Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-11-26

| ulobOIy W TIE IQat
) written upon the graves of nations deep
buried beneath the rubbish of the past
The pilgrim to Rome asks no secrets of tn,
whispering wallhower that clings to it
niche in the crumbling piles of the Colos
scum. The exile in Egypt, with the eterna
pyramid at his back, pleads not with tn,
giant Sphynx to unravel the mystery tina
wells the tomb of the Pharoahs. The lioI
leaves his jungle to prowl about the mass
i've moon-lit ruins of far-famed Persepoli
and crouches in the shadows of her dim
lit temple aisles, and you ask not tn,
wandering Bedouin the sad history of he
fall. The shouts that shook the mighty
amphitheater as the blood of thousand
gladiators stained red the sands of tn,
arena the sad earth that dranl
the blood of a million Egyptian
bondmen who piled the massive monument
of fallen greatness; the breeze that waited
on to judgment the thick breath of Persian
perfidy-all, all echo and re-echo the words
of Israel's prophet, "Woe unto them thai
put darkness for light and light for dark.
ness" Judged by the history of the past, in
what, shall we conclude, does national
greatness consist? viii you find it in vast
territory and countless jewellers therein I
But those mighty Persian nations that
drank, one after another, the bitter cup OF
servitude were almost boundless in terri.
| tory and as the sands for numbers. Will
you say that we shall find it in physical
force augmented by indomitable will, in
vincible patriotism and armed with all the
appointments of acuteness, intelligence and
skill? But Rome and Cesar are words
resonant with the clangor of shields, the
rafting of armor,
| THE THUNDER OF THE TREAD OF ARMIES,
And the resounding peans of perpetual vic
| tory. And yet when the finger of destiny
points the hour, down the very roads
she built on her way to conquest
| comes the steady tramp, tramp of
the blue-eyed German hordes, and the
| Teuton is laundering at the gates of Rome.
But you will be more likely to say that we
shall find the great desideratum in educa-
! tion-the one watchword of the age. But
\ the soft breezes, that murmur among the
ruined walls and solitary columns of the
| only Athens the world has ever known,
recall a time when the same breezes
whispered in the sacred groves of Plato's
| Academic testify of an hour when art was
| tie mpled on that classic spot, and learning
and culture built, hard by, their one-world
shrine. And those breeZes tell us more
than this. They breathe the name of So
crates, and in sad eolian strains, tell US
that he walked among his fellow men and
put his finger all in vain upon the canker
that was eating out his nations life.
knowledge is power none knew it so
well as he; but vice respects no power save
| righteousness, and in her absence no tenn
pie is sacred, no shrine is free from its
| polluting touch.
| In the light of universal history, the
| foundations of our nations life were laid.
The founders looked well into the past and
| builded into it no false material. But they
could not see into the future. The reality
of to-day is more remarkable than the
mythology of yesterday Fact has out
stripped fable in the race. The myths of
| the ancients were but hidden prophecies
of what was then yet to be. Aladdin's
| lamp is but feeble rush-light beside the
marvels of spiritism and the prestidigator's
art. We lie on our beds with seven-leagued
boots for our pillow, and travel on the
wings of the lightning to the uttermost
| in a cloud of mist.
| SURVEYED FROM THE DIZZY HIGHT
| OF the present. sphynx and obelisk and
pyramid stand out as mere monuments
of brute force on the background
of the past, and serve only to give per-
spective to the triumphs of to-
| day. Travelling at such rate of speed, it
| is not to be wondered at if we have come
| far from the home of our childhood. 1t
| would be very strange if, in our flying jour
ney, we have not lost somewhat of the SIM
plicity of youth, and the trust and conf
dence and reverence that marked our early
years. In the white heat of our enthu-
siasm the old days send chill through our
| frames. Under our MONDAY sun the
| morning of life lies in the cool light of a
| winters dawn. The past does not invite
| u.s. though we feel that the fever of this
| fiimsy present is fast burning its way to the
citadel of life. This of individual, and
| the same is true of our national life. 1t
| has more than kept even pace with our
social progress. 1t has taken along with it
even less, perhaps, of the primitive sim
plicity and honesty of childhood. 1t has
| become man without the connecting link
of youths experience which should al
ways lie between childhood and age. l
said we have travelled fast and far. If |
may borrow a trite illustration, it was a
| long way from the wolf that sucked ROM
| illus and Remus to the mother who dan
! died a Cesar on her knee. 1t was farther
still from the rising of that wave of bar
| barism which came rolling out of the
north to hurl itself in an overwhelming
| torrent upon the Eternal City, down to the
day when from the little harbor of Delft
| haven devoted band babe
| FAREWELL TO HOME AND FRIENDS,
| And with God and the frail keel of the
| Mayhower their only refuge, they took re-
| hgious liberty for their guiding star, and
steered for the open sea. But, believe me,
| it is not farther from the tabled lupine den
| that sheltered the unknown founder of
Rome down to that mighty Roman Sen
ate which on curule chairs ruled Italy and
the world" it is not farther from the day
our Teutcn fathers came out of the Teuto-
berger forest to bury their battle axes in the
gates of Rome, down to that greater day
when their better sons knelt with loyal
hearts on Plymouth Rock, and with heads
barred to the breeze on that great altar oil
| Almighty God, dedicated this land to civil
and religious liberty, so to stand until
Governments be no more. And, too
it is not farther from Plymouth Rock
| to the Golden Gate than it is from the
simple, childish faith that, in the cabin OF
\ the Mavhower, legisated for this incipient
republic, down to the cool, calculating god
lessness that to-day manipulates the Gre
dulity of the many for the ambition of the
few. That little white-crested wave of CIV
ilization which began its onward flow al
Plymouth Rock should have moved across
this land like q billow of light. Its every
crest should have been tipped with the sill
very light of love to God, and handed
Justice of a quite heavenly order should
have been the strong undercurrent that
bore resistlessly on.
You know how fittully and partially the
hopes of those noble builders have been
fulfilled. You know what pirate ships
have hoisted their black flags of vice and
CRIME unrebuked above the swelling tide
of progress. You know what ruined homes
and broken hearts and blighted lives have
struggled on against terrible odds, only al
last to 90 down beneath the waves of ad.
verse fate And still our great Ship Of
State rides on, and some of us fail to hear
the mutterings of the coming storm. God
grant that our rulers hear and learn, before
it be too late, the things that belong unto
our peace"
There are two periods when the life of 6
nation is in mortal peril. The first is when
that nation thinks it has all there is o.
God. and then it will die of
THE pRY-RoT OF ITS OWN sELFIsHNEss
And self-conceit; and the second is tina
point when the nation concludes that 1t /:
able to dispense with God altogether. The
first was ancient Israel, and she met the
the fate that was foretold in prophecy anc
inevitable; towards the second our own
nation is travelling with almost lightning
speed. Christ looked down upon his be