Arizona weekly enterprise., 1889-05-25
AN ELOQUENT ADDRESS.
Rev. Frank W. GunsauIus EIectrifies tho People of Chica go on Centennial Day.

COHSTdbuldlOry ulSpdICneS ana roSOlu- tions, the Chairman introduced the Rev. Dr. Gunsaulus, who spoke as follows:
 Ladies and Gentlemen: The in auguration of George Washington, and the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, are two flowers, brilliant and simultaneous, which grew upon a stalk whose roots ran down deep into the very eternity of God. No great event in the world is extemporaneOus; no little event is born Of moment; and an event, such as that whlch gathered the powers oi democracy into a single state paper, and incarnated the hope of the future III single great personality, has wide sympathies and large relationships which run everywhere into the whole past. It is interesting to-day to think Ii ever before on this planet there oc cured so large a celebration of any political event. l have thought of Charlemagne in the midst of the dark ness of the middle ages; and then my mind went back to that one event in the history of Rome, the coronation Of a CeIar as the one possible event that might have moved at one time such large populations with songs of joy. How different to-day is this scene? No Caesar sits before us enthroned upon the rights of the peo- pie, but the memory Of George Wash ington is enthroned by all the affec- tions and all the hopes of the Amer can people. When the Western end of the Roman Empire fell it was cer- tain that the human race had decided that Cesarism was done forever. Rule by force, sovereignty by power, have passed forever out of mems hope and thought. No longer possible was it to erect upon mems consciences and brains any sort of empire which was not supported by their voluntary and loyal allegiance. The whole problem Of history, from the fall of the western end of the Roman Empire until the day of the inauguration of George Washington, was to find out what kind of government human conscience and human thought would agree to. Through all the long middle ages it was one continuous contest between the Christian thought of government and the thought of the Cesar Liv- ing right there in Rome, under the Roman eagles, with every opportunity for Roman sovereignty, there had come into the world man by the name of Jesus of Nazareth. That Man had attacked the national institutions with the heart and conscience of hu- manity He had told the old arislo- clacies of the past that there was to be a new arlStOcracy, and 1t was to be the arlstOcracy Of character and truth. He taught men to pray prayer Our Father''-which lifted every man out ot his individualism into social re- lationship with every other man, and made the picture of common father above the head of plebeian and aristo- crat. It was the thought of this man, in that prayer, of the Fatherhood oi God and the brotherhood of man which went through those ten cen turies with such tremendous power and such constant victory. He also taught the world new conception ol liberty. Before His coming, for the most part, man had supposed that liberty was a concession; that a throne, or a kingdom, or a scepter, or a crown, had the sole right of giving liberty to mankind This man came and said, in the very presence of Rome "1e shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free" He came to teach men that by so much as they took truth into their brains and hearts and consciences by so much they were free. He came also to teach another thing: the world was full of ancient institutions; there had come out of a very venerable past large number ol very reverent traditions from old in stitudons, that were all mossgrowr and covered with the memory of ages This man immediately said in every single operation of His life, in every line of His thought, that the valuable thing in this universe was not insti tutions, but mans soul He began tc teach humanity that the most inter es,ing thing in the world to God was not what man made, but man him self; that every institution, like the temple, like the state, like laws, like thrones, might be thrown down, and that man touched the most venerable institution ill all his time, the temple and He told them that it would fal before their gaze, and when He dieC the veil of the Temple was rent il twain from the top to the bottom. Ht came to tell men that man was more valuable than institutions; and wher He died He died with the thought 1T the minds of His disciples that H. had died for all men, bond and free black and white, rich and poor, higf and low. And, ladies and gentlemen 1t was not in some club of inhdelity it has not been upon the platform o some inidel society, but it was at tht cross of Christ, where one made al men equal, that your democracy anc repubhcanism were born. Applause.
 Tor ten hundred years these gres principles had continuous fight, and all the way along through the cen turies they led armies and re-createC civilization
 Rome was a perfect chaos at tn close of the fifth century. The ques tion was what power should come int the world and take hold of those bat tered and broken fragments and mak
 civilization out of them. The grea problem was what power should g
 into that chaos and bring order ant government forth. You know of tn long fight. You can see the bat 7 tle-helds as you read your pages 0 history. You stand there on the bat tle-tield of Chalon and see Attila. tn dread of the world, meet these ne, ideas. You go little farther an you see the great Charles Marte ! marshaling Christians with his swor