The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1867-02-28
tycrsaaiiis I.ib9srs Lectures.

The fifth lecture of the course before the
Mercantile Library Association, was delivered
last evening by the Rev. DIR. Chaplin. The au-
dience, though small compared with those
which have been accustomed to greet this add
mired speaker ON former occasions, was the
largest which has been called out by any lee
turer this season. The disadvantages and in
conveniences consequent upon the loss of the
noble audience room Of the City Hall have
told unfavorably upon all the lectures Of the
year. ~ Is
The theme of the lectvre last night was 1.-THE
Roll OF Honor" Nothing, the speaker said,
was more fallacious than contempt for abstrac-
tons. They control the machinery of the
world The material forces money, labor, &c,
are the mere slaves of unseen realities. To
this class of mighty but intangible forces be-
longs the thing which we call honor. To anal
we and define this thing, to describe the vari-
Gus kinds and types of honor was the object of
the lecture. eHaifsJ
The lecturer thought that very few indeed
OF human beings were wholly without some
semblance of this sentiment With many, in
deed, it was an utterly false and ignoble stand
Ii,
that, ne thought, was better than none. To
find men absolutely without any controlling
influences of this kind, you must sound depth
OF degradatio on rarely reached; YOU must go
down below even the moral zero of a bounty
jumper or common councilman. No man
desplses honor but him who despairs of it,
and that despair supposes the wreck of every
noble possibility.
The first element Of true honor he found
! to be loyalty; the second, service the third,
sacrifice. The one thing utterly and eternally
incompatible with it was selfishness The sell
fish man-mathematically classified by the
speaker among the mean quantities and vulgar
fractiOns-was incapable of honor. Those
whose names are written in the Roll of Honor
he divided iuto four classes, the achievers, the
benefactors, the martyrs and the faithful. Per-
haps the happiest and most eloquent portion
OF the lecture was that in which he spoke of
the innumerable throng of patriot martyrs who
in our own time have laid down their lives for
the nations life, and the silent, patient train of
faithful ones who without praise or honor have
worked and waited in humility and in secret.
the common soldiers, the humble women, who
brought their little all of effort and influence
and laid it upon the altar of their country.
The corn might grow strong on the Western
prairies, the magnolia blossom sweet on the
Southern plains, but nothing half so sweet
and strong had ever sprung from the soil Of
our beloved land as the influence and inspira-
ton that rises, and will continue to rise from
the precious dust of the heroes it has lately
gathered into its bosom. 40 -hta
To attempt to give the reader any adequate
idea of one of DIR. Chapin's lectures by other
than verbatim report would be nearly futile.
As well might one think to catch and paint
the shifting, brilliant cornscations of the
northern lights. His manner is so condensed,
SO rapid, so epigrammatic, that even in listen
ing it is often difficult to keep pace with his
fervid eloquence, and any effort to describe it
must fail. To say that the lecture last night
was one of the best which he has ever given is
to characterize it in sufficiently high terms 1t
was full of epigrammatic sentences and pas
sages Of noble rhetoric, and poetic sentiment;
it breathed the spirit of broad humanity and
of elevated thought for which its author is
eminent, and its tendency was inevitable to
lift the minds of all who heard it to purer
and clearer atmosphere than that which we
ordinarily inhabit. 1t was listened to with the
closest attention, and received with sincere
apnlause lf