The Idaho world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1864-1918, 1869-07-29
DIGNITY oFLABoR-sroNEwALL JACKSON.

The Rev. Dr. R. A. Holland delivered an ad-
dress before the literary societies of General
Lees Washington College in Lexington, va,
during the recent commencement annlversa-
ries His remarks upon the "Dlgnlty or La
Dor" and upon Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson are
of interest. He said:
'There has been of late heard great roar
of Carlylean rant about the nobleness of work
reverberating through oul materialistic litera-
ture; and what, when soberly interpreted,
does all its grandilOquent jargon impOrtg LIS
work indeed the sublime purpose OF existence!
Was man created a little lower than the angels
to hoe carrots and cabbage, mold CRATES and
eridirons? Dwells there in labor any inherent
dignity to excite the admiration OF It's mlsera-
Bile thralls. or consists the dignity rather in the
patient Promethean bearing of what we feel to
have been imposed as punishment. would
not dlsparage work as ignoble, for it Is a law
of our present abnormal condition, and as such
enforces obedience to its exactiOns by attaching
severe pains to ideness; but that this curse
should be called blessing, this drudgery rltu-
allied into a worship, and man eXhorted to
cheerfully wear the yoke of servltude as royal
carcanet, instead of encouraged to throw II on
whenever able, that he may range at will over
the fenceless fields of thought that invite the
play of his powers, is a substitution OF Deuter-
onomy for the Gospel which protest against as
insulting alike to the instincts and attachments
of humanity We must work, but it is our
prerogative TO hold work subsidiary to self-lm-
provement He who voluntarily takes from
the cultivation of his highest attributes those
energies of thought and affection which have
no other excuse for the pursuit OF an inferior
object than to gain by the acquisition OF 1t
greater freedom for their rightfu employ, COM
| 20 octn nf that
of the Turks, who mutilated the columns OF
| Baalbec TO forge horse shoes out of the inner
masses of iron that joined their superpOsed
stones into Corlnthian shafts, which the world
| had for centuries reckoned miracles OF grand
and graceful Architecture"
In speaking of 'Stonewall'' Jackson and his
soldiers, Dr. Holland became enthuastlc, aud
addressed the pupils of Gen. Lee as follows:
"We are near the grave of martyr chief
tain. whose name | need not mention in the vii
lage which his memory, like precious spikenard
poured out of the rudely broken alabaster box
of a pure life, has anonted with perfumes that
breathe of Paradise. We are on the hallowed
soil of n State which, for the illustrlous dead
that sleep beneath its coudfretted root seems
Natures own Westminster Abbey. Its valleys,
like allowed aisles, are hung to tancy's eye
with battle scenes that depict the sacrifice Of
self for principle. Its mountains, like memo
rial pillars, record the pure heartedness of he
roes who in the path of duty, marched up to
death as to friend, and took from his out
stretched hand the victor's wreath of immor-
tality Under its sod, as in sacred crypts, re-
pose the dust of an army whose remembered
deeds of patriotic valor make us proud, even
amid all the corruptions which degrade our
race, that We too. are men. From its wind
swept forests, as from the pipes of grand ca
thedral organ, rolls ceaseless requiem for the
fallen, which ever and anon Swells with swfter
time into a martial strain that bids the living
emulate their virtues. Here, then, rs in quiet
chapel of this grand old State-B -Basilika-where
to study excellence of manhood is to hold III
tercourse with the spirit of its best examples
so order the steps of your ambition that when,
in pursuing its celestial end, you depart from
the time.shore of lite it may be but to join the
glorfed band of soldiers for the true and right
who have already crossed over the river, and,
with Jackson, are resting in the shade OF the
trees