The record-union., 1893-05-27
The new ARISTOCRACY.
Lecture by Rev. J. B. Koehne Last
Night.
A Meteoric, Patriotic, Historic and
Brilliant Lecture by an Impas-
stoned Orator.

Rev. J. B. Koehne delivered a lecture
last evening, at the Congregational
Church, to an audience that filled the
spacious auditorium to its utmost ca
pacity.
The lecture was rendered by the pastor
to his church, that by its proceeds the
fund for recent improvements may be
augmented. The lecture was announced
as complimentary to the church-the
people made it complimentary to the
lecturer. Certainly no speaker could de-
sire or expect in this city finer or kind
ler audience.
Yet we imagine that the lecture was
somewhat disappointing, not that the
rise. growth and destiny of 1.-The New
Aristocracy" was not brilliantly sketched,
eloquently word painted; not that the
lecturer was not earnest, and that he did
not rise frequently to the levels Of the
! hnest eloquence, and that he did not
adorn his discourse with the rarest imag-
cry anu grace 1t with the architecture of
ornate construction and breathe into it
the spirit of true oratOry.
FOR all this was done, and done so
easily, naturally, and with so little ap-
parent seeking for effect as to make it a
model OF modesty-but, and only for this
was it disappointing; the speaker was
TOO rapid IN delivery first, and he grasped
SO much and crowded his metaphors and
marshaled his parallels with such light
nlng-llke rapldlty; he so piled the cen
turles atop Of one another, and punctu-
ated them with the most concise but cleo
trlc flashes OF character painting; he so
hlled his figures with the immortal
names and deeds of men, and made his
procession of historical citations sweep on
with such velocity that it was difficult,
bewildering, for the average hearer in
such an audience to follow him.
In other words, and this without dis
respect to the audience, it could not think
of and apply the bristlng proofs as
rapidly as the accomplished speaker de-
llvered them, without too much effort
Not that there are not other speakers
who are rapid-fire orators Just as
Is Mr.. kOehne; but there are few, if
any, who are such rapid-fire thinkers
with a subject in hand whose historical
parallels and historical sylIogisms bound
the field of action with general audience
in the foreground.
Mr.. Koehne delivered in forty minutes
lecture that ought to have covered an
hour fully, and would hold such an
audience for that time in perfect content
and deepest interest. Mr.. Koehne has
all the elements, except deliberative de-
IlN0lys VI pOpuldT lecturer. tie Is
historical student a historical interpre-
ter, an accurate reasOner, brilliant in his
wit, strong in his array of proofs, clear in
his argument, prophetic in his forecasts
and he marshals his metaphors, and
maneuvers his witnesses and lays his
parallels with the skill of the master
tactician and the practiced General.
There is Vigor to intensity, earnestness
to the heart of passionate delivery, con-
viction that brooks no doubt and tolerates
no thought of insincerity, in his manage
ment, his style and his delivery. Ad-
miration quickens into something better
as one hears such a speaker.
To attempt report in brief of the lee
ture would be failure to present an ade-
quate idea OF it. We fancy that 1t would
read like an epic; that in print it would
sound for tolerance, broadness of thought.
liberty, the dignity of labor, the march Of
progress, freedom of press and pulpit
and men, bugle blasts from every type
set line. In a few words, the new
lectures is the aristocracy of free man
hood, untrammeled thought, dignifed
| labor, uplltted womanhood, the honest
ballot, free press, popular education,
and manhood not priest-ridden.
1t is an aristocracy of humanity, of
which the poet Job sang in lamentation:
an aristOcracy of knowledge for which
Homer stood; an aristocracy of progress
Of which Dante struck the keynote in
prophetic poetry; an aristocracy Of man
hood which Shakespeare contemplated
and Of which he wrote with pen dipped
III the blood OF races.
The lecturer is an intense believer in
the doctrine that the poets are the true
prophets; that they set the goal for the
race to civilization that is best, that lifts
up anG purifies and commits itself to re-
| ligion to consecrate. The difference be-
tween savagery and the noblest manhood
is the difference between looking without
and looking within. The difference, to
give q sample of his figures, between
Henry Clay and Sioux Indian is the
difference between the clothed and the
naked mind Strip Clay of the result of
refining influences, of the discipline OF
mind, OF the cultivated intellect and he
would have been little more than the
Sioux. Into this nineteenth century. he