The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-06-20
DE FORREST PRIZE MEDAL
WON YESTERDAY BY 4NSON PHELPS STOKES, JR., OF NEW YORK.

| A competitive ITiZe ior ah GuSiish cIa-
 tion-Mr. Stokes Grafton a Masterly
 One-Honorable Mention of Henry D.
 Baker-The Other Spealxers-The Sue
 cessful Grafton.
 The speaking in competition for the DeForest prize medal, valued at $1O0, was held in Battell chapel yesterday afternoon, beginning at o'clock The speakers and their subjects were as follows:
 Henry Augustus Perkins, Hartford, Conn.-Carlyle and Newman: A Study in Antithesis.
 Carlye and Newman: A Study in An tithesis.
 Philip Curran Peck, Hudson, N. Y.- Carlyle and Newman: A Study in An :, tithesis.
 Anson Phelps Stokes, ir,, New York clty-Carlye and Newman: A Study in Antithesis.
 Louis Hopkins Porter, Stamford, Conn.-Industry Ruined by Politics in Medieval Italy.
 Henry Dunster Baker Chicago, Ill., The Need of Forestry in the United States
 The speaking closed at about five o'clock and the judges, consisting of President Dwight and a committee of the faculty retired for a consultation to select the successful speaker, A party of seniors gathered at the fence, 1 I at E.o IJoIlou ed to them that the prize had been awarded to Anson Phelps Stokes, jr., of New York, with honorable mention of Henry Dunster Baker of Chicago. As the announcement was made a great cheer, such as only students know how to give, was sent up for MT Stokes, who is the most popular member of '96 A cheer was also given for MT Baker MT. Stokes oration is given below in full.
 The prize is awarded to that member of the senior class who shall write and !, pronounce an English oration in the best manner.
 CARLYLE AND NEWMAN - A
 STUDY IN ANTITHEsIS.
 It would be hard to find two great men of noble purposes who can be more properly entrusted than Thomas Carlyle and John Henry Newman. Nothing can show this antithesis more forcibly than the fact that these re- nowned preachers of righteousness were in no way drawn to one another. Newman in his volumlnous writings makes no reference to the great seer of Chelsea, while the latter returns the compliment by a single derogatory all fusion.
 It was Carlyle who once said that "a mans religion is the chief fact in re- gard to him. statement as true of it's Scotch author as of the Roman cardi- , nal They were both men of firm faith in God, omnscient ever present and all powerful but their ways of under standing and expressing this faith were fundamentally different. To Newman the first essential of religion was all ways dogmatic. He placed little con- , fidence in any belief that was not clear [ cut and defined in detail. Christianity built on any other basis seemed to [ him utterly lacking in vitality. So he steadfastly opposed that religious lib- eralism, that "Calvanism minus the | dogma to which Carlyle adhered. The i N''iN in a simple undefned Godfaith, but impatient of the emphasis placed by ec- cesastics on the small points of creed To him our Savious was "di- vine symbol" and "the most important 7 event ever transacted in this world was His life and death" But in His Atonement, His Resurrection,a and other t features of the Catholic faith, he made no pretence of believing. He was like a Puritan who as a youth followed a sound creed, but had cast 1t overheard } on reaching mans estate.
 There was ever, in NeWmans mind, l another essential of religion-an au- thortative church observing in it's ser vices exact and elaborate form. To him Lutheranism and Calvanism were hereses of the worst kind. Christian ity could not be separated from strict l ecclesiastical discipline, saintsday' S "Cregorian chants and all else which ) goes to make up what Carlyle sarcas-
 tically called "worshiping by stage machinery" So Newman did not find , the truest peace until he had joined the Church of Rome. Here was form and mystery and color and an air of the old Fathers time. The impressive pa geants of the church were food to his . spiritual life, just as truly as they were repulsive. hypoCritical shams, to the | writer whose first home was ever asso- ciated with the plain Scotch kirke.
 Carlyle had no sympathy with high ly wrought forms or show of any sort, and as to the Church of Rome with it's ritual lturgics, Creeds, hierarChies,
 he could but exclam, All this is not reIigionI" So imagine him giving up his right of private judgment becom- ing stlbmissiove to an infaliible pope believing in the miraculous power of some hallowed relic. appreciating the utility of incense and strict mOnastic life, to imagine such things of Thomas Carlyle is simply impossible; yet these are but few of the beliefs to which Newman yielded without mental diff
 Culty. The fact is that the Scotch writer had nothing of the Romanist l about him. He had more sympathies / with the number cults of Luther and
 Of Knox. In a word, the literary preacher was a Latin in his religious
 makeup.
 = But what was the effect on character , of these totally different conceptions of
 Christianity? Newman developed into a nature of finer mold, of greater spir-
 duality. of deeper purer soul. Carlyle