Morning journal and courier., 1880-02-18

hontas and Captain Smith, the story of Put l nam and the wolf, have gone the way of | William Tell. But stirring events are left here
 and there in our annals. The sojourn of the I regicides in New England after the restoration of Charles II. is a chapter of authentic TO- l nance. know of no reason to distrust the 1 tradition that in the attack made upon Hadley by the Indians in 1875 the people were rallied by word of command from an unknown man, l advanced in years and clothed in the costume | of former day, who suddenly appeared in | the midst of them, put the invaders to flight, ] and then disappeared himself; and that the veteran who had thus led and inspirited them
 and then vanished was the same Colonel Goffe who had broken through the lines of | Prince Rupert at Naseby and had sat on the | Court of High Commission that sent to the seaffold King Charles I. Walter Scott has | lost great part of his fascination for the | generation at present on the stage. Mediae- | valism can no longer cast spell on the men | of to-day the democratic tendency is too
 rife; the criticism of social inequalities is too
 keen; pageants and glorious feats of arms do ] not veil from our eyes the accompanying igno- rance and superstition. Yet we can at least ! remember the thrill of delight which was ex- perienced in reading for the first time how, in | the lists of Ashby when Ivanhoe was hard pressed by his antagonists, and well nigh borne down, the stalwart knight in black ar- nor, who had istlessly stood aloof from the contest, suddenly walked from his slumbsr, 1 struck Font de Boeuf from his saddle, rolled \ the bulky Athelstane in the dirt with single | blow of the battle axe wrenched from his l hand, and leaving to the disinherited knight | but 8 single foe to deal with retired from the throng as leisurely as he had come, awakening the surmise, however, that the mysterious champion whose powerful arm had done that work could be none other than the long ab- l sent monarch, Richard Occur de Lion. Our l sense of the heroic is doubly stirred by brave deed in an emergency. Let me advert to an l incident, one of the most affecting in all Grscian history, which occurred in conneo- 1 ton with the battle of Marathon. But first must recall to your memory some of the cir cumstancss relating to that conflict. It was one of the great battles which have detsrmin- ed the course of history. It was contest of the East with the West, Europe with Asia. It was the question whether the growing civili- zation of Greece, with its ideas of liberty, of constitutional right, and the value of the in dividual, should be crushed by the might of that colossal Empire which had already quenched in blood the revolt of the Ionian cities The Greeks were to stand face to face with the military force of that Asiatic power which had spread it's dominion over g great part of the world as 1t then existed.
 And the Athenians were left to bear the brunt
 by themselves. Philippeides, ono of the
 swiftest runners, had been sent to Sparta,
 reaching that city, 1855 or 40 miles distant, the next day after he started. The Spartans, stunted Romans as they have been called, with their pharisaical piety, for the reason, either real or pretended, that they thought 1t not right to march until the moon was full, with held their aid. There was treschery and di- yidsd counsels, moreover, at home. Ailtiades had obtained leave to fight only by the cast ing vote of the Polemarch, given at his urgent request. Immediately after the bat tie, a shield was displayed on Mt. Pentelicus, signal of traitors, designed probably to di- fIoD fN
 ium, as they actually did, for the purpose of effecting landing nearer Athens, an attempt which was baffied by the rapidity of Miltiades who, on the game evening, or, possibly, on the morning of the next day, marched his army distance of 23 miles to meet the apprehend- ed attack. There on the plain of Marathon the ten thousand Athenians, among them
 men like the poet HEschylus, stood and be- fore them was the uncounted host of their enemies spread along the shore. At this mo-
 ment, when not only their lives and the
 lives of their families, but the very existence
 of their country, and, in an important degree,
 the cause of civilization for all coming time, were hanging in the balance, and they were left by tho other Greek communities to fight single handed-at this moment of su- preme peril they saw approaching to their
 help 1000 men, the whole fighting popula- tion of the little town of Platea. No doubt the
 pseans of the Athenians rang out with louder
 note, as they ran forward upon the enemy,
 for this timely help and the sympathy which
 it betokened- Athens showed her appreciation
 of the timely service done by the Plateans by
 making them Athenian citizens, az far as civ
 il rights were concerned and, ever after, at
 the commemoration of the victory, once in
 four years, the Athenian herald impIored the
 blessings of the gods upon the Plateans in common with his own people.
 Into intellectual efforts of a high order char
 IT, IL
 without convictions cannot speak or write
 well. Eloquence has been styled virtue, so
 dependent is noble and effective speech upon
 the moral spirit that animates the orator.
 When the orator requires lofty courage in or der to speak as he does, when he speaks, not
 for the qualification of his hearers, nor for their applause, but for practical end,
 like the salvation of the State, then his words
 are really deeds Speech is then itself an act.
 < There
 have been men in public life who were most
 remarkable for their intellectual accomplish
 ments and for the graces of manner, and who
 lacked no advantage which training could con-
 fer, but who have failed in the power to
 thrill their auditors, simply because they made
 oratory moro an end than 8 means. Other
 men who have been thought to be, like Moses,
 slow of speech, men of action, of indepen-
 dence, of courage, have risen to an eloquence,
 which, If you measure eloquence by it's effect,
 has never been surpassed. The biographer of Cromwell tell us, in his quaint style how that leader, at critical moment, in the House of Commons dropped from his stammering tongue speech that melted tough old Sir Ed
 mund Coke to tears. There is striking per sonage, pertinent here, in the diary of the elder John Adams kept during the sessions of
 the Continental Congress. Under the date of August 22, 1774, he writes-referring to MT.
 Lynch of Virginia, whom he pronounces a
 most sound and judicious person 'sHe (Mr.
 Lynch) told us that Colonel Washington made the most eloquent speech at the Virginia Con- vention that ever was made. Says he-I will raise one thousand men, subsist them at my own expense, and march, myself at their head, for the relief of Boston, What was there in this brief speech to outdo the eloquence of Henry, and move to their inmost hearts the assembly that heard it It was tocsn of war it was an engagement to take up arms, encountered by no condition. There was man behind the words,-a man not caring to say grand things, silent man, ac- customed to follow up his words with deeds. reputation and fortune in jeopardy, in the matter which they were debating; who knows whether it may not have been the effect of that incident, as related by Lynch, which led John Adams to suggest the name of Washing ton as commander of the Continental armies !?
 Prof. Fisher now compared the types of heroism shown in Cranmer and. Latimer re- spectively. Oranmer thrust the perfdious hand into the flames. Old Hugh Latimer, how different was he in his natural temper? 'tBs of good comfort, said he, ''Msster Ridley, and play the man we shall this day light such candle by Gods grace in England as trust shall never be put out" Thus also the speaker compared Melancthon, scholarly, true yet timid, with brave Luther, whose courage rose as difficulties arose. He drew picture of Nilton's facing the immediate peril of total blindness rather than the assertion of his duty to his country. He tcalled, he said, Gin reply to friend, the two destinies which the oracle of Delphi announced to the son of Thetis: 1.-TWO fates may lead me to the.realms of night.
 If, staying here, around Troy's wall fight,
 To my dear home moro must return
 But lasting glory will adorn my
 But, if I withdraw from the martial strife,
 Silent is my fame, but long will be my life.
 Il. TX.
 The lecturer now considered the dignity imparted to literature by love of the brightest interests of mankind guiding the pen. The man of letters whose business 1t was to flatter royalty was only one notch above the court jester. Niebuhr's honest scorn for his brot& CT historian Won Muller, with Napoleon's ea- gles flashing near and nearer to Berlin, adher- | ed to his books. He paid a tribute to Me buhr's honesty as historian. Dean Stanley | {. I11A D.