Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1877-10-02


delphia Sundays chool Times. ]-Col.
Holiday, recently nominated for Gov
ornor of Virginia, will be remembered as
one of the most earnest and eloquent
advocates OF the Sunday closing of the
Centennial Exhibition. The proposal
to. keep the gates closed on Sundays had
been sneered at by some members of the
Centennial Commission as puritanical
notion, and as an outgrowth of New
England bigotry. Col. Holiday, as one
of the commissioners, met and repelled
these sneers in speech of surprising
eloquence. He was certainly not to be
called New Englander or Puritan,
he said, but he was long enough in New
England, as student at Yale, to learn
to prize the very characteristics of her
people for which shess was now being
held up to ridicule. He thanked God
that there were so many in New Eng
land who hOnored the Lords Day, and
he was glad to stand by them in their
efforts to keep the Centennial Exhibit
ton from desecrating the fair fame of
our common country. It was in con-
Guiding that speech that he asked if those
who had so much to say of "the true
and the beautiful" were unwilling to
give one day to the contemplation of the
true, after giving six days to the study
of the beautiful and then it was that,
turning to Mr.. Corliss, he said: ''That
magnificent engine of yours, sir, is a
thing of beauty. Each mighty revolu-
ton made by it, as it puts and keeps in
motion, for six days in the week, the
varied machinery which covers fifteen
acres of space, is beautiful beyond a ques-
ton. But is there any truth in it? No,
sir Not useless. on the seventh day,
that mighty engine stands silent before
Almighty God" 1t is good to see such
men candidates for high political sta
ton. The more of them we can have
the better for all concerned.
THE PRESIDENT IN VIRGINIA.-The
Presidents reception at Lynchburg was
heartily Virginian. The telegraphed
reports reflect credit upon the people OF
that city. The speech of welcome by
Mr.. Bocock was in the best taste; the
President was very happy in his reply,
and the incident of the mule and its
double rider could not have been better
timed had it been "gotten up especially
for the occasion"
Mr.. Key alone seems to be unhappy,
and no wonder. He has been badgered
from one end ofthe country to the other,
merely because he happened to be in a
peculiarly delicate position and had he
been saint we hardly see how he could
have kept his temper. Attic North he
was compelled to grin and bear it, but
when he got home among his own peo-
pie he felt like letting out little of his
pentsup wrath and agony, and we are
glad he did. He has done nothing and
said nothing but what was perfectly
right when properly explained, and even
if he had an occasional slip of the tongue,
his southern friends should have been
the last to subject him to harsh criticism.
No matter bow ambiguous his words
may have been at times, we all knew his
heart was right, and that should have
satisfied bis own people; and so, no
doubt, he felt when he made his some
what ungracious response at Lynchburg.
The man has been pecked at and pes
tered to death, and no wonder that he
should turn like hunted stag at bay,
or like a badgered bull, lower his front
and rush upon his assailants.
The incidents of the Presidents tonr
through Virginia have all been pleasant
on both sides, and to-day as he uncovers
at that Mecca of Democracy, the tomb
of Jefferson, may he drink in new inspi-
ration, and be rebaptized in the trne
American faith.