The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1874-04-16

lecture. Icali, he said, him OF whom 1
shall speak to yen tonight, by this au-
gust little for swo reasons. First, because
the Hebrew Scriptures call him so; and
nsxt, because he proved himself to be
such by his actions and their consequent
ces. His work was very different from
any That need be done or can be done IN
these our days. But, while we thank God
that such work is as unnecessary as i'm
possible, we may thank God likewise that
when such work was accessory and posi-
bic, q manswas raised up to do it. and to
do it as al accounts assert, better, per-
haps, than it has ever been done before
or since. The old eonquerors. we hope
are soon to be replaced throughout the
world-as here and in Great Brtain--b b.
free, self governed peoples; but yet, in the
old times Ct conquest and empire, We
surely believe that God fulfilled His own
designs, as Scripture asserts that He did
in Cyrus, we'll suruamed the Great, the
founder of the Persian Empire, some $500
years ago.
This old hero and his hardy Persians
should be specially interesting to us, for in
them does our Tace-the Aryan race
first appear in authentic history, and give
promise of being the c~Onquering and civil
llzing race of the future. In that noun
tain province called Faristan, the dwelling
place of the Ears, or PertiAns, there dwelt,
In the sixth century before Christ, a hardy
tribe OF the purest blood of Iran, a branch
of the same race as the Celtic, Teutonic,
Greek, and II ndoo, and speaking a tongue
akin to theirs.
They had wandered thither, said their
legenos, out Of the far northeast, from off
.oms lofty plateau of Central Asia, driven
out by the Increasing cold, which gave
them only two months of summer They
despised, at first, the luxurious life of the
Modes. Among these hardy Perslans,
their lads, from the age of five 10 thato
twenty, were instructed in but two things
to speak the truth and to shoot with the
bow. To ride was the third necessary art,
introduced. according to Xenophon, after
they had descended from their noun
tain fastness to conquer the whole Earth.
Their creed was simple enough, Or
mud. their good spirit, was the one eter-
nal Creator, the source OF all light and life
and good. He needed no sacrifice of
blood. He was to De worshipped only
with prayers, with offerings of the inspir-
ing Juice of the now unknown herb Horna
and by the preservation of the sacred FIRE,
which was TO them, IS were the sun and
the light, the symbols of divinity. They
had no images of the Gods-these old per-
sians-no temples and no affairs; and con-
sidered the use of them a sign OF folly.
They were, ss has been we'll said Of them,
the Puritans Of the old world. When
they descended from their mountain fest
nesses. they became the iconoclasts of the
old world, and the latter Isaiah saw in
them brother spirits commissioned TO sweep
away the foul effeminacies and super
stitions of the Semitic peoples of the
East.
They believed in an evil spirit, also
these men of Persia. Their great prophet
Zoroaster, tried to sole for them the mys-
terry Of evil, and JAILED for in this trial
who mas succeeded But he and they be-
lieved that Ahriman, III evil spirit, was
constantly at war with Ormuzd, and try
ing to wrest his possessions from him.
But some time in the future, 30 they be-
lieved, Ormpzd was to triumph and Ahri-
man to be wholly %overthrown, Meantime
it was their work TO help oil the fight; to
conquer evil and uphold good, weerever
OPPORTUNITY afforded. Men who held
such q creed, who could speak truth and
draw the bow-what might they not
do when the hour and the man arriv-
ed7
At last the hour and the man came.
The story is half legendary-differently
told by different authors. Herodotus has
one tale and Xenophon another. But
Herodotns had ample Of informa-
tions. AstysRes is the old Shah Of Median
Empire, then at the height of its seeming
might and splendor and effeminacy. He
has married his daughter, the Princess
Mane1na, to Cambysses, seemingly q vas
sal King or Prince of the pure Persian
blood.
One night the old Shah is troubled with
a dream. He secs vine spring from his
daughter, which ~ovefshadows all Asia.
He sends for the Magi to interpret, and
they tell him that Mandana will have a
son who will reign in his stead. Having
sons of his own, and fearing for the sue
c~ession, he sends for Mandana, and when
her child is born gives it to Harpagus, one
of his courtiers, to be slain. The courtier
~relents, and hands it over TO a herdsman
to be exposed on the mountains. The
herdsman ~relsnts, in turn, and brings. up
the babe a. his own child. When the boy,
who goes by the name of Agradates, is
grown, he il at play with the other herd
boys, and they choose him for a mimic
king. Some he constitutes his guards
some he commands to build houses some
TO carry his MESSAGE The son of q Mede
of rank refuses, and Agradates had him
seized by his guards, and whipped. The
young Mede complains to his father, and
his father to King Astyages, who sends, of
course for the herdsman and his boy. The
noble youth asserts that he had done
nothing bat what was right. HIS mates
had chosen him for king, twas then clear
~ their duty to obey, and right that DISC
bedience should be punished. "If 1 de-
serve ponishment for that, he saws Quiet
ly, then ! am ready to snbmit"
The old King looks keeniy and wonder
ingly at this boy, who seems to have been
born skixg. and whOse features resembles
his own. A suspicion crosses him, and by
threats of torture he obtains the truth.
The Magi told Astyages that his dream
had been fulfilled already, SINCE his grand
son had been a king, in play, 50 the boy is
allowed to go back, unframed, to his har-
dy Persian life.
Already he has seen enough of Medean
luxury to despise it. He has seen his
own grandfather with his cheeks roueed,
his eyeIids stained with antimony, shut
away from his subjects, like a woman, in
the recesses of g vast seraglio. He resolves
that tbs kiagdom shall be more vigorous
ly ruled, and calls together the mountain
chieftains, and makes friends with IT,
cranes, an Armenian Prince, who has
wrongs of his own to avenge. And the
two little armies offoot soldiers take the
old King aud keep him in honorable cap
tivity, thus changing in q single battle the
fortunes of the whole East. If
And then begins that series Of conquests
of which We know scarcely more than that
they were made. The young mountainser
and his playmates-whom he makes his
generals and satraps-sweep onward to-
ward the West, teaching their men the
art Of riding. till the Persian cavalry be-
comes more famous than the Medean had
been.
They gather to them, as 3 SNOWFALL
gathers in rolling, the picked youth OF ev-
cry tribe whom they overcove. They
krit these tribes to them, by that truth
falness and justice for which Isaiah. in his
grandst lyric strains, has made them Illus
trious to all time which Xenophon has
celebrated in like manner in that exquis-
lite book Of his, the CyTop6dia. The
great Ivdiau kin0dom IF Toau,fa sfs