The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1899-03-06

peril, and the bronze lips repeat the
words of the living voice, liberty and
union, now and forever, one and in
separable" And this element of liter
airy merit was present in all the great
orations of all the great orators OF the
period, very markedly in those of Ru-
fus Choate, and in varying, but still in
very large degree in those of Sumner
and Phillips, of Chaplin and Curtis OF
| Cheever and Banks.
| This literary deterioration, if it be
deterioration, or only change which is
apparent in SO many lines of literary
| work may be but the answering effect
upon it of our busy, busting, practical
modern life The age Of steam and
electricity, of rapid transit and gigan-
tic commercial enterprises has been in
strumental in changing the interests
of men, and the effect Of this change is
measurably seen, whether for better or
for worse, in the altering standards for
literary accomplishment. For one, at
least, 1 feel that there is something to
regret, as there is always something to
regret when considerations Of mere util-
ity invade those provinces of the in
tellectual and the esthetic, which for
the we'll being of man, and the safe
guarding of his higher interests, he
must keep untouched by too intimate
contact with the material world.
The decadence and decay Of the es-
say removes one influence of refine
ment from the life of man, and as
have endeavored to indicate, the chang
ing standards which witness to any
decadence and decay in the literary
merit of the essay, witness also to de-
cadence and decay in the literary ele-
meN which erst distinguished the ora
ton, to say nothing of what may have
been the correlative effect upon other
departments of literary work. For have
not these experiences operated with
deleterious effect upon the deliverances
of the pulpit, too? Time was when
men of broad and noble culture, repre-
sentatives of a profession which they
affectionately regarded as the queen OF
all the professions. presented themes
prepared with all the elaborate care of
an exacting scholarship. There was
manuscript upon the desk because it
was only by the use of it the great
moral and spiritual interests of man
could be presented with the dignity and
elegance the subject seemed to demand,
but manuscript to-day seems to be an
abomination to many unquestionably
intelligent auditors and meretricious is
the adjective which frequently describes
many a modern pulpit effort in the
prominent places of the land.
l am, however, speaking of general
tendencies and effects, and am not UNI
mindful of many modern illustrations
of large and, ennobling culture. Jeremy
Taylor and Horace Bushnell and Fred
erick Robertson and William Ellery
Claiming may be gone. but Washing
John White Chadwick remain, 20 put
the stamp of scholarship upon the work
of a profession that with that of the
essayist and the orator, once illustrated
an elegance and a refinement that lift
ed the spirit of man into ideal realms
of feeling and Of thought.
But perhaps a reaction may speedily
come, and considerations of utility give
place in some marked and gratifying
measure to considerations of moral and
estbetic achievement, as the senses in
the common life of man shall give pre-
cedence to the soul. 1t was the re-
leasing of a culture long imprisoned in
Constantinople and the Orient that was
denominated the spreading of the hui
manities. as the fugitives before the
advancing crescent carried with them
the treasured learning of Greece, and
1t is the humanities which are being adj
vanced, wherever the treasures Of ele-