frozen into frenzy; smiles withered into sneers. In fine, the 
 impression produced by these weird compositions is that of a 
 demon mounting to a throne of evil eminence on the wreck of
 
 96 Winning Orations. 
 
 all that is pure and beautiful; and, having attained it, gazing 
 down with fiendish glee upon the ruins below. The diseased 
 condition of his mind we see manifested in the unnatural de 
 light he seems to take in dwelling on the subjects of death and 
 decay. In one of his tales he says: "I have imbibed the 
 shadows of the falling columns of Tadmor, Balbec, and Per- 
 sepolis, till my very soul has become a ruin." That is it. It 
 is always beauty and grace dethroned; shattered columns, 
 crumbling walls, and tottering arches; the lingering smile on 
 the lips of death; the false and treacherous bloom on the feat 
 ures of disease; "the gilded halo hovering round decay" it is 
 all these that his morbid fancy seizes upon with such greedy 
 avidity. 
 
 He cares nothing for mere external objects only as they 
 excite his emotions. Therefore he always chooses such sub 
 jects as are suggestive of melancholy and sadness. He ever 
 represents love as in the icy clutches of death not that he- 
 may show his affection for the dead, but rather as a means of 
 gratifying his abstract love of grief. He has a morbid craving 
 for unnatural sensations. He feeds on mockeries. He taunts 
 himself with the hopelessness of his despair, and takes a 
 strange delight in this process of self-torture. His most in 
 tolerable anguish is his keenest joy; the more painful his emo 
 tion, the more pungent his pleasure; the greater his grief, the 
 more delicious his sorrow r . 
 
 But how shall we account for this perversion of his nature? 
 That a mind should indulge in all that is self-destructive, that 
 the very order and nature of things should be reversed, that out 
 of cosmos should come chaos, and out of beauty hideousness, 
 seems a moral antithesis inexplicable. The explanation of 
 this apparent contradiction is to be found in a peculiar ten 
 dency of his nature his morbid habit of introspection. 
 
 Hawthorne, the profounde.st moral philosopher that Amer- . 
 ica has ever produced, has said, that of all the practices in 
 which a mind may indulge this one of introspection is the 
 most pernicious. Poe is a slave to it. His eyes are ever turned 
 inward to a "heart gnawed with anguish." Here within this 
 spiritual laboratory he dissects, analyzes, watches. He notes 
 each passing breath of emotion. He catches each fluctuating 
 shade of feeling. He studies with painful minuteness the
 
 Poe. 97 
 
 creeping sensations of crime, guilt, sin, and remorse. He 
 pursues with nervous intensity the darkest thoughts as they 
 steal stealthily through the chambers of the heart. He loves 
 to see the delicate tendrils of the soul quiver with agony 
 or pulsate with joy. And it was this process of critical self- 
 analysis, this peering into the inmost recesses of the soul, this 
 cold, analytic dissecting of an emotion as the anatomist would 
 a nerve, this lying in wait for the play of passion, this trailing 
 a thought through all its tortuous windings it was this that 
 shattered Poe s sensibilities and dulled his perceptions. His 
 characters are but the logical sequence of this intense subjec 
 tive tendency of his mind. In none of them can there be 
 found a complete and harmonious blending of all the elements 
 of mind and soul. They are simply the incarnations of a 
 thought; mere abstractions of crime and guilt, frenzy and 
 despair, clothed with flesh and blood. All their sympathy, 
 love, and fear is absorbed by a single animating principle. 
 They have but little to link them to humanity, and possess 
 more in common with the denizens of hell than with the in 
 habitants of earth. 
 
 The many conflicting tendencies found in Poe would seem 
 to almost justify a belief in the duality of mind. He was a 
 strange compound of opposites, a curious blending of harmon 
 ies and discords. In him "fire and frost embrace." At times 
 he was mild, gentle, and affable; again, fierce, passionate, and 
 moody. Now he would be charming or electrifying a circle of 
 friends by his wonderful eloquence; and now, sitting apart in 
 some secluded retreat, muttering to himself in dismal mono 
 logues. One moment holding you enraptured by his visions 
 of wondrous beauty; the next, chaining you, petrified with 
 terror, among his dismal phantasms, built up in forms of 
 "gloomiest and ghastliest grandeur." To-day soaring away 
 into the far-off realms of imagination; to-morrow wandering 
 in the gloomy labyrinths of his own soul. "At night the hero 
 of a drunken debauch; in the morning a wizard of song, whose 
 weird and fitful music was like that of the sirens." 
 
 Poe has often been called the Byron of America. In many 
 respects they are similar. Both are egotistical, passionate, 
 arrogant; both have a morbid love of melancholy, gloom, and 
 death; both are the victims of passion and diseased self-con-
 
 98 Winning Orations. 
 
 templation. Poe resembles Byron in his ethical, but not in his 
 mental, qualities. Byron is powerful, vigorous, synthetic; Poe 
 is subtle, acute, analytic. Byron has broader comprehension; 
 Poe has keener perception. Byron treats of individuals; Poe 
 only of principles. Byron is more objective; Poe, more sub 
 jective. Byron broods over his wrongs; Poe analyzes his emo 
 tions. Byron dwells upon his sorrows with morbid self-pity; 
 Poe dissects his with frenzied pleasure. Byron was driven into 
 his own consciousness by forces from without; Poe entered his 
 more from innate necessity. Byron is not only conscious of 
 self, he feels the gaze of the whole world; Poe forgets the out 
 ward in his intense concentration on the inward. 
 
 In other points they stand in closer relations, but still remain 
 apart. Byron is cynical, sullen, morose; Poe is gloomy, sor 
 rowful, despondent. Byron is a misanthrope; Poe is a hypo- 
 cjipndriac. Byron wages war with all mankind; Poe is ever 
 contending with the elements of his own nature. Byron has 
 but little of idealism; Poe has nothing of sensualism. Byron 
 has more of human sympathy; yet Poe has less of scorn and 
 sarcasm. Byron s passions come hot and seething from the 
 heart; Poe s are as cold as intellect itself. Byron crushes all 
 sentiment and feeling; Poe reverses them. Byron seems like 
 a "mocking devil, laughing at the world in rhyme;" Poe like a 
 scoffing demon, exulting in his own fiendishness. 
 
 This, then, is Poe the saddest, loneliest figure in all liter 
 ature; who gave the cypress to love, and the myrtle to death; 
 who sounded the lowest depths of wretchedness and laughed 
 at his own misery; who made of life a living death, and chanted 
 the requiems of despair over the dead hopes of his own soul. 
 The melancholy and gloom in which he enshrouded himself 
 has tinged with sadness all that he has written or said. No 
 Ode to the Nightingale or Skylark from Poe his was to the 
 sable-winged Raven, the type of his sorrow. He was ever 
 pursued across life s stage by the passions of his nature, like 
 Orestes fleeing the Furies; and he will ever hold a place in the 
 memory of men rather for what he might have been, than for 
 what he was. Goethe has been called the poet of the universe; 
 Byron, the poet of the individual; but Poe is the poet of the 
 soul.
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 
 
 By RICHARD YATES, of Illinois College. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 Richard Yates was born at Jacksonville, Illinois, December 
 12, 1860. In 1873, at the age of thirteen, he entered Whipple 
 Academy, the preparatory school for Illinois College, and three 
 years later entered the college. The first year in college he 
 received the prize at the annual declamation contest; second 
 year he was chosen delegate to the Illinois inter-collegiate 
 contest, held at Lebanon, and was there elected president pro 
 tern, of the association. He ever manifested particular attention 
 to these contests, and on various occasions took prizes, the 
 most auspicious being the inter-State contest, at Oberlin, Ohio, 
 May, 1880, when he was awarded a gold medal as second prize 
 on his oration, "The Evolution of Government." He graduated 
 in 1880 with the degree of bachelor of arts, and three years 
 later received the degree of master of arts. The first summer 
 after leaving college .he was engaged as city editor of the 
 Jacksonville Journal. In the fall he entered the law department 
 of the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, joining the Phi 
 Delta Phi, and becoming vice president of the national council 
 of the fraternity. At the expiration of the first year he dis 
 continued his law studies and resumed the newspaper work. 
 In 1883 he returned to the law school, completed his studies, 
 and was admitted to the Michgan bar in April, 1884; two 
 months later he was licensed by the Supreme Court to practice 
 in Illinois, establishing an office at Jacksonville. In 1885 he 
 was appointed city attorney by the mayor and city council, 
 re-appointed in April, 1886, and at the close of his second 
 term, a change in the law having made the office elective, he 
 was unanimously nominated and elected by the Republicans, 
 and re-elected in 1889. He has filled every office in the Young 
 
 (99)
 
 1OO in /i /ting Orations. 
 
 Men s Republican Club of Morgan County; was one of the 
 nine delegates from Illinois to the first national convention, at 
 New York; was chosen delegate to the State convention in 
 1881; and in 1890 was delegate to the legislative, congress 
 ional, and State conventions. He has been tuice urged to 
 become a candidate for the legislature and once for county 
 judge, but each time refused. It may be said Mr. Yates is a 
 born politican. His father was a member of the Legislature 
 of Illinois from 1842 to 1850, a member of the United States 
 House of Representatives from 1850 to 1854, was Governor of 
 Illinois from 1860 to 1865, and United States Senator from 1865 
 to 1871; he died at St. Louis, Missouri, November 27, 1873. 
 His mother, who still survives, remains his pride as when a boy. 
 Mr. Yates is a member of the Round-Table Literary Society, 
 a Knight of Pythias, a Mason, a Knight Templar, and an Odd 
 Fellow; he was a member of the Morgan Cadets, Company I, 
 Fifth Regiment, Illinois National Guard, remaining a private 
 throughout his term of enlistment, from 1885 to 1891. He is 
 a consistent member of the Young Men s Christian Association, 
 and the Grace Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1888 Mr. Yates 
 married Miss Helen Wadsworth, a very estimable young lady. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, at Oberlin, Ohio, May, 
 1880, taking second prize. Judges: Hon. THOMAS A. HENDRICKS, Messrs. 
 OWEN, BRAND, and others. 
 
 Throughout all Christendom to-day scientists are zealously 
 discussing the laws and principles of evolution. It is consid 
 ered an established proposition, that from everlasting to ever 
 lasting, in the heavens, upon the earth, and throughout the 
 entire universe, there is constant change, growth, and improve 
 ment. The same great principle has unerringly held good in 
 the history of the nations. From the time when mankind first 
 realized the necessity of association for mutual benefit, a stead} 
 growth and improvement have constantly been taking place in 
 the science of human government. First barbarism held sway 
 both in the East and West. Ancient India, China, Arabia, 
 Gaul, and Britain, were simply races of the rudest barbarians. 
 Then, after the lapse of centuries, the second form of govern-
 
 The Evolution of Government. 10 1 
 
 mental association was achieved. As men began to be more 
 attracted together, and commenced to build immense cities 
 and dwell fraternally in large communities, some restraining, 
 governing power became necessary, able or ambitious leaders 
 began to exercise their talents, and to assert their privileges, 
 and the issue was despotism the system under which Persia, 
 Egypt, and the far-famed empire of the Montezumas reached 
 their climax of civilization. Next, the transitory republics of 
 Greece and Italy, with their more advanced systems of politics 
 and their more liberal institutions, for a time redeemed the 
 world from the gloom that had been spread over it, only to fall 
 from their high estate and to plunge into deeper despair the 
 well-wishers of mankind. But although the failure of Grecian 
 and Roman Republicanism recalled to some extent the old 
 order of things, men were not so tractable as before; and un 
 able longer to endure the oppressive exactions of a system so 
 unjust as despotism, they effected the formation of the more 
 limited monarchies of the Middle Ages. As time passed on 
 the condition of politics was still more favorably changed, and 
 the way was prepared for the monarchies of modern times, 
 such as Germany, Austria, Italy, and Russia, all of which are 
 great in many elements of national stability. And finally, ris 
 ing from the foundation laid when the Magna Charta of 1215 
 was wrested from King John, the British Empire is seen pursu 
 ing its career of glory the home on every continent of freedom- 
 loving men, the arbitrator of the world s affairs, the greatest 
 and grandest of European nations the model monarchy of 
 history. 
 
 Meanwhile the lovers of perfect liberty had not been idle, 
 and all over Europe republican forms of government had 
 sprung into being. But these republics, established by men 
 unaccustomed to the taste of the sweets of liberty, inhabited 
 by peoples to whom political freedom seemed a dream and not 
 a reality, permeated with time-honored respect, and even rev 
 erence for rank and title these republics, in which aristocracy 
 and love of fame and pride of name still held a firm footing, 
 were far from that perfection to which the science of govern 
 ment must in the end attain. However, in the fullness of time 
 the grand result of this evolution was to be reached. Barbar 
 ism had accomplished its mission. Despots and kings had
 
 102 Winning Orations. 
 
 satisfied their ambition upon the thrones of the world, and the 
 world itself was ripe for a new and more advanced form of 
 government for the people. But nowhere in Europe or in Asia 
 could a land be found whereon to erect the fabric of this new 
 and mighty empire; and nowhere was a people to be found 
 over which to build it, and into whose keeping to commit it. 
 The Power that dwells above, seeing His creatures need, 
 prepared a land for this new nation, and sent out over the 
 waters to discover it one greater than Noah. The land was 
 found a continent of imperial grandeur, destined to become 
 the home of an imperial confederation of States. A people to 
 inhabit this realm was providentially prepared. Fleeing from 
 persecution, they gladly sought and settled its shore, and in 
 due time the new nation came forth revealed to the world an 
 actual fact. It was indeed a prophetic coincidence, that, at 
 that very moment when, as Carlyle says, "The French kingship 
 was perishing in the death of Louis XV., the most Christian 
 King," the dying monarch s closing ears were saluted by muffled 
 sounds borne across the Atlantic sound new in our centuries. 
 For behold, a Pennsylvanian Congress gathers, and ere long, 
 on Bunker Hill, Democracy announces, in death-winged rifle- 
 volleys, that she is born, and whirlwind-like will envelop the 
 world! 
 
 Granting that there is an evolution in government, and that 
 it has been sufficiently demonstrated in its progress in history, 
 we cannot escape the conviction that our republic is the grand 
 culmination of this evolution. True, some declare that every 
 nation and form of government has its period of existence, and 
 that just as Greece, Rome, and Judea fell from their mighty 
 power and lofty position; just as republicanism has again and 
 again proved a failure in France; just as Germany, that gave 
 to the church Martin Luther, and to literature John Gutenberg, 
 is wasting away by the oppressions of a haughty nobility and 
 a tyrannical ministry; while Italy, the land of Dante and of 
 Michael Angelo, is also decaying; just as every civilization 
 known to humanity has gone down at the end of an existence 
 of about five centuries. The day will some time come when 
 the United States, and with them the republicanism in which 
 we glory, shall fall a prey to the diseases of political senility, 
 and finally be stricken from the face of earth. This assertion
 
 The Evolution of Government. 103 
 
 we may confidently attempt to refute. Greece, unrivaled in 
 the beauty of her poetry, the profundity of her logic, the 
 grandeur of her philosophy, and in all the excellence of her 
 literature, fell because she had exhausted the idea, that phil 
 osophy alone was essential to man s well-being. Rome, un- 
 equaled in jurisprudence as she was in martial prowess, fell 
 only when she had exhausted the two-fold theory of Law and 
 War as being necessary to the full attainment of true manhood. 
 Judaism was founded upon the idea of religious symbolism, 
 and owed its fall to the fact that it had exhausted that idea. 
 So also republicanism in France was indebted for its many 
 failures to the fact that republican France always speedily be 
 came infidel France, and that the Goddesses of Liberty and 
 Reason always held sway there together whenever the inspir 
 ing strains of the Marseillaise had roused the French patriots 
 to another effort for freedom. 
 
 With the American nation it has always been different. 
 Our fathers began, as it were, just where other nations left off. 
 It was divinely ordained, that the founders of this republic 
 should be men of transcendent intellect, of finished education, 
 of cultured conscience, of refined sentiments true noblemen. 
 Never in history did a nation start with so much intelligence, 
 so much culture, so much conscience, as inspired the American 
 colonies to battle for their independence. Other struggles for 
 liberty have taken place. Leonidas had withstood the hosts of 
 Persia at Thermopylae; but he fought for local freedom. Tell 
 had opposed Gesler; but it was for the sake of his native can 
 ton. Cromwell had resisted his king; but the revolution led 
 by Cromwell in the seventeenth century was a war against a 
 dynasty, and was inspired by selfish motives unworthy an 
 Fnglishman. But the American revolution was not for limited 
 or local freedom it was for all men. And all that preceded 
 that struggle was but tributary to that event. The exhaustion 
 of the various theories of Grecian, Roman, and Jewish politics; 
 the demonstration of the insufficiency of imperial individualism 
 for the moral culture and elevation of humanity; the plain 
 proof that the union of Church and State has been a failure in 
 the past -all these facts tend but to show that a government 
 wholly of, for and by the people; a body politic which should 
 secure to the greatest number the greatest good; a nation
 
 104 Winning Orations. 
 
 whose fundamental maxim should be the golden rule of Chris 
 tian ethics: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto 
 you" that such a nation, the heir of all ages, should be the 
 result of the grand evolution of government. 
 
 Such a nation now exists, the noblest of republics; and 
 there can be no doubt, that if there is to be still further ad 
 vancement in governmental science, the issue will be a model 
 republic upon American soil, and that model republic the 
 grand culmination of centuries of struggling for civil, political, 
 and religious liberty will be the United States of America; 
 the nation whose attributes are illustrious lineage, vast terri 
 torial domain, royal power, rare intelligence, perfect liberty, 
 religious toleration, pure morality, and the glory of disting 
 uished deeds. May we not hope, that as age after age rolls 
 into the aby^ of the past, and generation after generation 
 takes its stand and acts its part in the stupendous drama of 
 history, each shall, in characters of living light, write its name 
 higher and higher upon the temple of fame, and urge on the 
 final triumphs of universal liberty and universal truth!
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCEPTICISM. 
 
 By CHARLES F. COFFIN, of DePauw University. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, at Jacksonville, Illinois, May, 
 1881, taking jirsLprize. Judges: Mr. DYER, Hon. EDWARD P. KIRBY, H. F. CAR- 
 RIEI., M. D! 
 
 } It has been justly said, that the shadow of riches is poverty, 
 the shadow of power is slavery, the shadow of virtue is vice; 
 with equal justice it may be said that the siia_dnw_Df. belief 
 
 England had her Jeremy Taylor and her David Hume; 
 France had her Pascal and her Voltaire; America has her 
 Joseph Cook and her Robert Ingersoll. 
 
 How does it occur, and what does it mean, that these two 
 great intellectual forces are so often found together? Does it 
 mean that they are related a.sxau,se and effect? Does it mean 
 that faith can be purchased only by paying the fearful price of 
 :i_Septicism? With such vital questions as these confronting 
 us, it is of the highest importance that we examine candidly 
 the relation oL_Sceticjsm to Theology, 
 
 As a common ground "from which to reason and to which 
 refer," it will perhaps be admitted that law prevails in the 
 realm of mind no less than in the realm of matter, and that 
 mental phenomena no less than physical, should be interpreted 
 in the light of rational principles. 
 
 For no general phase of human thought, whether it relate 
 to government, to philosophy, or to religion, ever sprang spon 
 taneously into being; but every current theory of state, even- 
 doctrine of modern philosophy, every tenet of modern theology, 
 is the outcome of the slow and toilsome growth of ages. And 
 each in turn represent centuries of human thought, centuries 
 of human experience, centuries of human suffering. If over 
 the soil of fair America to-day a proud republic waves her flag, 
 it is because out of the terrible conflict of the past, out of the 
 
 (105)
 
 io6 Winning Orations. 
 
 tyrannies of despots and the rebellions of the oppressed, out of 
 the decay of states and the disasters of revolutions, there was 
 born and flourished in human consciousness the idea of self- 
 government. If the philosophy of to-day is broad and deep 
 and rational, it is because it is the quintessence of the yearn 
 ings and the strugglings which, since the dawn of history, have 
 impelled the human mind to search for the unknown. And 
 just so, I take it, is scepticism the -outgrowth of certain ante 
 cedent mental forces which may be ascertained and classified, 
 just as the forces which produced the Protestant Reformation, 
 the French Revolution or the American Rebellion may be as 
 certained and classified. The demonstration of this involves 
 a consideration of the law of human growth, the method of 
 human progress. In this man differs widely from nature. In 
 Nature there are no epochs; no conflicts between the conserva 
 tive and the radical. She has no revolution, no reformation. 
 The shuttle of her mighty loom moves incessantly to and fro, 
 and now she weaves a rose, and now a lion, and now a man; 
 but all is quiet, gradual, uniform. 
 
 With man, progress has been a ceaseless conflict between 
 the radical tendencies of thought and the conservative tenden 
 cies of institutions; between the gradual unfolding of human 
 consciousness and the stubborn fixedness of the organic forms 
 of civilization. Indeed, human progress is not unlike a volcanic 
 eruption. For a long while the open-mouthed mountain stands 
 out against the sky a dead, harmless mass of rock and earth. 
 Yet down in the subterranean caverns, at its base, the volcanic 
 fires roll and hiss and sputter, till at last, no longer able to be 
 confined, they rush forth in ungovernable fury. The sky is 
 first reddened with flame, then darkened with clouds of ashes, 
 rivers of molten lava pour over the country, devastating fields 
 and destroying cities. So human thought, smothered by op 
 pression, goes on, dimly defined and unexpressed in the great 
 brain of humanity, till by a coincident development of like 
 thoughts and tendencies, like passions and feelings, it breaks 
 out and defiantly laughs conservatism and tyranny to scorn. 
 Old institutions are suddenly swept away; old modes of thought 
 are discredited. The wheels of the human chariot, deep in the 
 rut, are lifted out and placed on a new highway. New relations 
 arc formed, new institutions are created; and these in turn
 
 The Philosophy of Scepticism. 107 
 
 become the conservators of past development and the barriers 
 to future progress, till another crisis comes and another revolu 
 tion solves the problem. 
 
 The human mind is so constituted, that, when compelled by 
 external or arbitrary power to bide any extreme of thought, 
 sooner or later it will escape from the bonds of authority, and 
 on the principle of the equality of action and reaction, rush to 
 the opposite extreme. What was Voltaire? He was a reaction. 
 What was David Hume? He was a reaction. What is Robert 
 Ingersoll? He is a reaction. These men, sceptics though they 
 are, and censure them as we may, are nevertheless martyrs to 
 the inexorable law of their own being, and the irresistible laws 
 of human progress. They are to a great extent created and 
 destroyed by their own environment. And so long as progress 
 shall be by revolutions, it will have its victims, its brutalities, its 
 social and intellectual ostracisms, its smoking stakes, its clank 
 ing chains, and its times of fire and blood. 
 
 It is in the light of human history, and in the light of the 
 psychological law of reaction, that scepticism is largely trace 
 able to the antagonism between man s religious consciousness 
 and his religious institutions I may say, between the progres 
 sive tendency of the religious spirit which is in man and the 
 conservative tendency of his theology. For, while most of the 
 great sciences have been studied with almost perfect freedom, 
 and have been open to perpetual revision, theology has, to a 
 great extent, been studied in fetters. The students of the 
 other sciences have sought facts, their use, their meaning, their 
 law; they have acknowledged no pre-established standards; 
 they have been bound by no traditions; they have employed 
 no Procrustean beds on which to torture ideas. Reluctant as 
 we may be to admit it, so much can scarcely be claimed for 
 theology as a science. It has frequently resisted all growth 
 and development of its creeds. The aim of theologians has too 
 often been not so much to express the highest, the freshest, 
 and the purest religious thought of a particular age, as to form 
 ulate a system of theology which should be final, to establish 
 some external standard by which theories of ethics and forms 
 of doctrine could be tested as by some mechanical process. 
 The result is inevitable. Sooner or later a conflict arises be 
 tween thought and dogma. Doctrines are still avowed and
 
 io8 Winning Orations. 
 
 defended that are so unsatisfactory to right reason, and so far 
 behind the development of man s religious nature, that think 
 ing men are repelled from the church, and are led to doubt, to 
 criticise, to deny. Therefore it is in this conflict between the 
 conservative spirit of theology and the progressive tendency 
 of religious thought, and also in the fear of the church to allow 
 the human mind full sweep in its investigations and inquiries, 
 that we find the genesis, the philosophy indeed, of scepticism. 
 
 Having diagnosed the disease, do we pronounce it fatal, 
 is there yet hope? Must scepticism continue to be the skulk 
 ing shadow of belief? continue to darken the lives and future 
 anticipations of so large a part of humanity? Is it, and must 
 it ever be, as the great essayist has said, the very "Nemesis of 
 faith? " Or may not we expect to see this grim monster vanish 
 before the enduring light of truth? 
 
 Listen to the answer borne on the winds from all parts of 
 the earth: Yes, there is hope. In the name of sturdy Ger 
 many, there is hope. In the name of brilliant France, there is 
 hope. In the name of modern India, Africa, and Japan, there 
 is hope. In the name of the God of Nations, there is hope. 
 
 But the remedy for scepticism must be based on the nature 
 of its cause. Theologians must abandon the cherished idea of 
 a final system of theology. So long as there is an undiscovered 
 fact in the universe, so long as human nature is subject to 
 growth, so long as there are imperfections in the human mind, 
 there can be no government of man wholly by rule, there can 
 be no law which does not admit of a doubt in its application; 
 and concerning the Beyond, there can be no creed which pre 
 cludes the possibility of change. In the march of the finite 
 towards the infinite, there can be no halting-place till humanity, 
 "Above the l^w-hanging clouds, like mountain-peaks that look 
 forever into the face of the clear blue heavens, and gaze on the 
 unsetting stars, shall look up into the face of the Divine and 
 dwell among principles that are unchangeable and eternal." 
 
 Furthemore, the church must throw wide open the doors of 
 free inquiry. Nothing is more fatal to error, and more service 
 able to truth, than investigation. And nothing so protects 
 error and so hinders truth as the fear and suppression of in 
 vestigation. The brave men who are willing to bear the pain 
 of honest thought, must often sacrifice their prejudices and
 
 The Philosophy of Scepticism. 109 
 
 have great havoc made with their fondly cherished illusions. 
 But there can be no permanent value in a false position. 
 Though a temple be builded as broad as the earth and as high 
 as the heavens, and though its vaulted dome glitter with all 
 the wealth of Ormus and of Ind, yet if its foundations be in 
 the sand, the "eternal movements of the Divine floods will 
 sometime undermine it and sweep it away." 
 
 The fatal mistake made by the Roman church was the sup 
 pression of individual thought. It granted no liberty. It en 
 couraged no freedom. It shut the Bible. It imprisoned the 
 mind. It scowled upon invention and discovery with a baleful 
 and malignant eye. And although the reformation broke the 
 power of this absolute intellectual tyranny, and started the 
 swell of a revolutionary wave which broke only when its 
 agitated waters kissed the peaceful shores of liberty-loving 
 America, yet so thoroughly was the very atmosphere permeated 
 with the spirit of intolerance, that to the present day there is 
 more or less of a conflict between the men of science and the 
 men of religion. 
 
 Until this discordant element is cast out; until the free 
 reading of the book of nature is accompanied by the free 
 reading of the Book of God, the voice of the scoffer and of the 
 sceptic will not be hushed. America stands in the front rank to 
 day, guarding the very outposts of religious freedom, and with 
 anxious vision she gazes toward the citadels of Europe, and 
 with bated breath she asks: Watchman, what of the night? 
 She cannot mistake the answer: Lo! the morn appeareth. 
 Christian men are occupying the posts of the enemy. Christian 
 men sweep the star-sown fields of space with their telescopes, 
 and know of a truth that "The heavens declare the glory of 
 God." Christian men, with hammer and microscope, study 
 the mysteries of the rocks and the wonders of the deep. The 
 church is beginning to "prove all things." With an army of 
 trained thinkers in her service with her Lotzes, her Presenses, 
 her Cooks, and her Hopkinses she is pushing her investiga 
 tions in every direction and into every province of thought. 
 She is rapidly pushing her way up through the clouds of 
 prejudice and superstition, through the mists of error and 
 ignorance, to the lofty heights of Christian scholarship, from 
 which, with purified vision, she can sweep across the whole
 
 1 10 Winning Orations. 
 
 realm of thought, and view things in their right positions and 
 true relations. As Savage says, she is beginning to understand, 
 that, "just as all life, whether it reveals itself in the viscous 
 globule that palpitates in primeval seas, in the lichen that 
 creeps over the rocks, up through all the ascending forms of 
 plant and animal, till you reach the infinitely involved brain of 
 a Newton, solving a problem in calculus" has its source in 
 the one creative God of the universe; and so all truth, whether 
 it be the Vedas of Brahmin, the Koran of Mohammed, or the 
 Bible of the Christian; whether it be on the banks of the 
 Ganges or the Jordan, in the valley of the Tigris or the Nile, 
 it, too, is from God. When these grand conceptions shall be 
 realized in human consciousness and they will be when 
 faith and reason shall join hands, and call upon the Author of 
 All Truth to sanctify the union- and they will do so then 
 may we expect the progress of man to become like the growth 
 of nature. Revolutions will no longer call for the sacrifice of 
 -human blood. If a dogma shall become obsolete, or a consti 
 tution cease to express the will of the people, change will no 
 longer mean the marshaling of armies on the field of battle; it 
 will no longer mean the carnage of Austerlitz and Waterloo, 
 of Bunker Hill and Yorktown. It will no longer mean the be 
 heading of Charles I., or the assassination of Alexander II., 
 but the old will be merged into the new as quietly as an Arctic 
 summer night breaks into dawn; as peacefully as "the summer 
 blooming of the flowers, or the sudden softening of the air." 
 Religious institutions will grow with the growth and expand 
 with the expansion of man s moral and religious nature. 
 Scepticism, robbed of the very soil in which to sow its seed, 
 specter-like, shall vanish away; and by the side of tyranny, 
 oppression, and intolerance, it shall lie down to its eternal 
 
 doom 
 
 "Unwept, unhonored, and unsung."
 
 PROGRESS, ITS SOURCES AND ITS LAWS. 
 
 By OWEN MORRIS, of Carleton College. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 Hon. Owen Morris, of St. Paul, Minnesota, was born on 
 the 1 2th day of August, 1858, in Anglesey, Wales. He at 
 tended the national school in his native land. When ten years 
 of age he came with his parents to America, and settled near 
 Mankato, Minnesota. Here he attended the common schools. 
 While very young he took several prizes, at Welsh Eisteddfods, 
 for compositions and recitations. In 1874 he entered the pre 
 paratory department of Carleton College, Northfield, Minne 
 sota, and in 1881 graduated from that institution with the 
 degree of bachelor of arts. In 1884 he received the degree of 
 master of arts. While at college he mainly supported himself 
 by working for his board. In 1881 Carleton College first entered 
 the oratorical association. The entry was, as it were, at the 
 last hour, necessarily limiting the time for preparation. On 
 the night of April 28th Mr. Morris was awarded first prize at 
 the home contest; on the very next night, the first prize at the 
 inter-collegiate contest; and on May 4, at Jacksonville, Illinois, 
 at the inter-State contest, the second prize, but receiving the 
 vote of one out of the three judges for first place. Up to this 
 time Carleton College through him enjoys the distinction of 
 being the only institution in the State which has taken a prize 
 at an inter-State contest. In 1882 he was elected to represent 
 Blue Earth County in the Minnesota Legislature for the years 
 1883 and 1884. In 1882 he also entered the office of the late 
 Hon. Gordon E. Cole, Faribault, Minnesota, as a law student; 
 was admitted to the bar on an examination in the Supreme 
 Court in 1885, and on January I, 1886, became partner of Gen 
 eral Cole, at St. Paul, and continued in that relation until Mr. 
 Cole s death. He is unmarried, lives with his widowed mother, 
 and enjoys a fair and increasing practice. 
 
 (in)
 
 112 Winning Orations. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter State Oratorical Contest, at Jacksonville, Illinois, May, 
 1881, taking second prize. Judges: Mr. DYER, Hon. EDWARD P. KIRBY, II. F. 
 CARRIEL, M. D. 
 
 From the very beginning of human society two of its most 
 important forces, Radicalism and Conservatism, have waged a 
 bitter warfare. Social and moral advancement only furnishes 
 them different questions for debate, and new battlefields on 
 which to fight. Time, so far from assuaging the conflict, seems 
 rather to aggravate it. Like the ceaseless heaving of the 
 ocean, it is now subdued and scarcely discernible, and anon 
 vehement and irrepressible, agitating the social mass to the 
 very core. 
 
 Conservatism is peculiarly sensitive to the influence of an 
 tiquity, clings tenderly to the past, and sighs for the purity of 
 the fathers. Dust-covered volumes, recording the valiant deeds 
 of ancestors, compose its library. The chambers of its imagi 
 nation are adorned with quaint pictures of tournament. Rusty 
 casques and swords decorate its halls. By its endeavor to 
 control religion it has made the church a storehouse of abuses 
 and a citadel of tyranny. Occasionally it may have checked 
 the muddy stream of Error. Far oftener it has damned the 
 crystalline river of Truth, and doomed the world for ages to 
 the drouth of gloomy superstition. It chills enthusiasm, dreads 
 the future, and appeals to custom and selfishness, rather than 
 to righteousness and truth. Without self-sacrifice, it yet sacri 
 fices self. 
 
 Radicalism, on the other hand, is opposed to everything 
 that is tainted with antiquity, and is impetuous and extrava 
 gant in all its actions. It fights against authority, despises 
 custom, and makes the end to sanction the means. To-day a 
 peace-maker, it condemns carnage and war; to-morrow a de 
 mon, it may overshadow Bartholomew s Day, or deluge another 
 Palestine with the blood of rash fanatics. It is a madness that 
 would go through oceans of blood merely to satisfy its caprice 
 concerning ideal right. It hurls contempt on principles which 
 have been vindicated before Caesar s judgment-seat and avowed 
 at the stake. The fanatical votary of Quixotic change, it vio 
 lates shrines by its polluting touch. Disregarding the warnings
 
 Progress, Its Sources ai;d Its Laivs. 113 
 
 of experience, it plunges headlong into the terrible whirlpool 
 whose flood but hastens it to certain ruin. Here are the two 
 conflicting forces the one as the mountain torrent, rushing 
 into the fruitful valley, scattering destruction on every side; 
 the other, as the stagnant pool, emitting noisome malaria and 
 destroying every form of life. Both, under the control of an 
 all-wise Providence, mysteriously unite to form the majestic 
 and ever-flowing river of Progress. 
 
 Philosophers have theorized much concerning progress, but 
 their theories have only enveloped it in greater obscurity. 
 Prejudiced antiquaries, viewing the subject in an unfavorable 
 light, hold that there is no such thing as progress. In support 
 of their views they cite evidences from exhumed cities, seats 
 of culture and refinement rivaling those which are the pride 
 and glory of modern civilization, and affirm that they have 
 searched the earth in vain for a living Homer or Plato, a 
 modern Daniel or Paul. They see the present plainly with all 
 its ruggedness and deformity, its harshness and discord; but 
 they have forgotten that time has erased the blots from the 
 face of antiquity, giving it a brilliant color, and subdued its 
 harshest tones into a mellow murmur. Let them use for a 
 season proud Romes farm implements, as described in the 
 Georgics, and they will return with renewed relish to their 
 patent plows, seeders, and threshing machines. Let them take 
 a pleasure voyage in one of Homer s crooked-beaked galleys 
 which crept timidly along the sea coast, and they will be proud 
 to embark on the modern soul-inspired steamship. We may 
 not be able to boast of a prophet like Daniel, or an apostle like 
 Paul, yet we can boast that we have outgrown the civilization 
 which tolerated the casting of the one into the lion s den, and 
 the staining of the axe with the other s blood. 
 
 Champions of lost arts are behind the times. Their ideas 
 are ghosts which have passed the termination of natural life, 
 and yet, like the mythological Grecian heroes, wander on this 
 side of the impassable river, only because they have been de 
 nied the due rites of burial. In the darkest periods of history, 
 amidst disappointment and opposition, turmoil and anarchy, 
 society has never suffered a retrogression. When Truth and 
 Virtue seemed asleep, when Science had laid down her tele 
 scope and Philosophy her torch, it was only to arouse from
 
 114 Winning Orations. 
 
 their slumbers refreshed, ready to pursue with renewed vigor 
 their accustomed path, not in a circle toward a lost excellence, 
 but directly onward toward a millennial perfection. 
 
 Healthy progress is not the result of accident, but it is 
 governed by immutable law, and moves with steady, even 
 revolution, like the steam engine controlled by its governor. 
 The growth of the short-lived mushroom is rapid and sickly, 
 while that of the giant-limbed oak, which endures for centuries^ 
 is by slow degrees. It was not the few hours of struggle at 
 Marathon, at Waterloo, or at Gettysburg, that determined the 
 fate of nations. The real arbiter was a public sentiment pro 
 duced by diligent and long-continued preparation, and reach 
 ing its culmination in these sharp and decisive contests. "The 
 first furrow drawn by an English plow in the thin soil of Ply 
 mouth was truly the first line in our Declaration of Independ 
 ence." 
 
 During the infancy of the race physical strength was the 
 greatest power. The highest ambition of the ancient Greek 
 was to be victor at the Olympic games. His great ideal was 
 a Hercules or a mighty Zeuss. The human body, in those early 
 days, was as it were a new garment, and was worn for a long 
 time, sometimes even for many centuries apparently undam 
 aged. Now it is an old vesture, easily torn, and scarcely lasts 
 "three score years and ten." Yet, through the rents in this 
 mantle of flesh, the great soul within sends forth its light upon 
 the path of invention and discovery, and asserts itself as still 
 the lord of creation, great enough for nature to obey. Instead 
 of the ancient throwing of javelins and wrestling matches we 
 now have intellectual contests. Mind triumphs over matter. 
 Mind duels with mind on the field of investigation. Mind 
 compresses the whole universe into a circle commensurate with 
 man s stature, and there, where all things are within the focus 
 of its power, transmutes them almost to its own spiritual nature. 
 At the present day physical weakness is not severely censured, 
 nor is physical strength especially praised. Men do not cau 
 tiously shun the one nor passionately seek the other, while 
 the reproach of mental debility is the object of universal dread. 
 Formerly might be seen armed Achilles in his golden chariot, 
 while Socrates, bareheaded and barefoot, plodded his way in 
 the mud. To-day behold the prize-fighter in the gutter, while
 
 Progress, Its Sunn t s and Its Laivs. 115 
 
 the Wcbstcrs and Carlylcs are enshrined in the hearts of the 
 people. The roll of honor of the present day contains only 
 the names of those who have worked out the grandest problems 
 of human progress, and given the greatest impulses for good to 
 the race, and of those noted for physical strength only so far 
 as they have exerted it in vindicating the great principles of 
 justice and right. 
 
 Progress is nowhere more apparent than in the domains of 
 science, philosophy, and religion. Many centuries ago, when 
 man was but a school-boy in the realm of science, the Creator 
 asked him the question, "Canst thou send lightnings that they 
 may go and say unto thee, Here we are?" and his puerile reply 
 was, "Behold I am vile, what shall I answer thee? I will lay 
 my hand upon my mouth." But now, since man by rapid 
 strides has left the alphabet far behind, an answer to that ques 
 tion entirely different would be given. The great Jehovah 
 thrust the lightnings in his hands, and he sends them forth as 
 ministering servants. 
 
 Philosophy may be as old as Plato in form, yet its method 
 ical application dates only from Bacon. Induction and deduc 
 tion till then separated joined hands. Fact superseded fancy, 
 and reason was hailed as supreme. 
 
 Religion, though breathing in the sacrifice of martyred Abel, 
 was never so untrammeled as since the thunder tones of the 
 sixteenth century shattered the bulwarks of papal power and 
 proclaimed to the world intellectual and moral liberty. 
 
 As the graduated columns along the banks of the Nile in 
 dicated the elevation of the waters, so, at wide intervals, along 
 the river of progress, there are such names as Archimedes and 
 Newton, Plato and Bacon, Huss and Tholuck, indicating the 
 tidal rise in its three tributaries science, religion, and philos 
 ophy. 
 
 Now, man revels in a wider theatre of art and invention 
 than ever before. Fearless of Plato, we descend into his dark- 
 regions, and rob the earth of its secrets. Defying the forked 
 lightnings of ancient Jove, we scale the heavens and solve their 
 mysteries. The crude philosophy of our fathers has been de 
 veloped, purified, and made practical. Freed from the shackles 
 of ancient thought and superstition, it is handed down to pos 
 terity an improved heritage. The Bible has become our charter
 
 Ii6 Winning Orations. 
 
 of freedom. Those whom armies have made free in name are 
 now taught to be free indeed. Liberty, sought for in Egypt 
 and wept for in Babylon; honored at Marathon and disgraced 
 at Pharsalia; liberty, for which Demosthenes pleaded, Luther 
 prayed, and Madame Roland died, is now and forever trium 
 phant. Universal equality moves on to bloodless victories. 
 Instead of the mire of selfishness we have the clear waters of 
 philanthropy and Christian benevolence. Such are the present 
 results in the fields of science, philosophy, and religion; politics 
 and ethics of two forces, either of which alone would have 
 ruined all advancement. The future will be still brighter. 
 The morning star of a millennial dawn is already above the 
 horizon. The glorious day will soon appear, when all shall 
 enjoy the prerogatives of liberty, virtue, and truth, and equality 
 of rights shall be the first of rights.
 
 THE OLD AND THE NEW CIVILIZATIONS. 
 
 By FRANK G. HAXCHETT, of Chicago University. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 Frank G. Hanchett was born at Kaneville, Illinois, October 
 2, 1856. He attended a country district school until ten years 
 old, after which time until sixteen years old he helped his 
 father on the farm, and attended school three months each 
 winter. He then attended the village school at Kaneville two 
 terms. At seventeen years of age he entered the West Aurora 
 High School, graduating June, 18/5, in which year he entered 
 th^ Chicago University, and graduated in the classical course 
 in 1882. During the time from entering the preparatory school 
 until graduating he taught school four terms, which delayed 
 him considerably from completing the university course earlier. 
 His first success is dated at the sophomore contest, in 1880, 
 when he delivered an oration entitled "Horatius at the Bridge, 
 and was awarded first prize; at the junior contest, in 1881, he 
 delivered an oration entitled "The Jews," and was awarded first 
 prize. In the fall of the same year he represented Chicago 
 University, at Bloomington, Illinois, in the inter-collegiate con 
 test, delivering an oration entitled "The Old and New Civiliza 
 tions," and was awarded first prize. In May, 1882, at the 
 inter-State contest he delivered the same oration, and was 
 again awarded first prize. In 1883 he gratuated from the law 
 department of Iowa State University, and opened a law office 
 at Aurora, Illinois, where he has since resided. The same year 
 he married Miss Lizzie L. Scott, of Kaneville, Illinois. He is 
 still an active member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon faternity, 
 a member of the board of education of the West Aurora public 
 schools. In 1888 Mr. Hanchett was elected State s attorney of 
 Kane County, which position he fills with great credit. He is 
 a prominent lawyer, and an honored citizen. 
 
 (117)
 
 li8 Winning Orations. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, at Indianapolis, Indiana, 
 May, 1882, taking first prize. Judges: Hon. NOBLE C. BUTLER, Judge J. S. 
 FRAZER, Rev. OSCAR C. McCuLLoca. 
 
 There is a tendency in man to swing, pendulum-like, from 
 extreme to extreme. We can trace it from the individual with 
 his hobbies and eccentricities, to the masses with their ever- 
 varying and unreliable public opinion. We can mark it in the 
 more slow and steady sweep of thought from century to cen 
 tury, and from age to age; in the alternate succession of days 
 and nights of civilization dark ages and golden ages of light. 
 
 It is this tendency in man that accounts for the two opposite 
 extremes of what we term the old and the new civilizations 
 the civilization that dazzled the world with the Golden Age ol 
 Greece; and the civilization of which the nineteenth century 
 is but the morning light; the civilization which recognized the 
 spiritual Plato as the supreme monarch of thought; and the 
 civilization which crowns the practical Bacon as the greatest 
 philosopher of the world. Eras which may be distinguished 
 as the Age of the Beautiful and the Age of the Useful. 
 
 This old civilization was a magnificent garden, in which the 
 Beautiful, the Spiritual, and the Ideal, were cultivated with the 
 choicest care, and in which the Useful, the Material, and the 
 Practical were rooted out as rank and unsightly weeds. From 
 this well-tilled soil grew and blossomed poetry, from whose 
 fragrance the poets of all ages have drawn their sweetness: 
 eloquence, whose unrivaled periods still ring in our ears; archi 
 tecture, which has ever been the model and marvel of the 
 world; sculpture, to whose divine beauty our boasted age still 
 b AVS in admiring worship. 
 
 But with however much of admiration we may look back 
 upon the glorious achievements of these old Greeks, we must 
 still admit that they went to the extreme in the cultivation of 
 the beautiful and the neglect of the useful. Their philosophers 
 scorned the idea of debasing their knowledge for the advance 
 ment of the useful arts. They had famous sculptors, but 
 bungling mechanics; splendid rhetoricians, but stupid doctors; 
 dreams of delightful repose in the Elysian fields, but no vulgar 
 vision of spring mattresses on this side of the Acheron! Steam
 
 The Old and the New Civilizations. \ 1 9 
 
 might have lifted the lids of tea-kettles before the eyes of these 
 old dreamers for endless centuries, but railroads would still be 
 unknown. To their imaginative minds the thunder-bolt told 
 no tale of the telegraph, but was the rattling of Jove s chariot- 
 wheels over the golden pavements of heaven. 
 
 In the fullness of time there came into the fields of thought 
 a practical husbandman, Francis Bacon, who was not satisfied 
 with mere flowers^ which however beautiful could but please 
 and adorn, but desired "fruit," which could supply the more 
 necessary wants of man. He therefore left this old garden of 
 beauty, and in far broader fields scattered the seeds of a philos 
 ophy which was destined to bring forth rich harvests of use 
 fulness. The fruits of this great philosophy have ripened into 
 what we call the practical age an age which with equal pro 
 priety might be termed the age of miracles an age in which 
 thought busies itself with the great problem of benefiting the 
 condition of man an age in which the hidden secrets of God 
 have been found out and man s powers invested with the powers 
 of omnipotence, until his feeble voice has been made to echo 
 across continents and his thoughts to pass beneath the billows 
 of the deep an age in which the petty quibbles of metaphy 
 sicians are accounted secondary to the great inventions that 
 lessen the burdens and perplexities of life- an age in which the 
 poet who is contented with picturing the outer manifestations 
 of things has been displaced by the scientist, who delights in 
 searching out the inner secrets of the universe. But nowhere 
 have the glorious triumphs of this age taken more practical 
 form than in the modern home, which, crowded with the count 
 less comforts and conveniences of life, is a veritable heaven in 
 comparison with the palatial but empty abodes of the Golden 
 Age of Greece, or the turreted but desolate castles of the sense 
 less age of chivalry. In fact, the nineteenth century is one 
 sublime and bewildering panorama of practical achievements. 
 
 In keeping with that tendency in man which carries him to 
 the extreme, we observe that the same causes which have pro 
 duced such great practical achievements have also produced a 
 practical and material spirit in the age, which tends to dwarf 
 and deaden the very noblest sentiments in man s nature. In 
 the fields of modern thought the coarser plants of material 
 prosperity have so overshadowed the more delicate flowers of
 
 120 Winning Orations. 
 
 poetry that they have made but a feeble and spindling growth. 
 This spirit of the age would prize electricity more than immor 
 tality, and look with more pleasure upon a man-made machine 
 than upon a God-inspired sentiment. It is a significant fact 
 that all of the greatest poets lived before the age of material 
 prosperity; that the genius of this age is drifting into the chan 
 nels of trade, and instead of a Shakespeare, a Milton, or a 
 Raphael, we have an Astor, a Jay Gould, or a Vanderbilt; that 
 our scientists return from their search for the useful in the 
 world of matter with their eyes spiritually blinded. These 
 things point to the fact that our practical age, with all its 
 boasted blessings, by absorbing the mind with the baser truths 
 of matter is disqualifying it for the higher truths of the spirit 
 ual. This modern materialism has swung to its maddest ex 
 treme, and taken its most definite form in its attack upon 
 religion. Puffed up with his meagre knowledge of one small 
 world, little man attempts to prove there is no God in the 
 great universe. We are told that man has no soul, that immor 
 tality is but an empty dream, and religion but the sickly child 
 of ignorance and superstition. Thus would our age, with its 
 material clutch, strangle the very divinity in man and leave 
 him but the monarch animal of the world. 
 
 Physical science is the idol of the age, and the man who 
 has perchance found a few bird tracks in some antediluvian 
 rock is an illustrious hero. With what profound wisdom we 
 have discovered that the first horse had five toes! How wise 
 we are for having learned that there are 90,000 species of 
 beetles, and possibly more! But is there no mental science? 
 Was he right who asserted that "as the liver secretes bile, so 
 the brain secretes thought?" "Can the scientist lay open our 
 moral structure with his dissecting knives?" 
 
 We do not forget that our age "which draws its water from 
 wells that are sixty centuries deep," by the natural laws of 
 progress, is in the advance of every preceding age; but we 
 criticise the extremely practical and material tendency of our 
 age, which has produced a large class of narrowly practical 
 men men who see utility only in that which ministers to their 
 immediate and physical wants; who are devoted soul and body 
 to business, for the transaction of which they have become 
 mere machines; who consider poetry and religion as fit only
 
 The Old and the New Civilizations. 12 1 
 
 for women and children; men, who are forever crying in the 
 language of Dickens s Gradgrind, "In this life we want nothing 
 but facts, sir, nothing but facts;" men, whose imaginations, the 
 wings of the soul, have become so heavy with the muo of the 
 material things in which they grovel, that they can never soar 
 into the lofty regions of thought where man asserts his kinship 
 with heaven, and suggests that he has an immortal soul. Better 
 be a philosopher and live in a garret, better be a poet and an 
 heir to poverty, than one of these narrowly practical men sur 
 rounded with every comfort and luxury that the nineteenth 
 century can offer. 
 
 Thus we see that what we term the old and the new civiliz 
 ations have been the extreme developments of opposite ideas. 
 
 Happy will be that age, if it may ever dawn upon the world, 
 when the central ideas of these two civilizations shall be 
 wedded in harmonious equality, when the love of the beautiful 
 and the love of the useful shall each have its designed place 
 in the symmetrical development of man; then shall he have 
 the poet s eye to see all the varied beauty in nature and in 
 sentiment, and the keen perception of the scientist to search 
 out all that is useful to man in the hidden secrets of God.
 
 THE CAUSE OF THE GRACCHI. 
 
 By ARTHUR J. CRAVEN, of Iowa State University. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 Arthur}. Craven was born at College Hill (now Lancaster), 
 Indiana, on the I2th day of December, 1857. H s parents re 
 moved to Minnesota when he was three years of age. They 
 lived in Minnesota six years and then moved to Iowa, where he 
 grew to manhood. He commenced teaching when quite young 
 to obtain money for a college course, and at nineteen years of 
 age entered Iowa State University, Iowa City, graduating there 
 from in the regular collegiate course June, 1882. In his junior 
 year he took first prize for oratory in a contest composed of 
 members of his class; in the following year he represented the 
 university and the State at the inter-State contest, taking 
 second prize on the oration given on the following pages. 
 In this latter contest he had not been on his feet a minute be 
 fore the glare of the foot-lights so annoyed him that every 
 preconceived idea with reference to his subject vanished, and 
 he was compelled to extemporize as best he could for a few 
 moments before again getting on the beaten track of thought 
 and language. After graduating he taught school one year in 
 order to pay up his indebtedness at college. He then read law 
 with Judge Winslovv, at Newton, Iowa; was admitted to the bar 
 February, 1884. Mr. Craven was married to Miss EmmaKerr, 
 of Newton, Iowa, removing the same year to Helena, Montana. 
 He was a member of the constitutional convention which 
 framed the present constitution of Montana. The firm ol 
 Leslie & Craven is one of the most enterprising law firms oi 
 the State, and their business is rapidly increasing, which suc 
 cess they well merit. 
 
 (122)
 
 The Cause of the Gracchi. 123 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, at Indianapolis, Indiana, 
 May, 1882, taking second prize. Judges: Hon. NOBLE C. BUTLER, Judge 
 J. S. FRAZER, Rev. OSCAR C. MCCULLOCH. 
 
 _J. Ideas, not swords, have filled the past with ruins. Rome 
 was not destroyed by barbarians. True, they captured and 
 pillaged and destroyed a city whose name was Rome, but the 
 fair mistress of the world, the pride of her children, had long 
 been dead; and when the lands of the North stretched out 
 their strong arms to seize a bride, they embraced a corpse. 
 
 Ideas, not swords! And among the ideas that scourge man- 
 kind none is more potent than that of man s inequality assert 
 ing that men are notvi the same blood, that we are not free and 
 
 o 
 
 equal, that I shall be king and you shall be slave. It sounds 
 the tocsin of war on the world s battle-fields. It is the great 
 _Loliath of history, striding through the centuries, overturning 
 kingdoms, obliterating empires, challenging republics; but no 
 youthful David with sling and stone has yet stepped out from 
 the ranks of the people who can slay and behead this gian,t of 
 tyranny. As Americans we boast that the Declaration of In 
 dependence was his death-warrant, and that our political fabric 
 towers high above his grave. But whence comes this cry of 
 monopoly and the warnings against centralization ? Is it merely 
 the wail of human discontent? Are not the rich becoming 
 richer and the poor poorer? Does not monopoly dip its hands 
 into every bushel of wheat yea, even into the standing grain? 
 The tattgred children of poverty, nursed and swaddled in the 
 deadly -sliade,_of,jCjprp,or.ation, tugging at the skirts of their 
 mothers for bread are they really hungry? In the dreary 
 past, you say, cloud-crowned pyramids and mouldering ruins 
 of lofty cities whisper of slavery. In the battle-fields of yester 
 day we see the victory of human rights. Yes; but this bloody 
 monster of inequality rises from-4ts--very-gr-av6. Formerly it 
 was serfdom, rtow it is monopoly; yesterday it was slavery, to 
 day it is centraljzation. Take away its part from the long 
 drama of history, and the play has lost its meaning. Extermi 
 nate this principle from the politics of to-day, and you relieve 
 our statesmen of half their cares.
 
 124 Winning Orations. 
 
 Agrarian reformation derives its importance not merely 
 from its tragical interest in history, but from the fact that it is 
 strangely applicable to present politics. History, with all its 
 ceaseless repetitions, has resurrected from the buried past no 
 problem of such continual importance as the use, rent, and 
 ownership of land. The past resounds with the tread of sol 
 diery, the cries of slavery and despotism; but exclusiveness 
 of land possessions is the basis of conquest, the foundation of 
 slavery and revolution, the very corner-stone of despotism. 
 Wide-stretching acres made the lords of feudalism; serfdom is 
 the product of tenantry. Ireland to-day, with her rags and her 
 stripes, is the sad epitome of agrarian abuse. 
 
 Land, indeed, is real estate. It endures though government 
 and race be swept away. It fosters conservatism. It checks 
 revolution. It gives courage to patriotism. Mercenary troops 
 have won few victories. From the firesides in peril stretch the 
 mystic chords of sympathy along which flit messages that spur 
 trembling armies to victory. 
 
 It was this importance of land ownership as a factor of 
 patriotism which filled the mind of Tiberius Gracchus. On his 
 journey to Spain as an emissary of the Roman government, he 
 clearly saw the dark cloud of imperialism drifting over the 
 desolated fields of Italy. The small land-owners had been 
 driven out. Their homes and mortgaged farms had been seized 
 by the centralizing hand of the rich. With their homeless 
 families they had sailed across the seas to the colonies, or had 
 fled to Rome to join the ranks of an idle army, or swell the 
 hungry multitude which fawned at the feet of ambitious dema 
 gogues, and sold their votes for bread. Honest toil had lost 
 its incentives. Free labor could not compete with the drudgery 
 of slaves. Slave gangs of stammering barbarians looked sadly 
 from the fields upon the crowds of free laborers flocking to the 
 city. Homes were dear, but what were all the pleasures of 
 domestic life compared with the terrors of serfdom? One way, 
 and one way only, led to distinction and glory; and that lay 
 over the bloody corpses of battle-fields, or through the passions 
 of the forum. Rome was the center of the world. Her return 
 ing armies came back with standards of victory. Long pro 
 cessions of triumph, glittering with the spoils of conquest, 
 were marching beneath her arches. Philosophers and teachers
 
 The Cause of the Gracchi. 125 
 
 endowed her with knowledge. The forum was hushed by the 
 spell of eloquence. Her streets were thronged with strangers 
 But the surrounding fields yielded scanty harvests to the labor 
 of slaves, and over the proud hills and lofty domes of the city 
 hung a cloud of famine which neither sunshine nor breeze 
 could ever dispel. 
 
 The very causes which contributed so largely to the renown 
 and outward strength of the republic were hurrying it forward 
 to a speedy decline. Increase of conquest made an increase 
 of captives. The slavery of the captive destroyed the liberty 
 of the freeman. And as farther and farther the tread of the 
 Roman legions advanced through surrounding nations, when 
 far in the East the boundaries were marked by the line of 
 Roman spears, when their standards were raised beyond the 
 Alps, and Roman sails fluttered in every harbor, the broad 
 Mediterranean was freighted with living cargoes, and Rome 
 became the slave-market of the world. Her great men boast 
 no more the love of country. They count their money, measure 
 their domains, dress forth their banquets, awake the lyres and 
 timbrels, and with floods of ripe Falernian drown the little left 
 of virtue. The laws, the laws of common right, the guard, the 
 wealth, the honor, the safety of the nation who has sold 
 them, defaced, and corrupted them? Why do they guard the 
 rich man s cloak, and tear the poor man s garment from his 
 back? Why are they in the grasp of wealth a sword, and in 
 the hands of poverty a broken reed? 
 
 On a heart warm with patriotism, this political condition 
 could not fail to make an impression. On this journey to Spain 
 Tiberius resolved upon the agrarian reform, which determined 
 his career. On the summits of the mountains fringing the 
 northern border he paused and looked back upon Italy. Be 
 low were the plains which lately bloomed with the happy 
 homes of peasantry. Away in the distance rose the outlines 
 of Rome. There was his home of royalty his father the 
 consul; his mother, Cornelia, the daughter of Hannibal s con 
 queror. There he was the petted favorite in the most distin 
 guished circles of aristocracy. There he was taught and 
 trained by Rome s greatest teachers and orators. There he 
 had married the daughter of Appius. There, indeed, lay the 
 path of glory; but it was paved with the oppression of the
 
 126 Winning Orations. 
 
 weak, and wet with the tears of the poor. In the valleys 
 wandered the step-son of Italy. On the breeze was borne the 
 clamor of the rabble in the distant city. And there on the 
 mountains, looking down on a land rendered sacred by the 
 memory of his fathers, he closed his eyes upon visions of 
 wealth, and formed his plan for the relief of his country -a 
 plan as stainless and pure as the snow which crowned the 
 mountain-peaks above him. 
 
 In the crowded forum behold the sad tragedy of republics. 
 On the one side iron-fingered monopoly with its deeds and 
 its bonds; on the other, a nation of beggars pleading for bread. 
 Tiberius rises from the side of the aristocrats, and demands 
 that a law already passed should be enforced; that the land of 
 conquest, which Rome had provided for her beggared children, 
 should be wrested from the hands of wealthy usurpers and 
 distributed to those for whom they were designed; that a 
 commonwealth of small land-owners would prove a balm f^r 
 pauperism and make a bulwark as strong as adamant against 
 centralization. He is scourged and mangled by that maddened 
 aristocracy, and finds his grave in the sands of the Tiber. A 
 brother grows to manhood, and rising in that same forum 
 pleads for poverty, and his lifeless head is held before the gaze 
 of the multitude and rolled at the feet of his mother. 
 
 Go seek for the sorrow which bears the dregs of grief, 
 where tears are relief and breaking hearts are voiceless, and 
 you find it not with the warrior counting the loss of the battle, 
 not with Napoleon standing lone and pensive at St. Helena, 
 gazing above the raging billows toward sunny France; but go 
 rather where Rachel is weeping, where Cornelia, and Niobe of 
 Rome, asks no greater comfort than that the world, that history, 
 should only call her the "Mother of the Gracchi." 
 
 Volumes have been filled with the results of the failure of 
 her martyred sons. True, it is only the wind that plays with 
 the idle leaves, but it heralds the tempest which will rend 
 every fiber of the forest. The sculptor carves his marble and 
 the poet weaves his verse; but the deadly virus courses through 
 the veins of the state. The vulture of destruction broods over 
 the imperial city and perches upon her lofty pinnacles. Mur 
 der strides through senate halls and creeps with drawn daggers 
 to the bedside of sovereignty. Virtue gathers her spotless
 
 The Cause of the Gracchi. 127 
 
 robes, and flees. The palace of marble overshadows the lowly 
 hovel. The tread of armies wakes the echoes of civil discord. 
 The rivers are stained with the blood of those who lately toiled 
 along their banks. On the peak of the mountain frowns the 
 fortress of the noble; on the plain below, in all the pains of 
 serfdom, toil the subjects of the empire. 
 
 Almost two thousand years have rolled on. Time has 
 wrought his mighty changes. The kind face of old Mother 
 Earth has grown scarred and worn by the care of her quarrel 
 ing, restless children. Civilization has fled from her cradle in 
 the East. She has plowed the continents and sailed the seas. 
 Here under western skies she has built her cities and raised 
 her monuments. To-day we wander back and search for the 
 footprints of her youth. Every mound is sad with its story, 
 every ruin speaks; but none more plainly and solemnly to this 
 republic of the West than the columns and temples crumbled 
 and decayed because the cause of the Gracchi was lost.
 
 THE POLITICAL MISSION OF PURITANISM. 
 
 By JOHN M. Ross, of Monmouth College. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 John M. Ross was born at Monmouth, Illinois, and is the 
 son of Rev. Robert Ross, one of the founders of Monmouth 
 College. He received his education in the Monmouth schools 
 and college. He was the successful orator of the tenth inter- 
 State contest, which occurred in 1883, at Minneapolis, Minnesota. 
 Here it was declared he is an orator by natural talent, and by 
 thorough study acquired the perfections of an orator. Upon 
 graduating he accepted the professorship of mathematics in 
 Tarkio College, Missouri. Two years later he began the study 
 of theology, in the United Presbyterian Theological Seminaries 
 of Xenia, Ohio, and Allegheny, Pennsylvania, graduating from 
 the latter institution March, 1888, and began his ministration 
 as pastor of the Oakland United Presbyterian Church, of Pitts- 
 burg, where he still remains their favorite pastor. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, at Minneapolis, Minne 
 sota, May, 1883, taking first prize. Judges: Hon. ANGUS CAMERON, J. W. 
 STEARNS, Hon. S. M. CLARK, Rev. Dr. LITTLE, Gen. A. B. NETTLETON. 
 
 The essence of Puritanism was belief in God and liberty. 
 The Puritan believed in God; but so did the Cavalier. The 
 Puritan believed in liberty; so did his Teutonic ancestor. But 
 men had learned at last to grasp the dual truth of man s free 
 dom and God s sovereignty. Belief in God and belief in 
 liberty were welded into one. The Cavalier believed in God 
 and the divine right of kings. The Puritan believed in God 
 and the inalienable rights of the people. This belief was not 
 a mere abstract conception; it was a soul-stirring energy, and 
 
 (128)
 
 The Political Mission of Puritanism. 129 
 
 was potent for good. It produced earnestness, fearlessness, 
 devotion to duty, rugged strength, moral sublimity. T was 
 this belief that nerved Hampdcn to resist his king; animated 
 Cromwell s Ironsides; taught Vane how to die; wrung majestic 
 music from the harp of Milton; thrilled a whole nation with 
 lofty enthusiasm; opened up to the world broad vistas of 
 progress. 
 
 The separation of the English Church from Papal Rome 
 was an act of kingly self-aggrandizement. The sovereign be 
 came supreme in both spiritual and temporal affairs. Civil 
 liberty was little advanced. Rather were the coils of arbitrary 
 rule drawn more tightly. Ecclesiastical tyranny re-enforced 
 that of the crown. This double-headed despotism of church 
 and state made its lair behind the throne. When attacked it 
 slunk into its den and securely defied pursuit. Before the 
 monster could be throttled, the throne itself must be battered 
 down. Thus Puritanism in resisting the encroachments of the 
 spiritual order antagonized the crown. Organizing opposition 
 to arbitrary rule, it carried reform into governmental affairs 
 and became the champion of popular rights. Earnestly, hero 
 ically, resistlessly, the Puritan threw himself into the struggle. 
 He protested against superstition and tyranny. He plead for 
 knowledge, truth, righteousness, liberty. The grandeur of his 
 idea impressed itself upon his work. While the Cavalier was 
 dazzled by the glitter of royalty and rewarded by the smile of 
 his king, the Puritan was devoted to the uplifting of his race 
 and sought a reward which fadeth not away. The former 
 represents the tinsel age of chivalry; the latter, the golden age 
 of humanity. The Cavalier struck his lyre and sang of war, 
 knighthood, gallantry, the splendors of regal power; and the 
 siren song died away. The Puritan tuned his harp and sang 
 of liberty, justice, mercy, the glories of a heavenly home; and 
 that melody re-echoes evermore. 
 
 Conflict was inevitable. Liberty was the issue. The two 
 principles the popular and the arbitrary marshaled their 
 forces for the contest. If the Cavalier deserves respect for his 
 loyalty in rallying under the banner of his king, the Puritan 
 commands admiration and gratitude for defending the cause of 
 popular liberty. If the Cavalier feared innovation with its 
 accompanying evils, the Puritan dreaded despotism with its
 
 130 Winning Orations. 
 
 baneful blight. The Cavalier loved pomp and power; the 
 Puritan hated shams and oppression. If there was somewhat 
 of fanaticism in the acts of the Puritan, there was much of 
 servility in the character of the Cavalier. The fanaticism 
 sprang from excess of earnestness; the servility, from lack of 
 high motives. The Cavalier fought for royalty and personal 
 triumph; the Puritan, for constitutional liberty and popular 
 rights. The policy of one tended to centralization of wealth 
 and power, to thralldom and national decadence; that of the 
 other, to development and progress. The Puritan was not a 
 Jacobin not a Nihilist, finding a mad delight in the work of 
 indiscriminate destruction. He was an ideal revolutionist, 
 destroying the evil, preserving the good. Did he aim sledge 
 hammer blows at the formalities of the church? Yes; yet he- 
 cherished true religion. Did he with stubborn strength oppose 
 his king? Yes; yet he loved law and order. 
 
 But why was the Commonwealth so speedily succeeded by 
 the Restoration? Why did the people fail to maintain their 
 ascendency? Because they were fallible. Conceptions of 
 truth are at first vague and imperfect. The dawning of great 
 ideas is like the dawning of the sun. In the first glimmerings 
 of light men catch distorted and sometimes even grotesque 
 views of things around them. It was so with the Puritan. As 
 light increased and more rational views prevailed, propositions 
 which had appeared reasonable became palpable absurdities. 
 The dominant party was loaded down with odium. The people 
 had been trained in the school of tyranny. They were not 
 prepared for self-government. They could dethrone their 
 king; they could not crown themselves. Anarchy impended. 
 The Protectorate was a child of necessity. Given conditions 
 as stated, and Carlyle s solution of the problem is the only ade 
 quate one the strongest soul, the Hero, must rule. With 
 the death of Cromwell coherence was lost. Disintegration 
 followed. Hence the Restoration. The old despotism, how 
 ever, could not be permanently reinstated. The Puritan idea 
 survived the fall of the Commonwealth. It disseminated itself, 
 molding the sentiments of the nation. The fantastic visions 
 of the early dawn vanished before the on-coming light. In 
 English society, through all its fluctuations, there was a durable 
 element of progress. The shuttle of thought glided rapidly to
 
 The Political Mission of Puritanism. 131 
 
 and fro; but the fair fabric of truth was woven at last from the 
 contending opinions of men. The Revolution of 88 establishes 
 a constitutional govenment, and "Freedom rears her beautiful, 
 bold brows." 
 
 But the Englishman could not fully appreciate Puritanism. 
 His prejudices were too strong. Then as now he prized liberty, 
 yet his affections were centered in himself; his sympathies 
 were bounded by his native island. He made the same mis 
 take that men have ever made. He forgot that a principle 
 once accepted must be accepted in its entirety, and must pro 
 duce its own legitimate results. And just here is the reason 
 that "God s first temples" have so often echoed with the harsh 
 notes of war; just here is the reason for the convulsions which 
 have upheaved society; just here is the reason that humanity 
 has advanced along a road macadamized with the bones of 
 martyrs. Puritanism was not for a nation alone; t was for 
 humanity. It had formulated a creed too broad for England. 
 Only in a new land could it fully realize its lofty ideals. Its 
 best elements sought in America a home. Here Puritanism 
 itself became more pure. Here it outgrew the deformities 
 which disfigured it in England; but its essential truth endured, 
 for that was imperishable. That the two principles, love of 
 liberty and reverence for law, are not antagonistic but are 
 complements of each other; that they are the bulwarks which 
 defend society from tyranny on one hand and from anarchy on 
 the other; that together they form the Gordian knot which 
 despots cannot cut nor communists untie this was the sublime 
 affirmation of New World Puritanism; and this affirmation is 
 the rock upon which our Republic rests. Love of liberty in 
 spired the sturdy yeomanry of New England in the contest for 
 independence; reverence for law unified society and saved it 
 from the awful doom which a few years later settled down on 
 France like night. In the New World, as in the Old, the pro 
 gress of Puritanism has been in the face of opposition; but its 
 development through successive generations is that which has 
 given unity and dignity to American history. In our own 
 century it has waged its mightiest conflict and achieved its 
 crowning triumph. In the campaigns of the civil war those 
 principles which had been vindicated at Marston Moor and 
 Naseby were again at stake. In the maintenance of national
 
 132 Winning Orations. 
 
 sovereignty, in the destruction of the slave power, in the 
 enfranchisement of the negro, these principles were again 
 triumphant. The broad-minded statesmen who framed the 
 Constitution had preferred to employ a circumlocution rather 
 than admit, even by implication, the atrocious proposition that 
 there can be property in man. They had appealed to coming 
 generations to vindicate their wisdom, and their appeal was 
 not in vain. At Gettysburg and on other battle-fields it was 
 decided finally, we trust that the Puritan idea is not local 
 but universal in its application; that it is true for all races and 
 for all time. Admirable indeed were the results of Puritanism 
 in England; but the extent and potency of its influence must 
 be viewed in the Republic of the West. In England it was 
 revolutionary; in America, constructive and creative. In Eng 
 land its mission was to remodel an ancient building, but the 
 old frame-work marred the symmetry; in America it erected 
 a new edifice founded upon faith in God and devotion to the 
 rights of man. Unhampered by old institutions it here found 
 room for development, and developed. It cast off localisms. 
 It represented enlightened, liberal views. It molded character. 
 It built up institutions. It became both the germ-principle and 
 the conservator of a nation s life. In England it secured liberty 
 for Englishmen; in America, spurning with broad generaliza 
 tions the narrow confines of time and place, it proclaimed lib 
 erty as the birthright of all men. Here Freedom reared her 
 holiest temple and opened wide its portals to the world. Here 
 shall this temple stand, let us hope, until the grateful nations 
 worship at its shrine. 
 
 The Puritan was human, and therefore fallible. In rude, 
 ungraceful strength, mountain-like, he stands out on the land 
 scape of history. The angular outlines of his character offend 
 some in this fastidious age. It is well we can laugh at the 
 eccentricities and crudities of his thought. It is not well if we 
 fail to appreciate his moral grandeur and the debt we owe him. 
 It is not well if we seek to hear only the minor discords and are 
 deaf to the noble music of his life. Let it not be forgotten 
 that to the Puritan, as Hume testifies, England owes the whole 
 liberty to her constitution. Let is not be forgotten that when 
 in America "stern Democracy hymned its world-thrilling birth 
 and battle song," the spirit of English Puritanism was present
 
 The Political Mission of Puritanism. 133 
 
 and inspired that strain. Let it not be forgotten that upon the 
 continued activity of this Puritan idea depend the advance of 
 Anglo-Saxon civilization, the stability of American institutions 
 and the maintenance of the dearest rights of humanity. 
 
 By the Puritan were originated or promulgated those ideas 
 which are the political master-principles of to-day; principles 
 upon which rest the governments of modern England and 
 America; principles upon which depends the prosperity aye, 
 the political salvation of the world. Representative govern 
 ment, universal equality, education, and freedom in its highest, 
 grandest sense freedom of conscience, which brings freedom 
 of thought, freedom of action all bear testimony to the influ 
 ence of Puritanism. Though as a political organization it 
 perished when its work was done, as a spiritual force it lived, 
 purifying and directing public sentiment, changing the arid 
 wastes of history into gardens of wealth and beauty. "Time 
 has softened its asperities," but strengthened its devotion to 
 truth. The old Ironside sleeps his dreamless sleep, but the 
 soul of Puritanism "is marching on." As once it wrested 
 Liberty from the tyrant s grasp, so to-day in the face of mad 
 dened mobs it asserts the majesty of Law. Nor will its works 
 be complete till universal right prevails, and men are freed from 
 every chain, save those by which "this whole round earth is 
 bound about the feet of God."
 
 THE SAXON ELEMENT IN CIVILIZATION. 
 
 By DANIEL M. KELLOGG, of Beloit College. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 Daniel M. Kellogg was born November 8, 1859, at White 
 water, Wisconsin. His father, who was a brilliant lawyer, died 
 when the subject of this sketch was eight years of age. His 
 mother was a lady of culture and great piety, and her son at 
 tributes his success to her Christian training. Mr. Kellogg re 
 ceived his elementary education in the schools of his native 
 place. He entered the preparatory school of Beloit College 
 at the age of twenty, continuing until graduated. In college 
 he was especially fond of literary and oratorical work, never 
 failing to take the prize at a public debate or contest. At the 
 inter-State contest he was awarded second prize on his oration, 
 "The Saxon Element in Civilization," which appears on the 
 following pages. Upon completing his education he taught 
 school in Kansas three years, after which he returned to his na 
 tive place and engaged in the study of law. For several years 
 Mr. Kellogg has been prominently identified with the temper 
 ance cause, holding positions of responsibility and trust. When 
 in college he espoused the cause of the Prohibition party, but 
 later became convinced that better results could be obtained 
 by non-partisan effort and renewed his allegiance to the Repub 
 lican party. In September, 1888, he was chosen by this party 
 at Whitewater, Wisconsin, as the champion of the Republi 
 cans, in a joint debate with Hon. Walter Mills, "the little giant 
 of Ohio," who represented the Prohibition party. So well did 
 Mr. Kellogg acquit himself on this occasion that, on the follow 
 ing evening, his fellow citizens serenaded him and presented 
 him with a handsome purse as an appreciation of his effort, 
 lie was afterward employed by the Republican State Central 
 Committee, and made over forty speeches during the last 
 
 (i34)
 
 The Saxon Element in Civilization. 135 
 
 campaign. In August, 1889, M f - Kellogg was married to Mrs. 
 Carrie Hayes, a lady of high attainments. About this time he 
 received a government position in the office of the secretary of 
 the interior, and now resides in his pleasant home on H Street, 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, Minneapolis, Minne 
 sota, May, 1883, taking second prize. Judges: Hon. ANGUS CAMERON, J. 
 \V. STEARNS, Hon. S. M. CLARK, Rev. Dr. LITTLE, Gen. A. B. NETTLETON. 
 
 Prominent among the races of men stands the Saxon. 
 Nursed in the forests of Germany, rocked in the cradle of the 
 ocean, in childhood transplanted to his island home, his early 
 surroundings tended to develop a vigorous manhood. It is 
 said that the giant trees of the West rear themselves in one 
 massive trunk far above the surrounding forest and then stretch 
 out their lofty branches to the unhindered light of the sun. 
 So through the centuries the Saxon has attained his develop 
 ment, and to-day the branches of this mammoth tree, penetra 
 ting the extremities of the world, receive nourishment from 
 the parent trunk. 
 
 Stability has ever marked the course of the Saxon. With 
 steadiness of purpose, with persistent action, he has stamped 
 his impress upon the world s civilization. When the tide of 
 Germanic tribes swept over western Europe, the Frank, the 
 Goth, the Lombard, in a few generations were entirely absorbed 
 by the vanquished races, but the Saxon not only conquered 
 the Briton, he so transformed him that the Celtic element 
 formed but a small part of the English race. \Vherever it has 
 come in contact with a foreign people, either as conqueror or 
 conquered, the Saxon element has prevailed. The savage 
 Dane became a part of the English nation, and in a short time- 
 in customs, manners, and language, was essentially Saxon. 
 The Norman was the conqueror in battle, and vainly attempted 
 to guide and curb the destinies of the Saxon race, but on that 
 broader battle-field, in the conflict of the ages, where nature s 
 unerring law secures the survival of the fittest, there the victor s 
 wreath rests upon the brow of the Saxon. In the colonization 
 of the New World other races, partially adopting native cus-
 
 136 Winning Orations. 
 
 toms, have produced a mongrel and semi-barbarous civiliza 
 tion; but the Saxon, rigidly maintaining his identity, scorning 
 external compromise, infuses into all races his national life. 
 The proud Spaniard sinks into the indolent Mexican, but the 
 Englishman is ever true to his race. The Saxon, moreover, is 
 a radical, but a conservative radical; not overturning society 
 to right a wrong, but beginning at the root of things, starting 
 with a firm foundation, after careful consideration, he uproots 
 noxious evils, and engrafts new principles upon the old stock, 
 choosing the golden mean between rash radicalism and unalter 
 able conservatism. Deeply imbedded in the foundation of 
 modern enlightenment, intricately interwoven in the web of 
 human progress, to eradicate the Saxon element would cause 
 the whole structure to totter and fall, would rend into shreds the 
 entire fabric. Exterminate it in one place and it will appear 
 at another, and like the mountain-moss will take root and 
 flourish upon the bare rock. Such is the stability of the 
 Saxon element in civilization. 
 
 A natural fitness for government has ever characterized the 
 Saxon. The equality of mankind was with him an innate 
 principle. Self-government was an inherent right. The town- 
 meeting and trial by jury, ancient Saxon institutions, are the 
 foundation of all modern civil liberty. Representative govern 
 ment, the stumbling-stone of kings, was a Saxon principle. 
 The Normans attempted to supplant Saxon freedom with the 
 feudal system of the continent, but through centuries of con 
 flict English liberty has continually been in the ascendant. 
 The divine right of kings, taxation without representation, 
 restraint of thought and action, have all been shattered by the 
 principles of Saxon liberty; and to-day the "great commoner," 
 who guides the destinies of that world-encircling empire, is a 
 representative of the people, while the descendant of William 
 the Conqueror sits a figure-head in Windsor Castle. 
 
 Saxon liberty comprises principles which were unknown to 
 the ancient republics of Greece and Rome. Roman and Gre 
 cian law concentrated all within the State. The State was 
 everything, man nothing. For the advantage of the State 
 virtuous and worthy citizens were banished or even executed. 
 Saxon freedom was based on the liberty of the individual. 
 The earliest enactments of the British parliament were for the
 
 The Saxon Element in Civilisation. 137 
 
 relief of personal grievances. Throughout English history the 
 great struggle for liberty was a struggle for personal liberty. 
 The principles of Saxon freedom triumphed, and that triumph 
 has tolled the death-knell of tyranny everywhere, sundered the 
 shackles which fettered genius, turned with lightning rapidity 
 the wheel of human progress, and materially altered the history 
 of mankind. From the crumbling castles of feudalism, royalty 
 and aristocracy look forth upon the world which is fast eluding 
 their grasp, hear with amazement the busy hum of modern in 
 dustry, behold with wonder the lofty flights of low-born genius, 
 perceive the insignia of empire vested in popular sovereignty, 
 and the crown and scepter, emblems of medieval majesty, only 
 retained as a matter of political convenience. 
 
 The moral element has had a controlling influence in Eng 
 lish civilization. The Saxon was intimately related to those 
 wild nations of the North, whose mythology, fierce and brutal 
 as it was, yet in the grandeur of its conception stirred the 
 human soul to its very depths, inculcated sublime sentiments 
 of life, death, fate, and destiny, and stood in strong contrast 
 to the loose voluptuousness of the Olympian deities. The 
 gloomy regions of the North and the lives of its inhabitants, 
 alternating between the extremes of energy and repose, had a 
 strong tendency to nurse reverential sentiments. Among vast 
 forests of perpetual twilight, among mountains rugged with 
 ice and crested with storms, and amid the dismal vicissitudes 
 of northern winters, the flitting shadows that traversed the wild 
 scenery became spiritual visitants, while the mysterious sounds 
 of hill and valley were regarded as their supernatural voices. 
 Calm, cool, deliberate, self-reliant, with a stern sense of duty, 
 the Saxon possessed those elements of character which pre 
 served English civilization intact from the enervating tenden 
 cies of wealth and power. When Christianity shed its beams 
 of light over Europe, its tenets were readily adopted bv the 
 Saxon race. The doctrines of the equality of man and in 
 dividual responsibility to God, were aptly fitted to the Saxon 
 mind. To the fickle Celt and spiritless Roman, Christianity 
 was but a substitute for the old pagan religion. In niches 
 dedicated to the shrines of the gods, were placed the images 
 of the saints. The Virgin supplanted the voluptuous Venus, 
 and the Bishop or Pope ruled in the stead of Pontifex Maxi-
 
 1 38 Winning- Orations. 
 
 mus. But the Saxon, penetrating the film of formalism which 
 obscured the sublime truths of Christianity, and comprehend 
 ing the divine doctrines of that gospel which brought salvation 
 to man, has accomplished more than any other in spreading 
 the teachings of the world s greatest benefactor. When the 
 struggle of the reformation roused Europe from its fatal leth 
 argy, the Saxon was foremost in the contest between protest 
 antism and papacy. Beneath his powerful blows priestcraft 
 fell. Absolutism was unbearable to his independent nature, 
 either in church or state. Freedom of thought and action was 
 first recognized upon English soil. On the rugged rocks of 
 New England the Puritan fitly exemplified the truest type of 
 Saxon character, and his stern individuality has permeated 
 and controlled our entire national life. The moral strength 
 of the Saxon holds him out in bold relief from the family of 
 races, leading mankind to a higher and happier sphere of ex 
 istence, as the snow-capped mountain peak rears its hoary 
 head high above the floating clouds and gazes out from the 
 finite to the infinite and eternal. 
 
 Firm, free, and true, the Saxon element is destined to pene 
 trate civilization with enduring power. Widely differing from 
 the barbaric splendor of the ancients, it is also strongly con 
 trasted with the highest phases of modern enlightenment. 
 How unlike the Celt, whose varying course of life, and sudden 
 leaps from the depths of degradation to the heights of glory 
 and renown, have kept the world in constant wonderment. 
 Fickle, fiery, pliable, without organizing force, his grandest 
 efforts result in chaotic confusion. Incapable of self-govern 
 ment he suffers for centuries the yoke of dire despotism, and 
 then in one vast unorganized bulk, overturns government and 
 establishes anarchy. Thus, like a pendulum, he swings back 
 ward and forward, from tyranny of the autocrat to the tyranny 
 of the mob, ignorant of the true principles of government, 
 until touched by the elements of that higher civilization which 
 is gradually assimilating the world. The genius of the Celt is 
 the child of circumstances; the genius of the Saxon, the inevi 
 table result of continuous effort. The one, by chance, produces 
 the unbalanced yet brilliant Gambetta, the other through the 
 irresistible logic of events evolves the peerless Gladstone, a 
 crowning gem in Saxon civilization.
 
 The Saxon FJcnicnt in Civilization. 139 
 
 English civilization has inoculated the world. The Czar in 
 his snow-bound palace strives to imitate English methods. 
 The African chieftain traverses oceans to ask of England s 
 queen the secret of Saxon civilization. The exclusive Mongo 
 lian opens wide his gates and hastens to adopt English customs. 
 Saturating all society with his subtile power, permeating all 
 phases of humanity, infusing his spirit into the life of every 
 nation, engrafting the product of past civilizations upon the 
 parent stock and using them as his own, transforming the 
 customs of the world, surpassing the Greek in beauty, the 
 Roman in strength, the ancient in philosophy, the modern in 
 science, the Saxon continues to complete his divine destiny, 
 in absorbing, amalgamating and assimilating mankind.
 
 JUDAS ISCARIOT. 
 
 By CHARLES T. WYCKOFF, of Knox College. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 Charles Truman Wyckoff was born in Farmington, Illinois, 
 the 1 6th of Octobe.r, 1861. The log school house of early 
 childhood, and rude, pine desks, well whittled, gave place in 
 later years to good grammar and high schools, where there is 
 less of whittling and more of true education. In September of 
 1879 he entered Knox College and academy. Pie took a mod 
 erate though increasing interest in the exercises of composition 
 and elocution. However he made great progress in these 
 studies, and in 83 was one of the members of the senior and 
 junior classes who received the appointment to the preliminary 
 trial for a contest in oratory. The subject, "Judas Iscariot," 
 was suggested to Mr. Wyckoff as one not worn threadbare. 
 It was afterward jokingly said his success was due partly to his 
 audacity in taking such a theme. But he passed the trial 
 which made him the representative of his alma mater. On this 
 same night he started for Dakota, there to live six months on 
 a claim. October 5, 1883, Judas, though such a villain, was 
 again privileged to be victorious at the Illinois inter-collegiate 
 contest. And now for the final trial inter-State contest. In 
 May, 1884, the battle was on, and ended in "Judas Iscariot" 
 winning first prize. After graduating from Knox College Mr. 
 Wyckoff entered the Chicago Theological Seminary, finishing 
 the course in 1887. On invitation from the faculty ofKnox 
 College he delivered the master s oration, "Judas Maccabaeus," 
 an admirable production. Shorty afterward he went to Japan, 
 and engaged in teaching music and kindred departments in the 
 government school at Osaka, but has been transferred to the 
 Doshisha School, at Kyoto. He is recognized as an able in 
 structor, and is a gentleman who commands esteem. 
 
 (140)
 
 Judas hcariot. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, Iowa City, Iowa, May 
 1884, taking first prize. Judges: Hon. S. M. CLARK, Col. C. A. CLARK, 
 Hon. E. H. CONGER, Prof. N. C. DOUGHERTY, Rev. R. NUTTING, D. D. 
 
 The hero-worship of the world has made few mistakes. 
 Party spirit may blind for a moment; the passions of men 
 may sway the judgment for a time; but the verdict of history 
 seldom errs. In that tragedy of eighteen centuries ago the 
 clear, white light of a character supremely divine, falling upon 
 one of the actors, casts a heavy shadow across the field of 
 history a shadow which continues to lengthen and darken. 
 Historical criticism and philosophical investigation fail to dis 
 perse the gloom which shrouds the character of the Iscariot; 
 nor wipe the stain from his name. Each generation adds its 
 seal to the verdict of condemnation. Nevertheless there arc 
 in these modern days, especially among the Germans, but with 
 a following among us, apologists for the crime of Judas. These 
 apologists say that the arguments to prove that he was actuated 
 by the motives usually attributed to him, are insufficient; that 
 the cause was inadequate to the result; that ambition or avarice 
 never would have impelled him to a crime so enormous as the 
 betrayal. What exaltation could ambition find in the death of 
 Christ? Could avarice, that gloated enviously over the costly 
 outpouring of the alabaster box of ointment, be induced to 
 commit so dark a crime for the paltry sum of thirty pieces of 
 silver? Judas was not a traitor per se, but upon examination 
 his motives are bright with the light of patriotism, though the 
 result be shadowed in unanticipated gloom. 
 
 To him as a patriot holding the popularity of the prophecies, 
 the vision of Christ coming in earthly power and glory as King 
 of the Jews was perfectly natural, lie did not understand the 
 spiritual attitude of Christ. He caught no glimpses of the 
 divine plan; but he saw the iron heel of the Romans crushing 
 the Jewish nation a nation which had bowed its neck in bond 
 age only twice in its long history once in the early dawn of 
 that history under the shadow of Egypt s gigantic temples and 
 palaces, and again by Babylon s winding rivers and floating 
 gardens. He saw the people worshiping Christ as they had 
 worshiped no one before. Here was an opportunity to drive
 
 142 Winning Orations. 
 
 the Romans back to their homes on the Tiber; to make the 
 Jewish people a ruling nation again with Christ as their king. 
 
 All this, they say, and more, Judas saw and felt with the 
 burning, passionate fire of a Jewish patriot. And why did not 
 Christ accept these opportunities when all seemed ready for 
 such action? Once, twice, thrice, aye, many times had the cup 
 of kingly power been pressed to his lips, and as many times 
 refused. This nature, so divine, seemed nevertheless to lack- 
 something. To Judas alone it was clear. This inaction was the 
 result of indecision of character. This fault must be remedied 
 lie must supply the lack. He must precipitate Christ into 
 such a crisis that he would be compelled to exercise in his 
 own defense that mysterious power so often used for others. 
 That crisis was the betrayal. 
 
 Thus the defenders of the Iscariot endeavor to show that 
 Judas was not impelled to the betrayal by ambition or avarice; 
 that neither of these was sufficient to account for the result; 
 that the real motive was patriotism, and the betrayal the means 
 by which he hoped to elevate Christ to the kingship, and the 
 Jews to the leadership among the nations. 
 
 But are these arguments in defense of the Iscariot valid? 
 Was he a patriot? Does his general character harmonize with 
 such a supposition? A patriot is full of love and devotion. 
 He sacrifices himself for his country and his people. He glows 
 with enthusiasm. But Judas was not only selfish and corrupt, 
 he was also morose and cynical. There was no feeling in his 
 breast which could sympathize with the impulse that prompted 
 Mary s noble gift. Suspicion of others was continually creep 
 ing into his mind, and the dark, flitting shadows of burning 
 passion skulked in the recesses of his soul. What feeling was 
 there here to knit a nation together for victory, to stir and 
 thrill men to deeds worthy of heroes? The dark, scowling 
 countenance of Leonardo da Vinci s Judas well expresses his 
 sinister character. 
 
 Not only his character, but also his course of action pre 
 cludes the supposition that he was a patriot. As a patriot he 
 would have left incomplete no arrangements by which success 
 might be insured to his understanding. But not even a hint 
 was given; none to the impetuous, fiery Peter; none to the 
 loving John; none to the people who but a few days before
 
 Judas hcariot, 143 
 
 had shouted hosannas to the son of David. No one kne\v of 
 the plan, if plan there were, to re-establish the Jewish kingdom 
 with Christ at its head, save the dark, silent Man of Kerioth. 
 
 Then, again, the betrayal took place at the lonely hour of 
 midnight, when all the people were sleeping after the busy da)*. 
 The birds had ceased their singing in the olive groves of 
 Gethsemane, and nothing was heard save the sounds proceed 
 ing from these two bands Christ with his disciples, praying 
 that prayer of agony; and the mob of soldiers and priests, with 
 their lanterns and spears, with their curses and eager longings 
 for the death of the Nazarene. The hour was unfavorable for 
 patriotism, but favorable for perfidy. No patriot would have 
 chosen such a course. In such circumstances no result could 
 be expected from the betrayal but the death of the betrayed. 
 
 The words of Christ and his disciples concerning Judas, 
 reveal his true character. Surely, after three years intimate 
 association with him, these chosen companions, better than 
 any one else, understood his real motives. "Judas Iscariot, 
 who also betrayed him," are the only words which the troubled, 
 shuddering heart of the disciple could utter. How full of 
 terrible import the words of Peter. "He went to his own 
 place." Note especially the words of the beloved disciple: 
 "Then Satan entered into him." As on a wild and fitful night 
 the angry storm-fiends wail their mournful requiem through 
 the air, so in the heart of Judas rioted and raged the dark 
 fiends of passion. Think you there was patriotism here? 
 
 "Christ," says John, "needed not that any should testify of 
 man; for He knew what was in man." But what says this 
 divine reader of hearts; "Father, those that Thou gavest me 
 I have kept, and none of them are lost but the son of perdition." 
 "Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?" 
 And if the Iscariot had been a patriot would Christ have said, 
 "Judas, betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss?" Christ 
 recognized no love in that kiss; no warm, patriotic spirit in 
 that greeting; nothing but the signal for betrayal and death. 
 
 To account for the betrayal of such a Master, avarice is in 
 adequate; but as an opening for a horde of more malignant 
 passions, sufficient. It was but the small crevice in the dike, 
 through which a sea shall yet rush. 
 
 And what were these more malignant passions? Examine
 
 144 Winning Orations. 
 
 the last few days of the tragedy. Go back to Bethany, to that 
 quiet retreat which Christ was soon to leave forever, to the 
 supper and to the royal anointing. No word but of love and 
 adoration had been spoken by that little company. But upon 
 our ears grate harshly the words of Judas condemning the 
 waste of the precious perfume. Out of harmony and out of 
 sympathy with the spiritual elevation of the company, Judas 
 feels more than ever his isolation. The fires of anger and hate, 
 of disappointment and revenge, filled his heart. These pas 
 sions now hold him fast, and as he leaves the feast and hurries 
 along the dark road to the priests at Jerusalem, the mutterings 
 of the coming storm are in his soul. 
 
 And do you know what revenge is in the human heart? 
 How it pursues its victim, unrelenting, unpitying, through lapse 
 of years and length of distance, till at last the fearful end is 
 reached? Then he who so lately pursued is hunted to the 
 death by the dread furies of remorse. Then Judas, blinded by 
 rage and hate, with silent longing for revenge burning in his 
 heart, followed his victim. Then came the betrayal; then the 
 suicide of despair. Not till Christ has been condemned and 
 the wild shouts of "Crucify Him" fall on his ears does Judas 
 begin to realize the enormity of his crime. Then, indeed, con 
 science shows him the dark path he has been treading, and the 
 awful precipice of guilt to which he has brought himself. He 
 is overwhelmed with bitter heart-rending remorse, in which is 
 no pulsation of sorrow or repentance, but only the dark, wild 
 despair of evil beholding itself. The thorn-crowned head turns 
 upon him with a look of unutterable reproach and sorrow. 
 Now the divine face vanishes, and the air is "with dreadful 
 faces thronged and fiery arms." The satanic legions exult in 
 fiendish glee over the fallen man. They crowd around him; 
 they mock at his remorse; they jeer at him; they seize him 
 and drag him, shuddering to their own gloomy abode. 
 
 Thus fell the Iscariot into the dark depths of his own con 
 demnation. Thus the verdict of Judas himself, the verdict of 
 Christ, the verdict of all the following ages, is our verdict- 
 Judas was a traitor.
 
 THE UNITY OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 
 
 By GEORGE L. MACKINTOSH, of Wabash College. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 George L. Mackintosh was born in Gugsboro County, Nova 
 Scotia, January I, 1859, and is of Scotch parentage. The first 
 twelve years of his life were spent on his father s farm. He 
 then attended the Academy at New Glasgow; later taught 
 school. In the fall of 1878 he removed to the United States. 
 Shortly after his arrival he entered Wabash College, Crawfords- 
 ville, Indiana. He was a faithful student, and graduated in 
 1884. After leaving college he studied law, but subsequently 
 studied for the ministry. His first charge was as pastor of the 
 Presbyterian Church at Winamac, Indiana, where he still faith 
 fully serves. He delivered the second prize oration, printed 
 on the following pages, when a student of Wabash College. 
 It is an excellent oration, and the product of a only a week s 
 labor. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, Iowa City, Iowa, May, 
 1884, taking second prize. Judges: Hon. S. M. CLARK, Col. C. A. CLARK, 
 Hon. E. H. CONGER, Prof. N. C. DOUGHERTY, Rev. R. NUTTING, D. D. 
 
 Men seldom seek truth for its own sake. The personal and 
 professional element enters largely into all their investigations. 
 Theologians are more eager to uphold their theology, and 
 scientists to defend their theories, than is either to strive for 
 truth in its broad and comprehensive unity. This tendency 
 in man s nature, while it has imperative uses, has led to nearly 
 all the conflicts and disputes of the world of thought. Most 
 of all has it caused the seeming discord between some of the 
 truths of religion and science. Through the whole course of 
 human thought this antagonism has prevailed. Two principles 
 
 (145)
 
 146 Winning Orations. 
 
 seems to run parallel in every age and civilization, and, indeed, 
 in each individual mind. The one is embodied in empirical 
 science; the other, in religious faith. Intellect is the controll 
 ing force of the first; reverence, of the second. The former is 
 iconoclastic and aggressive; the latter, conservative and re 
 straining. Developed in harmony, they are the counter-balanc 
 ing forces on whose nice adjustment must ever depend the 
 symmetrical advancement of the human race. But if either is 
 advanced at the sacrifice of the other, harmony of movement 
 is destroyed, and beneficent progress is impossible. Religious 
 faith without intellectual enlightenment is superstition. In 
 tellect without the restraining influences of religion inevitably 
 drifts into atheism and despair. Pendulum-like the world has 
 swung from one to the other of these extremes. On the one 
 hand we have the unquestioning faith and reasoning supersti 
 tion of the Middle Ages; on the other, the impious audacity 
 and coarse materialism of the French philosophers. The 
 former reduced a beautiful and lofty faith almost to fetishism; 
 the latter raised reason and shame to the throne of Divinity. 
 Each in turn had overstepped its proper boundaries, and as 
 sumed to itself the whole province of thought. Each had 
 scornfully rejected the claims of the other in order to secure 
 absolute power to itself. 
 
 Even in the nineteenth century the conflict for supremacy 
 goes on with unabated vigor. Once more to-day we are told, 
 in no modest terms, that this is the age of science; that science 
 is the light of the world, before which the penny rush-lights of 
 religion must inevitably pale into insignificance. What, then, 
 is this mighty science? Science is what man knows of sensi 
 ble things and their relations, and its utmost bounds are man s 
 capacity to know. With indomitable courage science has gone 
 forth to meet the mystery that confronts it. From star to 
 atom it has left no field untried. Measuring illimitable spaces 
 or gauging a molecule, calculating the age of a planet or an 
 insect, it is ever patient, persistent, and daring. No nook of 
 visible creation has escaped its penetrating eye. Its ambition 
 knows no bounds. To build a pyramid from whose lofty sum 
 mit the whole domain of knowledge might be surveyed has 
 ever been its cheering and inspiring hope. In pursuance of 
 this design individual facts are classified; classes are systema-
 
 Tlic Unity of Science and Religion. 147 
 
 tized and united in the idea of unvarying law. Here science 
 ends. And what is law? Is this a word to conjure with and 
 climb the empyrean of divinity? "Law," says Montesquieu, 
 "is the necessary relations that arise from the nature of things." 
 Has science, then, in reaching a law established an ultimate 
 principle? Docs the law of gravitation keep the planets in 
 their orbits and maintain the harmony of the spheres? Doe.; 
 the law of evolution generate genus and species? Law is but 
 the method of force. Law is a pure abstraction. Beyond law 
 must be the real impelling force, and of this science gives no 
 explanation. All science falls short of the final explanation of 
 things. Astronomy ends with the nebular hypothesis; chem 
 istry, with the atomic theory; and geology fades into the illim 
 itable ages of the past. Physical science reaches out in every 
 direction, and is met at all points by a blind, impenetrable in 
 finity. It is indeed a torch in the night, but as it grows brighter 
 it only renders more palpable the darkness beyond. As it is 
 multipled it only widens the circle of the unknown. 
 
 If science is unable to solve the problems of the physical 
 universe, how shall it answer the questions of a higher existence ? 
 Astronomy may calculate the almost infinite path of a comet, 
 but what science the dying emperor s question, "Whither goest 
 thou, oh my soul?" Chemistry may resolve the physical uni 
 verse into its elements, but what magic art has analyzed a 
 single human emotion? Biology may trace the descent of 
 species and reveal a plausible evolution, but who has found the 
 germ of being? In the depths of every human soul, in the 
 dreams of sleep, in every flower that lifts its head to heaven, 
 in every, senseless, useless clod is lodged a mystery far trans 
 cending scientific skill to comprehend. 
 
 Must we then agree with Compte that in "positive science" 
 the range of thought is exhausted? Must we reject all we can 
 not comprehend, reduce all our views and beliefs to the five 
 senses, make human nature but the refined brutish instinct, and 
 this short pittance of time our only immortality? From such 
 dismal conclusions of the intellect, the soul instinctively recoils 
 and finds within itself a protest against such petty limits. 
 From other than scientific sources comes positive knowledge. 
 From the depths of consciousness comes certain proof that 
 beyond all this array of phenomena and from there reigns
 
 148 Winning Orations. 
 
 supernal power. The institutions of the soul are real phenom 
 ena, and they connect man with an infinite invisible to which 
 mere science can never attain. This is evinced in the common 
 consciousness of mankind. It is seen in the sculpture of the 
 Greeks and the painting of the great masters. It is found in 
 the Vedas, the Koran, and the Bible. It is typified in the 
 Valhalla of the wild Norsemen, and the Nirvana of the stolid 
 Burmese. It is sung in every line of genuine poetry, from 
 Homer to Tennyson. It is proved by the temples of the past 
 and the living faiths of the present. Through every age and 
 civilization this idea has run like a thread of gold, and modern 
 science from its very inability to destroy it only adds another 
 proof to the accumulated evidence of the ages. 
 
 It matters not that astronomy has demonstrated the infin 
 ities of heavenly motion; beyond all is the Omnipotent Power 
 that sways the whole. It matters not that geology has shown 
 the earth to be a child of law; law is an index of divinity. It 
 matters not that biology has shown an evolution in the organic 
 world; at the ultimate term of the series, though that term be 
 infinity itself, stands the first great cause. Beyond the reach of 
 human sense is found the larger arc of the great circle of truth. 
 Here, where science can never go with hammer, or scalpel, or 
 telescope, lies the distinctive region of faith. Here, where 
 science ends, religious faith takes up the argument and carries 
 it to its logical conclusions, far into the domain of the infinite. 
 
 Some have speculated on the religion of the future, and 
 predict a time when all religion shall dwindle to the proportions 
 of a classic myth. They have ill studied the soul in its higher 
 relations who indulge in such speculations. Religion of some 
 kind is a necessity to human existence. It is the aggregate of 
 those forces which most clearly distinguish man- from the 
 brute. It is the law of the soul as much as gravitation is the 
 law of matter. Whatever forms it may assume, under whatever 
 aspect it may appear, so long as man is man religious sentiment 
 must endure. It contains elements of truth that are eternal. 
 They were true when the stars sang together at the birth of 
 creation. They will be true when the last man stands on "this 
 bank and shoal of time." 
 
 Truth often presents to man a fragmentary and uncertain 
 aspect. ] ut a keener vision arid a steadier gaze reveal a har-
 
 TJie Unity of Science and Religion. \ 49 
 
 monious unity. This is the eternal truth of which science and 
 religion are but the infinitesimal fragments. From this stand 
 point all petty conflicts and disputes fade into mere nothing 
 ness; the spectre of human prejudice is removed and the 
 pure white light of God is revealed. In this faith \ve hope and 
 believe that those forces, which at times seem antagonistic, 
 are in reality the beautifully adjusted parts of a great whole, 
 and that all human wisdom, science, and philosophy, will yet 
 be grouped in a harmonious, beneficent unity. Somewhere 
 there must be a border-land, as yet dim and uncertain, where 
 science is religion and religion science; and where both unite to 
 form a colossal eminence from which man may, with some 
 philosophy, survey the highway of existence stretching from 
 the present to the limitless future. Here is the pyramid which 
 neither faith nor science can build unaided, but which both 
 may raise to form the highest excellence of human wisdom. 
 Here, at last, the unity of truth will in some degree unfold itself 
 to mortal sight. 
 
 When not science or philosophy or anything else but truth 
 shall be the pole-star of thoughtful men; when science, philos 
 ophy, and revelation, shall move in converging lines; when 
 scientists shall be theologians and theologians scientists; when 
 all sects may pitch their tents in harmony on the broad field 
 of a generous philosophy, then will the destiny of the human 
 race be fulfilled and the grand epic of civilization completed.
 
 THE CONFLICT OF LABOR AND CAPITAL. 
 
 By ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE, of DePauw University. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 Albert J. Beveridge was born in Highland County, Ohio, 
 October 6, 1862. While yet a child his parents removed to 
 Moultrie County, Illinois, where he worked on the farm, and 
 in the logging camps cutting and hauling logs, until he entered 
 DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana. He graduated from 
 this institution in 1885, and paid his way with money earned 
 during vacations and prize money won during his college 
 terms, having won every contest in which he took part during 
 his entire course. His masterly effort, "The Conflict of Labor 
 and Capital," he delivered at the inter-State contest of 1885, 
 and won first prize. In 1884 he stumped the State of Indiana, 
 under the direction of the Republican State Central Committee. 
 He has spoken during every State and national campaign since 
 then, under the direction of the State Central Committee. In 
 December, 1885, he began the study of law with McDonald, 
 Butler & Mason, at Indianapolis, and upon the dissolution of 
 this firm, in 1887, was made chief law clerk of the firm of 
 McDonald & Butler, until he opened his own office in January, 
 1889. He has enjoyed a profitable practice, with steady and 
 rapid growth; his specialities being corporation and commer 
 cial law. He was married November 24, 1887, to Miss Kate 
 Maud Langsdale, of Greencastle, and they now reside in their 
 happy home on Christian Avenue, Indianapolis, Indiana. Mr. 
 Beveridge has attracted much attention through his legal 
 efficiency, especially in the cases of State of Indiana ex rcl. 
 Yancey v. Hyde, 22 Northeastern Reporter, 644; and the State 
 of Indiana ex rel. Worrel v. Peelle, 22 Northeastern Reporter, 
 654, and 24 Northeastern Reporter, 440. Mr. Beveridge repre 
 sented Messrs. Yancey and Worrel, which cases arose because 
 of the conflict between Governor and Legislature. 
 
 (15)
 
 The Conflict of Labor and Capital. 151 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, Columbus, Ohio, May, 
 1885, taking rirst prize. Judges: Rev. H. \V. BAYLISS, Hon. S. M. CLARK, 
 Hon. J. W. HALLSIJAY, tiov. H JAIM.F.Y. Dr. E. K. YOUNG, Dr. J. HECKMAN. 
 
 GENKKAL ANALYSIS. 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 I. Principle originating most conflicts. 
 
 II. Principle solving such conflicts. 
 
 III. Application of above to conflict of labor and capital. 
 DISCUSSION. 
 
 I. Importance of the labor problem. 
 
 II. Social extremists already moving. 
 
 III. Positions of these social extremists. 
 
 IV. Positions of social extremists refuted. 
 
 V. Our present society equal to the problem. 
 
 VI. True causes of the conflict. 
 
 VII. True remedy the removal of these causes. 
 
 VIII. Forces preventing removal of these causes. 
 
 IX. These forces must therefore be overcome. 
 
 X. Methods of overcoming them. 
 CLOSE. 
 
 I. Summary. 
 
 Most conflicts result from reactions. The French Revolu 
 tion was a reaction against the oppression of caste, with Rous 
 seau to lead it. Skepticism is a reaction against conservative 
 creed, an Ingersoll leading it. Socialism is the reaction of 
 labor against capital, Henry George leading it. 
 
 Such extremes can never solve a problem. Upon the pas 
 sionless heights between, whence unprejudiced reason may 
 sweep the whole field of thought, is ever found the compre 
 hensive truth. The French Revolution resulted in the rejection 
 of extremes the union of individual liberty and social re 
 straint. Eventually science and dogma must reject extremes; 
 faith and reason must unite. The solution of the labor problem 
 must be the abandonment of extremes the union of labor 
 and capital. 
 
 This conflict is filling the universal mind, dictating political 
 platforms, anon bursting into riots and strikes, like the com 
 plaining murmurs of a coming storm. But eight years since, 
 it kindled the flames at Pittsburg, and sent terror to every city 
 in our land; it inspired the late riots in Hocking Valley and 
 South Bend, and waxing fiercer and fiercer, running bullets
 
 152 Winning Orations. 
 
 unseen, mustering forces invisible, it will, if unchecked, one 
 day rouse us with drum-beat and bugle-call. 
 
 Increasing population brings it each day nearer. Already 
 we have 1,000,000 unemployed men; already 2,000,000 laborers 
 secretly organized; already fifty newspapers spreading sedition 
 and excess; and our population is doubling every twenty-five 
 years! 
 
 Great cities cradle this conflict. With a Chicago, a New 
 York, a San Francisco, a score of cities like Paris, what must 
 we expect? With a hundred equal to Marseilles, what? When 
 the fortunes of Vanderbilts, ill-gotten, ill-kept, are filling the 
 masses with bitterness, what? Ah! was Macaulay dreaming 
 when he told of our coming Huns and Vandals? Was Wendell 
 Phillips a madman when he said that the problem of the rich 
 and poor would yet try our souls as slavery never tried them? 
 A problem, this, to which we must address ourselves now, ere 
 extremists throw labor and capital into armed conflict. 
 
 Already these extremists are moving. Already in behalf 
 of toiling poverty have such intellects as Rousseau, La Salle, 
 and George, proclaimed war against our social system. They 
 represent ideas, and they must be heard; for an idea, glowing 
 with the immortality of some man s convictions, can not be 
 silenced but by convincing argument. 
 
 These extremists demand the overthrow of our social sys 
 tem. They ask: "Why this vice and wretchedness among the 
 poor? Why have they not equal happiness with the rich? 
 Because society is unjust; conditions unequal. Because one 
 man owns a thousand acres while his neighbor is famishing." 
 Their remedy is, "Right the injustice; make property common, 
 as air is common, and sunlight and starlight; make -conditions 
 equal, as nature made them equal. With poverty swept away 
 the cause of the theft and murder and misery will be gone." 
 
 But their argument rests on false premises. Vice, sloth and 
 attendant wretchedness prevail, not because of poverty; pov 
 erty prevails because of them. It is the old, old problem of 
 human nature and its frailty, and human nature they disregard. 
 
 Is their remedy just? What gives property its value? Some 
 man s toil; some man s thought. Yonder marsh is worthless; 
 drain it and it teems with richness. Is it right, when one 
 man gave it value, for all to enjoy it equally? Manifestly not.
 
 77/6 Conflict of Labor and Capital. 153 
 
 Equality of condition is neither right nor natural. Great capac 
 ity deserves more than mean capacity. An Edison deserves 
 more than his engineer. The parable of the talents flashes 
 back the vision of justice, and upon justice is society founded; 
 and though the rains descend and the floods come and the 
 winds blow and beat upon it, it shall not fall, for it is founded 
 upon a rock. 
 
 Their remedy is as impossible as it is unjust. Could you 
 make property common, condition equal? Who should dwell 
 upon the shores of the Hudson? Who amid Arizona s sage- 
 bush? Who should choose? Who decide? Would there be 
 no favoritism, no fraud, no dissatisfaction? Ah, look just be 
 yond this frost-work of socialism, and there flashes the bayo 
 nets and the swords, rough-ground of anarchy, aye grim and 
 blackened warriors stand to their smoking guns! Equality of 
 condition is impossible until sunlit mountain and laughing 
 valley are level plains, climate uniform, and all men equals in 
 body and in brain. Indeed, men are like nature; here a crag, 
 and yonder a dell; there a Jungfrau with beetling cliffs and 
 crown of snow, yonder a generous plain; anon a dismal swamp 
 where pestilence broods. 
 
 Equalize conditions and every motive to effort dies. No 
 sweat of brow, no sweat of brain, never a glorious deed nor work 
 of genius if improved condition does not reward it. Better the 
 whirlwind of enterprise than the dreamless sleep of such equal 
 ity. Voiceless yet would be the golden harp of Shakespeare, 
 silent the song of Milton, still the fair}- fingers of Mozart, 
 unfilled with westward winds Columbus s sails, unreared our 
 temples of learning, and wrapped in the shadows of a dream 
 undreamt this mighty civilization, but for the magic touch o! 
 private enterprise. 
 
 No, not equality of condition, equality of privilege is the 
 principle of justice. Equal privileges to build fortunes if one- 
 can; to lead armies, if one can; to be an Humboldt, if one can. 
 This principle it was that gave us liberty; that handed the in 
 stant lightnings down to Lincoln; that stormed those heights 
 at Lookout equality of privilege and the tattered battle- 
 flags, torn by the shells at Yorktown, at Shiloh, at Gettysburg; 
 the monuments of those who fell upon the furrowed fields 
 where our heroes fought for the rights of men, calls upon us
 
 154 Winning Orations. 
 
 to preserve that principle forever! God grant that the day 
 may never dawn when socialism attempts to execute its theory, 
 for the sun of that day will set red amid the roar of cannon, and 
 upon the ruins of our Republic some Caesar may build his 
 throne! 
 
 Is our society, then, sufficient to solve this problem? Yes. 
 In the name of popular education, in the name of temperance 
 reform, in the name of Him of Nazareth, it is indeed sufficient. 
 
 But if society is equal to the question, why the conflict? 
 The solution means the removal of the cause. What, then, is 
 the cause of the conflict? Not society s injustice? No. It re 
 sults because right relations are distorted; because demagogues 
 have cut the cords of confidence binding labor and capital 
 together. Mutual distrust is the moving spirit. Labor and 
 capital forget what each owes the other. Capital forgets that 
 labor creates its wealth; that labor is human, with sacred rights; 
 forgets that "rank is but the guinea s stamp, the man s the gold 
 for a that;" forgets this, and fixes wages, not where they should 
 be, but as low as labor can live upon. Labor forgets that cap 
 ital alone can give it employment; that capital, like all force, 
 must be massed to accomplish great ends, and that scattered 
 it would be powerless as the shorn Sampson; forgets that labor 
 receives 95 per cent, and capital but 5 per cent, of all the value 
 industry creates, and that capital is the directing force which 
 renders this industry possible; forgets that the true nobility of 
 labor is "brave struggling, not repining;" that every force to 
 day is lifting labor up. Let the toiler pause and think. For 
 his sake thrones are falling and the world is yielding to the 
 royalty of thought and toil. For his sake science searches the 
 mystery of force and life, and, at the portals of the tomb, al 
 most grasps the mystery of death. Every influence college 
 or church, statesman s thought or law of matter whatever to 
 day is a living force is shaping in this century the golden age 
 of the workingman; yet, under all, is the hand of capital guid 
 ing, moulding, building. Labor and capital must remember 
 these things; labor must remember that capitalists deserve 
 more than workingmen for the foresight and responsibility 
 that create enterprise; capital must give labor the wages of 
 justice wages that rise and fall when profits rise and fall; con-
 
 The Conflict of Labor and Capital. 155 
 
 fidence must be restored, and this problem will vanish like frost 
 in a flood of sunshine. 
 
 But confidence is impossible while three classes remain 
 the ignorant, the criminal, and the poor; and if the school can 
 not overcome the ignorant, the church the criminal, and both 
 united to temperance the indigent, then alas for the future of 
 society! 
 
 Thus universal education becomes a social necessity. Ignor 
 ant labor can not reason justly. It is the ready victim of every 
 plausible fallacy. To ignorant labor capital seems the tyrant, 
 whose burdens it has borne through storm and blast with rags 
 and hunger as its only recompense. Well may capital tremble 
 when political power is in the hands of ignorant poverty. You 
 cannot remove the power; you must destroy the class; you 
 must enlighten labor. Enlightened labor can think rightly. 
 It knows that capital is the motor of the age. It is ever chang 
 ing places with capital the incompetent heir with the able 
 employee. Enlighten labor, and our ignorant class fades away 
 like the memory of a troubled dream. 
 
 But whence the criminal and indigent? The victims of 
 capital? Not so. Question statistics, and from the darkest 
 page comes the answer: Our poor spend $1,000,000,000 even- 
 year for intoxicants. Labor, worth $1,000,000,000 more, is 
 yearly incapacitated by intoxicants. Three-fifths of all pov 
 erty, nine-tenths of all crime, comes from intoxicants. Here 
 is the efficient cause of poverty, vice, and distrust. This is 
 more than sentiment; it is danger. The $2,000,000,000 yearly 
 taken from labor must be saved an economy which, almost 
 alone, will eliminate the criminal and indigent classes. 
 
 But of itself it can not solve this problem. The great need 
 of our business civilization is conscience. It alone can establish, 
 absolute confidence between labor and capital. Capital with 
 out conscience means tyranny; labor without conscience, an 
 archy. Out from the shades of Gethsemene, out from the riven 
 tomb, He of the thorn-crowned head is walking down the 
 troubled ages, lifting from bruised and staggering man the 
 burden of his woes, speaking conscience to every soul; and 
 here, where Christianity is the basis of society; here where 
 childhood s first lispings learn at mother s knee and from 
 mother s lips the story of that Ineffable One, we know that
 
 156 Winning Orations. 
 
 conscience may be a universal fact. Back of Christian faith 
 lies conscience; back of conscience, confidence. The church 
 must come to the rescue of our conscience, shipwrecked as it 
 well-nigh is in the tempest of this century s struggle for gain. 
 Capital must be humanized; labor must be Christianized. 
 Christain labor is the sublimest force in history. It awoke to 
 the morning cry of Paul Revere, and rallied on the green at 
 Lexington; out from the yearning arms of home it marched 
 into the flame of battle, and sent God s thunder-bolts smoking 
 against our national sin marched forth, not for itself, but for 
 the slave; and to Christian labor our hope must be anchored 
 in this conflict of to-day. But faithless labor; let that proces 
 sion which yesterday marched through Chicago declaring rob 
 bery just; let the barricades of Paris; let these show the fury 
 of labor without conscience, without God. Then let the song 
 of Bethlehem s morning stars peal on, peal on, till its melody 
 touches every troubled spirit; touches them in the vaults of 
 greed, in the homes of the lowly, in the camps of sin touches 
 and soothes and wins. Let the bugles of conscience sound the 
 truce of God through the whole world forever! 
 
 When the barriers to mutual trust have been leveled and 
 they will be; when we have a sober, an intelligent, and a Chris 
 tian people- and we will have them the sounds of this con 
 flict will die away, as the distant thunders of a stormy night 
 recede and die before the breaking of a summer s dawn. With 
 confidence established right-relations will result, labor and 
 capital will join hands, and this problem will be solved. 
 
 "A glory shines before us 
 Of what mankind shall be 
 Pure, generous, brave, and free: 
 A dream of man and woman, 
 Diviner still, but human, 
 Solving the problem old, 
 Shaping the age of gold. 
 Ring bells, in unreared steeples, 
 The joy of unborn peoples; 
 Sound trumpets, far off blown, 
 Your triumph is our own."
 
 w^
 
 SCHILLER AND GERMANY. 
 
 By VICTOR E. BENDER, of Knox College. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 The subject of this sketch, Victor E. Bender, is of German 
 parentage, born in Granville, Illinois, September, 1861. He 
 received a common school education, graduating from the 
 high school of that village at the age of sixteen, in 1878. For 
 the next two years he taught school in a German settlement 
 three miles from Granville, teaching the English branches half 
 of the day, and the other half was given to instruction in Ger 
 man. During these two years the thought foremost in the 
 mind of the young man was to acquire a college training, and 
 to this end he secured a position as librarian in Illinois College, 
 at Jacksonville. An accident prevented him from entering 
 upon his duties at the time contemplated, and so he was com 
 pelled to surrender the position and continue to teach another 
 year. In the fall of 1881 he entered the scientific department 
 of Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, with the intention of 
 continuing until his finances were exhausted, and trusting to a 
 vague providence for further resources. In his junior year he 
 was appointed one of six students in a local contest in oratory, 
 in which three juniors and three seniors participated! Mr. 
 Bender secured the first prize, the subject of his oration being 
 "Schiller and Germany." This subject was suggested by the 
 speaker s close association with Germans and German litera 
 ture. The winning of the first prize in this contest entitled him 
 to twenty dollars and the privilege of representing the college 
 at the inter-collegiate contest, which took place at Lincoln, 
 Illinois, in 1884, and upon which occasion he won the prize o! 
 seventy-five dollars and the honor of representing Illinois at 
 the inter-State contest. Upon the latter event he gained the 
 second prize and such honors as are usually bestowed upon the 
 
 (i57)
 
 158 Winning Orations. 
 
 victors in oratory. By request of the faculty of the college he 
 delivered his oration on commencement day, a privilege which 
 has been accorded to all orators who has represented Knox 
 College abroad. The two years following Mr. Bender s grad 
 uation, in 1885, he spent as principal of the public schools of 
 Abingdon, Illinois. In 1888 he was offered the chair of elo 
 cution in Knox College, which position he accepted, resigning 
 at the expiration of one year to engage in newspaper work- 
 in Omaha, Nebraska. After doing the work of a reporter on 
 the ( )maha Bee, and later on the Dispatch, he became city editor 
 of the Republican in the fall of 1889. In January, 1890, he pur 
 chased the Omaha Mercury, a paper devoted especially to the 
 legal interests of the city, and is still editor and proprietor. 
 June, 1889, Mr. Bender was married to Miss Alma B. Colville, 
 of Galesburg, Illinois, who since his freshman year has shared 
 in his numerous victories and occasional defeats. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, Columbus, Ohio, May, 
 1885, taking second prize. Judges: Rev. H. W. BAYLISS, Hon. S. M. CLARK 
 Hon. J. W. HALLSDAY, Gov. HOADLEY, Dr. E. K. YOUNG, Dr. J. HECKMAN 
 
 History is a fabric woven of the threads of countless lives, 
 interspersed with lines of deeper color and denser fibre. Even- 
 nation has its individual pattern, its peculiar shade the bright 
 or dark, the variegated or plain, prevails according as the in 
 fluence and direction of individual lives may determine. 
 
 The history of Germany reveals a brilliant and distinctive 
 double fibre, interlacing her fabric like beautiful threads of 
 gold. It represents the lives of Schiller and Goethe the 
 patriarchs of German literature, the apostles of their country s 
 intellectual freedom. Of the two, Schiller is pre-eminently the 
 true German, embodying in his nature every essential attribute 
 of German individuality, feeling and responding in every gen 
 uine sentiment of the German heart. 
 
 A hundred years previous to Schiller s advent in history, 
 Germany lay prostrate under the desolating stroke of the 
 Thirty Years War. It was the Great Sahara of her history. 
 Here and there, like feeble plants on a sterile soil, we see iso 
 lated intellects extending the feeble tendrils of their ideas,
 
 Schiller and Germany. 1 59 
 
 but the dire ravages of war had crushed out every element of 
 growth and vigor, leaving industries, science, literature, church, 
 nation, in a state of indifference and apathy. Oh for some 
 quickening, reviving power that would arouse her lethargic 
 faculties; that would invigorate and vitalize the exhausted 
 forces of the nation! That power came. Toward the middle 
 of the eighteenth century there is a perceptible thrill of life 
 throughout the empire Lessing had infused the life-giving 
 current. The prostrate nation slowly rising to her feet; Goethe 
 extends to her an aiding hand; and in the very midst of this 
 reawakening, this alternation of light and darkness, this break 
 ing of clouds, this promise of morning, there bursts the clear 
 light of perfect day! As the midnight fires, kindled by the 
 mercenary Robber Moor, broke from the plundered castle and 
 set aglow the dark Thuringian forests, so the fiery passions 
 that raged within that rugged creation, "The Robbers," burst 
 upon the gloom of the nation s lingering woe. Friedrich von 
 Schiller had completed the trinity that effected Germany s 
 restoration. Lessing, Goethe, Schiller the seed, the flower, 
 the fruit, of her social and political reform. 
 
 But what were the more specific relations of Schiller to his 
 native land? Hitherto the tendency of German thought had 
 been toward the abstract, the metaphysical. Sentiment was 
 chilled in cold philosophy, the heart yielded to the mind, 
 spiritual impulse was put down by mental predominance. 
 Lessing and Goethe, with their contemporaries, sought to dis 
 pel this prevailing mysticism of thought to lead the German 
 mind out of its labyrinths of speculation into the light of moral 
 truth. Thus when Schiller appeared, the mental and moral 
 elements of society were far from being homogeneous. It re 
 mained for him to reconcile mind to mind and heart to heart. 
 
 The drama of "The Robbers" at once revealed his genius 
 and proclaimed his mission. In it were voiced the burning 
 words that trembled on the lips of an oppressed nation; words 
 that heaped upon the social condition of Germany the onus of 
 popular condemnation; words that urged, advocated, demanded 
 immediate and radical reform; and they were uttered with the 
 authority and power of one supremely endowed. 
 
 The dramatic cast of Schiller s writings aided much in their 
 dissemination and influence. Ideal creations were embodied
 
 160 Winning Orations. 
 
 and impersonated; pictures of the mind were made objective; 
 fiction became real; reality, impressive. The stage proved the 
 great medium between Schiller and his countrymen, interpret 
 ing to the masses the lofty conceptions of the poet-thinker. 
 Not only as a dramatist, but as poet, historian, and philosopher, 
 did Schiller enrich and adorn. His history of the Thirty Years 
 War, embellished with graceful expression, expanded by philo 
 sophical comment, illumined by the light of candor and truth, 
 is a pillar of German literature. The philosophy of Kant, that 
 stupendous structure of thought, rising, as it were, in a single 
 night above the debris of shattered philosophies, received from 
 Schiller permanence and beauty. 
 
 But Schiller s true sphere lay not in recording the conduct 
 of war, nor yet in solving the problems of an abstruse philoso 
 phy. It lay rather in creating a higher ideal of individual duty; 
 in producing and sustaining the genuine sentiment of fraternal 
 love. His mind was ever filled with ideals of the possibilities 
 of humanity. Freedom and patriotism were twin conceptions 
 of his soul, and to establish the one and foster the other; to 
 teach, to elevate, to perfect; this was the all-controlling pur 
 pose of his life. As an idealist and a reformer he saw and 
 felt his country s greatest need, and under the inspiration of 
 patriotic impulse he caught up the fallen standard, and pro 
 claimed his mission and his service. "The public," he says, 
 "is now all to me, my stud}-, my confidant, my sovereign. 
 Something majestic hovers over me as I determine now to 
 v, ear no other fetters save the sentence of the world, to appeal 
 to no other throne but the soul of man." And to this volun 
 tary consecration he firmly adhered. 
 
 In a much wilder field, but with a less sympathetic nature, 
 Goethe was at this time a noted figure in the work of the nation s 
 reform. He recognized the genius and felt the influence of 
 Schiller, but regarded him with a jealous apprehension, and 
 every possibility of personal contact was avoided. Each was 
 the sole representative of his respective province of thought, 
 and in the higher atmosphere of their beings they figured 
 against an open horizon, like the overtopping heights of two 
 distinct and separate ranges. But circumstance casts the initial 
 thread to many a close-knit friendship. Mutually repelled at 
 first, chance brought them together, and their exalted natures
 
 Schiller and Germany. 161 
 
 yielded, touched, coalesced. In the reciprocal light of this 
 spiritual exaltation, literature was enhanced in breadth and 
 beauty, humanity became worthier, human destiny higher and 
 nobler. 
 
 True friendship is a potent alchemy. From the mingled 
 sentiments of kindred hearts is evolved the gold of character 
 and worth. In the communion of these two men of transcen 
 dent genius there was a mutual awakening of yet latent powers; 
 Schiller s fervor and intensity warmed the less passionate 
 Goethe; while the calm, comprehensive mind of the latter 
 modified the ideal creations of his friend, and reduced them 
 to a more practical ideality, enabling him to grasp more com 
 pletely and effectively the great problems of the human weal. 
 
 The Thirty Years War, with the interests it involved, the 
 issues to which it gave rise; with its innumerable phases of 
 nature and character; with its motives, prejudices, hopes, and 
 ambitions; replete with every shade and variety of human 
 conduct, now offers Schiller the possibilities of a mighty drama 
 a means to develop thoughts and ideas of individual and 
 national utility. And with a felicity of poetic and philosophic 
 genius he embodied those ideas in the inimitable characters of 
 "Wallenstein." 
 
 Towering above the field, of French history he sees the 
 sublime figure of the Maid of Orleans. Oh what scenes of thrill 
 ing action cluster about her! He sees her a peasant among 
 her flocks, he sees her in the transport of inspiration, rushing 
 to the field of conflict, now in the ranks, now in command, 
 leading the charge, subduing, conquering, crowning; suspected, 
 accused, condemned, burned. But above the ashes of this 
 lowly shepherdess of Domremy there lingers the spirit of her 
 consecrated life, beautified, exalted, perpetuated, by the trans 
 forming touch of the German poet. 
 
 But the fostering light which had burst so suddenly upon 
 Germany and Europe, which had dissipated the mists of moral 
 darkness, and now stood in the zenith of its splendor, was soon 
 to be obscured. Clouds of mortal disease impede and withhold 
 its rays; but as the curtain thickens and darkens there is a final 
 struggle of the spirit, a rift in the clouds, a baptism of refulgent 
 light, and it passes irrevocably into shadow and night. Need 
 I say what -was that last, that greatest, benison? Need I say
 
 1 62 Winning Orations. 
 
 how from the mystic depths of legendary lore he led the hero 
 Tell? how he placed him in his native Alps and bade him re 
 deem his olden glory? how he reawoke in forest and in valley 
 the song of the Alpine hunter; and flecked the hills with flocks, 
 the dales with happy homes? How Despotism clouded, then 
 obscured their happiness; and how at last the clouds were 
 dissipated, and Freedom smiled again? Ah! he baptised the 
 land in the imagery and beauty of a poet s conception, and 
 Switzerland stood transfigured. In this matchless representa 
 tion of the old legend Germany recognized the genuine quali 
 ties of statehood. The patience, constancy, bravery, patriot 
 ism, of the primitive Switzer, reproduced in living, sentient 
 characters, touched and moved the nation, and welded closer 
 the bonds of sympathy and love. That priceless legacy lives 
 in history and hearts. It was but yesterday that German rights 
 were jeopardized and the nation affronted. Across the borders 
 the aggressive Napoleon was marshaling his forces to the ex 
 hilarating notes of the "Marseillaise," but the sturdy German 
 heart was swayed by an incitement stronger and deeper than 
 that of martial music. Throughout the confederation, from 
 Strasbourg to the Baltic, by imperial mandate, the theatres 
 rang again with the voice of Wilhelm Tell, and modern Ger 
 many, catching the spirit of that grand old drama, rallied in 
 defense of Fatherland. Know you a higher tribute that can 
 be paid to genius? Know you a richer legacy that can be left 
 a native land? 
 
 Thus as a dramatist we see him peopling the stage with the 
 sublimest conceptions of character and art; in the garland of 
 poesy he has woven the brightest flowers of song; from tin- 
 field of civil strife he gathered lessons of human wisdom; into 
 the dark recesses of philosophy he carried a torch of truth. 
 Yet underlying all his intellectual powers was the character 
 that gave them firmness and dignity; the heart that warmed 
 them with feeling and sentiment; the soul that exalted and 
 idealized. The great heart of humanity was the source of his 
 every impulse, the pulse of national sentiment determined the 
 vigor of his works. He was the center of a new social and 
 political organism; the embodiment of sincerity and devotion; 
 the type of a patriot, poet, and man.
 
 Schiller and Germany. 163 
 
 Germany has had her scientists, poets, her statesmen and 
 generals; her Humboldt and Heine, her Bismarck and Moltke. 
 In every department of human knowledge she keeps pace with 
 the prodigious strides of the age, but at no time has she so 
 rallied her forces and asserted her intellectual and moral 
 powers as at the close of the eighteenth century when the 
 germs implanted by Lessing, Herder, and Lavater, were in 
 their fruitage; when Goethe wrote, and Richter puzzled and 
 pleased; when the whole world could acclaim with Germany, 
 Es lebe Friedrich von Schiller!"
 
 CONSERVATISM, AN ESSENTIAL ELEMENT OF 
 PROGRESS. 
 
 By E. C. RITSHER, of Beloit College. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 The winner of the first prize in the oratorical contest of 1886, 
 Mr. Edward Charles Ritsher, was born in Beloit, Wisconsin, 
 September 8, 1864. After passing through the grammar schools 
 of that city he entered the Beloit High School to prepare for 
 college. In 1881 he was graduated with honor from the high 
 school, and then began his life of more advanced study, to which 
 the same term, "with honor," has always been applicable. En 
 tering Beloit College in the fall of the same year the excellence 
 of his work won for him the Waterman Prize, which is assigned 
 to the graduate from any Illinois or Wisconsin high school 
 passing the best entrance examination. At the close of the 
 freshman year he was also awarded the Bridgeman Prize for 
 excellence in declamation. During the Sophomore year he 
 showed unusual ability in the work of the debating societies, 
 being the leading speaker on the winning side in what is known 
 as the Archaean Debate, a coveted honor; and also being suc 
 cessful in two joint debates of the principal literary societies. 
 The following year spent in outdoor life brought the student 
 back to the latter half of his college course with much im 
 proved health. At the old-time "junior ex." he was assigned 
 a philosophical oration, and at the end of the year the scholar 
 ship of the class was awarded to him. The final year of college 
 life was one of marked influence and prominence. Besides 
 obtaining other college honors, Mr. Ritsher passed successfully 
 through the home, State and inter-State oratorical contests. 
 His oration is its own proof of excellence. Notwithstanding 
 the incursions on time and strength in filling these appoint 
 ments, the valedictory oration was assigned to Mr. Ritsher at 
 
 (164)
 
 Conservatism, an Essential Element of Progress. 165 
 
 his graduation, and thus, in 1886, he completed his course 
 with very distinguished success. It ought also to be added 
 that he \vas repeatedly elected to journalistic honors, but al 
 ways felt obliged to decline on account of doubtful health. 
 In college he was also identified with Christian work. After 
 leaving college he became the assistant principal in the Beloit 
 High School. In 1887, deciding to study law, he became a 
 student of Columbia Law School, New York City, and was 
 graduated in 1889 with the degree of bachelor of law. A few 
 days later he delivered the master s oration at Beloit College. 
 In October, 1889, he was admitted to the Chicago bar, winning 
 high commendation. Locating in Chicago he has been re-, 
 markably successful in his profession, and it takes no prophet s 
 eye to predict for him a large and an influential future. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, Lawrence, Kansas, May, 
 1886, taking first prize. Judges: Pres. J. B. ANGELI,, Judge J. B. CASSODAY, 
 Hon. J. K. NASH, Hon. EUGENE WARE, Rev. Dr. THOMPSON, Hon. T. D. 
 THACHER. 
 
 The nineteenth century has been a century of wonders. 
 Prodigies have marked her onward course. The mechanical 
 appliances of ages have been revolutionized. The most stub 
 born forces have yielded to the mind of man. 
 
 The present generation seeks new worlds to conquer. It 
 penetrates the social and moral life of man, and there endeavors 
 to rival the material world in startling revolutions. This inva 
 sion of unknown regions calls together men of energy and 
 character, but it also gathers in reckless adventurers. Vandals 
 have arisen in the very realms of thought, wielding the intel 
 lectual weapons with ruthless hands. They cry against those 
 who counsel moderation. They declare war on what they call 
 the bigotry of the past. To avoid conservatism they leap into 
 fanaticism. Determined to reform society by a single stroke, 
 they bid defiance to reason and produce their legitimate fruits 
 Socialism, Nihilism, and Rebellion. Is there truth in their 
 doctrines? Is there method in their madness? Let the horrors 
 of the French Revolution be your answer! 
 
 If we pause to examine the facts in the case we find no truth 
 in the cry of these Philistines. No yawning gulf separates the
 
 1 66 Winning Orations. 
 
 conservatives from the reformers. Their ultimate aim is the 
 same. They differ only in their methods. The conservative 
 people of the world are not bigots. They are not the enemies 
 of progress. They grasp the truth with unerring mind. They 
 strive for its success with loyal hearts. The difference between 
 the conservative man and the would-be reformer is a difference 
 not of heart but of brain. It is the difference between the 
 practical man and the theoretical man. 
 
 The radical reformer acts in view of the ideal, rather than 
 the actual world. He believes that a certain thing is right and 
 that all else is wrong, and he says, "Give me the right or give 
 me nothing." He believes that he is entitled to the whole loaf, 
 and he proposes to have the whole loaf or starve. The smallest 
 portion of truth suffices so to engage his attention that he for 
 gets everything else, and becomes blind to all that is not com 
 prised within the narrow horizon of his beliefs. 
 
 These men have an idea, a plan, a theory, and mounting the 
 lofty platform of "principle," they defiantly proclaim their 
 ideas, and proceed to attack the fixed institutions of centuries 
 before they have secured the means of success. They do not 
 consider that success in human affairs is not to be obtained by- 
 such absolute proceedings or by a mere appeal to philosophical 
 argument. They do not consider that the human mind in 
 stinctively rebels against such treatment. They do not con 
 sider that they deliberately insult the intelligence and common 
 sense of their fellow-men. It does take principle and it does 
 take courage to pursue such a course, but we are placed in the 
 world to accomplish something, not merely to make martyrs 
 of themselves. And while we must admire the pluck of the 
 so-called reformers we cannot but condemn their judgment. 
 We cannot fail to see that their methods are futile and fraught 
 with danger. 
 
 The truly conservative men, on the contrary, realize f.hat 
 man must be dealt with not as an ideal but as he is. They 
 realize that tact must be exercised in human affairs. They 
 appreciate the fact that the body politic, like the human body, 
 must develop strength and energy by slow, sure processes; 
 that all abnormally rapid growth is but the symbol of decay. 
 These men take no narrow, visionary view of a subject, but 
 grasping at once, and as a whole, the matter which comes to
 
 Conservatism, an Essential Element of Progress. 167 
 
 their notice, they so calculate, arrange, and combine the con 
 flicting elements, that while the everlasting principle is placed 
 boldly forward so as not to be mistaken, care is taken that it 
 shall not be endangered by a negligent or rash estimate of the 
 circumstances which oppose it. 
 
 Truly conservative men respect an honest foe. They reali/e 
 that the principle tor which ih -y are contending is not the only 
 one in the world, but that there arc other doctrines, other facts, 
 other interests, which demand recognition. They are willing 
 even to take the crust if they cannot get the whole loaf. They 
 are willing to make use of stepping-stones to reach the exalted 
 position for which they strive. And they are none the less 
 men of principle for so doing; they simply combine with their 
 principle tact and common sense. They reali/e that yonder 
 mountain height of achievement must be reached not by a 
 reckless and fanatical attempt to climb straight up its perpen 
 dicular sides, but rather by following the winding path of policy 
 which with its gentle ascent leads ever onward ever upward to 
 the glorious summit of success! 
 
 This is the only road to achievement. Step by step is the 
 universal law of progress. The whole material world bows 
 reverently to its sway. The wondrous power, which out of 
 chaos produced the Universe the earth, the air, the heavens 
 with all their starry splendor- was a power working not by 
 mighty revolutions, but slowly, silently, through infinite ages. 
 The forces of violent action the wind, the flood, the earth 
 quake shock are the forces of destruction. Wherever we 
 turn our eyes the evidence of this law confronts us. All nature 
 is under its domination. Is man so mighty a creature that he 
 can safely defy the laws of the very power that gave him birth? 
 History teaches the reverse. 
 
 The English nation escaped from a condition of servitude 
 and tyranical oppression, not by violently throwing off the 
 yoke, but by over a century of steady, systematic, and intelli 
 gent growth. The Magna Charta, the Petition of Right, the 
 Bill of Rights those three great documents which have been 
 aptly termed the "Bible of the English Constitution" were 
 wrested from haughty kings not by a party of one idea, not 
 by fanatics thoughtless of all else, but by men who considered 
 the interests of all parties, and who for that very reason were
 
 1 68 Winning Orations. 
 
 able to develop a symmetrical and powerful public sentiment. 
 As one of our ablest political philosophers well says, "The 
 healthful development of the English Constitution was due to 
 the fact that no particular principle ever obtained an exclusive 
 influence. There was always a simultaneous development of 
 the different forces and a sort of negotiation or compromise 
 between their pretentions and interests." 
 
 Across the Channel, however, the case was different. The 
 French people defied the law of progress, and as a consequence 
 there arose in France certain factions with "Liberty" for their 
 watchword "Liberty though the Heavens fall." Revolution 
 they considered the touch-stone of progress; one idea, the con 
 dition of success. Violating the very principle for which they 
 fought they refused to consider other interests; they scorned 
 to compromise with other factions; they listened not to the 
 claims of monarchy, religion, or law. And those dark pages 
 in the history of France, from the perusal of which the very 
 demons turn in horror, are the record of their deeds. 
 
 Biography, too, adds its testimony to the immutability of 
 the law of progress and bears witness to the success of those 
 who recognize this law. Who is the man who has transformed 
 Prussia from a mass of petty states to that great and glorious 
 nation, second to none on the European continent? Bismarck; 
 a man of iron will, a man of dogged persistence, and yet withal, 
 a man of such consummate tact and policy that for twenty years 
 and more he has held his position as chief man of the realm in 
 spite of opposition, aye, even with the consent of his bitterest 
 political enemies. German unification was not an idea original 
 with him. Patriots and reformers for a century before had 
 been longing to accomplish this very thing. Bismarck was the 
 first to grapple with the subject as a statesman and not as an 
 enthusiast. Others had sought to make a nation in a day; 
 Bismarck was willing to give a lifetime for the work. 
 
 Who is the man who in England to-day wields a power and 
 an influence which defeat and political overthrow have not 
 been able to cripple? Gladstone; the Christian statesman, 
 the man of principle, and yet, for the sake of the welfare of 
 England, so conservative, that irrespective of party ties, he 
 seeks for the symmetrical development of all English interests. 
 His name is destined to become immortal, not as the leader of
 
 Conservatism, an Essential Element of Progress. 169 
 
 a party, not as a champion of one idea, but as a statesman who 
 could be active without being partisan, conservative without 
 being stationary, progressive without being fanatical. 
 
 Turn to our own history, to the name of one who will live 
 forever in the memory and the heart of this nation, to Abraham 
 I Jncoln, the emancipator of the slaves, the savior of the Union. 
 Coming into power when the nation was at a crisis, when as ;i 
 people we were wholly absorbed in watching one great event, 
 he never forgot for a moment the multiplicity of our interests 
 as a nation; he never allowed his hatred for an evil institution 
 to triumph over his reason; but amid the revilings of those 
 fanatics who have plunged us into ruin, he boldly declared, 
 "My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either 
 save or destroy Slavery. What I do about Slavery and the 
 colored race I do because I believe it helps to save the Union, 
 and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would 
 help to save the Union." And at that time when even among 
 our Northern men conflicting opinions prevailed; when 50,000 
 of our troops were from the border slaves States; when the 
 salvation of the Union demanded the earnest and unqualified 
 support of every loyal citizen at that time a policy less broad, 
 a course less statesmanlike, a rallying cry less comprehensive, 
 would have plunged us into irretrievable disaster and ruin 
 And I ask and I voice the sentiments of men than whom 
 there are none greater in this nation, than whom there are none 
 more loyal I ask if in 1856 the Garrisons, and the Phillipses 
 of the North, and the Davises, and the Toombses of the South, 
 had been replaced by men with the sagacity of Abraham Lin 
 coln; if we had used more policy in our treatment of an institu 
 tion morally wrong yet legally recognized; if we had considered 
 all the interests of this nation should we not have secured the 
 emancipation of the negro without the cost of five billions of 
 treasure, without devastating and beggaring one-half of our 
 fair land, without the sacrifice of six hundred thousand human 
 lives, without twenty-five years of sectional strife, without 
 plunging the negro into a condition of political servitude more 
 oppressive, if possible, than his former state? 
 
 There doubtless is a place in the world for radical reformers, 
 and without question they perform a grand work by arousing 
 to activity the public mind. But victory has rarely perched
 
 170 Winning Orations. 
 
 on their banners and their watchword has too often been 
 changed from "principle" to "intolerance." The sands of 
 time are red with the blood of their slaughtered victims; yet 
 the result of their warfare has been extermination, not peace. 
 The conservative men are the doers of the world. What 
 reformers could bring about by violence and revolution they 
 accomplish by natural means. It is time to denounce the 
 fanatical slander which is cast upon them. Malicious attack 
 may dim the splendor of their successes, but it cannot effect 
 the record of their achievements. Their eulogy is engraved 
 on the imperishable tablets of time. As long as civilization 
 advances, as long as Liberty endures, their fame is secure. 
 And if in the dim ages of the future their forces ever should be 
 outnumbered, and the legions of wreck and ruin run riot, the 
 tradition of a former civilization will yet remain a glorious 
 monument to the memory of conservative men.
 
 f* (HI
 
 MOB AND LAW. 
 
 By H. H. RUSSELL, of Oberlin College. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 Howard H. Russell is a typical westerner, full of push, pluck 
 and energy. He was born in Minnesota, in 1855, but spent the 
 greater part of his life in lo^va. He prepared himself for col 
 lege in Griswold Institution, Davenport, Iowa, where his father 
 was a professor. In 18/5 he began the study of law, and gradu 
 ated at the Des Moines Law School in 18/8. For six years he 
 was an active and successful practitioner, and won for himself 
 a name and place as one of the most promising young men at 
 the Iowa bar. In 1880 Mr. Russell was happily married to 
 Miss Lillian Davis, of Corning, Iowa, a daughter of the senior 
 partner of his law firm, and a woman of singular sweetness and 
 beauty of character, and to her is due more than to any other 
 human agency the turning points in his life, for in 1883 he 
 became an active and earnest Christian worker rather than 
 a successful man of the world. He spent the next five years 
 in Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. In addition to pursuing his 
 collegiate and theological studies he carried on successful pas 
 torates at North Amherst and Berea, Ohio. Upon his gradua 
 tion at Oberlin in 1888, he was invited by the Congregational 
 Union of Kansas City, Missouri, to establish a city mission en 
 terprise, and immediately began work in a large tent in South 
 west Kansas City. His organizing talent, personal magnetism, 
 and winning manners, his sympathy and interest in the masses, 
 are attested by the phenomenal growth of the Southwest Taber 
 nacle Church. In less than three years he built up a strong, 
 aggressive young church in the face of many obstacles. Mr. 
 Russell has recently accepted a call to the Armour Mission in 
 Chicago, the largest and most important city evangelistic enter 
 prise in the West. He is a leader of men and a force in what 
 ever community he resides. Following is his excellent oration. 
 
 (170
 
 Winning Orations. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, Lawrence, Kansas, May, 
 1886, taking second prize. Judges: Pres. J. B. ANGF.LL, Judge J. B. CASSO- 
 DAY, Hon. J. K. NASH, Hon. EUGENE WARE, Rev. Dr. THOMPSON, Hon. T. 
 D. THACHER. 
 
 The scene is in a manufacturing city. Five thousand strikers 
 have gathered to discuss their wrongs. They have been out of 
 the shops more than a week. Yesterday they forced their way 
 into a factory, stopped the engines, and drove out the men 
 who were still at work. To-day they made a riotous assault 
 upon a mill, but were repulsed by the police. To-night they 
 come with scowling faces and vindictive threats to listen to the 
 incendiary doctrines of socialism. A professional anarchist, 
 summoned from a distant city, feeds the flames of malice by 
 the following harangue: 
 
 [ANARCHIST.] "Comrades I rejoice with you to-night that 
 the hosts of degraded toil are mustering for war. We battle 
 for the destruction of the system of wage-slaving. It is a fight 
 for liberty, a fight for wife and child, a fight for bread. What 
 is this monstrous wrong that in a land of gold dispenses lavish 
 favors to the lazy few, and binds the millions of honest toilers 
 with chains of penury and want? It is the curse of Private 
 Property. Property is theft, because it enables him who has 
 not produced to consume the fruits of other people s toil. 
 
 "In the past twenty years the wealth of this country has in 
 creased over twenty billions of dollars; every cent derived from 
 the labor of the working class. Into whose hands has this 
 wealth found its way? Have you any of it? ( No/ says a 
 voice in the crowd, but we helped to produce it. ) I ll tell you 
 where it is. In the three cities, New York, Boston, and Phil 
 adelphia, are twenty men who hold, as private property, over 
 $750,000,000. In twenty years these aristocratic pickpockets 
 have fleeced the people of that enormous sum, and only three 
 cities and twenty robbers heard from. This is why, in a land 
 of plenty, tramps and starvelings multiply their dismal hordes. 
 This is the glorious land of millionaires and tramps. Your 
 wages are reduced to the starvation point, and you are told 
 the trouble is over-production. You produce too many shoes, 
 therefore you must go barefooted. You produce too much 
 clothing, therefore you must go naked. You produce too much
 
 Mob and Law. 173 
 
 grain, therefore you must starve. Men of toil, how long will 
 you basely cringe, while the lash of avarice lays welts upon 
 your backs? Do not hope for relief from the government. 
 The law-givers are the hired hands of the property-class. 
 They make laws only for Goulds and Vanderbilts. Then capi 
 tal goes to court and buys judge and jury. The whole machin 
 ery of law is geared for oppression. The government must be 
 overthrown. Anarchy, the only law of liberty, must take its 
 place. 
 
 "Comrades, the time for revolution has come. Our weapons 
 torch, pistol, dynamite. Assert your rights at once, or you 
 are cowards. Look at these great factories and massive blocks. 
 Capital has stolen them from you. See the gilded palaces of 
 luxury. You have built them for idlers, while your own families 
 are houseless. Lift up your starving children. Let them 
 look upon the tables of the rich heaped with viands snatched 
 from their hungry mouths. Go forth to-night; take back your 
 stolen property. If you set afire the dwelling of the capitalist, 
 or blow up his mill or factory, no matter; it is yours. You 
 have earned it; he has taken it from you. You have the right 
 to burn what is your own. And if you chance to take a life or 
 two, no matter; it is not murder to kill the pirate or the high 
 way robber. In his greed he kills those clear to you. You 
 strike for your rights. Your wife and children go cold and 
 hungry. Sickness follows. No money for medicine or doctor. 
 And so death comes. I knew such a man; only yesterday for 
 lack of money to hire the hearse he carried the rough coffin of 
 his murdered child upon his shoulder to the grave; and on the 
 street he met his heartless employer, with liveried lackeys, 
 riding at his ease. Workingmen, awake! Away with such in 
 famy! The tocsin of war has sounded death to the capitalist! 
 fA voice: Down with the millionaires! Kill them to a man! ) 
 Let robbers and pirates meet the fate they deserve death. 
 Come up from the hovels of serfs, and take the torch for ven 
 geance! Come out of the treadmills of despair, and sweep 
 your slave drivers to destruction! Burn and kill! Hurl the 
 plundering syndicate of capital to perdition! 
 
 To arms, to arms, ye brave! The avenging sword unsheathe! 
 March on, march on, all hearts resolved on liberty or death.
 
 174 Winning Orations. 
 
 "The red flag points the way. Fall in with your thousands, 
 shoulder to shoulder. \Ye have nothing to lose but our skack- 
 les; we have a world to win! Forward! Liberty or death!" 
 
 Who can depict the terrors of an angry mob, lashed into 
 madness by the tongue of hate? The profane howl of pan 
 demonium rises on the affrighted air. Blood-red eyes are 
 glaring with rage. Dirk-knives and pistols flash. Great clubs 
 are swung aloft in grimy hands. A brawling, bloodthirsty mob 
 waiting only a signal of the red ensign of blood to surge forth 
 to burn and kill. 
 
 It is the hour for a hero. 
 
 There are moments when the weal or woe of many homes, 
 when the safety of the nation hangs on the word and action of 
 one brave man. Such a moment is this. There is a movement 
 in the crowd, and there comes forth a man of giant frame. A 
 working-man, and yet t is plain to see a man who thinks. In 
 hours of respite from his furnace forge he has studied the burn 
 ing problems of the age. He is a man of conscience, with cool 
 brain, clear eye, steady nerve. He is well known among his 
 fellows. As he bares his brow to speak, the clubs are lowered 
 and the knives are sheathed; the curse half muttered dies 
 away, and intense silence rests upon the multitude as he thus 
 addresses them: 
 
 [WORKINGMAN.] "I do not come before you to enlarge 
 the story of our wrongs. That we are victims of an unjust 
 social system has been ably shown. It is a fact that the idle few 
 amass great fortunes by the strain of muscle and sweat of brow 
 of other men. It is true that we who produce the wealth are 
 not permitted to enjoy its fruits. All this is more than plain. 
 
 " Let us look this matter in the face. We have been wronged. 
 Is that any reason why we should rush into destruction? We 
 seek justice for our homes. Shall we gain our end by making 
 widows and orphans of our wives and children? W 7 e have 
 come to-night, men, where the ways divide. The question is: 
 Which way does wisdom lead? Will you at the bidding of a 
 stranger turn yourselves into a pack of thieves and murderers? 
 Or shall we seek redress by lawful means? 
 
 "This movement to secure living wages began last week. 
 We protested against reduction. This was right. We struck. 
 This was our privilege. We persuaded other men to join us in
 
 Mob atid Law. 175 
 
 the strike. This was lawful. At that time we had the sym 
 pathy of almost the entire city. But when violent hands were 
 laid upon those who refused to strike, and some attempted to 
 destroy the mill to secure our ends, we lost the good-will and 
 gained the condemnation of our friends. Shall we make an 
 other and more fatal blunder? Has labor ever won success by 
 its defiance of the State? What do Pittsburg, Chicago, and 
 the Hocking Valley teach? What has always been the cost of 
 violence? Millions of gold and torrents of blood. What the 
 result? Failure. Shall we plunge again into this crimson sea 
 of blood and fire? 
 
 "This vigorous orator, who makes speeches but never marches 
 with the crowd, has tried to spur you to action by calling you 
 cowards if you refuse to break the laws and put your lives in 
 peril. "T is always braver to do right than wrong. In this 
 case, it is safer, too. I heard once of a shrewd Yankee who 
 refused to fight a duel. His friends said he would be called a 
 coward, and this was his reply: I would rather be called a 
 coward all my life than be a corpse for five minutes. ( His 
 head was level, exclaims a man in front, and applause re 
 sounds in all directions.) No, brothers, let us not stain our 
 hands with blood; let us commit no deeds of violence, and 
 public opinion will again call for our rights. 
 
 "Who is it talks to-night of anarchy and treason? Who 
 counsels robbery and murder? An exile from his own country, 
 for his country s good. A hireling, just as ready to start a 
 strike at capital s request as to help the cause of labor. A 
 blatant instigator who orders the red flag forward, then skulks 
 in safety while his poor dupes rush madly on to ruin. W 7 ill you 
 choose his counsel? I tell you that for turning wrong to right 
 this is the best government in all the world. It is left for you 
 and me to pass what laws we please. Eighty per cent, of all 
 the voters are workingmen. Look at the lawful rights already 
 gained for labor: Imprisonment for debt abolished; the com 
 mon school established; the homestead granted free of cost; 
 a mechanic s lien to secure our pay; our homes exempt from 
 penalty for debt. These are but a fraction of the poor man s 
 rights. The humane laws we have are pledges for the future. 
 The} r guarantee a peaceful settlement of our strife with capital. 
 
 "Let us, then, stand united in this strife; but let us also be
 
 1/6 Winning Orations. 
 
 firm as the rock in support of the laws of our land. Let us be 
 true to our manhood, our homes, and the State. Let us seek 
 relief, not with the bullet but the ballot. Not revolution but 
 arbitration be our watchword, and the air will yet ring with 
 cheers of victory!" 
 
 The hush in the assembly, the sobered looks upon the faces 
 of those rough men, show that the manly words of their fellow- 
 toiler have won the full assent of their better judgment. Quietly 
 by twos and threes they disperse to their homes. 
 
 What is the lesson, my friends, taught by scenes like this? 
 These are serious times. Days of riot, plunder, torch, and 
 murder. In February, London pillaged; in March, Belgium 
 drenched with blood; in April, our own Fort Worth and East 
 St. Louis ravaged by death and terror. Flower-crowned May 
 has come, and to-night the hospitals of Chicago are rilled with 
 the dying victims of anarchy. What is the duty of the hour? 
 Manifestly this: Obedience to the law must be enforced; peace 
 and order must be maintained. If need be let the bugles blow, 
 and a million men be mustered into line. Dislodge the law 
 breaker whether he hides behind bludgeons or money-bags. 
 While statesmen and philanthropists are hastening toward a 
 better social system, capital and labor both must stand sub 
 missive to such statutes as we have. Law, though imperfect, 
 must be supreme. 
 
 In Cuba, in 1867, an American citizen was wrongfully 
 arrested by the Spanish authorities and condemned to die. 
 He was led out to be shot. As he sat on his coffin waiting for 
 the volley, the American Consul, hastily alighting from his 
 carriage, wrapped around him the stars and stripes. "Fire 
 upon that flag if you dare!" he said. They dared not fire, and 
 his life was saved. Round the rights of labor and the rights of 
 capital an invincible government has wrapped the sacred mantle 
 of protecting law. If the hand of avarice dare assault the one 
 or the torch of malice the other, let retribution fall swift and 
 dreadful as the thunderbolt. 
 
 Thus shall be ushered in that better day, in whose kindly 
 light shall thrive not greed but right, not Mob but Law.
 
 JOHN BROWN. 
 
 By J. H. FINLEY, of Knox College. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 John Huston Findley was born at Grand Ridge, Illinois. 
 He was a graduate from Ottawa Illinois High School, June, 
 1881, and valedictorian of his class. He then remained out of 
 school the following two years, at the end of which period he 
 entered Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, and graduated from 
 this institution, June, 1887. He received the essay prize in his 
 freshman year on the subject, "The Jew in Modern Politics;" 
 and won the oratorical prizes at Knox College contest, the 
 inter-collegiate contest, and the inter-State contest. The title 
 of his production on these three occasions was "John Brown," 
 and it was a very vivid and earnest appeal for a little kind feel 
 ing for the memory of poor John Brown. As soon as the tele 
 gram announcing Mr. Fin.ley s victory was received the bells of 
 Galesburg rang out in quick succession, and it is stated how a 
 bold "prep" broke through the doors, and crawled through the 
 dark passages to the college roof, broke a piece from the old 
 bell with an axe, so drunk was he with glee. At the reception 
 and banquet tendered Mr. Finley, a beautiful memento of the 
 occasion presented was a piece of metal finely polished, laid in 
 in a plush case, bearing the inscription, "Knox College Bell. 
 Broken for Finley, May 5, 1887." In the fall of 1887 he entered 
 upon the post-graduate course of Johns Hopkins University, 
 Baltimore, Maryland, remaining in this institution until Febru 
 ary, 1889, when he accepted the position of secretary of the 
 New York State Charities Aid Association, which position he 
 fills with entire satisfaction. In June, 1890, on invitation, he 
 delivered the master s oration on the subject, "A New Science." 
 Mr. Finley is a young man about twenty-five years old, and for 
 so young a man he has made an excellent showing. 
 
 C77)
 
 178 Winning Orations. 
 
 THE -ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, at Bloomington, Illinois, 
 May, 1887, taking first prize. Judges: Hon. PITMAN SMITH, Hon. JOHNSON 
 BRIGHAM, Hon. J. H. ROWELL, Gov. J. B. FOKAKER, Rev. PHILIP BROOKS, 
 Senator J. R. HAWLEY. 
 
 Far up the wooded slope of one of the Adirondacks there 
 is a lone grave. It is marked by no tall monument, and but 
 for its very remoteness and seclusion there in the \\ildness of 
 those enchanted hills, it might be passed unnoticed. An old 
 mossy tombstone resting against a huge rock marks it. There 
 are several inscriptions upon the stone. One faintly records 
 the death of a Revolutionary patriot. Beneath it another, a 
 strange companion for the former, reads: "John Brown, exe 
 cuted at Charlestown, Va., December 2d, 1859." At these 
 words the bleak and cold Adirondacks vanish. The summits 
 of the Blue Ridge appear in the distance. The Shenandoah 
 winds dreamily through its fertile valley. Northward the 
 heights along the Potomac are seen; and nearer, the village of 
 Charlestown. And see! beyond the village spires a gibbet 
 arises against the blue sky, and from the gloomy prison an old 
 man with flowing beard and hoary head, like a prophet of old, 
 is led out to die John Brown, the traitor or the patriot, the 
 murderer or the martyr which? 
 
 One generation makes history, the next records it. It is 
 ours to collect the memorials of our Civil War. Every hamlet 
 cherishes them; every city builds them in marble or bronze, 
 but more universal than these is that dearer memorial of the 
 heart which enshrines the heroes of that war. Time will erase 
 all these, and the coming centuries will know but two characters 
 as representatives of this period Lincoln the Emancipator, 
 and Grant the Soldier. Yet there is another, who, from his 
 peculiar part in the struggle, cannot be soon forgotten the 
 grim, gray herald of the conflict. Before him we pause in doubt. 
 His only monument is a gibbet, his epitaph, "traitor;" yet we 
 seem to hear the war-cry of the Union armies marching to 
 victory, led by that soul whose body lay moldering on the dis 
 tant mountain. 
 
 The striking singularity of his life has made its outlines 
 familiar. It seems taken from the chronicles of another page. 
 It has no counterpart in American history. An old man, Brown
 
 John Brown. 179 
 
 left his wild home on the Adirondacks to take part in the slav 
 ery struggle in Kansas. Impatient of the peaceful submission 
 of the Free-State settlers, he at once resisted the depredations 
 and outrages of the pro-slavery men, and began retaliatory 
 measures. With a small band of men, among them his sons, he 
 committed that deed known as the Pottawatomie murders, 
 dragging from their homes at midnight five unarmed pro- 
 slavery men and killing them in cold blood. In the border 
 warfare thus begun he took so prominent a part that the very 
 name of "Old John Brown" was a source of terror to his en 
 emies. When the struggle ended, he left Kansas and conveyed 
 a number of slaves from Missouri to Canada. A few months 
 later he made his startling appearance at Harper s Ferry; seized 
 the national arsenal, held it for two days. Finally captured, he 
 \vas tried, convicted, hanged. 
 
 Such is the brief story of his life as the world knows it; yet 
 little of the man is revealed in these bare facts. Lives are 
 measured by motives and results. His life was noble or base, 
 great or insignificant, according as the motives inspiring it 
 were noble or base, the influence exerted by it great or mean. 
 
 Many judge him wholly by these facts. To them his deeds 
 are the plottings of a heart burning for revenge. He entered 
 Kansas to avenge the wrongs of his sons, to fight Missouri, to 
 incite war between the North and South. Urged by his blind 
 insanity and frenzied hate he made the foolish and criminal 
 attack upon Harper s Ferry, and was rightly adjudged mur 
 derer, insurrectionist, traitor. True, in the midst of his mur 
 derous deeds he avowedly sought the freedom of the slave. 
 But assassins of presidents have pleaded the good of the 
 country; and the anarchist, as he hurls his bomb, shouts for 
 the liberty of the oppressed. Is Brown, then, for this the less 
 a traitor, the more a patriot? If a crazed fanatic, under the 
 pretext of a worthy end, may thus take the law into his own 
 hands and execute it after his own insane idea, where is our 
 protection against the outlaw and the mob? We were at that 
 time in a critical position. But for this mad act the sectional 
 chasm, by a few more delicately arranged compromises, would 
 have been successfully bridged, thousands of lives and millions 
 of dollars saved, and slavery quietly and peacefully removed. 
 Others hold that his influence in bringing on the war was in-
 
 i8o Winning Orations, 
 
 finitesimal. Like other fanatics, he leaped beyond the defen 
 sive ramparts of common prudence, and falling, the conserva 
 tive, the sensible men, were left to defend the principle and 
 secure the object for which he foolishly and futilely became a 
 martyr. 
 
 If, then, we measure his deeds by the standard of human 
 law; if we view his life in its rugged exterior alone; if we esti 
 mate his influence by the unsuccessful end of his designs- 
 his character must be denounced, his life be termed a failure, 
 and his whole public career be utterly condemned. 
 
 As great worlds course nightly through the skies unseen 
 do they not reflect the light of a hidden sun? So the life of 
 John Brown would long since have gone out in darkness did it 
 not shine with the light of eternal right and moral heroism. 
 The purpose which inspired his life was the emancipation of 
 the slave, and behind that purpose was compassion for the 
 oppressed a purpose born of the "Puritan idea" of freedom 
 and justice, by his direct descent. Note the steps: His ances 
 tors fled from Europe to America for individual liberty; his 
 grandfather died in the war of the Revolution for the liberty of 
 his countrymen; he was executed for the liberty of a despised 
 race. 
 
 With a Puritan sternness he had more than a Puritan tender 
 ness. See him as he sits watching through the long winter 
 night by the bedside of that sick child. Note the kindness with 
 which he always treated his prisoners; the gentleness with 
 which, when on trial, he met the curses of his foes, the rebukes 
 of his friends; or see him as on his way to the gallows he stoops 
 to kiss that negro child. Can you believe that revenge could 
 live in that heart? Ah! no. It was the wail of a race in bond 
 age ever ringing in his soul that led him on. 
 
 The black night of Pottawatomie is past. Through the 
 trees that border the creek the morning sun shines upon the 
 mutilated and bloody faces of five stark bodies. Where is the 
 murderer? A short distance up the stream in the cover of the 
 forest a little band of roughly clad men are seated around a 
 rude table. They are silent as one of their number, an old man 
 with long, white beard, in low broken tones asks a morning 
 blessing. There are blood stains on his folded hands. What 
 a scene is this! Hypocrite? No. Here is the true man con-
 
 John Broivn. 181 
 
 sistent with himself. He saw that dark deed necessary, and he 
 did it. Without the shedding of blood there was no remission 
 of this sin. Slavery was not to be talked, preached, or educated 
 out of existence. Men had talked, but the slave ships only in 
 creased their loads. The slave territory was widening. With 
 Kansas, more would be seized. What other means would 
 answer? "Providence," said he, "has made me an actor, and 
 slavery an outlaw." He took the law into his own hands, but 
 for no personal interest. He struck, during a national crisis, 
 upon the solid ground of real principle, in a cause not personal, 
 not local, not even national, but human. 
 
 Fanatic, madman, fool, if you please; such have been the 
 world s great reformers men who stake their lives on a prin 
 ciple. "Wise men argue questions; fools decide them." Our 
 legislators had discussed and enacted compromises for forty 
 years. They had now removed that old landmark the Mis 
 souri Compromise and the western territory, once secure, was 
 again with the reach of slavery. With the foresight of a states 
 man, Brown saw, and said, that slavery and the Union could 
 not exist together; but wiser and more truly patriotic than the 
 statesman who cried, "The Union, slavery or no slavery," he 
 said, "Down with slaver}-." Upon that conviction he raised his 
 arm in Kansas. The ruffians halted; the Free-State men took 
 courage; the territory was won for freedom. 
 
 \Ye are not surprised, then, to find him in that last heroic 
 scene of his life, daring, with a handful of men, to meet a 
 nation; facing an ignominious death, and, what is worse, an all 
 but universal execration for a race which had no rights white 
 men were bound to respect. Mad as his attempt may appear, 
 it has glorious parallels in history. Leonidas at Thermopylae, 
 Schamyl on the borders of Russia, Toussaint L Ouverture in 
 St. Domingo, failed as did he. Had we stood beside him in 
 Charlestown prison on the evening of his capture, we might 
 have said, "Yes, he failed;" but to-day we say, "He did not 
 fail." His death made all men either the friends or foes of 
 slavery. Between the North and the South stood John Brown s 
 gibbet. Henceforth it was slavery or Union. Compromise was 
 no longer possible. Had he succeeded, he must have failed. 
 His failure was his success.
 
 1 82 Winning Orations. 
 
 "For humanity sweeps onward; where to-day the martyr stands 
 On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands; 
 Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots burn, 
 While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return 
 To glean up the scattered ashes into History s golden urn." 
 
 Fearlessly, heroically, he met his fate. Hear him as he 
 stands before the Virginia court to say why sentence should 
 not be pronounced upon him: "I see a book kissed here which 
 I suppose to be the Bible. That book teaches me that all 
 things whatsoever I would that men should do unto me 1 
 should do even so to them. I have endeavored to act upon 
 that instruction. I believe that to have interfered as I have in 
 behalf of His despised poor was not wrong, but right. Had I so 
 interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the so-called great, 
 every man in this court would have deemed it an act worth} 
 of reward rather than punishment. Now, if it is judged neces 
 sary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends 
 of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my 
 children and with the blood of millions in this slave country 
 whose rights are disregarded by wicked and unjust enactments, 
 I submit." Byron dying amid the marshes of Missolonghi, 
 La Fayette bleeding at Brandywine, and shall I say Washing 
 ton at Valley Forge, showed not such disinterested bravery, 
 such generous devotion. Traitor? Then were the brave who 
 fell at Lexington traitors. They taught us this, "that we may 
 resist with arms a law which violates the principles of natural 
 justice." Emmet did it in Ireland; Wallace, in Scotland; Gari 
 baldi, in Italy, and we honor them; John Brown did it in Amer 
 ica, the land of the free, and we hanged him. 
 
 Is this his fitting and final reward? The soaring shaft that 
 stands by Potomac s stream answers, No. The monuments, 
 which a grateful people have erected to the memory of those 
 who died for the slave, say, No. The gratitude of millions 
 freed from bondage says, No. And the day will come when 
 even the mountains of Virginia will echo back the answer, No.
 
 THE MAN AND THE STATE. 
 
 By PAKK.E DANIKI.S, of W abash College. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 Parke Daniels was born in Rockville, Parke County, Indiana, 
 on the 4th day of October, 1865. He was graduated from the 
 Rockville public schools in May, 1882, and on the i6th of the 
 following September entered the senior department of the pre 
 paratory school of Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana, 
 graduating at the close of the year with the honor of first-prize 
 man in declamation. In the fall of 1883 he entered college 
 proper, and soon developed a strong liking for the work of 
 the literary society. He soon took rank as a debater, and 
 throughout his college course maintained the reputation of 
 being a superior writer and speaker. His share of honors won 
 in college for excellence with the pen and on the platform was 
 large. As the representative of his college in the State orator 
 ical contest he won the privilege of representing the "Hoosier 
 State" in the inter-State contest. His style of delivery was 
 said to be easy and effective, receiving the highest mark of 
 the nine discourses. It is impartial to add that but for the 
 marking on thought by Governor Foraker he would have taken 
 first prize. How strange that Mr. Daniels should have written 
 so much democracy in his speech being an earnest Republican. 
 In later years he has won a good reputation as a political 
 speaker. In September, 1887, he entered the law office of 
 McDonald, Bulter & Snow, Indianapolis, as student and clerk, 
 which position he held over three years. Business has called 
 Mr. Daniels into the South, and he is now temporarily located 
 in Mississippi as superintendent of manufacturing. It is his 
 purpose, however, soon to return to the law, in which profession 
 he is destined to be successful. 
 
 (183)
 
 1 84 Winning Orations. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, at THoomington, Illinois 
 May, 1887, taking second prize. Judges: Hon. PITMAN SMITH, Hon. JOHN 
 SON BRIGHAM, Hon. J. H. ROWELL, Gov. J. B. FORAKER, Rev. PHILIP 
 BROOKS, Senator J. R. HAWLEY. 
 
 "The worth of a State, in the long run," wrote John Stuart 
 Mill, "is the wo rth of the individuals composing it." "We put 
 too much faith in systems and look too little to men," was the 
 opinion of Lord Beaconsfield; and a late German writer of our 
 century holds it to be an unhealthy state of affairs "when the 
 man is sacrificed to the citizen." 
 
 In these varying phases is found the expression of a hidden 
 half-truth that has been the battle-ground of the ages. Men 
 have been slow to learn and declare the fact of their intrinsic 
 superiority over States. While the few may have recognized 
 the true sovereignty the individual man it has been the 
 superstition of the many to accept the principle of State 
 omnipotence and bend the knee to the efficacy of law. 
 
 This form of superstition is not a thing entirely of the past. 
 During the period of our country s life it has experienced an 
 emphatic decay and a pronounced revival as well. Amid the 
 scenes that marked the dawn of the nineteenth contury, that 
 epoch memorable in the history of liberty as the birth-period 
 of the "common man," the old belief that States could do all 
 and should be all went down, but could not be forgotten. 
 Once more, to-day, the tide of political thought is setting back 
 toward the idea of a "paternal" policy of government. A 
 century of free thought and free discussion has bred among 
 the rank and file a high degree of political self-consciousness. 
 The people are rising to a knowledge of their power as law 
 makers and rulers, and demand a trial of their o\vn law. The 
 "labor candidate" is abroad in the land; the "farmer candi 
 date" is formidable, and the liquor interests, alas! so unprotected 
 in our day and generation, are clamoring for protection in their 
 "rights." Every class, every section, every interest, is demand 
 ing recognition and legislation. Thus is democracy put upon 
 its test. Many ask, "Will it endure?" Wherefore returns the 
 old superstition, firm, enduring throughout the ages, to urge as 
 the only safeguard of democratic institutions the wide exten 
 sion of State control.
 
 The Man and the State. 185 
 
 It is suggested that our modern civilization, rapidly advanc 
 ing, intensely practical in its character, bringing in its deep 
 complication the most minute divisions of labor, demands not 
 less but more government. In the marvelous achievements of 
 private enterprise are seen monopoly and oppression. On all 
 sides arise the evidences of a vast disproportion existing be 
 tween the different parts of our social structure. While one- 
 passes his life in an atmosphere of poverty and destitution, not 
 daring to claim one foot of the earth which God has made for 
 all men, another enjoys wealth and luxury and comfort; he has 
 acres numbered by thousands he is lord paramount; the other 
 is vassal. 
 
 All this we know to be radically wrong. Though poverty s 
 lament is the threadbare theme of the ages, we cannot close 
 our eyes and hearts to the cause of humanity 
 
 " Nor hear with a disdainful smile 
 The short and simple annals of the poor." 
 
 But whence and how shall the remedy come? Manifestly it 
 must come from society which owes it. But through what 
 agency shall society apply its remedy? Once more the answer 
 is caught up, resurrected from the tomb of heathen civilization: 
 " By the intervention of that power through which alone society 
 as an abstract personality can act the State. Let the State 
 abolish the right of property in land. Let the State buy and 
 control the railroad and the telegraph. Suppress the middle 
 men who stand between production and consumption. Let the 
 State be banker, merchant, landlord, teacher, parent, to us all 
 for our mighty civilization demands a form of government which 
 shall be more responsible to the individual for his welfare, and 
 more potent to satisfy his ever-increasing desires." 
 
 Thus reasoning we are enabled to establish and verify a 
 theory of government which is well called "paternalism." 
 Plausible, indeed, are these arguments, but are they adequate? 
 Do they comprehend in their scope the matter of price that 
 must be paid the State for its services? Do they cover the 
 phase of the question that is not seen as well as the phase that 
 is seen? Look just beyond this frost-work of theory. Is it an 
 exalted standard of individual character, a free and vigorous 
 people, an advancing civilization, that you see? Not so. 
 Rather it is likely that amid a grand confusion of princip^s 
 and privileges you will see national degeneracy and individual
 
 1 86 Winning Orations. 
 
 dependency a tyrant, as it were, sitting upon a throne; it is 
 the rule of despotism most terrible, and through and in it all 
 you read the motto of a departed civilization: "Men made only 
 for the State." 
 
 But is the man made for the State? The chief sophism of 
 the ancient law-giver, and of the modern theorist as well, con 
 sists in confounding the idea of society with the idea of the 
 State, by attributing to these organisms the same end and 
 destiny. Were the hypothesis true the action of the State 
 might be extended illimitably. But it is false. Society is a 
 grand aggregate of human character, a federation of men, 
 "veritable beings endowed with immortality," who "have a 
 different destiny from that of States." The social pulse throbs 
 with the energy of individual life. Social forces are dynamical 
 and active; government is all mechanical, inert, passive. Gov 
 ernment has no being, it is but form, and perishable. States 
 and governments are born but to die. And yet, as mankind 
 moves onward in the march of civilization, keeping time with 
 the everlasting refrain of "freedom," the heavy ordnance of 
 government must lumber on as well; its forms must yield to 
 that "increasing purpose," which through the ages runs there 
 must be improvement in the sphere of authority. And there 
 has been progress here. How is it shown. One machine is 
 better than another of the same kind, because it better accom 
 plishes the purpose for which both were made. One form of 
 government surpasses another only in so far as it conforms 
 more perfectly to the idea of personal rights, and gives better 
 expression to the individual citizen s worth. Men speak of the 
 "paternal care," and "solicitude" of the State and of the "bene 
 fits of government." These are false and delusive phrases. What 
 more is the State that an index of sheer power? "Government 
 began in tyranny and force," and has continued in that character 
 from the dawn of society to the present time a conservative, 
 restraining influence. What power has given to the past what 
 of beauty and good and worth it contains? Not the State. 
 What power sends the spirit of energy and industry and life 
 coursing through the great arteries of the present? What 
 power is building the structure of civilization ever and to-day? 
 Not the State, but the man; the unit is doing all this. It is 
 the character of the State to stand as a grim sentinel on every
 
 The Man and the State. 187 
 
 path of achievement, challenging all innovation, impeding all 
 progress. It speaks the words of ill-omen and death, "Thus 
 far and no farther shalt thou go." But the individual says, 
 "I am free; I am progressive; I will climb loftier heights of 
 achievement." And thus it is by the force and energy of in 
 dividual character that the world is pushed along. 
 
 The State is made for the man. The question which nations 
 must answer, and answer for their weal or woe, is: Where shall 
 State function stop and individual action begin? 
 
 Says one, "the State is the moral being organized in society 
 for the preservation of rights and justice." The immediate 
 function of government is protection, the spirit of all its laws 
 should be justice. But government is not bound, in duty or 
 obligation, to secure to the individual his due measure of hap 
 piness. The chief obstacle which stands between the desire 
 for happiness and its attainment is not the fact of the interfer 
 ence of other men, but the frailty of human nature. When, 
 therefore, we say that because it is the function of government 
 to protect men in their rights, it should secure to them that 
 measure of happiness they are entitled to enjoy, we must say 
 that government should protect men against their own greed, 
 their own lust, their own improvidence; in a word, that govern 
 ment should protect men against themselves. Such a theory 
 is false in conception and would be fatal in practice. Man has 
 free will, and he has the right to liberty, higher and antecedent 
 to that of happiness. Underlying the structure of society is 
 the law of equal freedom. Every man has the right, God- 
 given and supreme, to the fullest exercise of all his powers 
 compatible with the same right in others. To secure this right, 
 to enforce this law, is the first and supreme function of govern 
 ment. Let the State over-step this line of duty and it is apt to 
 become, no longer a protector, but an aggressor. Rightly 
 enough the State is clothed with certain duties pertinent to the 
 general welfare and the conduct of public business. It carries 
 the mail, it educates the poor, it wields the strong arm of the 
 "police power" preserving order, protecting life, health, and 
 social comfort. But it will not do to say that because the 
 State does all these things well it can and should do more. 
 Whither does this process of reasoning tend? Read the an 
 swer in the experience of nations. Turn to the Europe of to-
 
 1 88 Winning Orations. 
 
 day. What nations are the freest, yet withal, the most enter 
 prising and happy? They are those whose laws-encroach least 
 upon the domain of personal activity; where individuality has 
 the broadest scope where the power of the government is least 
 felt. 
 
 Take France. Her history is a history of bloodshed and 
 revolution; but at last France uplifts her head among the 
 proudest and freest nations of the earth, to declare with them 
 the great truth, that "within limits of right all human transac 
 tions should flow from the voluntary action of man." 
 
 But how stands the case in Germany, the land of Luther 
 and Schiller. Germany leads the world in learned thought; 
 her armament is unsurpassed, here government is strong and 
 pure, but above all it is "paternal," and concealed in that ele 
 ment of paternalism is one of the most arrant despotisms that 
 exist in all Europe or the world. How fares the cause of lib 
 erty there? What of the German citizen? A veritable slave, 
 so firmly held within the restraints of the law that he has be 
 come a mere chattel in the hands of an iron-willed prince. 
 And it is well that Bismarck should now draw tighter the bands 
 of the law, thereby to increase the power and fortify the 
 strength of the German Empire; for if the time ever comes, 
 and it may be near at hand, when again the war-cry of France 
 shall ring out for him to hear, his armament must needs be 
 strong to avail against the storm that will follow. When again 
 the inspiring strains of the Marseillaise shall echo among the 
 vine-clad hills and across the waters of the German Rhine let 
 Prince Bismarck beware, for he will be destined to meet an 
 army of men, strong in the spirit of freedom, and imbued with 
 that true love of country which is born alone of a free govern 
 ment and whose power is well-nigh invincible. 
 
 75ut go elsewhere. Search the history of the far past or 
 scan the horizon of the contemporary world. Wherever there 
 is a paternal government, one that assumes to discharge those 
 functions which by the laws of nature are assigned to the 
 sphere of personal effort, there will be found a degenerating 
 people, a stagnant civilization. It is the sternest teaching of 
 all history that a paternal government cannot but degrade the 
 manhood and dwarf in its development the character of the 
 people it rules.
 
 The Man and the State. \ 89 
 
 As far as may be practicable let the people care for them 
 selves. Such is the verdict of experience. It is not to the 
 principle of paternalism that we must look for the protection 
 and perpetuity of democratic institutions, nor vet to the oppo 
 site and equally dangerous extreme of individualism. Between 
 these opposing principles lies the vantage ground of American 
 politics. Upon the wholesome mean rests the solvent of hostile 
 ideas, and out of it grows the scheme of our political salvation. 
 Self-help generates stability; personal responsibility begets 
 manhood. The American people are, above all else, thoroughly 
 individualized, thoroughly independent, and wholly capable of 
 governing themselves. What has brought about this result? 
 It is the principle of individual responsibility, in the family, in 
 the community, in the State and nation; it is this idea, put into 
 practice, that has brought to the history of the American people 
 a halo of glory; and it is this idea, handed down to us in the 
 memory of Lexington and Valley Forge, enshrined in the im 
 mortal deeds of those who fought away their lives that men 
 might enjoy it this must be our rock, the hope of our future. 
 
 Yet, there is withal a charm that lingers about the ideal of 
 strong government. It is natural for men to echo in their 
 hearts the poet s longing: 
 
 " Oh for a man with head, heart, hand, 
 One strong, still man in a blatant land, 
 Aristocrat, autocrat, democrat one, 
 Who can rule and dare not lie." 
 
 But may this blind worship of government die out from the 
 hearts of men, until it be lost in the fervid glory of a new and 
 better regime. Away with the belief that the State can make 
 us "o er all the ills of life victorious." Let reformer and states 
 man alike reject the principle of State omnipotence and strive 
 to imbue the individual man with a consciousness of his own 
 power; and when both shall be actuated, not by greed of gain 
 or glory, but by that broad and wise philanthropy which is 
 grounded in common sense and which rises above sentimen 
 tality, then will right relations exist between the man and 
 the State; liberty and authority will meet on common ground, 
 recognizing their union in a common cause that cause the 
 exaltation of human character, for this is "the end of Nature, 
 to reach unto the coronation of her king."
 
 PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL PARTIES. 
 
 By R. G. JOHNSON, of DePauw University. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 Robert Grant Johnson, winner of the inter-State oratorical 
 contest, at Greencastle, Indiana, in 1888, was born near Craw- 
 fordsville, Indiana, in 1865. His parents belong to the thrifty 
 farming class of this State. In the district school where Mr. 
 Johnson acquired his early education he was particularly dis 
 tinguished by studious habits and a remarkable faculty of 
 memorizing. He was always a favorite at the Friday "dress 
 parades" in the school-room, and at school exhibitions. He 
 took great interest in history and books of travel, and at an 
 early age was master of Dickens s Child s History of England. 
 At the age of sixteen he became restless and dissatisfied with 
 the farm. While toiling under the hot sun in the fields his 
 mind was off to the city dwelling upon other vocations. His 
 cousins from college came to visit him, and he began to form 
 ideas of college life, and finally told his father of his determin 
 ation to leave the farm. Being an only son of sensible parents 
 he met with the most substantial encouragement. In the fall 
 of 1883 Mr. Johnson entered DePauw University, at Greencastle, 
 and showed his capacity by making two years of preparatory 
 work in one. In his freshman year he became a member of 
 the Delta Kappa Epsilon College fraternity, in which he took 
 an active part; he also turned his attention to speaking, win 
 ning the first prize in declamation over the sophomores and 
 juniors, and was thenceforward recognized as a formidable con 
 testant and debater. Gifted with a voice of remarkable rich 
 ness and strength, which he assiduously cultivated, an earnest 
 and direct style of speaking, he always made a good impression. 
 At the inter-State contest Mr. Johnson delivered a speech on 
 "Principles of Political Parties," which was peculiarly adapted 
 
 (190)
 
 Principles of Political Parties. 191 
 
 to the political outlook of Indiana at that time. After gradu 
 ating he engaged in the campaign of 1888, making speeches for 
 the Republican party, with marked success. As soon as elec 
 tion was over he went to Chicago, and found employment as a 
 newspaper reporter, but in a few months entered the law office 
 of Sheldon & Sheldon. In the fall of 1889 he entered the 
 senior class of the Chicago College of Law, graduating in June, 
 winning the first prize of fifty dollars for the best essay. He 
 is now admitted to the bar, and holds the position of managing 
 clerk for Sheldon & Sheldon. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, at Greencastle, Indiana, 
 May, 1888, taking first prize. Judges: Gov. J. B. FORAKER, Judge FRAKE, 
 Rev. STEWART, Prof. WAREY, Messrs. WINSTEIX and MITCHENER. 
 
 ANALYSIS. 
 
 I. Logical ground for existence of parties. 
 
 II. Necessity of two parties. 
 
 III. Derivation of principles underlying political parties. 
 
 IV. The principles traced in political history. 
 
 V. Outcome of attempts of independent parties, based upon narrow is 
 
 sues, to subvert dominant parties, e. g., Abolition, Free-soil, etc., 
 Labor, Socialistic, and Prohibition parties considered. 
 
 VI. Errors of third partyism. 
 
 VII. Power of public sentiment to secure reform through existing parties. 
 
 VIII. Conclusion. 
 
 We live under a government of majorities. Through party 
 organization alone can the will of the majority be ascertained. 
 If there were no parties, no principles enunciated, no tickets 
 nominated, each citizen must write his own ballot, and, from 
 the multiplicity of interests, the conflict of desires, endless 
 confusion would result. Parties represent ideas, convictions, 
 concerning the rights of men in government. To secure ma 
 jorities parties must be organized upon the broadest political 
 principles. As the principle is narrowed the number of fol 
 lowers is correspondingly decreased. Parties representing nar 
 row issues can no more secure majorities than can a religious 
 denomination representing details in worship include a majority 
 of Christians. Without organization upon the broadest prin 
 ciples majorities are impossible. Two fundamental principles 
 give two parties.
 
 192 Winning Orations. 
 
 Whence are these principles derived? They are found in 
 the universal law of action and reaction. This law exists in the 
 nature of all matter, of all force. Consider a shooting star, a 
 sweeping hurricane, a political revolution, a religious reforma 
 tion: they are but manifestations of an universal conflict be 
 tween two forces one tending to produce change, the other 
 to resist it. Progress, social or political, is the resultant of this 
 conflict. This law, inherent in mind and matter, divides men 
 into radicals and conservatives, and upon this division are estab 
 lished political parties around whose principles the people 
 gather and cluster as bits of steel about the poles of a magnet. 
 What is all political history but the record of the action and 
 reaction of radical and conservative ideas crystalized about 
 contending principles of government. 
 
 The conflict has always been between the ideas of strong- 
 central and local self-government a constant struggle to 
 maintain an equilibrium of these forces. The dagger of Brutus 
 sought not so much to stab the body of Caesar as to destroy the 
 tendency toward centralization. The ruins of rich cities upon 
 the Rhine stand solemn monuments of the reaction against 
 that declaration of absolutism, "I am the State." In Russia, 
 in Austria, in Germany, this conflict prevails. The last seven 
 centuries of Irish history is but a desperate struggle between 
 these same antagonistic forces. The principles of the Whig 
 party in England, "that all positive institutions exist for the 
 general good," stood arrayed against the Tory principle of 
 "the divine right of kings." It flamed like the motto of Con- 
 stantine, an inspiration to the Commons; it fired with dauntless 
 courage Hampden and Pym and Cromwell and Milton. Con 
 stantly resisted by the conservative idea that "the king can do 
 no wrong," it steadily gained the vantage ground, securing self- 
 government for the Englishman at home, rising victorious in 
 New England, winning the day at Lexington, at Bunker Hill, 
 and Yorktown, until we behold its legitimate fruit in the funda 
 mental principle of our government, that "the people are the 
 true source of all political power." 
 
 At the formation of our Constitution, these ever-active and 
 opposing principles were at work, contending for the shaping 
 of the Republic s destiny and creating the two great parties 
 that must ever control it one advocating strong central, the
 
 Principles of Political Parties. 193 
 
 other, local self-government. But did the acceptance of the 
 Federal principle in the Constitution destroy the logic by which 
 Hamilton urged a strong central government, or that by which 
 Jefferson contended for the opposing principle of State s sover 
 eignty? By no means. These same parties, actuated by the 
 same persistent principles, divided upon the interpretation of 
 that Constitution and have passed down the century in unbroken 
 parallel lines. Whatever their name they have never lost iden 
 tity: whether denominated Federalist or anti-Federalist, Re 
 publican or Democrat, one has been the liberal, the other the 
 strict constructionist in the interpretation of the Constitution, 
 and because of this, one has always desired more, the other less, 
 legislation on measures of national reform and progress. Ham 
 ilton s tariff policy, internal improvements, the disposition of 
 the public lands, Calhoun s nullification resolutions all in 
 volved the question of the relative functions of State and na 
 tional government. It was thus when Webster met, in matchless 
 eloquence, the champion of the South; the same conflict when 
 our fathers shouldered muskets and marched to the fields of 
 death. Back of the lines of steel at Gettysburg and Appo- 
 mattox, aiming every bayonet, loading every cannon, inspiring 
 every charge, sublime in the smoke of conflict, stood colossal the 
 opposing principles of State and nation. Ah! there was more 
 than a social and moral issue in that contest. Our Lincolns, 
 our Sumners, our Grants, met the Davises, the Stephenses, the 
 Lees, not on the moral issue of slavery only they fought for 
 a broader idea, a political principle. They fought for the in 
 tegrity of the nation. 
 
 The war wrote in characters of blood, "Each State is sub 
 ordinate to the nation;" but it left human nature unchanged, 
 and the silent conflict of centralization and local self-govern 
 ment, agitated by new issues, goes on. 
 
 An era of good feeling, as during Monroe s administration, 
 may prevail, hiding, temporarily, these differentiating princi 
 ples from public view; nevertheless, they exist. They are the 
 criteria to which every political issue is referred. Because one 
 believes that the national government should foster home in 
 dustries by protection, the other that the function of govern 
 ment ceases with securing "tariff for revenue only," the two 
 great parties are divided upon the tariff question. Opposition
 
 194 Win fiing- Orations. 
 
 to the inter-State commerce, the government postal telegraph, 
 and the Blair educational bills, is based upon the fundamental 
 idea that such legislation is an invasion of the rights reserved 
 to the States. 
 
 Both from necessity and expediency two great parties exist. 
 By mutual criticism both are held within the bounds of reason. 
 As the suspension of one physical force would disperse the 
 myriad planets into chaos, or the suspension of the other bring 
 them to a dead center, so the removal of the motive force un 
 derlying one party would bring despotism as the suspension of 
 the other would drive us to anarchy and confusion. 
 
 When these great principles are in abeyance, minor parties, 
 based upon social and moral issues, spring into existence. 
 Such parties fail because they involve no political principle 
 broad enough to subvert that of a dominant party. Did the 
 Abolition party enact the fourteenth and fifteenth amend 
 ments? The Liberal party, the Free-soilers, the anti-Masons, 
 the Greenbackers, all have folded their tents and sleep in 
 peace, while the two parties representing principles of govern 
 ment ever prevail. Does not the failure of these portend the 
 same fate for the Labor and Socialistic parties of to-day? 
 
 The error of outside party reformers is a misconception of 
 the essential nature of parties and their relation to the people. 
 All problems of law and politics have a real and an ideal side. 
 Neglecting the real, idealists evolve abstract theories, fanatics 
 attempt to put them into practice. Having but one idea, they 
 consider it of supreme importance, and viewing it alone, and 
 not in its relation to the other necessary ideas of government, 
 they have a distorted view of all. Their theories presuppose 
 an ideal state of mankind, unattainable so long as human nature 
 is the basis of society. In practice, the third partyist accom 
 plishes the opposite of his theory. Under the theory of eman 
 cipating the slaves third partyism defeated Clay and elected 
 Polk, precipitating the Mexican war and the further extension 
 of slavery. It elevated to the presidency that tool of the slave 
 power, Buchanan, well-nigh wrecking the Union. But what of 
 the Independent Prohibition party? Shall six million temper 
 ance men forsake the parties of Hamilton and Jefferson, of 
 Jackson and Clay parties established upon principles of gov 
 ernment for a party based upon a social and moral issue?
 
 Principles of Political Parties. 195 
 
 What superior intelligence or force of reason entitles one 
 third partyist to dictate to twenty sincere temperance men of 
 a dominant party just how prohibition shall come? He points 
 to no laws enacted by assemblies of his political faith, to no 
 triumph at the polls. In New York, Massachusetts, Indiana, 
 Ohio, Michigan, third party tickets have defeated temperance 
 legislation, and whenever it fails to co-operate with a dominant 
 party its effect is to put the temperance cause into the hands 
 of its enemies. Five States have already demonstrated the in 
 ability of the Prohibition party to accomplish any good results 
 through its own strength, and it only remains for the other 
 thirty-three to consign it to oblivion. Every temperance en 
 actment has come through dominant parties; every attempt 
 at reform through a third party has resulted in disaster. 
 
 A political party is not called into existence to serve a 
 transient issue, then pass away forever. The causes of real 
 political difference are opinions with respect to principles of 
 government; these causes are permanent, inherent in the nature 
 of man. Social and moral issues do not, cannot originate or 
 sustain a political party; for when these issues are thrust into 
 politics they involve the principles underlying the parties which 
 of necessity already exist, and upon these basal principles must 
 every political issue be finally settled. 
 
 Back of every reform and every statute stands public senti 
 ment, which rests not on parties, statutes or creeds, but upon 
 the perception of right and wrong implanted in the bosom of 
 man. Public sentiment is the omnipotent power that enacts, 
 enforces, enthrones, dethrones. What is your statute, your 
 penalty, unless behind it stands a living public sentiment? The 
 man is a hero who violates the law. What statute will ever 
 stigmatize John Brown as a murderer, or write the name of 
 Benedict Arnold alongside that of "the Fatherof His Country ?" 
 Public sentiment rules a political party with inexorable decree. 
 It said to the Democratic party, "Put Boss Tweed behind 
 prison bars," and it was obeyed. It spoke again, and gray- 
 haired Jacob Sharp passed to his grave through the same cell. 
 Not third party, but public sentiment dictated that sentence in 
 the Republican platform, "Iowa has no compromise to make 
 with the saloon." Public sentiment sustained the mayor of an 
 Irish-American city who decreed that only the stars and stripes
 
 196 Winning Orations. 
 
 should float from the flag-staff of the City Hall. It pronounced 
 against a third term. It said to the hero of Appomattox, in 
 whose presence the crowned heads of Europe had stood un 
 covered, and whose praises had been echoed in every tongue 
 of the civilized world, "Thus far and no farther," and the most 
 distinguished citizen of the world retired to the shades of 
 private life. Without public sentiment nothing can succeed; 
 with it nothing can fail. Temperance reform will come, not by 
 reason of third party, but in spite of it. It will come because 
 the sublimest forces of a Christian civilization are at work 
 creating a public sentiment before which evil will flee as from 
 the avenging angel of God. Statesmen must adopt the will of 
 their constituents or fall before the flood-tide of popular 
 opinion. Political parties based upon essential principles of 
 government, and commanding majorities, alone wield sufficient 
 power to enforce the dictates of public opinion. 
 
 These outside movements are but ripples upon the great 
 sea of political thought; they can never change the direction 
 of resistless ocean currents. Identified with permanent parties 
 are the rich legacies of patriotic statesmen; the mystic chords 
 of memory, stretching from a thousand battle-fields where sleep 
 heroic dead, bind men to these parties with ties that can not be 
 severed by transient issues. The feeling of loyalty, inspired by 
 father s sword, hallowed by mother s tears, throws a halo of 
 glory around their principles that can never be extinguished 
 by the will-o -the-wisp of independent parties. Issues come 
 and issues go, but political parties, based upon inherent tenden 
 cies of human nature, dignified by brilliant intellects, cemented 
 by the blood of brave men, go on forever. Abstract theorists 
 may battle against nature, cultured independents may seek to 
 degrade their principles, but the parties representing them will 
 stand they will stand 
 
 "As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 
 
 Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm; 
 Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread 
 Eternal sunshine settles on its head."
 
 THE DEFENDER OF THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 By HARRY M. HYDE, of Beloit College. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 Harry Morrow Hyde, the second-prize orator of 1888, was 
 born at Freeport, Illinois, October 6, 1869. After he graduated 
 from the Freeport High School he became a student of Beloit 
 College, Beloit, Wisconsin, in September, 1888. Upon the 
 inter-State contest occasion he chose as his subject, "The 
 Defender of the Constitution," and, with a rich, sonorous voice, 
 was master of his subject. Mr. Hyde is a polished speaker, 
 and an enterprising young man. He is engaged as city editor 
 of the Dubuque (Iowa) Daily Times. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, at Greencastle, Indiana, 
 May, 1888, taking- second pri/.e. Judges: Gov. J. B. FORAKER, Judge FRAKE, 
 Rev. STEWART, Prof. \\ AKKV, Messrs. WINSTEIN and MITCHENER. 
 
 While the press and the orator are busy discussing the great 
 social and political evils which threaten our republic, we must 
 not forget that it is upon the legislator the law-maker that 
 the final solution of these problems depends. For after discus 
 sion must come legislation, and law is supreme. Reform, to 
 be effective, must begin in the halls of our legislatures. 
 
 This, then, is my excuse for telling over again to-night the 
 story of a man who united in himself many of the traits of the 
 ideal representative. It is an old story. The lesson of his life 
 is a simple one, but it is a story that can never be told too 
 often. It is a lesson which the people of these States can 
 never learn too well. 
 
 The United States nominally became a nation in 1776. But 
 it was not until many years afterward that the Union was firmly 
 
 (IQ7)
 
 198 Winning Oratiojis. 
 
 cemented. For a while the feeling of a common weakness and 
 of a common danger bound the States together. For a while, 
 too, the great spirits of the Revolution kept the Ship of State 
 from going to pieces on the rock of Disunion. 
 
 But the sparsely settled territory of the United States was 
 scattered along the whole Atlantic coast. The interests of the 
 different sections were varying and often hostile. The Con 
 gressional delegations of the several States came together 
 rather as the ambassadors of foreign powers than as the Con 
 gress of a common country. 
 
 Even before the beginning of this century two of the South 
 ern States had passed ordinances of nullification. They had 
 declared that no State is bound to obey the supreme law of the 
 land. Nor let us lay the whole blame of this disaffection upon 
 the South. Let us remember that during the war of 1812 even 
 staunch old New England threatened to secede. In fact, dur 
 ing some period of our history, nearly every section of the 
 country has been affected by the virus of disunion. This, then, 
 is the great problem which our fathers had to solve. 
 
 The question has been settled now with the pen and witli 
 the sword. And while we give due credit to the soldier, and 
 to the writer, let us not forget the man who fought out the 
 great battle in the forum of Congress. In the face of odds, 
 against an hitherto invincible opponent he fought, and he 
 saved the Union! 
 
 When slavery began to press for a solution, its advocates 
 seized upon this old and hitherto unsettled question of nullifi 
 cation and State rights. 
 
 In 1828 Calhoun published his first book on the subject, and 
 thereafter the apostle of secession, in Congress and out of it, 
 lost no time in spreading the seed of his doctrine. He is in the 
 Senate now, triumphant, dictatorial. The men in the North 
 cringe before his sarcasm, his tempestuous eloquence. They 
 can not unravel the subtilities of his crafty argument. Where 
 is the man who shall meet this giant spirit of disunion? Who 
 shall save -the charter of our liberties from the hand of dis 
 loyalty? The crisis has come and God has made ready the 
 man for the crisis. 
 
 Now he is a boy and there falls into his hands a handker 
 chief on which is printed the Constitution. The boy reads it,
 
 The Defender of the Constitution. 1 99 
 
 his imagination is aroused, he ponders it well. Now through 
 discouragement, through poverty, he is at college, and he de 
 livers a Fourth of July address. There are a few sentences in 
 which contain the prophecy of his life-work. "There is not a 
 single government in Europe," he said, "which is not based on 
 usurpation and established, if established at all, by the sacri 
 fice of thousands. But in the adoption of our present system 
 of jurisprudence we see the powers necessary for government 
 voluntarily flowing from the people, their only proper origin and 
 directed to the public good, their only proper object." Here 
 is embalmed the spirit of the mission which he came into the 
 world to perform. A clear sense of national unity and of the 
 only means by which the United States can remain a nation. 
 
 And now Webster is a lawyer, an eloquent, successful law 
 yer, the first jurist in New England. Massachusetts, the State 
 of his adoption, whom he loved so well, calls him from the bar 
 and sends him to represent her in the councils of the nation. 
 His practice, income, and professional reputation, are immense, 
 but he lays them all down, and obedient to the call goes to 
 Washington. A second and third time he is sent back to 
 Congress, where the echo of his oratory fills the ear of the 
 nation. And now the old "Bay State," grown proud of the son 
 of her adoption and his achievements, envelopes him in the 
 nobler mantle of Senator. 
 
 Daniel Webster is now forty-eight years old, in the full flush 
 and vigor of his transcendent powers. He is ready now to 
 speak the last word of his great message, to fulfill his mission 
 to the people of these States. Here then is the man whom 
 God has made ready for the first great crisis of disloyalty, and 
 now his opportunity has come. 
 
 One day he walked from the Supreme Court into the Senate 
 Chamber, and heard there Colonel Hayne heaping taunts upon 
 the New England of his love, and weaving into a glittering and 
 delusive fabric the doctrine of disunion and disloyalty. 
 
 The next day Daniel W^ebster obtained the floor to deliver 
 his reply to Hayne. The South was triumphant and scornful; 
 the North anxious, half expectant and half afraid. And well 
 it might fear. For in the speech of Hayne reason and elo 
 quence had conspired together. But the hour came, and when 
 thousands had gathered to listen, while the Union trembled
 
 20O Winning Orations. 
 
 and disloyalty laughed in its sleeve, the glorious old Titan lifted 
 himself to speak. He was tranquil, dignified, colossal, bearing 
 himself with an ominous calm. For under the great forehead 
 his dark eyes were burning with a dangerous fire. The people 
 looked; they listened; they were moved; they melted before 
 the glowing thought and the stern logic of the orator. "Mr. 
 President, I shall enter upon no encomium of Massachusetts. 
 She needs none. There is her history the world knows it by 
 heart. The past at least is secure. There is Boston, and Lex 
 ington, and Concord, and Bunker Hill and there they will 
 remain forever." And in remembrance of that hour the grand 
 old commonwealth has ever poured out upon Daniel Webster 
 the choicest vials of her love. 
 
 Then he turned to the attack upon the Constitution. What 
 he said lives in the memory of us all. The supreme importance 
 of the Constitution as the bond of national unity was fully 
 demonstrated, and the great speech closed with that wonderful 
 period, "Liberty and Union, now and forever one and in 
 separable." 
 
 And with those w r ords the life-work of Daniel Webster is 
 accomplished. The great service which he was born to render 
 to his country is achieved. They mark the topmost summit of 
 his eloquence, and thus much is certain: That of all the vic 
 tories gained by Union forces in the rebellion these two are 
 the most important: The debate with Hayne, and the battle of 
 Gettysburg. 
 
 Nor did the effect of that great speech die with the orator 
 and with tie hour. Eloquence gave it life and wings. And 
 with the lips of every school boy, and in every hamlet of our 
 nation, Webster has repeated his message to the people of 
 these States until the idea of national unity has become the 
 very center and core of the national character. 
 
 Daniel Webster, whom nature endowed with a trumpet 
 voice and the forefront of a lion, spent all his life in preparing 
 for that debate. His early study of the Constitution, the sharp 
 training of his legal battles, the exhaustive studies and the 
 victories of the constitutional lawyer, the eloquence and the 
 statecraft of the Congressman, all these looked forward with a 
 single :ye to that day. And so it was that out of the North 
 came forth this champion, who, with a logic as irresistible as
 
 The Defender of tlic Constitution. 20 1 
 
 the granite of his native hills, should meet and overthrow the 
 fiery eloquence and delusive sophistry of the South. What 
 man has poured upon the altar of his country a nobler offering? 
 
 We know there are those who call Webster ambitious; 
 who forget the great things of which we have been telling, 
 and reserve for him all the reproach, all the scorn, they can 
 heap into that one word ambitious. But if to the defender 
 of the Constitution, to the savior of the Union, be denied "that 
 last infirmity of noble minds," what man may aspire? On 
 what could worthy ambition be better based? 
 
 We know, too, that the private character of Webster had 
 many faults. But we can afford to let the shadow of his noble 
 deeds fall over them and hide them from our sight. 
 
 In 1852, at his country home, again under the shadow of 
 the great mountains and within sound of the great sea, the 
 monumental life of Daniel Webster was ended. When William 
 Pitt, the foremost orator of the British Parliament, passed away, 
 P^ngland took him home to her heart in the grand old Abbey 
 of Westminster. She raised over his tomb the tribute of a 
 loving nation at once a memorial and an inspiration to all the 
 future. But we 
 
 "We have no high cathedral for his rest, 
 Dim with proud banners and the dust of years, 
 All we can give him is New England s breast 
 To lay his head on and ten thousand tears." 
 
 But oh! thou might\ - spirit of eloquence, teach us still the 
 lesson of thy life. Teach us to reverence high resolve, and 
 resolute endeavor, and noble achievement. Teach our lawyers 
 to plead for justice and for truth. Give to our statesmen a 
 steadfast incorruptibility, a far-seeing vision, and an eye single 
 to the interest of the State. Help us all, each in his. own 
 sphere, to labor for the welfare of our country and the advance 
 ment of humanity.
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF INEQUALITY. 
 
 By ED. H. HUGHES, of Wesleyan University. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Ed. H. Hughes was the champion orator of 1889. His ora 
 torical style partakes somewhat of the ministerial order. His 
 delivery was in striking harmony with the thought of his oration, 
 and his self-possession before the audience was acquired by 
 a year s work in the ministry. He is a graduate of the Wes 
 leyan University, Delaware, Ohio, and a member of the college 
 society, Delta Tau Delta. Mr. Hughes is now attending the 
 Boston Theological School to more thoroughly prepare him 
 self for his life-work as minister in the Methodist denomination. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, at Grinnell, Iowa, May, 
 i88g, taking first prize. Judges: Gov. J. B. FORAKER, Pres. CHAMBERLAIN, 
 Prof. S. G. BARNES, Judge J. T. PHILLIPS, Gen. J. C. COWIN, Hon. W. N. 
 HORNER. 
 
 Society is regulated by two laws. One is inherent; the 
 other, adopted. One is immutable; the other, variable. One 
 is self-executive; the other must be executed by chosen means. 
 Inherent law establishes the fact; adopted law Supplies the 
 conditions. The one says, " Man must think; " the other, " Man 
 must proclaim thoughts that prove loyalty to government." 
 The mutual relation of these laws often leads to a false classi 
 fication. Inherent law has been declared legalized custom and 
 captious minds have clamored for its annulment. Futile are 
 all endeavors to make better what Omniscience has made best. 
 Reformers propose a visionary scheme of government as a 
 substitute for the plan inaugurated of God. Prominent among 
 their attempts is the one whose object is the repeal of the law 
 of inequality. 
 
 (202)
 
 The Philosophy of Inequality. 203 
 
 Social conditions are the prolific source of rebellion against 
 impurity. Widows homes, orphans asylums, and almshouses, 
 stand contrasted with unbroken households, cheerful nurseries, 
 and brown-stone fronts. Men look indignantly upon this 
 picture of social life. Suffering Lazarus excites their deepest 
 sympathy. Purple-clad Dives bears the odium of existing 
 conditions. Pity overpowers reason, and dictates the cry, 
 "Inequality is a product of custom, not of necessity. Custom 
 must be brought into harmony with justice." Influenced by 
 this thought our enthusiast gives free rein to daring fancy, and 
 becomes an apostle of the gospel of inequality. 
 
 Is general inequality avoidable? Nature, in the language 
 of analogy, answers, "No," and makes earnest protest against 
 universal equality. "To him who holds communion with her 
 visible forms she speaks a various language." Variety is her 
 law. The relations among her products are expressed by the 
 sign of inequality.. Shrubs, trees; hills, mountains; rivers, 
 oceans; islands, continents all speak of inequality in the 
 earth s structure. Anemone and oak grow in the same soil 
 and derive vitality from the same elements. But nature is 
 none the less beautiful because of her lack of uniformity. Her 
 variety, rather, is her charm. She is none the less useful be 
 cause here she rises into lofty mountains and there extends 
 herself into rolling prairies. Thus society s analogue declares 
 inequality to be an inherent law of human relations. 
 
 Imagination builds lofty castles; experience levels them to 
 the ground. Test the theory of universal equality by the re 
 sults of its operation. Its advocates speak eloquently of this 
 Utopia, and, considering their system only in its inauguration, 
 fancy that their dream may become a reality. Not candid, not 
 truly philosophical, they study introduction apart from con 
 clusion. A factitious sentiment results, leading to the advocacy 
 of an impartial division of all material wealth. Like all other 
 false doctrines this one includes only sufficient truth to render 
 it plausible. An inspection of human character and environ 
 ment betrays the fallacy. This man is shrewd and industrious; 
 that man, stupid and thriftless. This man is deterred from 
 labor by disease and accident; that man is advanced to riches 
 by health and good fortune. This man maintains a large and 
 expensive family; that one supports himself alone. This man
 
 2O4 Winning Orations. 
 
 develops and utilizes all his powers; that one wastes his life in 
 indolence and sloth. Condition will eventually respond to 
 character and culture; for inequality of ability produces in 
 equality of attainment. Furthermore, the theory is impracti 
 cable, because not all occupations are equal either in duties 
 exacted or interests involved. The difficulty and general 
 utility of any employment determine the remuneration of its 
 followers. An innate sense of justice claims premium for 
 superiority. 
 
 But a doctrine declared false by history, and by reason, de 
 mands fertility in expedients. The charm in the discovery of 
 this Elysium must not be broken by the cold logic of facts. 
 Seeing that their empire of equality is not yet established, the 
 upholders of this theory suggest an annual redistribution. 
 This plan would destroy all incentive to labor. No man would 
 distribute the fruits of his honest toil among the idle and 
 vicious. Ardor of enterprise would no longer characterize our 
 commercial system; for commerce admits of but one equality 
 that of honest competition. Human nature presents an in 
 superable barrier to the progress of this reform. Is it eager 
 ness to uplift humanity that has led to this idea of a division 
 of wealth? Is it the fancied ignominy of poverty that has 
 stirred hearts to their depths and incited the promulgation of 
 this view? Or is it malicious envy that has overcome the in 
 stincts of the nobler self and demanded wealth that has been 
 gained by the sweat of other s brows? Whatever the motive, 
 the result is invariably the same. Although these pretended 
 reforms have been rendered attractive by rhetorical beaut}-; 
 although powers of vivid description have presented the moral 
 and social advantages of this glittering empire; yet common 
 sense, the preventive of continual revolution, has overcome its 
 flashy rival, and fancy has surrendered to practical truth. The 
 deceptive currents of imagination have whirled men into this 
 channel "of appearance where naught but fallacy reigneth." 
 Enthusiasm, unfounded and unbounded, has caused bold state 
 ment, reckless conspiracy, and desperate attack against exist 
 ing institutions. The scaffold and the guillotine have changed 
 imaginary into real ignominy; centuries will not obliterate the 
 >ad memorials of man s folly. The hopeless experiment has 
 merely displayed the monumental ignorance of those wh o
 
 The Philosophy of Inequality. 205 
 
 detest, denounce, defy, the Providential order. The tempest 
 of impulse is at last stilled under the calming influence of 
 cool judgment. He who properly respects himself, now asks 
 nothing more than a hearty recognition of his manhood. Men 
 wisely conclude that a ship with a nobler device upon her 
 streaming banner will never plough the waves of the dark and 
 dreary social sea. 
 
 We study mankind by comparison and by contrast. We 
 begin by discovering resemblances and end by contemplating 
 diversities of character. This fact is conspicuously illustrated 
 in our own America. The profound German, the vivacious 
 Frenchman, the strong-minded Englishman, the witty Irish 
 man, and the honest Scotchman all have contributed to the 
 composition of the national character. Every American audi 
 ence is a world in miniature. Often in the veins of one person 
 flows mingled the blood of the five great races. The qualities 
 that distinguish nations and men combine to produce inequality 
 in human endowments and acquirements. This inequality is as 
 prophetic as it is historic. In one there burns fires of sparkling 
 imagination; in another there surges powers of resistless argu 
 mentation. In one there glows the genius for music or art; in 
 another, the genius for invention or handicraft. Whence arises 
 this state of inequality? Equalize conditions, it is said, and 
 you will equalize character. The answer is, condition is rather 
 the product of character. The true, divine philosophy of in 
 equality is found in the fact that the varieties of opportunity 
 for individual activity and the interaction of diversified talents 
 supply the only condition under which human progress is 
 possible. Behold now the results of that innovation which 
 establishes equal ity among men. Let a capable power issue 
 this decree, "All men shall be equal." There shall be no poor, 
 no rich; no weak, no strong; no ignorant, no learned. What 
 would result? The outcome would be the creation of individ 
 ual independence. No one can be dependent upon his equal. 
 In fact, the extent of our dependence upon any one is deter 
 mined by his relation to us and by his superior power and 
 means. Our dependence upon the Infinite is, therefore, abso 
 lute. Interdependence among men gives rise to universal 
 brotherhood. Establish equality and you sweep away influ 
 ence, the grandest agency in the world s amelioration. Influ-
 
 -O6 Winning Orations. 
 
 cnce implies inferiority. One cannot influence him who is in 
 all respects his equal. Upon this condition friendship s foun 
 dation is laid. Love is the result of the soul s influence. Not 
 even this divine principle could exist under the dominion of 
 equality. Ordain independence and you destroy sympathy. 
 There could be no excitant of sympathy if there \vcre no in 
 equality of suffering and hardship. The breaking of this 
 golden band would mark the dawn of an era of supreme selfish 
 ness and stoicism. Equality would expel from the minds of 
 men all thought of laudable enterprise, for under its reign there 
 could be no greatness. No name would shine with the lustre 
 of renown. No heart would thrill under the commanding in- 
 
 o 
 
 fluence of any historic character. Providence being merely 
 general, there could be no men whose marked genius and 
 splendid service in times of emergency seem to indicate provi 
 dential dealing. The regime of equality would annihilate many 
 practical moral virtues, for the possibility of evil gives to right 
 eousness the coronal glory. If there were no penury, no pain, 
 what would become of fortitude, patience, resignation? It 
 there were no greatness, no wealth, what would become of 
 benevolence, charity, human pity? If there were no luxurv 
 what would become of temperance? If there were no power 
 what would become of justice? Under the proposed system 
 hearts could never prove their sterling coinage. The wither 
 ing breeze of selfishness would blast forever pure generosity, 
 noble self-denial, and heroic devotion. Under the present 
 system the surface of character may seem chilled by worldly 
 cares, or etiquette may cultivate the art of pleasing, yet the 
 warmth of human sympathy lives in the depths of the coldest 
 heart, and at times the dormant fires blaze forth and betray 
 the sympathetic nature. 
 
 The perversion of the principle of inequality arouses oppo 
 sition to the principle itself. It may be said that inequality 
 necessitates power and that power is often misapplied. True 
 it is that " man s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands 
 mourn." But equally true it is that gravitation ceases not her 
 operation even when life is imperilled. 
 
 "When the weak mountain trembles from on high, 
 Shall gravitation cease if you go by?"
 
 The Philosophy of Inequality. 207 
 
 Ah! True it is that power is not always indicative of merit. 
 True it is that misguided power has baffled reform, prevented 
 education, neutralized morality, stifled conscience, silenced the 
 pleading tones of religion and given fearful force to ignorance 
 and vice. Yet let it be remembered that power, although the 
 father, is yet the conqueror of persecution. For when tin- 
 legions of evil have been routed and the emblems of victory 
 have graced the banners of right, then have been aroused the 
 energies of strong souls, and power has become the ally of 
 truth. 
 
 What, then, is the proper deduction from the existence of 
 inequality? Not that any man should be enslaved, but rather 
 that all men should be free to exercise those "inalienable 
 rights" to which nature entitles them. Plato may write of the 
 model "Republic;" Moore may find in "Utopia" a political 
 and social paradise; Bacon may describle a "New Atlantis," 
 but society will never be regenerated until the dawn of the 
 joyous morn when the heralds of peace shall proclaim tin- 
 universal equality, not of accident, nor of artificial conditions, 
 but of moral privilege and of enlightened conscience, and shall 
 announce as the criterion of every man s conduct 
 
 " To thine own self be true, 
 And it must follow as the night the day, 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man."
 
 RIOT AND REVOLUTION. 
 
 By J. A. BLATSDKLL, of Beloit College. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 James Arnold Blaisdell was born at Beloit, Wisconsin, De 
 cember 15, 1867. Named for his father, the distinguished 
 Dr. James J. Blaisdell, of Beloit College, and the honored 
 Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, the subject of this sketch has thus far 
 amply justified the hopes engendered by his baptismal appel 
 lations. Mr. Blaisdell received his early education in the 
 grammar schools of his native city, and later spent three years 
 in the Beloit High School. His final year of preparation for 
 college was passed in the Beloit Academy, and in the fall of 
 1885 h entered collegiate life. Early in his course he evinced 
 marked ability both as a scholar and a writer, and at the close 
 of his freshman year carried off the Bridgman Prize for excel 
 lence in declamation, and the German Essay Prize, in which 
 thought and style were the deciding elements. In his sopho 
 more year he was chosen to lead his society in the public de 
 bate of the Archaean Union, and won in a contest of unusual 
 brilliancy. At the close of the same year he was a second 
 time awarded the German Essay Prize, notwithstanding the 
 fact that competition was open to all the college classes. In 
 his junior year he won the Burke Essay Prize and also the 
 Rice Extempore Prize, winning the latter in a spirited public 
 contest in which he evinced in a marked degree the "ability 
 to think on one s feet." After this contest his victory in the 
 approaching home oratorical contest was conceded as a fore 
 gone conclusion, and he entered the inter-State arena with an 
 oration generally believed to be one of the best ever sent from 
 Beloit College. This belief was justified by the outcome of 
 the contest, Mr. Blaisdell being ranked first in thought and 
 composition by two judges, and ranked second by the third. 
 
 (208)
 
 Riot and Revolution. 209 
 
 Throughout his college coure he was the authorized corres 
 pondent for several of the leading newspapers in Chicago, 
 Minneapolis, and St. Paul. He filled successively every posi 
 tion on the board of editors of the Round Table. Until his 
 senior year he was undecided whether he should enter upon 
 journalism or the ministry, but he ultimately chose the latter 
 field, entering Hartford Theological Seminary in the fall of 
 1889, and at the close of his first year was awarded the Scholar 
 ship Prize of two hundred dollars. Mr. Blaisdell possesses the 
 generous impulses and manly qualities of heart and character 
 which go to make up a symmetrical manhood. His past record 
 promises such a wise use and preservation of his powers that 
 one may fairly believe his success and usefulness have but just 
 begun. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, at Grinnell, Iowa, May, 
 1889, taking second prize. Judges: Gov. J. B. FORAKER, Pres. CHAMBER 
 LAIN, Prof. S. G. BARNES, Judge J. T. PHILLIPS, Gen. J. C. COWIN, Hon. W. 
 N. HORNER. 
 
 It is said that Louis the Sixteenth was sleeping one night in 
 his palace at Versailles when a courier suddenly burst through 
 the door shouting: "Sire, the Bastile is stormed!" "It is a re 
 volt," said the king, turning to rest again. "Sire," said the 
 messenger, "it is not revolt; it is revolution!" When Louis 
 woke the Reign of Terror had begun. 
 
 Louis sleeps again, and the Reign of Terror is done; yet the 
 history of the world is in the story of that midnight messenger. 
 One day the Pope sits supreme in the Vatican dictating the in 
 fallible decrees; the next, the theses on the church at Witten 
 berg have challenged Pope and Prelate, and started the fires of 
 German reformation. One night the stars shine peacefully 
 through an Italian sky; at dawn the flag of Garibaldi s Thous 
 and is on the heights above Palermo. In the silence of the 
 darkness the same question is forming as that which the mes 
 senger brought to Louis. Are the theses and the flag but the 
 signals of riot? Or have they behind them principles which, 
 though defeated on many fields, will some day triumph as revo 
 lution? It is no child s conundrum; it is the momentous di 
 lemma of statesmen. At the midnight the messenger comes;
 
 2IO Winning Orations. 
 
 and the world, like the Bourbon monarch at Versailles startled 
 from slumber, and with whirling brain, reads the theses, marks 
 the war-flag amid the rattle of drums and gathering of legions, 
 and, in that solemn, awful moment of decision there in the 
 darkness, would throw its very kingdom at the footstool of a 
 prophet. 
 
 So every age has cried: "Tell us, oh seer, the signs of revo 
 lution." The world called Socrates and Plato rioters; in a 
 Roman court Paul met the same charge. Ah! could that world 
 have known its error, Truth need not have traveled the road of 
 martyrdom through so many dreary centuries! 
 
 Let history be our seer to-night. Let the reformers of the 
 past guide the reformers of to-day. Call back, then, those 
 great reformers of history; the murdered Gracchi from the 
 Roman forum, Luther from his sleep at Wittenberg, Knox 
 from the shadow of the Parliament House at Edinburgh, Wil 
 liam of Orange from a martyr s grave, Gustavus Adolphus 
 from a warrior s death at Lutzen, the elect of our age W 7 ilber- 
 force from Exeter Hall, Garrison from his Boston prison, 
 Phillips from the broadcloth riot in Faneuil Hall, Lovejoy 
 from sentinel-guard upon the Mississippi. When you have 
 called the long roll, ask what was the center aim of each 
 revolution. The Gracchi will answer, " Our s was liberty for the 
 poor;" Luther will reply, "Liberty of thought:" William of 
 Orange, "Liberty for the nation;" Gustavus Adolphus, "Lib 
 erty in creed;" while these latest reformers give answer, "W 7 e 
 fought for the liberty of mankind." 
 
 If, then, this history means anything, it means that no rev 
 olution can be successful which does not promise wider liberty 
 to men. We need go back only to the days of 62 for a clear 
 example of the power of liberty as a principle of revolution. 
 For two years the North had given of her bravest and her best. 
 Army after army of the boys in blue had marched away in eclat 
 only to join a silent soldiery. For every fireside in the North 
 there was a new-made grave beneath the Southern sun. And 
 still the days grew darker. England seemed to espouse the 
 cause of disunion. The nation seemed walking the way of 
 darkness and despair. ! Above the storm at last there rose a 
 statesman s voice: j*fl do not wonder at the want of sympathy 
 on the part of England with us. The South says, I am fight-
 
 Riot and Revolution. 211 
 
 ing for slavcr\ ; the North says, I am not fighting against it. 
 I would have government announce to the world what she has 
 not yet done. I would have her send her proclamation down 
 to the gulf: Freedom to every man beneath the stars. The 
 nation heard and profited. \ It promised emancipation to the 
 slaves; land the civilized world came back to the Northern 
 standards as they swept onward to their triumph. 
 
 But, while no movement can become a revolution without 
 liberty as its essence, it is evident that liberty is not the only 
 requisite to its success. , The bloodiest pages in the history of 
 riots have been instigated by the spirit of liberalism. The 
 traveler may still find the spot where Madame Roland was 
 guillotined. From the palmier days of wealth she was led to 
 the dungeon and to death. Is it strange that, as she climbed 
 the scaffold stairs and saw the mocking statue of Liberty be 
 fore her, she uttered that cry which pierces the sternest heart 
 with the wildness of its agony: "Oh liberty, liberty; how many 
 crimes are wrought in thy name!" 
 
 What, then, besides liberty, is essential in revolution? Let 
 us call again our court of reformers. When the Genoans came 
 to Cavour to complain of the tyranny of Charles Albert in the 
 days when Italy was struggling for federation, did he advise 
 arms, bombs, firebrands? He said: "Gentlemen, I propose 
 that we demand a Constitution;" and sixty days later Charles 
 had granted one. When the American colonies arraigned 
 George the Third, the first four indictments were, "He has re- 
 fiAsed us laws." Find a single revolution that has not had its 
 dogmatic Knox and its strict Calvin, as well as its Luther and 
 Garrison. History does not mention one. Here, then, is a 
 crucial distinction between a movement that is destined to end 
 in mere riot and one destined to become a revolution. As the 
 guarantee of liberty, the one seeks liberty, the other seeks law. 
 
 Yet the reformer who has grasped only the truth that even- 
 successful revolution must have for its war cry: "Wider liberty 
 under better law," knows only a part of the secret of triumph. 
 There is another significant picture of French riot. It is of a 
 band of fearless men marching to the guillotine. They hurry 
 along as if in the wild enthusiasm of victory, while the "terrible 
 chorus" of the Marseillaise rings to the very stars. History 
 has called them the Girondists. Why did they succeed only
 
 212 Winning Orations. 
 
 in creating a riot these wild singers? They believed, mark 
 you, in liberty and in laiv. They were the best citizens France 
 had. They sought a republic as their goal; they found death! 
 Thus they prove merely rioters, and, standing in the center of 
 the greatest catastrophe of the eighteenth century, they are 
 witnesses that a man may not safely throw his life into a cause 
 if it is the champion merely of liberty and of laiv. The secret 
 lies farther and deeper than that. It is the greatest English 
 statesman who says: " No greater calamity can happen to a peo 
 ple than that it should break utterly with the past." Reform is 
 a growth. The Girondists had sworn to annihilate the kingdom. 
 They would not brook delay: "To-day or never!" Not so^do 
 reformers work. They have the source of their power back in 
 the mighty mountain centuries of the past. They are willing 
 to educate and wait. Like fire-keepers on Persian mountains, 
 they watch through dreary centuries for the man and the hour. 
 
 So has it ever been in the story of progress. Notice this 
 truth in history. Rome! Carthage! Liberty was the watch 
 word of each; for the defense of that liberty the one gave law 
 to the North, the other, to the South. Between such nations 
 a contest must be desperate. The Mediterranean is white witli 
 the sails of the African queen. Hers is the wealth of the world ; 
 hers the glory of the past. She lays the pathway of her con 
 quest through eternal snows and along the Alpine heights which 
 have never heard a footfall since the hand of the Creator left 
 them in their silence. Carthage meets Rome; Hannibal, Fab- 
 ius; brilliance, the patience of growth; and Carthage is blotted 
 from the earth. 
 
 For liberty, under law, through growth these are the three 
 vitalizing principles which give to revolution its conquering 
 power. j"jThey are the historic criteria by which every man 
 may judge of any struggle to which he is asked to give his 
 life. 
 
 Yet there are some men to which the voice of the past can 
 speak with still more explicit guidance. Sounding down the 
 ages comes the voice of any ancient seer who read, in tragic 
 letters on a palace wall, of a God in history; and on the morrow 
 the glory of Chaldea was trampled in the dust. Now and then 
 great souls have caught the very battle hymn of an army that 
 moves to revolution without the flash of burnished spear or
 
 Riot and Revolution. 2 1 3 
 
 or bloocl-red banner, j ^The hundred thousand exiles who have 
 halted at the border-pillar of Siberia, to pluck for the last time 
 a grass blade from the soil of Russia, or, once for all, to catch 
 the sunshine of a tare through a storm of tears; the slave sing 
 ing at midnight the songs of the better days that are coming 
 .hi nk you that they never heard a chorus wilder than the Mar 
 seillaise? 
 
 "Right forever on the scaffold; wrong forever on the throne; 
 Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown 
 Standeth God within the shadow keeping watch above His own." 
 
 Yes, liberty, law, growth, these three; but let this God-watch 
 ing within the shadow be also in the movement, and that 
 movement becomes invincible. The world need not question 
 then whether it will end in riot or in revolution. It is born to 
 triumph. Yes, this Christ, who is the captain of all growth, 
 never leads his army to failure. Do you think me extreme? 
 Then read of the singing soldiers of Adolphus who conquered 
 a peace for Protestantism; the praying soldiers of Cromwell 
 who started the march of Puritanism round the world. Let 
 Mirabeau speak: "God is as necessary as liberty to the French 
 people." Nay, let all history speak. Mark the advance to 
 ward Christianity as the sun-worship of the East gives way to 
 the one spiritual God of Mohammedanism. Mark, then, the 
 conquering progress of the Moslems, because of the Christian 
 principle they had, till Mohammedanism holds its dominion 
 from the Caspian to Gibraltar and the Pyranees. Its blood is 
 boiling; it will cross the mountains. Rome will admit its sway; 
 Europe shall kneel before the crescent. Luckless day for Mo 
 hammedanism! For behind the mountains was the cross, and 
 the cross was conqueror. Search still farther the progress of 
 pure Christianity as men have become strong enough to bear 
 its full light, and when at last you have followed the "May 
 flower" through its storms you will find "no Doubting Castle 
 by the side of Plymouth Rock." 
 
 Liberty, law, growth; embracing these under the banner of 
 the pure faith in Christ, a revolution is born. So it was in the 
 very dawn of history. Lashed in the bondage of Egypt, a 
 nation consecrated themselves to strike for liberty, i (Under 
 the thunders of Sinai they learned their laws. Through two 
 centuries and a half they had grown into nationality. Above
 
 214 Winning Orations. 
 
 them was their God; Him only would they serve. What won 
 der that the sea held back the army of its waters. The skies 
 gave them food. The desert gave them drink. For them the 
 night banished its darkness. Peoples melted at their coming. 
 Behind them were chariot-wheels that were broken and crowns 
 of centuries in the dust. So, invincible as destiny, the cloud 
 rolled on its way. 
 
 In the years that are coming other Israels will leave their 
 bondage; other clouds roll Canaanward; other men must give 
 their lives. Not in vain will any soldier fall if he falls wearing 
 the colors of liberty and law, in an army where pulses the 
 blood of patient growth, and for whom the sign of the cross is 
 the oriflamme of war.
 
 THE PURITAN AND THE CAVALIER IN OUR 
 NATIONAL LIFE. 
 
 By S. W. NAYI.OK, of Washburn. College. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 Samuel VV. Naylor, the first successful Kansas orator, was 
 horn January 7, 1864, three and a half miles east of Topeka. 
 A branch of his ancestral tree sailed up the James River with 
 the famous Smith. In the spring of 1854 his parents joined 
 the colony for Kansas, and settled in Tecumseh Township a 
 few miles east of Topeka. Ten years thence, in the fall of 
 1864, his father was taken prisoner by Price s forces, but shortly 
 afterward escaped and returned home and died from exposure 
 and cruel treatment received while a prisoner. The care of a 
 large farm and four small children now devolved upon his 
 mother. In the fall of 1870 she removed her family to Topeka 
 for the sake of educating her children, remained four years, 
 and returned to the old homestead. Our subject s early edu- 
 catioi^was obtained in a country school. When nineteen years 
 old he entered Washburn College. He found employment to 
 sustain him through a seven years course in this institution as 
 steward of the boarding club, business manager of the Argo, 
 secretary of Gov. Osborn s committee in the State Senate, 
 etc. He was president of the college Y. M. C. A. for four 
 years, an active member of the Republican club, and a partici 
 pant in college athletics. In the spring of 1889, under the in 
 fluence of Mr. Robt. P. Wilder, he volunteered for foreign 
 missions, and through Mr. Naylor s influence no less than one 
 hundred and twenty-five students in Kansas have taken the 
 volunteer pledge. His graduating day was shrouded in gloom. 
 His mother, while on her way to hear his graduating exercises, 
 was thrown from the buggy on a hard paving, inflicting injuries 
 from which she died July 6, 1890. Mr. Naylor is now taking a 
 
 (215)
 
 216 Winning Orations. 
 
 course in the Boston School of Theology, after which he will 
 sail for some part of the foreign field. Few young men have 
 come to wield so wide an influence in Kansas as Mr. Naylor. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, at Lincoln, Nebraska, 
 May, 1890, taking first prize. Judges: Judge A. YAPLE, NOBLE L. PRENTIS, 
 Rev. D. H. SNOWDEN, Prof. F. B. RAFTER, PAUL H. HANNUS, T. M. MAR- 
 
 QUETT. 
 
 The Puritan and the Cavalier colliding formed modern Eng 
 land; uniting, established our Republic. The Cavalier sprang 
 from chivalry, the flower of feudalism, a chivalry fostered by 
 caste and maintained by princes. He defended the king 
 against usurpation of power by party or sect; he upheld the 
 royal prerogative. The Puritan was born of freedom of 
 thought and of action. His awakened conscience revolted 
 against caste in Church or State; he combined religious inde 
 pendence with civil liberty. Law incarnate in royalty was the 
 embodiment of Cavalierism; law and liberty, the basis of Pur 
 itanism. 
 
 While the Cavalier was reinstating the monarchy over 
 thrown by Cromwell, the Puritan was founding our Republic. 
 Later, however, the Cavalier imprinted his vigor and states 
 manship upon our Constitution and Declaration of Right*. His 
 lofty principles of liberty were accompanied by irrepressible 
 buoyancy and knightly gallantry. "He knew how to live 
 gracefully, fight stoutly, and die honorably." With austere 
 face and uncharitable mien, the Puritan of New England stands 
 upon the canvas of history a sombre, ungraceful figure, void of 
 the delicate colorings of gentleness and the forms of politeness. 
 He was simple, rugged, genuine manhood. His doctrine read: 
 "Faith in God, faith in man, faith in works," a creed ample for 
 this life and that which is to come. Threatened by a common 
 enemy, the chivalrous Cavalier of Virginia stood side by side 
 with the stalwart Puritan of New England: Washington, Jeffer 
 son, Lee and Patrick Henry; Hancock, Green, Putnam and 
 Adams. Such were the characters refined by the Roman, the 
 French, and the Norman; tempered by the Angle, the Saxon, 
 and the Briton that established our Republic.
 
 The Puritan and the Caralicr in our National Life. 217 
 
 Pointing to the Revolutionary soldier, the world exclaimed, 
 "An American!" No; the American was not yet. The Puri 
 tan and the Cavalier were not amalgamated by the issue of 
 the Revolution. Adhering to hereditary traits and inclinations, 
 they effected distinctive developments. The Cavalier founded 
 his civilization upon caste. Property was for the few, educa 
 tion for the few, labor for the negro. Slavery dulled the con 
 science, impoverished the masses, and made every planter a 
 feudal despot. The Puritan, attracted to a climate congenial 
 to his sterling energies, founded his civilization upon the cottage 
 home. Look at the sturdy commonwealths which his spirit of 
 progress permeates: see the foundries and factories; churches, 
 common schools and colleges monuments of material devel 
 opment and intellectual freedom. Virginia branded the South 
 with the mark of retrogression; Massachusetts stamped the 
 North with the elements of progress. Caste sovereignty and 
 bonded labor produced Hayne and Calhoun; the excessive 
 animus of slavery brought forth Quantrell s band, the Younger 
 Brothers, and John Wilkes Booth. Free labor and free thought 
 developed Garrison, Phillips, and will you deny it? John 
 Brown, who, his great soul bursting with sympathy for the 
 bondman, dared a nation, and fell traitor or patriot a mar 
 tyr to his convictions. 
 
 The Puritan and the Cavalier were politically partisan, op 
 posed the one to the other. It is well; opposition and antag 
 onism underlie progress; we recognize greatness by comparison. 
 Superiority is worthy of pride in the degree that rivals are mutu 
 ally worthy of respect. The party which achieves the greatest 
 good is paramount, not necessarily that which dominates. The 
 tendencies of the North and the South produced different 
 interpretations of the Constitution. Individuality developed; 
 interests widened; thought diverged; opinion ripened into 
 argument, which culminated in the matchless debate of 1830 
 With elegance of rhetoric and ardor worthy of a more right 
 eous cause, Robert Hayne sets forth the precepts of Southern 
 chivalry, State rights and caste sovereignty the mutterings 
 of the great rebellion. The reply comes like a thunderbolt. 
 Daniel Webster, with loftier genius, more convincing logic, 
 and a holier cause, addresses the Senate while a nation listens. 
 The occasion grows upon him. His great arm rises and falls
 
 218 Winning Orations. 
 
 with a deep cadence of his voice. His ponderous sentences 
 glow with the idea of federal unity. He strips from iniquity 
 the splendid garb of chivalry and shatters the fallacies of State 
 rights. Then clank the shackles of four million slaves; then 
 freedom s shout rings round the world; then the deep, solemn 
 vow of the great North goes up to heaven, "This Union shall 
 be preserved." 
 
 Partisanship had now become sectionalism. Under the 
 former a republic is capable of the highest development; 
 under the latter there remains but a step to disunion. In the 
 light of history the question is not, "Why should there have 
 been war?" but "How was war so long averted?" The North 
 and the South, fortified alike by logic and eloquence, would 
 make no concessions, accept no compromise. The only arbiter 
 was war. War confirmed the principles of the Puritan, revolu 
 tionized the civilization of the Cavalier, and vindicated, once 
 for all, our free institutions. It did more: it broke down parti 
 tion walls; facilitated communication between the North and 
 the South; unified commercial interests. It smoothed the way 
 for Northern industry and individuality to permeate the South, 
 and for the genial temperament and warm-hearted hospitality 
 of the South to enter Northern society. It softened preju 
 dices; it quickened the pulse of civilization; it enlightened. 
 It was good. The Civil War was the consecration of our Re 
 public; for it cut the nerves of sectionalism and bound the 
 North and the South together with the cords of peace. It 
 made possible the ultimate fusion of Puritan and Cavalier 
 tendencies into the full-rounded American character. The 
 American has not yet come to the citizen masses, but the type 
 has appeared. It is found in him a Cavalier by birth, a 
 Puritan by education whose ungainly form environed a 
 character which combined the sturdy dignity of the North 
 with the buoyant gallantry of the South. Yes, "from the 
 union of the Puritan and the Cavalier, slow perfecting through 
 a century, from the straightening of their purposes and the 
 crossing of their blood, came one who stands as the first typi 
 cal American, who first comprehended within himself all the 
 strength and gentleness, all the majesty and grace, of this 
 Republic Abraham Lincoln. He was greater than Puritan, 
 greater than Cavalier; for in his ardent nature were fused the
 
 The Puritan and tJie Cavalier in our National Life. 219 
 
 virtues of both, and in the depths of his great soul the faults of 
 both were lost." In this type, the ideal, we may conceive the 
 real. 
 
 The influence which the Puritan-Cavalier principles have 
 had in the world s progress is of vital significance in the esti 
 mation of our national life. To a world ruled by caste and 
 sect the declaration that all men are created equal was a glit 
 tering absurdity. The discovery of the paradox therein con 
 tained has revolutionized the world and shaped the progress 
 of the nineteenth century. The spirit of Western liberty 
 breathes upon France and the French Revolution prepares 
 the way for the republic. The cry of "Liberty and Equality" 
 nerves the sinewy frame of the slave of San Domingo; he 
 springs into the full stature of a man, asserts his sovereign 
 rights and forges the Haytian republics. Democracies rise in 
 Mexico, in South America, in Africa, in the islands of the sea. 
 Greece throws off the yoke of Ottoman despotism. The won 
 der of to-day is Brazil, transformed in a night. Portugal 
 wavers. The masses of Europe, with "muscles and sinews 
 hardening and knotting for the struggle, 
 
 "Wait for the dawning of a brighter day, 
 To snap the chain the moment when you may." 
 
 The world voices the once asserted, now demonstrated truth, 
 all men are created equal. 
 
 The formative element is superior to the revolutionary in 
 civilization. Frenzy and fanaticism may rebel and overthrow, 
 as Robespierre in the French Revolution; but sagacity and 
 statesmanship form and reform, as the Puritan and the Cavalier 
 in the creation and development of the United States. Our 
 principles are so deeply rooted in the perpetual that two cen 
 turies of unrestricted immigration have not perceptibly changed 
 them. The European toiler, dwarfed in faculties and soul, 
 gropes in the new-found freedom, and often confounds liberty 
 with license; but he is plastic. Restrained by law, enlightened 
 by precept, he readily yields to formative influences and enters 
 into the spirit of our national life. Why should he not? Docs 
 our national emblem speak a meaningless language? Associate 
 the brilliant red with the chivalrous Cavalier, the unassuming 
 blue with the stanch integrity of the Puritan, the purity of 
 white with the freedom of enlightened conscience, and you
 
 220 Winning Orations. 
 
 conceive the embodiment of the noblest qualities of all nation 
 alities; not merely the flag of a nation, but the emblem of 
 liberty, the ensign of progress. The annual assimilation of a 
 vast foreign element is a living witness that the energies of our 
 ancestors have ever been the vital forces of our progress. 
 With such inherent energies stimulating it, public sentiment is 
 not content merely to preserve, but seeks reformation and per 
 fection in continued development. Significant is the national 
 sorrow at the untimely death of Georgia s eloquent son. The 
 head-lines read, "Henry W. Grady Dead," but back of the can 
 did, loyal-hearted brother the North sees the New South. 
 That New South, pausing over the grave of her brilliant, de 
 voted son, is conscious of her resources, her possibilities, her 
 privileges and duties, herself an important factor of our nation. 
 The New South is wiser than the old. The inspiration of 
 Northern industry courses through her veins. The hum of 
 factories and the whirl of machinery rise like a New England 
 hymn. "There was a South of slavery and secession; that 
 South is dead. There is a South of union and freedom; that 
 South is living, breathing, growing every hour." 
 
 What of Puritan and Cavalier? Do we incorporate their 
 virtues? Do we preserve and transmit their embodied truths? 
 A living principle, a deep conviction of life, enables the present 
 to gather and keep the richness of the past. The Puritan, 
 echoing Plymouth Rock, upheld the divine right of man, as 
 man. The Cavalier, reflecting Jamestown, stood for the con 
 stitutional right of caste. Both were actuated by one basal 
 principle, an intense conviction of what each apprehended as 
 truth. Nor are the energies and virtues of the Puritan and the 
 Cavalier dead. Dead! They are but straightened and strength 
 ened by exertion in antagonism. They are woven and knit 
 into the fabric of our commonwealth. They permeate the 
 secret bonds of society; throb in every pulse of our national 
 life; charge it with the tremendous meaning of an ideal re 
 public. We stand upon the vantage- ground of incomparable 
 achievements. Courageously facing the future, we move for 
 ward in the path of reform, conscious that our national life 
 must be perfected by interior development and progress.
 
 OUR ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 By A. C. DOUGLASS, of Monmouth College. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 Alonzo C. Douglass was born near St. Joseph, Missouri. 
 At an early age he entered the district school in the neighbor 
 hood where his parents resided. When he was ten years of 
 age his parents removed to Kansas, and settled on a farm in 
 the vicinity of Cedar, now Denison. His first summer in Kan 
 sas was spent herding three hundred head of cattle, learning 
 something of the life of a cow-boy; although too young to 
 mount a horse, and often, being in the midst of a large prairie, 
 where there was neither rock, stump or fence, he would mount 
 this difficulty by taking advantage of his horse while eating 
 grass and jump astride its head; immediately being elevated he 
 would slide down its neck to the saddle, seat himself, and be 
 ready for duty. When sixteen years old he was enrolled as a 
 student in the Campbell Normal University, Holton, Kansas, 
 taking a commercial and teacher s course. In September, 1885, 
 he entered the sub-freshman class of Monmouth College, Mon 
 mouth, Illinois, graduating June 12, 1890, and receiving the 
 degree of bachelor of arts. He was a member of the Philadel- 
 phian Society of Monmouth College. Two years he was a 
 member of the Philo-Eccritean Lecture Association. His chief 
 distinction in college was his success as an orator. Winning 
 the local contest, March, 1889, he represented Monmouth Col 
 lege at the inter-collegiate contest of Illinois in October of the 
 same year, where he received first honors. At the inter-State 
 contest of 1890 he won second prize on the subject, "Our Eng 
 lish Language." Mr. Douglass intends to devote his talents 
 and his life to the ministry of the gospel. Having been re 
 ceived as a student of theology by the Kansas City presby 
 tery of the United Presbyterian Church, he entered the 
 Seminary at Xenia, Ohio, in September, 1890, where he will 
 
 take a three years course. 
 
 (221)
 
 222 Winning Orations. 
 
 THE ORATION. 
 
 Delivered at the Inter-State Oratorical Contest, at Lincoln, Nebraska. 
 May, 1890, taking second prize. Judges: Judge A. YAPLE, NOBLE L. PRI-.N- 
 TIS, Rev. D. H. SNOWDEN, Prof. F. B. RAFTER, PAUL H. HAXXUS, ! . M. 
 MAKQUETT. 
 
 From a rugged rock-bound hill-side there bubbles a silver 
 stream. Winding out through a landscape of beauty, its rip 
 pling waters flash diamonds from their sunlit surface. The 
 murmuring music of the wavelets makes sweet harmony with 
 warbling birds. Many a tributary separates the banks. But 
 the stream rushes on, leaping over rocks, plowing through 
 meadows, wandering into deep forests, ever increasing in gran 
 deur, until a mighty river it marks the boundaries of empires, 
 bears on its bosom their stately fleets, and rolls on in majesty 
 to the great ocean. 
 
 Such is our English language. Starting from its obscure 
 source, this stream has flowed down through fifteen hundred 
 years of history. It has been beautified by the teachings of 
 Nature, broadened by the ceaseless flow of linguistic tributaries, 
 and deepened by the profoundest thoughts of the human intel 
 lect, until it appears to-day an accumulation of the learning of 
 ages the glory of the Anglo-Saxon race, the inspiration of 
 the civilized world. 
 
 Fifteen centuries ago, when an avalanche of savage hordes 
 from the North was sweeping over Europe; when the tottering 
 walls of the Western Empire were falling and the glory of the 
 Caesars was departing; when that total eclipse of ancient civil 
 ization was coming on, leaving vice and violence to rule the 
 dark night; when philosophy was dead, art forsaken, and liter 
 ature forgotten, our ancestors fit types of the age left their 
 homes amid the gloomy wastes and the low-lying marshes of 
 Holland, launched their pirate boats on the North Sea, and 
 steered for the white cliffs of Albion. Their manners were 
 rude, their character savage, and their religion false. Their 
 speech was a mongrel dialect, yet it contained the germs of a 
 language marvelous in power, infinite in influence, divine in 
 mission. The history of this language is the history of the 
 Anglo-Saxon people. Its mechanism contains a truer picture 
 of race-vicissitudes than is found in the pen-paintings of Hume 
 or Macaulay. The vice and virtue of each succeeding age is
 
 Our English Language. 223 
 
 stamped upon it. Words that mark the ebb and flow of the 
 tide of humanity tell of the ages of superstition and ignorance. 
 They portray the degradation of man and the awful depths of 
 his fall. In them, also, truth is seen emerging from a cloud of 
 blind fanaticism. Right and might are crowned on a common 
 throne, while despotism and oppression crouch at the feet of 
 liberty. The clanking chains fall from the limbs of the cap 
 tive. The darkness of paganism clears away for the light of 
 Christianity. Barbarian becomes civilized. The hand of God 
 is seen guiding the affairs of men; and banners of love, light, 
 and liberty, float as the ensigns of united peoples. 
 
 But history, written in chronicles or preserved in the struct 
 ure of a language, is often a record of that which man would 
 fain forget. Evil excludes the good; blood stains every page; 
 inhumanity marks every epoch. The English language, though 
 fraught with lessons from human history, has yet greater fields 
 for research, a grander mission of intelligence. Advancing 
 civilization has made it heir to the most illustrious languages 
 of mankind. The Greek, with its symmetry, purity, and gran 
 deur; the Latin, combining vigor, grace, and dignity both 
 representing the highest types of ancient culture and refine 
 ment have given their place to the English, the modern 
 representative of Christian civilization. Grecian beauty and 
 Roman strength have united to make ours the language of the 
 sublimest age of history. 
 
 Alas, that Greece should have perished! That such archi 
 tecture as the Parthenon, crowning the Acropolis of Athens, 
 should crumble to dust, or that the statuary, carved on pillar 
 and pediment, should be the shattered relics of such imperial 
 splendor! Oh, Empire of Rome heir of Grecian culture - 
 magnificent in the luxury of beautiful gardens and peaceful 
 villas, that thou, too, shouldst be as a dream of the fancy! 
 The mist of centuries envelopes these majestic ruins; their 
 time-tarnished domes fall into decay; but the glory of the age 
 \Vhich they represent is preserved in their languages. Time 
 may wear away the Parthenon and the Coliseum, but the beauty 
 and power of the Greek and Roman tongues will remain un 
 changed. 
 
 These were the prevalent languages when Christianity was 
 introduced, and thus they became the "vehicles of the truths
 
 224 Winning Orations. 
 
 of revelation." But the spirit of the age was skeptical, cruel. 
 Noble languages could not save pagan institutions. The fourth 
 and fifth centuries, with their social and political upheavals, 
 saw a second Babel. Each petty kingdom of mutilated Europe 
 formed its dialect. The Bible, proclaiming peace and good 
 will to men, was lost amid the ruin of crumbling empires. 
 The needy multitudes knew not its teachings, felt not its influ 
 ence. Then Gregory, touched with sympathy for the blue- 
 eyed Angles on the streets of Rome, thought to teach them o! 
 the humble Nazarcne, and struck the key-note to the paean ot" 
 modern civilization. To a promising race he gave Christianity. 
 This faith has been the guiding influence through the mightiest 
 conflicts of centuries. It was the power that broke from the 
 Anglo-Saxon the shackles of ignorance and superstition, and 
 that wrought this crude speech into a noble language and 
 literature. 
 
 From this time forward the power and influence of our lan 
 guage increased slowly but grandly. Seven centuries passed 
 in preparation for a literature. The Norman conquest came 
 and with it a higher type of refinement For a time the 
 Englishman seemed forgotten. The court, learning, and art, 
 spurned his speech. His rich legendary lore promised to be 
 unsung, his conquests and valor, untold. Feudal lords bound 
 him to the earth. The fountain of fame was to him as the 
 water of Tantalus. But it was not to be always thus. The 
 feudal system of the Norman was a greater evil than his culture 
 was a blessing. The Englishman hated civilization which did 
 not civilize. A new era was dawning. Feudalism and chivalry 
 noblest institutions of a blinded age could not suppress the 
 growing influence of that divinely-taught principle, the uni 
 versal brotherhood of man. Through common interests a 
 common speech was adopted, and the problem of equality was 
 solved. The heart of the serf thrilled as he heard his language 
 ringing through palace halls, enriched by the cultured senti 
 ment of a courtly nobility. Thus the river, silently flowing 
 beneath the rough surface of society, broke forth in singular 
 sublimity. English literature found a beginning. Chaucer be 
 came the father of English poetry, Wyclif translated the Bible, 
 and our language began its mission to the world.
 
 Our English Language. 225 
 
 Anglo-Saxon civilization is unparalleled in its material 
 growth, its broad learning, and its social, moral and political 
 development. Men come and go, and the immortal products 
 of their genius are their bequests to the world. The accumu 
 lations of art and science make the contributing ages appear 
 like the range of mountain-peaks each towering high above 
 its predecessor in Alpine magnificence. We behold and won 
 der what influences could have produced such grand results. 
 Did inventive genius alone make the greatness of America? 
 Has mere strength of arms carried England s flag into even- 
 habitable part of earth? Does Saxon valor, Saxon ambition, 
 and Saxon firmness, account entirely for the civil and religious 
 liberty of one-half the globe? No. Transcending all these 
 powerful agencies, the English language stands out the expo 
 nent of modern civilization. It is the embodiment of progres 
 sive thought, the matchless attainment of a progressive age. 
 In its store-house of words are the gems of the classics and the 
 pearls of modern tongues. It is the key-stone in the arch of 
 commerce to-day. In every battle against tyranny it has fur 
 nished the countersigns of freedom. Magna Chartas, Declar 
 ations of Independence, and Emancipation Proclamations, are 
 its products. It is the "language of Bunyan and the Bible 
 an argument for the Christian religion. Would you know its 
 influence to-day destroy its literature, blot out the results of 
 its existence, and think what would be the condition of the 
 world. Where would be our glorious institutions, our resplen 
 dent civilization, our blood-bought liberties? 
 
 Our literature seems boundless like a summer landscape; 
 we approach the apparent limit, while Nature keeps unrolling 
 her scroll of beauty. English libraries testify to an elegance 
 of expression, a vividness of description, a terseness in narra 
 tion, not to be found elsewhere. Note the stately prose of 
 Macaulay, the picturesque delineations of Scott, the rugged 
 energy of Carlyle; but these are only of thousands who have 
 made our language shine with sunlit brilliancy. English liter 
 ature bears the impress of every advance of education and 
 morals. Science has given it a vocabulary abreast with her 
 phenomenal development. Christian philosophy has placed 
 therein truths never dreamed of by a Plato or an Aristotle. 
 Here, no less than in society, the progress of morals has wit-
 
 226 Winning Orations. 
 
 nesscd evolution. The sensual odes and Bacchanalian songs, 
 rehearsed at the midnight revels and chanted around the altars 
 of the gods, departed with the civilization that gave them birth. 
 The pure character, the virtuous teaching, the ennobling senti 
 ment are now the demands of literary merit and culture. 
 
 Grand principles and momentous questions have aroused 
 the sleeping art of the ancients, and oratory has burst forth in 
 this new language. Here it has found its true mission and 
 achieved its greatest victories. The halls of parliament and of 
 congress have been fit substitutes for the bema and the forum. 
 The burning eloquence of Burke and Chatham, Henry and 
 Webster, pleading for freedom, justice, and equality, was never 
 surpassed by the "Orator of Athens" inveighing against Philip, 
 or the Romam senator thundering against Catiline. 
 
 Is the poetry of our language excelled by any other? Did 
 ancient bard ever picture human nature like Shakespeare? Is 
 the "Fall of Troy" to be compared with the "Fall of Man?" 
 Were Achilles and /Eneas sublimer heroes than the fallen Arch 
 angel? Ah! gifted poets have sung and proved that 
 
 " From Saxon lips Anacreon s numbers glide, 
 As once they melted on the Teian tide; 
 And fresh transfused, the Iliad thrills again 
 From Albion s cliffs as o er Achaia s plain! " 
 
 As Napoleon marshaled his armed hosts before the pyra 
 mids of Fgypt, he said, "Soldiers, forty centuries look down 
 upon you." We, to-day, from a height of truth and liberty, 
 say: Forty centuries look up to us. The crisis of nations finds 
 our race leading a mightier and a more glorious civilization 
 than forty centuries have seen. Yet after all this advancement, 
 this attainment of power, our language seems only to have be 
 gun its mission. The rivulet that gushed from its fountain has 
 swelled into a great river, and all its usefulness seems yet be 
 fore it. Greater fields of thought are to be fertilized; ships of 
 State are to float serenely, sublimely, on its majestic current; 
 it is to broaden into a mighty ocean and wash every shore of 
 humanity. 
 
 To-day the civilized world looks to the Anglo-Saxon, with 
 his linguistic inheritance, for the solution of every question of 
 moral reform; Christendom recognizes him as her defender; 
 heathedom sends forth wails of distress for his sympathy.
 
 Our English Language. 227 
 
 This eminence is his because of his eloquence and song in the 
 triumphant march of human freedom. Thus, as "through the 
 ages one increasing purpose run," we may see in a veiled but 
 certain future the destiny of our race, dedicated to truth and to 
 God; and \ve may hear reverberating through the centuries 
 the glad anthem of that "varied music from an hundred 
 tongues," our English language.
 
 ORATORS AND ORATORY, 
 
 PLAGIARISM.
 
 ORATORS AND ORATORY. 
 
 Bv PROF. GKOKCK W. Hoss, A. M., LL. D. 
 
 Nothing brings heart within touching distance of heart like 
 the tongue. Hence, speaking seems nature s ordained means 
 of informing and moving men. While this is true generally, 
 in no country is it more specifically true than in ours. This 
 fact grows out of the nature of our institutions. Here all men 
 are free free to think, believe, and utter what they will. The 
 humblest farmer or craftsman has the same right to utter his 
 thoughts that a governor or president has. This is not so in 
 monarchies or despotisms. Moreover, public opinion, espe 
 cially in political matters, is largely formed by means of public 
 speaking. Our laws are largely made and applied by this same 
 means, hence he who cannot speak, often cannot rise in 
 these departments. Hence in a government by the people the 
 tongue is a power. 
 
 Second, in the preaching of the gospel this is more mark 
 edly true. This rises in importance and sacredness above law- 
 making. When Christ said, "Go preach," He hallowed public 
 speaking above any act or utterance ever made by man. He 
 ordained it as a means for the accomplishment of the greatest 
 work known to humanity, namely, the salvation of the race. 
 He enforced this command by his own example; he wrote no 
 words, but spake, and never as man spake. Here is a marvel, 
 a kingdom to be established, and not a statute or a line written 
 by the law-giver. This command and this example still stand 
 as law and guide, as they did eighteen hundred years ago. 
 Viewed, therefore, from either the sacred or secular side of 
 the facts, the plea for public speaking becomes strong. 
 
 Viewed intellectually the orator stands midway between the 
 poet and the philosopher; oratory, between poetry and philos 
 ophy. T is a legitimate child of this holy wedlock, an heir 
 apparent to the throne in this royal household. One side of 
 
 (231)
 
 232 Orators and Oratory. 
 
 oratory addresses the understanding, and seeks to convince 
 this is philosophy; the other side addresses the imagination 
 and sensibilities, and seeks to please, to move this is poetry, 
 at least poetic. Therefore high oratory, eloquence, is a com 
 posite of philosophy and poetry, addressing the understand 
 ing, the imagination, and the sensibilities, and binding these 
 three in one, sweeps on to the will, and compassing the whole 
 man in its purpose, bears him on, right on to the highest sphere 
 of life, namely, action; noble, heroic, and at times sublime, 
 awe-inspiring action. 
 
 Oratory is therefore a happy blending of the didactic, argu 
 mentative, passional, and the ornate; a kind of philosophic 
 poetry, a poetic philosophy, and these often on fire. 
 
 From the above, as a basis, we may divide oratory into four 
 general classes, which for the sake of method we will call the 
 
 DIVISIONS OF ORATORY. 
 
 Of these we notice: 
 
 I. THE ORATORY OF REASON. 
 
 The matter of this is fact, truth, principle; its form argu 
 ment. It is clear, cold, logical, condensed. Its principal aim 
 is information, conviction; hence in the main it avoids both 
 imagination and feeling, especially in the body of the discourse. 
 
 This style is found in the lawyer s argument addressed to 
 the judge; in the judge s charge to the jury; in pleading before 
 cabinets; in State papers and the like. The Declaration of 
 Independence is a good specimen: "We hold these truths to 
 be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are 
 endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that 
 among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 
 To secure these rights governments are instituted among men, 
 deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." 
 The Bible furnishes fine specimens: "In the beginning was the 
 Word, and the Word was, with God, and the Word was God. 
 The same was in the beginning with God. All things were 
 made by him, and without him was not anything made that 
 was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men." 
 John, I. 
 
 This style finds its highest expression in mathematics, in 
 geometry. This last is pure reason; no feeling, hence no gest 
 ure, no declamation, no attitudes.
 
 Orators and Oratory. 233 
 
 Of this class of oratory Webster and Morton, of this 
 country, and Lord Lyndhurst, of England, are good repre 
 sentatives. Their matter was chiefly argument, hence their 
 manner unimpassioned. Lyndhurst, says Webster, would at 
 times make an entire address without raising his hand in gest 
 ure. Morton gestured but little, Webster more, but much less 
 than Clay. 
 
 This style of oratory relies but little on delivery, but almost 
 wholly on matter, hence not so popular; often called dry, 
 especially by the young and the unlearned. 
 
 II. ORATORY OF THE IMAGINATION. 
 
 This is ornate, artistic. It is elegant in language and rich 
 in imagery. This is the field of the esthetic. Thought is 
 robed in a garb of beauty that pleases, charms, captivates. 
 Figures of rhetoric, classic allusions, harmonious sentences, 
 rich and varied imagery, unfold before you like the ever-chang 
 ing scenes in a panorama, Imagination rules the hour per 
 suading you that the ideal is real, that the real is ideal, "giving 
 to airy nothings a local habitation and a name." If possessed 
 of bolder pinion, it asends into the sublime where it aw r es while 
 it attracts. The orator has in a good degree become the poet, 
 and, like the poet, gathering his singing robes about him, and 
 ascending the mount of vision, touches his harp and passes. in 
 music and beauty out of sight. 
 
 Of this style of oratory Everett and Burke are at times good 
 representatives. In Everett the artistic and ornate are promi 
 nent, sometimes in excess. In Burke the reasoning is some 
 times obscured by ornament, the fruit is hid by excess of leaf 
 and flower. This class of oratory is sometimes characterized 
 as oriental, pleasing rather than convincing, showy rather than 
 strong; a kind of Bird of Paradise with more wing and feathers 
 than body. We gaze upon it as upon a picture, and listen to 
 it as to an opera pleased, delighted, yet seldom moved. The 
 fruit of high eloquence is wanting. There is but little resolve 
 and less action. The esthetic reigns here, hence nearer kin to 
 fine arts than any other style of oratory. 
 
 III. ORATORY OF FEELING, PASSION. 
 
 Here the heart rules. Here words come warm with feeling, 
 often aglow with passion. They breathe, they burn. Men 
 speak as if a divinity stirred within, not by form or rule, but as
 
 Orators and Oratory. 
 
 of old, when moved by the Holy Ghost. This form of oratory 
 has its birth in great occasions, when mobs are to be quelled, 
 revolutions to be guided, or country to be saved; when "men s 
 lives and fortunes hang on the decision of the hour;" as when 
 Jonah cried in hot haste, "Yet forty days and Ninevah shall 
 be destroyed;" or when Peter ejaculated his prayer, "Lord, 
 save, or I perish." In this last the whole man was in his speech; 
 his soul flew on winged words to the ear of the Master. 
 
 A remarkable instance is found in modern times in the case 
 of Patrick Henry, the mouth-piece of the revolution, when he 
 shouted, "Give me liberty, or give me death!" and a nation 
 springing to its feet, shouted to the tyrant across the sea, 
 "Liberty or death!" This is eloquence great thoughts, strong 
 feeling, and impressive delivery. Coupled with great virtues 
 it inspires, awes, conquers. It crowns the orator king, while 
 the multitude bows in ready submission to his will, or rises in 
 its might to do his bidding. 
 
 Feeling, passion, is the conquering agent. The law of its 
 power is, passion is catching; the tear begets a tear; joy, joy; 
 fear, fear; courage, courage; heroism, heroism, as certainly as 
 fire kindles fire. Hence the law: The speaker ^i < 1lo ivishes his 
 audience to feel , miist feel first. This is the law of eloquence, 
 universal, unvarying. So the world has judged in all ages, and 
 so judges to-day. Hence all who have been great in eloquence 
 have been great in passional power; as Demosthenes, Chatham, 
 Fox, Mirabeau, Henry, Otis, Clay, Whitefield, Simpson, and 
 hosts of others. So the great preachers of other days in this 
 and other countries. They burned as well as argued their way 
 into men s souls. 
 
 This true, it is inevitable that the man who can t feel deeply 
 and express himself strongly, may justly despair of high elo 
 quence. These feelings must be broad, lasting, and strong, 
 burning like fire in the bones, like lava beds in heart, blood 
 and brain. These are a power; they crown their possessor 
 victor. 
 
 IV. ORATORY OF DELIVERY. 
 
 This is the field of elocution, and is what the ancients called 
 action. When Demosthenes was asked what was the first prin 
 ciple of eloquence, he answered, "action; " the second, "action; " 
 the third, "action." Cicero said, "all the parts of oratory sue-
 
 Orators and Oratory. 235 
 
 ceed as they are delivered." "Delivery," says he further, "has 
 the supreme power in oratory. Without it a speaker of the 
 greatest mental, power cannot be held in any esteem, while 
 with it one of moderate ability may surpass those of greatest 
 talents." Quintilian held much the same view, saying t is not 
 of so much importance what are ones thoughts, as it is in what 
 manner they are delivered. These statements are strong, too 
 strong for our age, but we can abate a large per cent, and still 
 have a strong plea for delivery. A more intellectual age puts 
 a lower price on delivery. 
 
 Speakers strong in feeling are usually impressive in delivery, 
 so we find the same representatives as in the last division. 
 One of the ablest ever known in this department was the great 
 field preacher, George Whitefield. His powers were simply 
 marvelous. His voice, says his biographer, could be heard 
 distinctly by thirty thousand people. It is said he could pro 
 nounce a single word with such pathos as to throw an audience 
 into tears. Garrick said he would give a hundred guineas if 
 he could pronounce the single letter O as Whitefield could. 
 His preaching moved the practical Franklin, and so impressed 
 the cold and skeptical Hume as to say, "I would go twenty 
 miles any day to hear him." His power was largely in delivery, 
 his printed sermons showing neither great power of thought 
 nor wide range of scholarship. Such men should not have their 
 speeches printed unless the speaker can be printed with them. 
 Their speeches should be heard, not read. 
 
 EXAMPLES: Henry Clay won largely through delivery. His 
 clarion voice, flashing eye, and dilating figure moved senates 
 almost at will. It is said a single exclamation from him would 
 bring an audience to almost breathless silence. In delivery, 
 Lord Brougham was king. In sarcasm and invective, attack 
 and defense, he was terrific. He was the gladiator of Parlia 
 ment. Fierce, vengeful, irresistible, you more than saw his 
 glare and heard his roar you felt them. He seemed a mixture 
 of man and lion the lion often in front. This is the victory 
 of physical courage and physical force. These have won \\ith 
 many; as Fox, Chatham, Mirabeau, Luther, and others. These 
 were the men to contend with popes and kings, men who, as 
 Luther says of himself, were born to "fight whirlwinds and 
 devils." Such men are for great crises, times that try men s
 
 236 Orators and Oratory. 
 
 souls, when blood touches blood, and victory is born of death. 
 The oratory of such men like themselves is powerful in passion 
 and action, hence powerful in delivery. 
 
 From the above survey it is obvious that the problem of 
 oratory becomes in a good degree the problem of metaphysics. 
 He who would control mind must know mind. He must know 
 how to address the understanding to the exclusion of the im 
 agination and feelings, and vice versa. He must know how to 
 build a solid masonry of argument, strong as a military fortress, 
 and if need be, as rough and cold; and when built, he must 
 know whether to leave it thus, or to soften its rugged outline 
 by flinging over it a drapery of sunshine and flowers. He must 
 know whether reason rules alone, or whether reason blended 
 with the imagination, or feeling, or both. 
 
 At other times he may wish the imagination to rule, weav 
 ing a web as light as gossamer or gorgeous as the Orient. At 
 another time it is passion, when the soul becomes a furnace, 
 and speech a mixture of whirlwind and fire. In a word, he 
 must know, and that clearly, whether his aim is to please, to 
 instruct, to convince, to move, or to storm. His aim known, he will 
 know his instruments, whether logic, rhetoric, delivery, singly 
 or combined. Here as everywhere aim or end must determine 
 means.
 
 PLAGIARISM. 
 
 By PROF. STEPHEN G. BARNES, Ph. D. 
 
 The editor of this volume of oratory has honored me by a 
 request to contribute, on the subject of plagiarism, a chapter 
 that shall be "general and brief." The gentle reader is there 
 fore and hereby warned that no ponderous polemics, no sensa 
 tional details, are to be expected; only a "swallow flight, that 
 dips its wings and skims away." 
 
 The plagiarist is a literary pickpocket; he lives in the region 
 of dishonesties that are small and mean. But he is also an 
 ostentatious fop, and is therefore compelled to be audacious 
 with his stolen "shreds and patches." No offender against 
 moral law is more sure to be found out, and to be counted a 
 kjxave for his thievery^ and a fool for his display. This no one 
 will deny. So long as we stick to generalities, and confine 
 ourselves to the abstract plagiarist, there is no special difficult} . 
 It is when a concrete case arises, and one is asked "Did X pla- 
 ^-^giarize?" that the rub comes. In morals, as in statecr.e 
 
 application of the law is what taxes the vision and strength 
 of humanity. 
 
 Let us look for a little at meum and tnum, at the problem of 
 production and reproduction. It seems clear, to begin with, 
 that without receiving there can be no giving; there will be 
 nothing to give. The man in "Joe Miller" who never reads 
 books, because he is too busy writing them, is droll, because he 
 is in such utter incon_gruity with the conditions of literary pro 
 duction. When the Amazon can dispense with all its tribu 
 taries, then may an author ignore all other authors. And not 
 only material bufskill comes i from contact with other minds; 
 iron -sharpeneth iron. The literary apprentice puts himself to 
 school; he studies the methods used in literature; hfLfrnnslatp^r 
 imitates, selects, varies, adapts. Having something to say is 
 not_enough; he must know how to say it. If he wishes to be 
 
 (237)
 
 238 Plagiarism. 
 
 heard as a German, he must have command of the German 
 language; if he wishes to reach men through the channels of 
 literature, he must learn where those channels run, and at what 
 places in the great blank wall that faces the young aspirant 
 his stream will be admitted. And most important of all is the 
 inspiration that comes from great writers and orators, men 
 whose powers are utterly beyond our reach, but whose splen 
 did thoughts and noble achievements arouse in us energies 
 undreamed of before, and raise to a furnace heat all the fusible 
 materials of the soul. Only by such excitation of his various 
 capacities can man find what is in him, and what is strongest 
 in him, and thus discover his real self. No man has been 
 original, in any high and supreme sense, who has not first been 
 imitative. 
 
 The value of all this process, however, depends on its steady 
 movement toward the goal. To put it in Hegelian phrase, 
 "self-realization" must be its purpose and its vindication. 
 To be filled passively with material from outside is no high 
 attainment, even though it is better than absolute emptiness. 
 The mind that makes itself real, selects; it begins by selecting 
 its authorities, it goes on by selecting from its chosen authority 
 that which most commends itself for assimilation. Then its 
 growing wealth demands arrangement, and system begins; 
 logical relations are discerned and followed, and in the course 
 of time the mind has its own convictions and philosophy. 
 Just so is it with methods. So long as one uses the method of 
 another as the method of another he is a mere copyist; not 
 until he begins to decide what he can do best, and what devices 
 he can best employ, is there any real beginning to his life as an 
 artist. From that time forth the materials of others are simply 
 foods that nourish and expand his individuality; the methods 
 of others are but exercises by which he trains his powers for 
 independent work. 
 
 He who would produce, therefore, must first reproduce; he 
 who would have a meum must begin by liberal use of the tuum. 
 And by such use "the party of the second part" is most highly 
 honored; the measure of such appropriation is precisely the 
 measure of his influence. But it is to be noted that appropri 
 ation and exploitation are not identical. Thought is not an 
 ornament that can be appended externally; no one really
 
 Plagiarism. 2 39 
 
 makes it his own who does not "chew and digest" it, incorpo 
 rating it thus with the body of his thinking. A man ma}- have 
 a trick of verbal memory which will enable him to recall 
 passage after passage from literature, and yet they may be as 
 helpless as withered seeds scattered over an iron soil. He 
 may absolute!} forget word and phrase, just as he may forget 
 entirely a cooling draught of water, yet the strength and joy 
 of it may enter into all his subsequent work. 
 
 "Ye shall be original" is the tempter s lure to this plagiar- 
 istic tree, and we need to see that here as in Eden we get the 
 knowledge of good by losing it, and of evil by incurring it. 
 Plagiarism is in direct contradiction of those habits of mind 
 which will make a man really original. It is the folly of a 
 green peach that would fain have itself painted with poisonous 
 red, so as to make men think it ripe. Especially should the 
 young speaker have patience with himself, and confidence 
 in the good nature and good sense of his audience. He is 
 still and necessarily in his prentice period, still gathering his 
 materials, still testing his powers, still engaged in that most 
 fascinating search for the true self, whose expression will be 
 his service to his generation. Under such circumstances it is 
 sheer folly to seek originality in the ordinary and superficial 
 sense. He will merely rake over the remote corners of his 
 mind for some unused and forgotten remnants of former ac 
 quisitions, whose very disuse proves their ineptness. Or he 
 will seek some author or thinker whose views are singular, and 
 will slavishly repeat his statements in a kind of theatrical imi 
 tation of real fire. Still more cheap and tawdry is the method 
 of contrariness, of saying things that are startling because 
 negative, in which attitude the would-be original is no more 
 admirable than a baulky mule. At the foot of this slippery 
 plane is the man who seeks some presumedly unknown pro 
 duction, really exhibiting qualities he is anxious to display, 
 and who "conveys" his speech bodily, with such alternations 
 and mutilations as may suffice in his mind to bring it down to 
 the suppositional level on which the audience may be led to 
 believe his own powers disport themselves. 
 
 In sharp contrast with all this folly and fever is the simple 
 and effective rule of genuineness. Let a man give his own, 
 and give his best, taking a theme in which he is thoroughly
 
 240 Plagiarism. 
 
 interested, and saying the things that he fully believes. It 
 makes no difference if they have been said thousands of time? 
 before: that is true of all the things best worth saying. Fresh 
 ness, individuality, will invest with an infallible charm the most 
 familiar thoughts. Life is the secret, not superficial strange 
 ness. Life everywhere makes its own place, and furnishes its 
 own justification. 
 
 What then shall be our attitude towards the words and 
 phrases of another? First of all is needed a protest against 
 the use of quotations as mere ornament; it is in the taste of the 
 savage who pierces his upper lip for gold rings, not because 
 they have any fitness there, but because he conceives them to 
 be pretty. Beauty must be subordinate, or it becomes un 
 meaning and offensive. When quotations are made, they 
 should be clearly indicated. In the olden time a man took 
 his materials wherever he could find them; Shakespeare, Mil 
 ton, borrowed by the wholesale, for that was the universal 
 spirit of literary work. The poet was no more obliged to 
 originate his figures than the green-grocer to offer nothing but 
 what he raised in his own garden; the public asked no question 
 beyond the quality of the goods. Wisely and unwisely all this 
 is now changed. A man is understood to claim as his own all 
 that is not distinctly labeled otherwise; and the unacknowl 
 edged spoliation of happy phrase and sonorous period has 
 therefore become an inexcusable dishonesty. In writing, quo 
 tation marks should show every borrowed passage, used be 
 cause better than our own and therefore by no means to be 
 presented as our own. In speaking, since quotation marks do 
 not appeal to the ear, special care should be taken, not only to 
 show where the borrowing begins but where it ends. Such 
 frankness automatically prevents excessive quotation; the lack 
 of it usually suffices to "kill" a speech, for nothing is more 
 damaging than a growing suspicion in the audience that the 
 speaker is a daw parading in peacock s feathers. 
 
 If we were to dip into the history of plagiarism, pages could 
 be filled with famous cases, and their arguments pro and con. 
 The charge has often been rash and ridiculous, based upon the 
 slightest of resemblance, or neglectful of the fact that liter 
 ature is by its nature a highway for thousands of feet. No one 
 can be asked to read everything on his subject, so as to be sure
 
 Plagiarism. -4 
 
 he says nothing that anybody else has said. Many offenders 
 have been more or less exonerated by the plea of unconscious 
 recollection. Some minds have a tenacious sense of verbal 
 form, and with them the recollection of a thought, and of its 
 words, are one and the same thing. But with our present 
 literary standards such a man ought to watch his memory as 
 closely as he would his hand if he knew himself to have ten 
 dencies toward kleptomania; the memory should be trained a 
 little further so as to include not only the words but the name 
 of the man who wrote them. The author must be above sus 
 picion. It is vastly better to err on the side of openness than 
 of silence. The first stirring of unwillingness to state frankly 
 where borrowed material was obtained should reveal the man 
 to his own conscience as not far from the kingdom of thieves. 
 For him who willfully filches and brazenly parades his fine 
 periods no drumming out of the camp with the rogue s march 
 can be too severe. The cases that have occurred in the history 
 of these oratorical contests show that society still has a duty of 
 instruction by means of vigorous penalties. Let us hope the 
 time is not far distant when audiences will be reasonable in all 
 their demands, and speakers thoroughly honest and gladly 
 generous in all their dealings with the great world of thought 
 into which it is their and our magnificent privilege to be born.
 
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