The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-06-21

| ley Lord wellington. soldiers! from tnese mon
uments forty centuries look down upon you"
were heinspirlng words of Napoleon to his vic
! torous army in Egypt. England expects every
man to do his duty" was the strongest appeal
that could be made to the British soldier. Ma
| poleon would apostrophize the sun OF Auster
! litz, and hurl his columns into battle like the
whirlwind; while Wellington would silently,
| calmly, and stubbornly maintain his position in
| presence of defeat and wait for Butcher The
| people of these two powerful nations moulded
! their leaders, and through them moulded their
! own destiny. Had they been differently edu-
! Gated and inspired, they would have created
! other leaders, and the annals of their heroism
would have been no less glorious; but the names
| to which ambition SO proudly points would be
unwritten therein. Napoleon quickened and de-
veoped, but did not create, the everyday life of
! the people of France. The ripening fruit fell
! before the fitting harvester, and since then
! France has obeyed, but never loved, another
name. Never was she so great as under Napo-
! leon l. The glory of France was in the keeping
! of every household. Honesty, vigor, and ad-
vancement inspired all classes, and their every
! day life written in blood on the battle
! fields of almost every nation of Europe, and
commemorated in the grand column in the
But peoples, like individuals, never stand
still. All exceptions TO this rule are but iusig-
nifcant France gradually and imperceptibly
! declined under the restored Bourbon rule and
was ready for the gnawing cancer of the second
empire. They worshipped the name of Napo-
leon, and gave hearty enthusiasm to the feeble
limitations of the weak pretender who usurped
the throne. They merited their ancient
their new Emperor to Italy; but
decay was indeibly stamped upon the
French nation, for her once great people were
enfeebled by studied prohigacy and debauchery,
and their decline grew more marked with each
returning year. At last the terrible avenger
came 1t was not so much Prussia as the every
day life of the French people, Under the first
Napoleon Prussia might have defeated them in
battle, but their honor and their nationality
would have been preserved But their destruc-
tion was fastened by feeble and corrupt and
corrupting court until all France could not
create leader, because her people had lost all
their qualities of greatness.
1t would seem that an overruling Providence
meant for all mankind to have most impressive
lesson in the late Franco-Prussian war; read
and speak of Bismarck and Napoleon
as if they were its authors.
They were but borne by the food-tide
to the grand consummation. Had Bismarck
been Frenchman, he would have rotated from
local turbulence to exile; and had Napoleon
been PrussiaD, he would have been a third-rate
author a soldier unknown to fame But while
France was declining in the moral, mental, and
physical qualities of her citizens, the German
people, under weak but honest ruler, were
advancing in all that develops and ennobles
nation. 1t was said that the German universities
triumphed over the Austriaus at Sadowa, and
that in the late war the soldier of Won Moltke
marched with professors gown in his KNAPP
sack. These are exaggerated but significant
delineations of the every day life of the German
people who won at Gravelotte, at Sedan, at
Metz, at Strasburg, and at Paris. The every
day purity, patriotism industry, religious zeal,
and universal education of the German people,
| ripened them for German unity. The Father
land is their first love- and Bismarck was the
master architect to rebuild the lost empire.
| Calm, clear sighted German statesmanship,
called him as the best type of the nations want,
and he saw the foundations we'll laid, and everv-
thing at hand for the imposing structure. He
nOt mis- Loft ha
day life of forty millions of Germans steadily
and surely preparing them for the great work,
and Re gathered the fulness of their Just re-
ward. William now wears the imperial crown,
and the princes are marshals of the empire, and
| Bismarck is prince of the realm-all wearing
well earned honors; but the thoughtful historian
| will record the story of the households of the
Fatherland, moulding the solidarity of the Ger
| man peoples.
Thermopyle was made memorable by the
everyday life of the Spartan people. They
| were not more courageous than the other SOL
diers of Greece, but they were law unto them
selves in warfare. Had it been an arbitrary de-
cree of bloody despot, that they should never
retreat in battle, they would have defed it, Had
| 1t been an exceptional command of Leonidas, 1T
might have been disobeyed without peril to re
putation. But it was the law of the Spartan
people, made by and for themselves-co
by their idelatry of unfaltering bravery, and it
was obeyed by the soldiery because each man
was but obeying himself. They could have re-
tired with credit, according to the generally
accepted laws of war, as did their comrades;
but they had erected their own strange
sSna"rd So1s to sneTRe tSe None uneSaS eoa
conflict, but death itself was as nothing when
weighed against the honor of the Spartan cti-
zen in arms. They fought and fell, aud the
column that commemorated their willing sacri-
ice bore the faithful inscription-"O stranger,
go tell to the Lacedemonians that we lie here in
obedience to their laws"
You will better appreciate this important les
son when we glance at the startling events
which have just transpired in our own midst
Most of you were susceptible of intelligent con-
yictions, touching the great war of the
Rebellion, from its beginning to the
consummation of its logical results. 1t is
said, however, that children believe that
all the mighty revolutions of war OF
peace happened long before they lived and
indeed who witnessed the colossal struggle
between the North and the South, can measure
its marvellous achievements or its momentou;
consequences. Its heroes sprang from our OWE
every-d circles, and we cannot invest then
with the romance that history will weave Sc
beautifully around them. The grave questions
to be decided in the cabinet and in the field, We
decided ourselves in our everyday actions
Our everyday education and advancement
advanced the statesmen and standards of tht
nation, and as people we were almost imper
cepIibly and unconsciously working out 1t
crowniDg triumph-Man's noblest struggle TO
man. The thoughtless and superficial blamed
the politicians, and charged them with tn
cOuntry's misfortunes. 1t was not so. The
, were bad enough, and may have quickened tn
conflict but when the passions of civil strif
shall snbside, and the impartial historian
|, comes to record the most thrilling annals O
civilized warfare, 1t will be truthtuly toll
/, that two brave and powerful peoples ha
exhausted compromise on irreconcilable differ
> ences of national policy, and accepted the In
! evitahle arbitrament of the sword.