The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-12-01

| into CHARACTER; not upon institutions;
| institutions have no power to them
selves; still less upon the Capitalization
| of authority, upon armies and navies; 1t
| must have men of high conceptions and
| prompt obedience, and they have never
| been wanting. They have Numbered
and famed in the pulpit; in the early
| days Brewster in Plymouth, Mather in
Boston, Hooker in Hartford, Davenport
| In New Haven. / do not name their
| successors; there is no need, such souls
are never childless, there are always
those who bear the marks of their dy-
| ing for truth and make manifest their
| life. We are not discussing their the
| ology; you may not agree with that;
| few of us do, but they were men who
| laid their hands on pilgrim and puritan,
| and America is still conspicuous of the
| grace they impaired. We have had
! great educators like Mark Hopkins and
Mary Lyon, to live with whom was to
| perceive the power of a genuine culture
and to feel the attraction of the heav-
| emily life; great pioneers like Whitman,
who could found college and save a
state; great reformers like John Brown
and Garrison and Phillips, for whom
mobs and gibbets had no terrors, and
whose blood was the seed of liberty;
great statesmen like the Adamses, JEFF
ferson, Webster, Lincoln, who have
moulded and won the respect of foreign
powers; great military and naval cap
tains who, trained or unframed, have
met the need of the hour and con-
quered new glories for the flag Just
now we have been rapidly adding
stars to the galaxy In which Washing
ton was the first fixed star, and Grant
and Sherman shine with clear white
light; Dewey, still hero, though he
may have loved not wisely, but too
we'll" Sampson, Clarke, Schley, Wood,
Roosevelt and a host of others who
prove that there is still gray matter in
our brains and iron in our blood. These
all were men who cherished lofty no.
tions of life and duty, were obedient to
the higher law, and developed majes-
tic uplifting power.
Does any man in his gratitude for an
inspiring past ask how he may best
serve the republic? Here is his an
swer! He cannot better serve the re-
public, he cannot better honor God, he
cannot better advance a true civiliza-
ton, than by defeating himself to no
BILE living and laying his hands upon
the generation next to him to fill it with
the spirit of wisdom. You guarantee
the future by producing men in whose
hands what the fathers suffered to es-
tablish, the sons died to maintain, and
God wants to see triumphant, may be
safe. AS we conceive of civilization, of
government, of citizenship; as we are
personally obedient to the larger vi
sion Of the time, will we uplift the gen
eral tone of life, elevate the plane of
thinking, ambition, purpose and minis
ter to the hope of the future. Thankful
for our land and our institutions for
recent victories and plenteous harvests
and abundant prosperity; thankful most
of all for gracious and obedient men
who, generation by generation, have
laid their hands upon their successors
and impaired to them the spirit of
wisdom, let us perceive our own oppor-
tunity and obligation. The most ac-
ceptable offering gratitude can inspire is
the incense of conservation, and that
man is most appreciative of the past
who devotes himself most diligently to
the saving of the future.
We want men of adequate notions of
private integrity and public obligation.
l do not say civic obligation, the need
is broader than that and covers a mans
whole relation to his time; we want
men who perceive the public duties of
private citizens and are ready to cheer
fully perform them; we want men who
see the immense and growing opportu-
mites of wealth and leisure and culture
and eagerly use them. The word that is
italicsed in the modern working creed
is the word responsibility; responsible
ty to truth, responsibility to humanity.
responsibility to the time. A man de-
MES these claims to-day with much
greater risk to himself than formerly.
and the time is coming when he cannot
anywhere deny them and retain the
goodwill of the community. The rich
man who has no better use for his
money than to lock it up in vaults or to
use it to pamper himself and his family,
is not only milestone about the neck
of society, but a menace to the future,
for his example breeds a race of petty
imitators who live unto themselves and,
demanding the middle of the road, i'm
Deue the DIV dIu movement Vi
ty The man of leisure who squanders
his time or does nothing with it that is
of value to others can no longer hope to
escape the lash of public sentiment and
the contempt of earnest souls. The ed
ucated man who makes culture always
an end and never a means, refusing to
place his resources at the public dspo-
sal, is wickedly sequestrating intellec-
tual wealth and energy that belong to
the world. For his own sOul's sake and
for his country's sake the man of leis-
ure should devote himself to the public
business Who better than he can give
the time and thought to these concerns
which their righteous conduct requiresr
If he is brave enough to face some
and suspicion, and patrio-
tic enough to make some sacrifice, he
can not only help to secure some very
desirable reforms in political methods,
but he can effectively rebuke indiffer-
entism among his friends and stimulate
men to perceive their opportu-
nifty and obligation. The value of all
such effort is greater in the spirit it
manifests, the influence it exerts and
the sentiment it creates than in its ac-
tual results. 1t encourages those who
watch for the morning, it impresses \
open-minded youth, it causes conster-
nation in the camp of the enemy, and it |
l,rA H.. &c.,