Connecticut western news., 1897-04-01

enemies. At that time, in Greek council of war, five generals we1efor beginning the battle and five were against it. Cal war, had tbe deciding vote, and Mil tiades addressed him, saying:
 ''It 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 Athenians were people were they in such danger as they are in at this mo- ment. If they bow the knee to these Medes, they are to be given up to Hip pias, and you know what they will then have to suffer, but if Athens comes vic- torious out of this contest she has it in her power to become the first city of Greece. Your vote is to decide whether we are to join battle CT not. If we do not bring on battle presently, some factious intrigue will disunite the Athenians, and the city will be betrayed to the Medes, but if we fight before there is anything rotten in the state of Athens l 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 Callimachus, and soon the battle opened, and in full run the men of Miltiades fell upon the Persian hosts, shouting: "On, sons of Greecel Strike for the freedom of your country! Strike for the freedom of your children and your wives, for the shrines of your fathers gods ane for the sepul- chers of your siresl All, all arc now staked on the strifel" While only 192 Greeks fell, 6,400 Persians lay dead upon the field, and many of the Asiatie hosts who took to the war vessels in the harbof were consumed in the shipping. Persian oppression was rebuked, Grecian liberty was achieved, the cause of civi- lization was advanced, and the western world and all nations have felt the be- roics Had there been no Miltiades there might have been no Washington. Strong In the Right.
 Also at Thermopyla 300 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 Thermopyl@ there might have been no Bunker Hill. The echo of Athenian and Spartan heroics was heard at the. gates of Lucknow, and Sebasto- pol, and Bannoekburn, and Lexington, and Gettysburg. English Magma Charta and Declaration of American Independ, ence and the song of Robert Burns, en- titled "A Mans Man For a That, were only the long continued reverbera- tion of what was said and done 20 cen- turies before in that little kingdom that the powers of Europe are now imposing upon. Greece having again and again shown that 10 men in the right are stronger than 100 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 today a republic that cannot truthfully employ the words of the text and say, II am debtor to the Greeks. 7"
 But now comes the practical question, How can we pay that debt or a part of it? For we cannot pay more than 10 per cent of that debt in which Paul &C., knowledged himself a bankrupt. By praying Almighty God that he will help Greece in its present war with Moham- mechanism and the concerted empires of Europe. I know her queen, noble, Christian woman, her face the throne of all beneiicence and loveliness, her life an example of noble wifehood and motherhood. God help those palaces in these days of awful exigencyl Our American senate did we'll the other day when in that capitol building which owes to Greece its columnar impressive ness they passed hearty resolution of sympathy for that nation. Would that all who have potent words that can be heard in T1rope 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"
 An Infinite Obligation.
 Another way of partly paying our debt to the Greeks is by higher appreci- l ation of the learning and self sacrifice of the men who in our own land stand for all that the ancient Greeks stood. While here and there one comes to pub 1 lie approval aGd reward, the most of | them live in privation or on salary dis gracefully small. The scholars, the archeologists, 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 l them every day in your streets without l any recognition. Grub street, where many of the mighty men of the past i suffered, is long enough to reach around | the world. No need of wasting cur sympathy upon the unappreciated think CTS and workers of the past, though Linnaus sold his works for a single ducat, though Noah Webster's spelling book yielded him more than his diction- ary, though Correggio, the great paint CT, receiving for long continued work payment of S39, died from overjoy;
 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 ''Hudi-
 bras" died in garret; though "Para-
 disc Lost' brought its author only $25
 cash down, with promise of $50 more if
 the sale warranted it, so that $75 was
 all that was paid for what is considered
 the greatest poem ever written. Better
 turn cur attention to the fact that there
 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 pie
 lures, encourage their pen, their pencil,
 their chisel, their engraver's knife, their
 architects compass. The world calls
 them "bookworms" or "Dr. Dryas.
 dust" but if there had been no book