The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-03-29


/ triumphed over one hundred thousand of
their enemies. At that time in Greek
| council of war five generals were for be-
ginning the battle and five were against
it. Callimachus. presided at the council
| of war, had the deciding vote. and Mill
| AIDES addressed him, saying:
1T now rests with you. Callimachus,
either TO enslave Athens. or by insuring
| her freedom, to win yourself an immor'
| tality Of fame, for never since the Athe-
| mans were a people were they IN such
! danger as they are in at this moment. II
they bow the knee to these Modes, they
are to be given up to Hippias, and you
know what they viii then have to suffer;
but if Athens comes victorious out of this
| contest she has It in her power to be-
| come the first city of Greece. Your vote
! is to decide whether we are to join battle
| or not. If we do not bring on battle
| presently, some factious intrigue will dis
| unite the Athcnians and the city VIII be
| betrayed to the Modes but If we fight
! before there is anything rotten in the
| state of Athens, ] believe that, provided
| the gods will give fair field and no favor,
we are able to get the best of it in the
| engagement"
That won the vote of Callmachus, and
! soon the battle opened, and in full run the
men of Mntiades fell upon the Persian
| hosts, shouting, "On Sons of Greecei
| Strike for the freedom of your country
| Strike for the freedom of your children
and your wives, for the shrnes of your
| fathers gods, and for the sepulchres of
| your sires! All, all are now staked on the
| strife" While only one hundred and nine
! ty-two Greeks fell, six thousand four hun
dred Persians lay dead upon the field and
| many of the Asiatic hosts who took to the
| war vessels in the harbor were consumed
in the shipping. Persian oppression was
| rebuked, Grecian liberty was achieved,
! the cause of civilization was advanced
| md fYax dNy1
| felt the heroics. Had there been no Mil
| tades there might have been no Wash
ington.
Also at Thermopylae, three hundred
| Greeks, along a road only wide enough
| for a wheel track between a mountain and
a marsh, died rather than surrender. Had
| there been no Thermopylae. there might
| have been no Bunker Hill The echo of
| Athenian and Spartan herocs was heard
| at the gates of Lucknow, and Sebastopol
| and Bannockburn, and Lexington and
| Gettysburg. English Magma Charta, and
| Declaration of American Independence.
and the song of Robert Burns, entitled
| "A Mans a Man for a That" were only
| the long-continued reverberation of what
| was said and done twenty centuries before
in that little kingdom that the powers of
| Europe are now imposing upon Greece
| having again and again shown that ten
men in the right are stronger than hun
| dred men in the wrong, the heroics of
| Leonidas and Aristides and Themistocles
| Will not cease their mission until the last
man on earth is as free as God made him.
| There is not on either, side of the Atlantic
| to-day republic that cannot truthfully
employ the words of the text and say, II
| am debtor to the Greeks"
But now comes the practical question:
| How can we pay that debt, or a part of
| it? For we cannot pay more than ten per
| cent of that debt in which Paul acknowl-
| edged himself a bankrupt. BY praying
| Almighty God that he will help Greece
| in its present war with Mohammedan-
ism and the concerted empires of Europe
| 1 know her queen, noble, Christian wo-
man, her face the throne of all benehcence
| and loneliness, her life an example of no
| bic wifehood and motherhood. God help
! those palaces in these days of awful ext
| gency! Our American Senate did we'll the
! other day, when, in that capitol building
| which owes to Greece its columnar i'm
| pressiveness, they passed a hearty reso-'
luton of sympathy for that nation. Would
that all who have potent words that can
be heard in Europe would utter them
| now, when they are so much needed! Let
US repeat to them in English what they
centuries ago declared to the world In
Greek: blessed are those who are per-
secuted for righteousness sake, for theirs
| is the kingdom of heaven"
| Another way of partly paying our debt
| to the Greeks is by higher appreciation of
| the learning and self-sacrifice of the men
| who in our own land stand for all that the
ancient Greek stood. While here and
there one comes to public approval and
| reward, the most of them live in privation
| or on salary disgracefully small. The
| scholars, the Psychologists, the artists, the
| literati-most of them live up three or four
| flights of stairs and by small windows
that do not let in the full sunlight You
| pass them every day in your streets with
| out any recognition. Grub street, where
many of the mighty men of the past suf-
fered, is long enough to reach around the
world. No need of wasting our sympathy
upon the unappreciated thinkers and work
ers of the past. Though Linnaeus sold
his works for a single ducat Though
Noah Webster's spelling book yielded
him more than his dictionary. Though
Correggio, the great painter receiving
for long continued work payment of thir-
ty-nine dollars, died from over-ioy. Though
when Goldsmith's friends visited him
they were obliged to sit in the window,
as he had but one chair Though
Samuel Boyse, the great poet, starved to
death. Though the author of "Hudibras,"
died in a garnet. Though Paradise Lost"
brought it's author only twenty-five dol
lars cash down. with promise of fifty dol
lars more If the sale warranted il; so that
seventy-five dollars was all that was paid
for what is considered the greatest poem
ever written Better turn our attention
| to the tact that tnere are at this moment
hundreds of authors, painters, sculptors,
architects, brain-workers without bread
and without fuel and without competent
| apparel. As far as you can afford it, buy
their sculpture, read their books, purchase
their pictures, encourage their pen, their
pencil, their chisel their engraver's knife,
| their architects compass. The world calls
them "bookworms" of DIR. Dry-as-Dust,"
but if there had been no bookworms or
dry doctors of law and science and theol-
ogy, there would have been no Apocalyp-
tic angel. They are the Greeks of our
country and time, and your obligation to
them Is infinite.
But there Is better way to pay them,
and that is by their personal salvation.
which will never come to them through
books or through learned presentation be-
cause in literature and intellectual realms
they are masters. They can out-argue.
out-quote out-dogmatize you. Not through
the gate of the head, but through the gate
OF the heart, you may capture them. When
men OF learning and might are brought to
God they are brought by simplest story