New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1873-08-23
NEW SATURDAY AUGUST %
Southern Literary Associa ton.

Southern Literary Association.
This excellent society has Just entered on
its fifth year of prosperity, and commemo-
rated the event by electing az its president,
for the fourth time, Lionel Adams. Esq.
His inaugural address, given below, and
which will repay . careful perusal, is an
Indication Of the success Of his efforts to
elevate the society and guarante, that the
confidence of the members has not been
misplaced: ... ...... ..... 1853. s-r.s s !
NV Friends and Fellow Members-In
assuming for the fourth time the posi-
tion to which you have been pleased to cal!
me, it seems required that not only should
pray you to accept my warm and heart
felt acknowled gmente, but also that l
should, rather than ADVERT to the past of
our association, picture to you its future.
e The character of the trust exhibited in
the election of one of your number to the
presidential chair-hattering rs it is to the
pride-while envelOping him with its ar.
duous and important functions, must in.
spire any incumbent, however great his
knowledge and experience. with distrust
of his own abilities and qualflcstlons. NY
dearest hope, my most golden anticipation
ia that your interests suffer NO detrlment
through q defective administration OF the
duties of the chair.
There are few stations, gentlemen, wheth-
er in the panoplied and brain -bannered
halls of national legislation, or in the more
violent surging of the masses, onvulsed by
the undercurrent of popular feeling, moro
important, or calculated to impose highes
responsibilities, than that TO which have
been elected by your suffrage. p.
1:,o <1,.,t ,<.l hot in.
eensibIy twines itself about your hearts,
nou.ds your sympathies, controls your
prejIdices, and fans into roseate life the
heavenly spark Of . pure ambition.
shortly about to enter into the fifth year
of your existence, it gives me pleasure to
congratulate you upon that dispensation of
Providence which has placed An Egis
guard 1T your portals and epared you the
shades OF Acheron. Gathered here tonight
are many of those who laid the corner stone
of this association and reared the structure
in the shade OF which We love to dream out
golden destinies, crsdled within these very
walls, or to revel amid glorious retr0spec-
tions around, which no funeral train has
clustered, no vOe-weighte3 pail been
drawn. .a
Gentlemen, when the clouds that lower
about you grow darkest; when sadness and
regret twine about your sympathies; when
the present seems cheerless and dreary,
and your resolution is well nigh spent;
when, in your heart or hearts, some small,
still voice whispers that your LAHORE are all
in vain-that the tottering edifce reared BY
your hands must crumble and bury your
hope and your ambition beneath it's ruins
there Is one thought that ever llumines my
soul with heavenly radiance and traces
with weird pencil the purple outlines of
future, fair, and konored and guileless-a fu-
ture great beyond the greatness Of men. Me-
thinks our work Is still undone; that In .
cause 80 big with promise, so pregnant with
good, must also lie fGtus OF life growing
with our days and feeding upon our int Iii
gence, until, reaching the sunlight Of q new
world, it tremble upon the calyx Of science,
small - the dew drop, but like the dew
drop, floating pure and glittering down
from the heavens, peepled with mygiads Of
''alert and sportive organisms"
Here, the teacher of the days to come
feels the inspirations of his holy mission al
ready awakened in his bosom, imbibes a
love tor learning, reverence for the truths
of science and the beauties of literature,
which, with all the electricity of living
soul, will be flashed across the wires Of
thought, and bear its message to virgin
hearts that heat responsive to his every
touch Prometheus-like, stealing the hea
ven,kindled spark from the tire that halOed
round the names of Socrates and Aristotle;
create school that, OUTLYING the Alexan-
drian greatness which hoyers on the edges
of blind ambition, will rule the world tor
centuries and reign supreme, the monarch
of thought, or, like the humber teacher OF
the academic groves, claim the tribute that
From his mouth issued forth
Melliuous streams, that wstered all the schools Of
academies old and new"
and thrill the heart with love and admira-
ton, while tuning an instrument strung by
the hand Of the Creator, that will ever yield
sounds. a.. ..-.- ....-
Here, pondering over the mysterious
arcana of nature, come thoughts Of natures
God. The science which gives voice to peb
BILE and star, and enjoys the divine concert
of the spheres, teaches also of Him whose
breath created sound, and whose hand
sweeps over the chords of the heavenly
lvre: and some one of you will 60 forth
among men, His minister, TO preach in that
first temple whose dome il the star-paved
land where angels wing their flight, and
whose inlaid floor of dainty MOSES and
lichens gray ii. ...'curtaiued with the morning
light" those tenets before which the stub
born pride of philosophy and the inflicted
blindness of superstition must yield, and
give place to religion pure and unde6led.
glories of Jenner and Harvey, realizing the
long cherished hope for discoveries brilliant
as that of vaccination, and, by the light
that during two centuries has been throw
upon almost every part Of the human frame,
physiological mysteries akin to
the circulation OF the blood, the genius be-
fore whose touch pain fades softly as the
star melts into the light of heaven.
Here the future scientist can lind
Tongues in trees, books in tie running brooks,
Sermons in stones. and good IN every thing,
and prepare for that ripened manhood
which unfolds the volume of nature, and
in the perfecting by Bolton and Watt of
that machinery which has moulded into the
life spring Of industry, that steam, which,
quickened by the touch Of our Fulton, be-
comes the vital spark of commerce; in the
science which measures and numbers the
heavenly bodies and spans the distance
from star to star; in the controlling Of the
electric spark, whether it flame across the
storm cloud or to the tossed sh:pman shine
in the binnacle, like a beaming star Of com.
fort, or beat with the ''pulses of that mys-
terious influence which throbs simulta.
neOusly around the giobe;" in the pages of
Tycho, Kepler, Galileo and
Newton he finds the hidden germ of a new
philosophy: from the discoveries of Lever.
1AVUDNo' Wall anu DCs ChIlCS uC pOulo
INTO the flowing stream the waters they
aad but filtered, pours it onto that sea of in-
.elligence, around which is arched the rain
bow of glory, glittering in the strong sun.
ight OF truth. FLE f~gl .frU- E's.
Here is breathed into the soul a more re-
ined sense and a deeper sensibility than
,re ever cradled into poetry by wrong
smooth as run the limpid brook or glisten-
ng sands that mark the flow of lite, rolls
he music Of the spheres-while round the
bright. green earth the mellow warble of
he birds making musical the groves, and
l nurmnrins ny Of | the ocean; the the humming Of
he beee; the FLASHING of the wavelets that
lisa the shore: the rippIipg of the silyerY