The times., 1897-03-29

if the world had wealth enough to pay il
to honest lineal heirs, then the world
has an account to sc title with the living
Greek, Your pastor has dwelt upon claims
two thousand years old or more but the
account was not then closed. Marathon
and salamis saved Europe and America
to civilization; and it was nineteen
centuries before an Asiatic power again
set foot in that little land of liberty
which we call Greece. Where the Persian
failed, the Ottoman won; and after en-
camping there for four centuries he left
Greece (some sixty years ago), a smok-
ing desolation drenched in blood. Few
are they who remember that Holy struggle
that seven years OF blood and butchery
sanctioned by Christian Europe in the in
terest OF topplng thrones and the balance
of power. But through it all, one nation
the only one with no irons i'll the fire
of Eastern politics never turned the cold
shoulder to gallant little Greece. In
yonder Capitol Henry Clay was her splendid
spokesman, and Dr. Samuel G. Howe
knghtly son OF the university to which
L belong was not only the almoner OF
our peoples bounty sent out by ship loads,
but surgeon general of the Greek forces
thus paying back a little of our debt to
old Hippocrates.
If Marathon and Thernopylae had lost
any OF their meaning, they got 1t all back
again in that war of indepen dence, and,
after sixty years of recovered nationality,
we see the spirit of Leondas flaming out
again today. Young Constantine has gone
beyond Thernopylae, and his skirnish line
is under Mount Olympus. If Homer's
gods still have their mansions above, this
must be high day among them
1t is a coed time to pay little interest,
at least, on our debt to the Greeks. And,
without any jineoism, the payment of over
due debts is eternally i'll order. We have
no ships in the A Aegean, and we want none
until a few mole OF cur citizens are kid
naped and a few more American schools
burned by our great ana good friend on
the Bosphorus. But we have human
hearts and free speech. BY one splendid
utteranCe, the first citizen of the world
the Grand Old Man of Hawarden-in his
venerable retirement, has made it impcs
possible for an English ministry to let
loose the dogs of war on Greece. The
public opinion of this country-the ardent
sympathy OF a free people with a IeCple
determined to be freC-iS one OF the moral
forces on which Greece relies. Give it
voice and vim. Let it be felt in London,
i'll Paris, in Rome-all OF them philhellenic
in the very fiber of the popular--if not the
official-heing.
we are at peace with the porte-all the
acts of war being thus far on theporte S side
and we DO not quarrel with its creed; but
we cannot help sympathizng with
democracy against despotisnI, with progress
against paralysis, with civilization against
barbarism. And in all this we are heart
to heart with the Greeks. The concert OF
tyranny in Europe is clearly breaking down
under the righteous wrath OF people who
prefer wholesome war to protected butch
cry; that the break down Of that concert
seems the best hope OF peace as well as of
liberty. Letus have peace and arbitration;
but let us be a free people with the courage
OF our convictions and the honesty to own
our debts, be it TO the Greek or the bar
barian''