The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1895-08-10
'CRDAY. AUGUST 10. 1895.
Midsummer

-
Midsummer ],
Written for the woms IN of the
INTELLIaENCEE. ~
The use of an artificial m ran
Hilary attraction in the B n world
has been of late years p6o II. The
extreme ductility of The of the
forces OF nature find III in fhe
railway, telegraph, td1Un canal:
yea, in nearly every 81 mod,
ern discovery, just as fe finds
development from thu linear
vein, artery, capillary, &kZ
Since the days of nredom-
nance are past we find paryo
exemplifed in the Fro of the
Nap0leonic era transfer ne man
OF science of our times; lat has
been the Outburst fro Soecond-
thought, so close packed Shipery
that makes the new rev6 that we
hardly think we are stral6 5foricaI
usage when We sun d. Arriap
system of the world is [by the
capillary forces, which thf~ re- and
pore does such immensezo5tVJ18 to the
animal and vegetable kingdoms.
Europe and America have been
threaded, interlaced, bored and admin
lstered to by earth, air. water, fire, Oil
and electricity, until we marvel that one
small head can compass all we know.
Nay, ever Jerusalem, monumental and
embalmed as it is in history, sacred and
profane-Jerusalem, so long dead to
modern ideas-listens to the shrek of
the locomotive, while the donkey and
the inevitable bakshish of the guide
stand In danger of fOS5iliZation as SYM
hOIG nf (lrI0nafnIIam IL rnf nf noasrx,a
extinction.
More especially do men of our day
feel the effect of the subtle influence.
The strides in our comprehension of
electricity and mechanical laws, the
practical tendency of science-in a word,
h subjugation of the physical to the
intellectual is rapidly accomplishing
mans fuifillment of the divine fat to
subdue the earth.
Furthermore the inspiration of this
unparalleled success operates as a tonic
to future effort, for the old French prov
erb, that Nothing succeeds like sue
cess" is grounded on the bedrock of
human nature, and must always be
true.
The Declaration of Independence, hur-
ried into premature existence, says q
late chronicler, through the discomfort
or the heated season and of flies, con-
tains an assertion that has set the world
on ire ever since its utterance. Or,
perhaps the figures would be truer IL we
watch it as a wave of thought emanat-
ing from a spring, tiny and trickling,
but broadening in its channel for one
hundred and twenty yards, until slavery
as an institution has almost been ex-
has become so odious-wrOngfully 30
that the land is full of Coxeyites and
strikers and disconnected fortune hunt
ers aud assassins, while Shonest house.
holders and property owners and all
thinking men wonder who are to be the
hewers Of wood and drawers of water
for the rich men of the earth.
Commerce is the hand-grip, Midas
like in its touch and hope, but neverthe-
less the hand-grip that binds land to
land, and eventually heart TO heart.
lCopwdnfty of interest thereby en-
IN due time concord sentiments and
The universal prayer that the won
derful liturgy given by our Lord, Ia the
great motor OF all true humanitarian
ism, inasmuch as the acknowledgment
OF the Our Father" although He be In
heaven, brings brotherhood to all the
earth.
Under all these influences the world
is developing into a large family, with
beaten highways, easy Of access. uniting
the outpOsts. The success of the cable
graph has taught men to laugh even In
the roar of old Ocean, and the two or
three thousand miles of the Atlantic
successfully cablcd over are but the
jected for the Pacific.
Even Scylla and C~harybdis, the SYM
bols of extremes for stock orators Of two
thousand or more years, have lost their
terror since the new canal has been
cut ACROSS Italy.
The Brooklyn bridge and the bridge
nj st. Louis have demonstrated how
easily the ferriage across large streams
may be supplanted. When compared
with these. the bridge at this place is, of
course, an infant, but it is the giants
seven league boots to the picturesque
little town on the beautiful bluffs of
the sand-barred, understanding Big
Muddy.
Bridges are full of suggestions of
poetic fancies, of air-castles, of revery.
Who of us has forgotten the man he
met on London Bridge in the famous
Mother Goose riddle? London bridge
seems as familiar in those old realms of
childhood a. the back porch, or the nur-
sery, or the shade trees in our grand
mothers yard.
We sing Longfellow's worldwide 81
stood on the bridge at midnight" and
the conception seems almost q part
of Is.
We stand upon the Bridge of Sighs,'
the short transit between the palace and
the prison, and our hearts die with the
setting of life's great hopes at its farther
A~1 fr naaos.~ m tkA lySnhn hsanxy
with the traffic Of Venice, we at once
remember Antonio and Shylock and
Portia and Nerissa, with a thought of
him
"Who all unmoved by the Rialto's gold
or kings displeasure
To the mighty sea gave back its pearl
Too proud to part with it below It's price,"
We linger longest at our natural
plummet and measured buttreSS, or
lifted architrave.
And then we come down to our own
time, and imagine the beautiful span that
is to transmute the Rip Van Wrinkle
dormant in q energies into the rythm
OF better business, more successful mer-
j chants, livelier streets, happier homes,
pobler lives, better schools, better
churches, higher planes of thought and
hope and life.
Lexington, a town of schools, should,
by consequence, be q town wide-awake
and abreast of the times. But she
needs easy access to the metropolis
cities north and west. With her wealth,
safe investments, her freedom from
panics and false booms, property own
ers ought to esteem themselves favored,
and make the town a stepping stone to
Independence and Kansas City, to
Chicago, to st. Joseph, to Sedalia and
st. Louis.
Infuse the spirit of progress, of true
development into the minds OF a hall
dozen or less Of N men aud women in
the town, leaders in a high sense Of
thought and action, and Missouri
would tingle through the loan of hel
valleys, the seams of her mineral beds
the a of her factories, the wealth Of
her waters, in happy homage to the old
historic town we represent. But she
needs these leaders. She needs unset
fish self-sacrifice. She needs a wisel
putting forth of her subtle force an(
hidden strength.
This bridge will be an outlet for hel
anQrOiQS an inlet for n donsor pnnnla