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AN ADDRESS DELIYERED THE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, On Commencement Day, JUNE 29, 1887, RY I F f} HON. HILARY A. HERBERT, OF Published by a Standing Order of the Society of illu.mni. LYNCHBURG, VA.: J. P. BELL & CO., STEAM POWER PRINTERS. 1887. ·-r 7 . Samford University Library

OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, - Samford University Librarylibrary.samford.edu/digitallibrary/pamphlets/cod-001129.pdf · AN ADDRESS DELIYERED BE~'ORE THE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA,

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AN ADDRESS

DELIYERED BE~'ORE THE

OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA,

On Commencement Day,

JUNE 29, 1887,

RY

I F f}

HON. HILARY A. HERBERT,

OF ALABA~fA.

Published by a Standing Order of the Society of illu.mni.

LYNCHBURG, VA.: J. P. BELL & CO., STEAM POWER PRINTERS.

1887.

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AN ADDRESS

DELIVERED BEVORE THE

OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGrNIA,

On Commencement Day,

JUN"E 29, 1887,

BY

HON. HILARY A. HERBERT,

OF ALABAMA.

Pub~ishe& by a Btan&ing Or&er of the Society of jl~umni.

LYNCHBURG, VA.: J. P. BELL & CO., STEAM POWER PRINTERS.

1887.

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ADDRESS OF HILARY ,\ . HERBERT.

Ladies and Gcnlhmcn, and Bretlu·en of tl.e A la u1ni. t.'·"'riot~.<m ·

The bright and happy scene I have just witne~,-ed brings back to me the past so vividly that it seems to 111e now only a few short months since I walked across that beautiful lawn, out by the Eastern Range, then went my way-out of college into the world. An•l yet, well as I remember it, that was in the long, long ago-lK/ •. I count it up, and it is more than thirty years. How eventful tho,!' years have been ; how much of the worlcl's history has been crowde<l into them! This old University was then in th e hey-day of it.~ prosperity. Its famd extended far and wide. Increasing its nunl· hers from five to six and seven hundred students, and with patrous able to support it without stint, it seemed to be about to reach that lofty position among institutions of learning which was the a,-pira· tion of its great founder, Mr. J efferson. But all un~;een a war clou<l had been gathering beh ind the horizon, and soon it came up. It grew blacker and angrier, and came on an•l on, till at last it bu r:-:t in torrents of ruin over this devoted State; and the old UniYersity was in the centre of the storm. God blef;S our Alma )later ~ \\"(' love her all the better for the trials through which Fhe has pas>-eJ. and now that the hands that once fed her ha \'e, many of them, perished and others are able to give no more, her sons gathPr around with ever-increasing pride and affection, as they wi tne"~ how, though surrounded often by difficult circumstances, ~he h'l" always kept her colors still high advanced, always maintaine~.l her diploma as the best test of efficiency known to American educator.•, and she goes steadily towards the front, keeping time al wilys with the drum-beat of progress.

How gallantly her sons fought in that terrible war, history will paint in undying colors, to dazzle the eyes of the untellable gen­erations of the future. Our alumni in battle need no eulogium from me, but the names of some spring involuntarily to my lip!<.

There was my class-mate, the noble Etlmund Fontaine, who fell in the first battle of Manassas, sending his dying message, " Tell mother I have always tried to do my duty."

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Then the chivalrous Noland Lewis, my room-mate, fell in a. gal­lant charge at Sharpsburg; and Tom Scott, my friend at the Uni­versity of A-labama and afterwards an alumnus here, as pure and modest as a, woman and brave as a lion, fell at Williamsburg. And \r. D. Farley, my playmate in the happy days of childhood and class mate here! Farley was one of the heroe:; in John Esten Cooke's book, "Surrey of the Eagle's Nest," and in him as he was, nature furnished a hero as brave, as chivalrous, as noble as ever won the heart of woman or inspired the pen of poet.

The war has long been over. The issues it involved are settled forever. Sectional war will never raise in this land its horrid front agam. Peace bas come, but Death bas not ceased to be busy.

Dear old Doctor Gessner Harrison was one of the first to be called away: Who that ever knew him can forget him, and who that took his " ticket," a::; we called it, can ever forget his lectures on the Greek particle-how be spun them out and out. I remem­ber once, '"hen the class bad been listening for a full half hour to one of these interminable lectures, our class-mate Thos. L. Michie, now an eminent lawyer living in Staunton, walked into the room. Michie bad a long walk up the aisle to his seat. As soon as he en­tered the door the old Doctor, to reprove him, stopped his lecture and remained perfectly quiet until Michie was seated. The class was breathless, watching and listening. At length the old Doctor said : "Mr. Michie, you are late this morning." "Yes, Doctor," said Michie, "but I reckon I'll get enough of it." "Old Gess" smiled, and without another word went on with his lecture.

The dear old Doctor was a great teacher of Greek and Latin, but he taught us a still higher lesson than any to be found in the pages of Plato or Cicero. He showed us what it was to be a Chris­tian gentleman. His disposition was so sweet, his character so transparent, that no one, who was happy enough to fall within the circle of his in fluence, can ever cease to love his memory.

And then Dr. McGuffey , so learned, so clear in his statements, so happy in his illustrations, so conscientious and faithful as an in· structor, he too has passed over tlae river, leat ing many a pupil to bless his memory.

Time would fail me to speak of all the distinguished Faculty of 1856, but I should do violence to my own heart if I did not express my deep sorrow for him who so recently left us, that eminent pro-

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feasor and beloved physician and man, Dr. Staige Davis. Never can I forget the anxiety and tendernes& wiLh which he watched over me when I lay wounded at the Ladies' IloPpital, here in Char­lottesville, in 18()4, and the brightnesll and joy of his expression wht>n the fever had left me and the danger had passed. With him passed away all the old Faculty except Drs. Cabell, DeVere, ::\Iinor, and Frank Smith. These are landmarks of the old "Gni\'ersity, and the alumni, wherever they may be, watch them as the voyager on the ship that is bearing him out upon the ocean gazes back ou the distant spires that still tell him of his native land.

To Dr. Smith, eminent as an instructor, and always keeping abreast with the times; Dr. Cabell, head of the Medical School, which United States army and navy surgeons say is excelled by none in America in the preparation of students for rigid tests of proficiency ; Dr. Schele DeVere, distinguished not only in America as a teacher, but at home and abroad as an author; and Dr. Minor, who has laid here the foundations on which the reputations of so maay great jurists have been erected, have been added a full corps of able and well-known profe:;sors, some of them eminent not only in this country, but in. Europe.

Since the close of the war, the University has received donations amounting to $443,000. Schools of Industrial, Agricultural and Applied Chemistry, and of Civil and Mining Engineering, have been added to the course of instruction, and schools of History and English Literature, of English, a separate school of Katnral History and Geology and a school of Practical Astronomy have been estabJished. A Chemical Laboratory has been another great addition, and the famous McCormick telescope now aids in the study of Astronomy. There is no alumnus who is not gratified at these evidences of progress. But all change is not improvement, and there is one innovation against which I, for one, desire to enter my most solemn protest. . It is against Latin "as she is spoke" here to-day. In my day we used to say "veni, vidi, vici," not" wanee. wedee, wechee.'' We did not spell it with a "wee.'' The old theory was that Latin was a dead language, that the prime purpose of its study was to learn the construction and derivation of Eng­lish, and that the pronunciation of the two ought t0 be alike, so that one could be easily traced into the other. It is true Dr. Har­rison now and then used to lapse into" !Caesar" and" Kicke1o " ;

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hut the hop >'io1ply looked on this as a bad habit the old gentleman hrtd acquired from the Germans, and every instance of his falling back into it brought a broad Rmile. Little did we think then our l\[other would ever wander ofl' into vain gne~~ing as to how the l:oman$ pronounced Latin, and be seduced by fancied analogies lir~t into one, then into another, and then into a third mode, method and all- cui bono..' Bnt I do not mean to argue. I only ask you, t!entlemen of the Faculty, to record my most re•pectful protest.

nut, gentlemen, much progre'f; as has been made, the question whi<'h its alumni ha\'e at hea1t is what more can be done to place tl-ti:< institution upon that still higher eminence for which all first­tla~s institutions arE' now st riving.

If 1 had the power, I would ~peak a word for our Alma Mater that would wake up every alumnus, that would touch the heart of e\·ery Virginian and rou~e to action, wherever he may be, every a lini1 er of Thollla~ .Jeffer~on who has it in his power to help it on­ward and 101 ward. Oh, what a grand field is here for. men of wealrh · .\. million of dollars given to this University would ac­comp!J;:h more than fi ve 1nillions expended to found a new and rival institution.

The prime purpose of much of SJuthern education once was to tr;~in young men in the science of government, and teach them how lo lm.. The prime purpose of nearly every education now is to learn !tuzc to ac']uire lite means of living. I would not abandon the o!•l H udit-~. They are uece~><ary to the development of the highest type of manhood. But Hill more and higher science should be t lll[;ht.

Tbe lace of the old C niver~>ity is turned in the right direction. The ::ltate that would not be behind the age must itself contribute to ~cience: not to scientific re~earch through its own officials, bnt to thll education in ~cience of it~ youth, equipping them for competi­tion with the world. I believe, with Buckle, that the State should uol nzH.lertake the patronage of science-that is, that it should n~t nnde1 take pure! y ~Pienti fie research through government bureau~. lf go,·ernment wo1 k i11 to be clone, let it be scientifically done, but if any field of scientific research, as such, be entered by govern-111ent, there can be no competition, no independence, no workers in that field except only such as can acquire and keep political favor. But the State cannot do ioo much for the instruction of its youth

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in universities. Let it equip them fully, all who will come, ancl send them forth into the world, where merit, and me1it alone, can achieve success. Then we shall have "the survival of the fittest," and great men in every branch of science.

Science in this agfl bas become iodi~pen~able. IIeretof0ro Art was always in advance, but now the two go band in hallll. Ar' bas always preceded, developing the beautiful an•l the useful by ingenuity and experiment. Science has followed, formulating tb~ laws Art had developed.

In earlier ages art was very far in advance. Architecture, sculp­ture, painting, poetry, history and philosophy light up with undying lustre the shores of the Mediterranean in the halcyon dc~.ys of Greece and Rome, and afterwards in the period of the f!.e· naissance. The orations and the poems, the marbles and the plint­ings handed down to us from those ages are !'till examples tor every student and models for ev-ery master, but relatively the alvance of applied science was very slow, e.en until the nineteenth century haol begun. It is true that the discoveries of Euclid, Archimede~, G::l­ileo, Copernicus and others are absolutely invaluable. Upon them much of modern science bas been erected. But only in this century did man really begin the great ,,·ork of Jeveloping and applying to practical purposes the labors, not only of these, but of Kewton, Descartes, Lavoisier and other great scienti~ts of the more r ;­cent past. Art is still busy, for·ging away, and experiment, unaided by science, is yet giving us thousands of useful in,·enlions to a.-Ill to the comfort and happiness of man. But science, now fully up with the age, is rapidly reducing to system the results of experi­ment, and can already boast that it bas formulated the laws out of which genius has evolved the grandest achievements of this won·

derful age. To science we are indebted for all the wonderful uses of elec­

tricity. To Franklin, Volta, Galvani, Faraday, Henry, and other scientists, we owe the disco'l"ery of the laws, the applic1.tion of which have given us electro-plating, electric-ligbtmg, the electrotype, the telegraph and the telephone.

Every science is marching onward and forward, each broadening as it goes. They everywhere touch and overlap each other.

I beard a distinguished Geologist recently declare that " Geology was the most comprehensive of all sciences." An eminent Profes-

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~<or of Mechanics bas put forward the Aame claim for his branch, and said: "Even the sister sciences, Physics and Chemistry, are Departments of Applied Mechanics," and I have no doubt the en. thusiastic naturalist, who recently lectured before the Academy of ::lciencei', on "The Cockroach of the Futurt>," would contend that the \\·orld is nucleated around his branch of knowledge.

There is reason for all these claims, for there is no defining where one science ends and another begins. As nature is one, so in the end must science be-and who shall fix a limit to its possible ex­tent? Compte, in his Positive Philosophy, said in 18-!2, that we should ne\'Cr be able to l'ludy the chemical composition of the stars. Sir John Lubbock quotes this remark and refutes it, citing the fact that, by the aid of the ~pectroscope, man has studied even the com­position of Siriu><, billions on billions of miles away, a distance of which the human mind can form no adequate conception. Ah ! what a wonderful triumph of the human intellect! One feels like inquiring "\\"hat fnrther have ye to say to man, oh ye Stars; what else, oh Earth! and what, oh, ye \Vaters under the earth?" The world is waiting for answ·ers to the questions Science is putting to Nature. It was a grand thought of our lamented Dr. McGuffey, when, lecturing to our class on Jouffroy's theory of universal order, and filled with enthusiasm, inspired by the greatness of his theme, he exclaimed : " Who shall say but that it is the intent of the Ruler of the Universe to lead men upward and onward; higher and higher in the walk" of knowledge, till at last he shall come, morally and intellectually, into such harmony with God and his laws that he shall be like hi-< Creator, omniscient?"

To extend the dominion of man over earth and sea and all that in them is; o\·er the air we breathe and all the elements of nature; to make them each and all servants to his will and ministers to his wt!ll being. This is the mission of Science, and grander is her progress than was the gorgeous procession of the august 11 Queen of Great Britain and Empress of the Indies," on the day of Britain's jubilee; for not alone the vast multitudes of England's yeomanry, who welcomed their royal ruler, and the proud nobles and titled prince~. who~e stars and orders glittered in her train, but all the mighty monarch!! of Europe, and even the awakening despots oJ the empires of the East; and not only these, but the 11 uncrowned kings" of the Western Hemisphere, all, with glad acclaim, wei-

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come Science, as, clad in robes of light, more splendid than the purple of royalty, she lea(ls the triumphant r:1arrh of modern civ­ilization.

The great nations of the Old WodJ, appreciating the wooden; Science has wrought a11d the possbilities ht!fore it, are engaged in mighty competition to advance the higher forms of learning. France and Germany, preparing for another inevitable conflict, take the lead, for they recognize now more than ever knowledge is power.

Germany gives annually more than $200,000 to each of the univers1t1es at Strasburg and Leipsic, and she has endowed the several laboratories at Strasburg to the amount $1,141,000.

France, Sir Lyon Playfair tells us, bas rebuilt her provincial col­leges at- an expense of $16,400,000, and ~uppot t.'l them now at an annual cost of $2,500,000.

Beside these appropriations how meagre are the amounts expen­ded here ? It is true Virginia ex peds no challenge to mortal com­bat. The rainbow of peace, all the brighter for the dark storm clouds that have pal'sed away, is spanning her llkies, thank God, full of promise for the future: yet in the dark, unfathomed recesses of her mountains are untold treasures, and in her fields anJ forests are unnumbered secrets waiting the coming of Science to unlock them. The old mother State must not lag behind. Let her girJ up her loins and put swi ft sandals on her feet. Glance for a mo­ment with me at some eYidences of progress in the last thirty years, the years eince I left these halls.

Within thirty years wooden ship~ ha,'e given way to iron, anJ now steel is displacing iron.

Simple engines have given way to compound, and now triple and quadruple expansion engines are rep lacing the compound.

The speed of vessels has increa~ed from sixteen to twenty two and one-half knots an honr.

The power in a. ton of coal has been quadrupled. Steel has taken the place of i•·on for railroads. Agriculture is being revolutionized by machinery. Sewing machines, cooking stoves, all the convenience~' of life a.re

being simplified, multiplied and cheapened. The sleeping car, the telephone, the electric light, anJ ten thous­

and other useful inventions have been made, including duplex and quadruplex telegraphy .

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Submarine cables have been laid nearly all around the world. A broker in Liverpool to-morrow at mid-clay can send an order to his agent in San Francisco, and the telegraph boy will ring at the door of the San Francisco man to-morrow morning before breakfast with the message in his hand. There is no industry, no occupa­tion, that is not quickened by the spiJit of the Age, no forward mo>ement that does not feel a new impulse.

In this grand onward march the whole world takes part, but America lt•ads. Look at some of the figures showing her wonder­ful development in material wealth: In thirty years the population of the United States has simply doubled, and yet the ratio of the increase of our farm products is more than four to one; of manu­factures, more than five and a-half to one; of our coal product, thirteen to one; of pig iron, seven to one; of moneys on deposit, nine to one; of the valne of all real and personal estate, seven to one; and we built in the thirty years 21,000 more miles of rail­road than did all the three hundred millions of people in Europe. W ~ lead the world in the product of our fields, our mines and our manufactures.

Our achievements in public finance are, if possible, more wonder­ful still. The GoYernment has paid in interest on its debt, since August, l 8G5, two billion, one hundred and five millions of dollars, and bas reduced the principal more than one billion, one hundred millions. Every great nation of Europe to-day, with the exception of Great Britain, is increasing its debt and looking about to devise new means of revenue. \\' e are debating an extra session to get rid of our surplus.

Our intellectual achievements almost eclipse the wonders we have wrought financially. Herbert Spencer '3ays: " In respect of mechanical appliances the Americans are ahead of all nations." We send agricultual implements all over the world. We sell machine-made watches by thousands even in Switzerland, whose greatest industry is watchmaking. We have bridged Elist River between Brooklyn and Kew York, and the structure that binds the two cities together, the de~ign and the work of Americans, is the grandest triumph of applied mechanics ever accomplished by man.

Our newspapers and periodicals, in enterprise, in number and in circulation, are unequaled in the world. The Century circulates in England from thirteen to twenty-one thousand copies, and Harper's

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Weekly issues an English edition of thirty tbousanrl. The~e maga­zines exceed, it is believer!, in cir·culation, ev<'ll on their own soil, every Britieh maga?.inc of their cla~s. ~~tve perhaps one.

All the world now reads Americ:an boob, aiHl an able writer in the London Quarterly Rcl'iew ~ays of A ru.:r ic·a that" her Ji.,.ing poets may fearles!!ly challeng~;: comparison with those of a11y otbtr· country." American Fong bir·ds are "stan iog .. everywhere onr the seas; American actors gather around the footiight;; the elite of Great Britain, and scores of American arli,;ts are winning reputa­tion as sculptors and painters at home and abroad.

And in morality, private and public, a t~urvey of the whole field indicates to my mincl decided improveme11t. I a~ree with the young gentleman who spoke so E-loquently yesterday en~niog in much that he said about newspapers. They are certainly wbjel't to censure in the particulars he pointed out. But when we look back into the history of the ra;;t and remember 'the hcentiousnes.; of that day-that the A•'1Wa and other papers abused Washing· ton, as he himself said, "like a pickpocket and a thief,'' and that DeToqueville said that when he came to Aroenca the attacks of the papers on the President aud other public men created in his mind the impression that America. wa;; a nation of thieveli-I cannot but think that the tone of the pre~s. though it ought to be higher, is au improvement on that day.

I have no time to state the proc.f of roy O}•iuion, bnt lt>t me stop to say, that while since ISGO the amount of beer a11d wine cou­sumed has increased, figures carefully compiled at the Bureau of Statistics in Washington show that the amount of whiskey con­sumed has fallen from ~.8G gallons per capita to l.~i:. I quote from memory, but they certainly indicate a falling off of more than one-half.

Dr. Strong, in his powerful little book of "Our Country,·· takes the ground, if I remember righrly, that intemper,wce has increase L In the figures he uses I think he makes the wi~l<\ke of taking the whiskey distilled as a measure of the amount con~;umetl, and that he makes no allowance for the amounts exported anti u~ed at home in the arts.

Whence comes this superiority of our country, this fertility of intellect, this cunning of hitnd, this success in every department~ This is the era of progress. It is knowledge that has awakened

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the world and given new impulse everywhere to man. But why should America surpass all other nations?

The great Anglo-Saxon race is dominant here; we have fertile fields and noble waterfalls, mines of untold wealth, and wide ex­tended territory. But not to one, nor all of these combined, is due the amazing, all-pervading energy of our people.

American civilization is the golden fruit of free institutions.

I have spoken of science, alluded to its slow growth, and pointed to some of its great triumphs; but its triumph of triumphs was the Constitution of the United States. Madison, Mason, Franklin, Hamilton, Jay, and many others of those who took active part in framing and adopting that constitution, were political philosophers. " Mother wit " ha~ been informed with "University wisdom." They were scientists in government. Read the debates in Conven­tion and the Federalist, and see how accurate and extensive was the learning of that day.

The result of every previous experiment in government, whether in Greece, Italy, Germany, F rance, England, or elsewhere, was care­ful ly weighed in the balance of the scientist. and the value of every rule evolved was thoroughly tested before it was applied in the creation of a. new government.

The constitution then framed was the grandest book of ''applied science " ever written.

The government formed by it has been the wonder worker of the age. By it all the artificial barriers, which, in the old world, had cribbed and confined the energies of man, were levelled to the ground. Here no hereditary title, no favor of prince, no accident of birth elevates one or represses another. Here Labor is lifted frol.D the earth and made I\iog. Man is free to grow and be strong. Liberty is the magician's wand whose touch has nerved the arms, and fired the heartf!, and (juickened the brains that have wrought these mighty wonders.

"IIere the tree sp~ritof mankind at length Throws Its last fetters off; and who shall place

A hmlt to the giant's untamed strength, Or curb Its Influence In the-forward race?

l<'ar, like the co:nei's way, through tntlnltc space Stretches the long untravelled path of light

l n to the depths of ages; we may trace Distant the brightening glory of Its flight

Till tho receding raya are lost to human ateht."

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And yet, though th~ paat is so wonderful, and though the prom­ises of the future seems so bright, we a.re not without our problems.

The forces of to-day are focalizing wealth and population. Wealth accumulates in private and corporate hands, and popula­tion crowds into cities. There the very poor and the very rich are placed side by side. Luxury and want confront each other, breeding discontent and inviting, in the language of Dr. Strong, mobocracy on the one hand, and plutocracy on the other.

So rapidly have private fortunes grown, that half a dozen men living in the city of New York have it in their power to corner the Government of the United States in the money market.

So rapidly have cities multiplied and grown, that in 1880 more than a fifth, and now fully a fourth, of our people live in our cities of over 8,000 inhabitants.

Private fortunes will continue to increase and population will continue to crowd into cities, for the same economic forces must con­tinue to operate in the same manner.

Already in Chicago organized Anarchy has had one bloody col­lision with the officers of the law; and in New York 60,000 electors, by their votes for Henry George, have declared their sym­pathy with a doctrine that, if put into practice, will confiscate the homes of the American people.

I do not discuss these problems. I simply suggest them and aak how they shall be met. The answer is undoubtedly we must educate, educate into all, rich and poor, a broad spirit of tolerance, educate, that justice may be done to labor and to capital. Reason must have sway. But are we to stop there? Shall we discard the con­servative force of religion? Shall we, as some scientists suggest, dethrone Christ and set up Reason in his stead? This is what the Anarchists of Chicago contend for, and this is exactly what the Red Republicans of the French Revolution did. They laid rude hands upon the temples their fathers had erected to God, and sought to destroy every vestige of religion. France, drunk with passion and without the sanction of God's law, waa soon drenched with innocent blood, and despotism only could bring order out of chaos. The price of Napoleon's wars is unpaid to-day, and if France fails in her present heroic effort to maintain free govern­ment it may be because of the debt of $6,000,000,000, now weigh-

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mg her down to the earth ; a debt, much of which came over from the government that was born in the revolution of 1798.

If America should disca.rd, in this crisis, the Christian religion nnd set up Reason in it~> stead, who can tell how soon may come to her a Danton, a ).farat, a Robespierre and a Napoleon ?

But what is the outlook~ What is religion doing in the blaze of American civilization? Can it stand the light?

The spirit of infidelity bas doubtless whispered here as elsewhere that science has destroyed belief in the inspira tion of the Bible, and that intelligent people no longer believe in the divinity of Chri~t. I heard this when a student ; I heard it when I went out into the world, and one of the first things that attracted my atten­tion when I went into public life, was a member of Congress dis­playing his ignorance by ~lying t hat Christianity was a superstition of the past and could not live in this enlightened age. This has been the refrain of the infidel for centuries.

Bishop Butler wrote his Analogy 150 years ago. Dr. Malcom, in the p reface to his edition of that great work, speaking of the age in which it was written, says it was then "considered settled, e~pecially in polite circles, that after so long a prevalence Chris­tianity had been found to be an imposture."

Kow let us see what statistics tell us as to its progress in America. Are we leaving it behind or does it grow with our growth? In 1800, when our population was 5,000,000, Carnegie tells us the Protestant communicant:! were only 364,000. I cannot get the number of Roman Catholics then, but it was small. Now, Protest­ants and Roman Catholics, there are in round numbers, 18,000,000 of church members in the United States.

Look back at the history of this University. It did not start under religious auspices, but soon the spirit of the age demanded a chaplain and the University has ever since steadily maintained one.

Take the Young Men's Christian Association. It had its origin in 1844. In 1884 it had ~.427 branch es.

Education, morality and religion are the conservative forces upon which our country must rely for the maintainance of order and the preservation of law. They are the pillars upon which rest our free institutions.

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Never was a country more blest than America, and never wa.<~ a prayer more appropriate than the closing words of Whittier's beau­tiful Centennial hymn:

"Oh make thou us, through centuries lonl{, In peace secure and jusUce strong; Around our gift or freedom draw The safeguards or tby rlghteoullla.W Aud, cast In some diviner mold, l-et the new cycle shame the old."

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