The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-07-11
ADDRESS BY DR. LEONARD BA'
 CON.

NCNs
 Formerly of This City-Excerpt From
 His Fourth of July Speech at Put
 nam.
 Of interest to many will be the fol- lowing features of an address delivered by Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon of Nor wich, a son of the late Rev. Dr. Leon- ard Bacon of New Haven. and broth CT of Hon, Theodore Bacon of Roches- ter, N. Y., whose speech at the Yale Alumni meeting last week was in a similar vein as regards the present war and the future of this country:
 At the Fourth of July celebration in Putnam, the Rev. Leonard W. Bacon of Norwich made the address, his sub ject being An Historical Parallel" After graphic sketch of Spain in the past, the speaker went on to say:
 The horror of Hernando Cortes at the human sacrifices of the Aztecs looks quite as genuine as our horror at the sufferings inflicted on the recon centradoes; and if there does seem to be grotesque disproportion in the remedy which he applied, preventing the immolation of few hundred wretches by the wide slaughter and en- slavement of hundreds of thousands, it would seem to be becoming in us to be little cautious in our criticisms, in view of the character and success, up to the present time, of our own meas ures for the relief of the Cuban suffer- CTS. But there are positive evidences of a beneficent purpose in the Spanish conquests. Everywhere the Christian iZation, instruction and civilization of the conquered races was faithfully provided for The conquests were con- temporaneous with that great revival of religion in the church of Spain with which are associated the names of such reformers at Ximenes and Loyola and Francis Xavier and St. Teresa and the good Las Casas.
 THE SPIRIT OF REVIVAL. The spirit of this revival entered into all the plans of conquest. No military expedition was reckoned to be fully equipped without it's contingent of clergy-chaplains for the trops and missionaries for the invaded countries. The zeal and self-sacrifices of Spain's missionaries surpassed even the splen- did valor of her soldiers. Unfiinching before suffering and death, they in structed their reluctant catechumens in the rudiments of the Christian faith; they reduced to writing the bar ho, Jo, oI Ia tbo Lnc in nings of a literature for unlettered | tribes. Some individuals they advanc- l ed to the higher courses of education; l they did what they could to introduce | the arts of the best civilization of the | time They built churches of stately design and enduring masonry that serve as monuments of their adventur- | ous faith and charity The front wave | of our own westward emigration, of | the swift advance of which we are so | boastful, has only just now in our own | day reached the central plateau of the continent, to find there the venerable | edifces of Christian architecture that | has been standing there from before the time when the Pilgrims set foot on | Plymouth rock, or the Virginia colon- | ists moored their ships to the trees be- | side the James
 | A CHALLENGE AND A REPLY. Look now at these incomputably grand results, "surpassing fables and yet | true,'' and ask yourselves the question whether the policy of beneficent war and conquest for humanity's sake is not approved by the result and sane l toned by the smile of a favoring Prov idence The name and glory of the motherland reaching through every sea and ocean and dominant in both the hemispheres; the treasures of the Incas and the Montezumas, the "bar- barrie pearl and gold" of "the gorgeous east" pouring a continual river of wealth into the national coffers; vast nations and tribes once plunged in the l lowest depths of an inhumar dolatry now submitting themselves and their | children to the instruction of Christian missionaries in the story of the gospel and in the arts of civilized life; what more could be asked in approval of a | national policy than this? The only answer that could be made to this l challenge is, wait a little; God does not always complete His judgment of the l nations in a single generation of a l single century.
 | AN EXAMPLE AND A WARNING. 1 And we wait and watch with dazzled i eyes the course of all that glory. We 1 turn but few pages of the world s history; and we look for it, and To, it | is not; yea, we seek it, and it cannot 1 be found. Poor, ruined, degraded 1 Spain. She stands in the pillory of his- tory, stripped, almost to the last rag, of the glory of her great possessions, pelted by the scorn and generations of l the world, an example and warning to
 the nations, that they may see and feal, whenever they may be tempted 1 by the passion of martial glory and | the lust of dominion to adopt the | Spanish policy of wars of conquest for | the glory of God and the benefit of hu- manity. The moral of the whole story l is pointed out by the keen and brilliant l pen of Macaulay in these words | Whoever wishes to be well acquainted
 with the morbid anatomy of govern 1 ments, whoever wishes to know how great states may be made feeble and | wretched, should study the history of l Spain"