The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1886-07-03
BUcHTEL COMMENCEMENT.
CONTINUED FROM FIRST PAaE.l

we are enslaved to the liquor traffic. The
press is factor for good, but to what ex
tent is it abused in pandering to the
tastes of the people for sensation, Islander
and gossip. Reform must come about
through the change in the individual
taste Of the readers. Labor is at war
with capital. Labor organizations are
hopeful sign of the time. They indicate
advancement. Prodigal sons keep the
money of the country evenly distributed.
We are outgrowing the cant and super
stition of the past and are testing things.
E. C. Page, Columbus, Pa,
spoke on "The Spirits of Phillips and
Webster" using the Grafton he prepared
for the oratorical contest in which he en-
gagged last February, winning the honor
of representing Buchtel in the State con-
test. In brief he said: Two influences
upon our national development, our
political life and social organization, by
their conflict long challenged the worlds
attention; yet all that is essential in those
principles which stood arrayed against
human bondage and yet against one an
other is typified by the names, and sum-
married. 10 the spirits Of Phillips and
Webster. Wendell Phillips, though an
eccentric, is by no mean an isolated char
acter in history. Liberty was not born,
but reached its majority on the morning
of Emancipation. Weak and fugitive,
it had crossed the seas: in the name Of
liberal faith opposed the austerity of
the New England Puritans and in the
garb of democratic spirit resisted the
arrogance of Virginia royalism. National
independence had been achieved; but in
dividual liberty was yet to be secured.
Three thousand years of virtuous strug-
gle for human freedom had made a
Wendell Phillips possible; had fashioned
his opportunity, created his character
and nodded his convictions. He knew
no inequality save that of nature, recog-
nized no aristocracy save that Of mind.
Liberty, to him, was not name, but a
principle; justice, not form, but fact.
But one spirit could control such man,
upon whose every act were written, lib
erty, equality, fraternity the spirit that
thinks by intuition and acts by impulse.
Actuated by resolves as high, imbued
with an equal though different love OF
liberty, and in sympathy with his motive
but opposed to the haste and harshness of
his method, stood Webster. His enthusi-
asm was always the creature, never the
controller of his judgment. Justice was
his aim; history, his counselor; reason, his
guide. Always earnest, never impulsive,
the friend Of order, the sworn foe of an
archy; he loved liberty, but hated license
and trusted law.
The spirit of Phillips was the conf
dent, uncompromising, radical spirit Of
the centuries; cursing the wrong, wor-
Shipping the right, suspecting the old and
trusting the new. Webster, however,
was the calm, digDified, conservative
spirit of history.
E.. s. Rothrock, Akron, o.
Mr.. Rothrock chose for his subject for
this occasion The Conflict of the Cent
uries." A brief synopsis follows: Life
manifests itself through evolution. The
organic and animal worlds, the fall and
rise of nations, the founding Of new sys-
TENS and it's process of truth demonstrate
this. The world, since her foundation,
has been a battlefield. But its conflict
which has developed nature and truth
has not been in vain, for at each lull in
the battle we look in vain for a particular
dogma, doctrine or theory upon which
men have based their institutions, gov
eminent and faith, but find in it's place
an eternal truth, a final principle. The
strife is but the working out of the des-
tiny of nations, and OF mankind. And it's
nature will change with the character OF
men, but the strife itself will not cease
SO long as truth remains undiscovered
and unenforced. The thread of destiny
which is woven into the experiences of
the world is almost unthought of, be-
cause of it's intricacy. The constant
swinging of the pendulum of human ac-
ton to its limits tends to deceive men,
but it oscillates only that the hands on the
dial of thought may register the exact
truth.
But events only express thought;
hence we must look to mind for forces
and results, and here only the results can
be accomplished. The general princi-
pies OF truth, right and justice have
always been the same, but their applica-
tions change with men. They have
traversed almost the entire horizon from
extreme egoism to altruism. The conflict
has been for the extraction of the fittest
truth and its union with other truths to
form a perfect structure. We must, there
fore, go back and learn from our ances-
tors. This conflict has established po-
litical, intellectual and religious free
dom, to which may be attributed the
rapid advance of this century in these de-
partments. All history is but gradual
approach to our age. The great men and
the towering intellects are but the pro-
ducts OF the ages, and the place We now
occupy in the worlds history is sacred,
out to those who sacrificed their lives in