The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1868-12-17

are not very familiar with our predeces
sers en- , - continent The oldest must be
whose bones were disnterred a few years since in
strata considered one hundred thousand years old.
planet, compared to the man whose warlike impe-
ments nave been discovered In Europe. We have no
anx v ~ Ss IN the man 81 Na.cnsz nor mas nc or
OF their existence to encourage to claim any re-
iationshp to them; but sink shaft deep enough In
London ana you will find marble shrines mosaics,
pictures, relics OF that Roman people who gov
erned what they thought the world when the
brtisn were painted savages They never dreamed
OF Natchez had roamed hundreds OF thousands OF
years before, but had produced neither affairs nor
our way back dimy and much perplexed for thirty
centuries. Those rude forefathers OF us all have
faded forever from memory and from chronicle.
cine speaker mere commenced reading from his
notes.) Placed on this isthmus OF middle state
between Two eternties man looks backward with
hope that Is almost akin to despair. To be created
at once In likeness to the divine and to fantastic
brute to oe compounded at once OF the bestial and
the angelic dragged upwards and downwards by
antagOnistio forces, Is enough to make US believe
that this world is place OF progress to some higher
sphere. Let tne gorilla stand erect in hideous carl
tots II you like, and find less difference than be-
tween Hannibals and the more Southern Africans;
until you can md the dumb animal endowed with
the rellgious faculty who worships the Creator on
his knees, VINO has treasured In his heart the hope
OF an immortality, you may be sure that the
infinite space between the brute and the
man VIII be diminished by hairs breadth.
lApplause.l But more than the space since pgmeval
time began must the brute traverse before he can
crawl even to the threshold OF humanity. There Is
heavenly bodies measured their distances. marked
out the spot where worlds were thousands OF years
ago ana where they shall reappear, described the
curves III when the planets move, laid down the
laws which the universe obeys; something which
has guided the almost divine fingers of the sculptor
the pencil OF the painter to call up beauties more
shaped the Grecan and the Gothic temple and
the Pacific Railroad; something which has nerved
heroes to desplse danger and death In the sacred
cause of country; something which has tied the
great sailor To the maintop above the din and smoke
OF batte-(appause followed this allusiOn to Admiral
Farragut, which was SO marked that the old hero
was obliged to acknowledge it by rising and bow
ing)-that he may guide and control the fleet until
victory be won-(applause)- s0mething which has
chained the great soldier despite all opposition to
one line, even II take all summer-(applause)-
Command; something which has inspired and sus-
tained hundreds OF thousands OF obscure nameless
halfforgctten men and feeble women as they were
consuming by slow fires at the stake, when word
against their conscientious convictions would have
saved their lives. As long as history gamers such
ao.5 as .ese Of mems res out Oh the lower
him should ne mperilled by his likenesss to the
brutes. tAppause.) And Their language. The
brute can chatter or below; but man can
speak. The child talks in Fragments and the
earlier languages are monosyllabic. Chinese Dr.
Johnson would be an impossibillty. He would
~
had not been for the tower OF Babel we should have
been spared great deal OF inconvenience. 1t Is
also painful thought that languages will not live
unless they are stone dead. Uaughter) Cicero or
Demosthenes might stand on any PATTERN and II
reported In the morning papers OF this day their
eloquence. Alfred the Great, If he came from
his grave, would not find soul in his
Of his ntterances. Il is also painful to remember
that we celebrated the three hundredth birthday OF
Shakespeare four years ago, and let another six cen
flrrfa hu md nxtyt l.a
Josephine with Hamlet or weep with Lear. Shaks-
peare himself may have become almost as much
myth as either OF the two princes he has endowed
with present immortality. It is painful to think that
the creations OF the language the great works Of the
poet and the dramatist may become obsolete the
odes Of Comrie or the lays Lewellyn. The school
master Cadmus came out OF the East. as 1t IL the
fashion Mt the present time Tor schoomasers do.
and brought with him sixteen counters in his pocket.
Among the Peasgi, the schoOlmaster being abroad,
education among the people became rapid. There Is
nothing In human affairs that can compare with the
Introduction OF tie alphabet. IL was no wonder
that Cadmus was considered kings son and allied
70 the great lawgivers. The lawgivers, Lord
Bacon says, were ranked among the demi-gods; but
fnven. ors were consecrated as among the gOus them
selves And If the heather mythology now pre-
vailed what q Pantheon we should have ar the
Patent ONCE in Washington Applause and laugh
teri Contemporaneous with the epochs Of Assyrian
ana Hebrew splendor there was q certain sage In O
city In Armenia--a blind man, as 1t hap
OF the Grecian and the Trojan, with the
wonderful power OF poetic genius, giving a
ana eyes, the names OF their soldiers catalogue OF
their ships all the daily, trivial Instances or
their domestic and military lfeall these are as ia
miiar, at least, almost as familiar, after three thou
sand years have passed away, IL the siege OF
yicksburg itself with all its patriotic associations
Its passionate circumstances, Its thrilling incidents
and the m0mentous consequences resulting therefrom
for all tme Applause Out OF these records the past
we get gmmer OF chronology. There was nj one
time cook In Athens; whether skiful cook or
not we not Informed; but he was swift OF foot,
and he race before his counuymen, and this Ii
the first record we have OF the Olympic games which
formed such beautiful picture In Grecian life
Strange that that epoch has record Of date which
reminds Us OF an epoch In our history. The Olym-
and just 1916 years after Christ we have
another epoch from which this great republic dates
Us records when the great principle Of equal rights
among all men was proclaimed TO the nations OF the
earth-a nober era than any that had ever dawned
before. At another epoch there was a certain she
foster children, and these children, after
having been nurtured by the wolf and grown
up to manhood manhood; founded city which has had
OF human progress and human civilization. the
orbit Of civilization and progress SO far as we
have been preordained 20 travel from east to west
In China India, Assyria Greece Rome, we behold
successfully sprnging up as the orb OF
OF evening falling on the land which he leaves be-
hind him. Religion poetry-the aesthetic arts OF life
been, without Palestine Where would the culture
OF the present day be without poetry, without
the drama sculpture. architecture the lofty, almost
divine, philosophy OF Greece-without the proud i'm
periasin, the cynical materialsm, the all-surDass-
ing military art the colossal selfesteem, the subtle
and sharp chiselled Jurisprudence which made
Rome the mistress OF the worlda lApplause.) Dead
Athens shone there forever-(applause)- con-
stellation but universe OF lustre with Its milky way
filled with pure stars-the light OF her xed unchang
ing truths radatng the long vstas OF obsoury. And
Rome, too IN the supremacy OF her military life,
In the supremacy OF her legal life and at the epoch
Of her shameful decay and decrepitude-Rome stands
perpetual mirror to point to us new path OF pro-
gress and TO warn Us from the dangers Of luxury and
ambition and from that disdain or human rights
through which she herself persisted. tApplause.)
Rome fell-she became submerged, but AZ the deuge
which destroyed her subsidized, behold the German
appears. lie conquered Rome and new civilization
began. But that was low civilization nc best. The
great mutiny against Rome had generated into new
and miscellaneous forms OF despotlsIns. Europe
became camp--a conquered .terrtory.. The iron
clad man on horseback carved ont the land among
his retainers and followers The people were throt-
tied ana made to wear the collar or servitude
stamped with the owners name. Then was the
feudal system established. Adventures and fli-
busters became kings by the wall or God,
which meant the Will OF the steel-cad Inst.
Romance mas written the chronicles OF those DAYS
and has shed lustre over the crimes then commit
that cd IN Qays. Rut