The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-07-05

July.
The address of Colonel Sprague il
Center church yesterday morning was {
very eloquent and patriotic one anc
was listened to by a large and appre
ciative audience.
Colonel Sprague spoke in part as fol
lows:
Among the great festivals of the
world, the American Fourth of July
holds unique and conspicuous place
The days when all the millions of de-
Nout Hebrews annually turned theil
eyes and hearts, and hundreds OF thous-
ands of them turned their steps toward
Jerusalem; the stated celebrations OF
national games, when multitudes OF
patriotic Greeks from every land came
pouring in endless streams to the Olym-
pian Isthmian, Pythian and Nemean
fields, till the living bloods filled the
stadia and pillows of applause eXtolled
to the skies the victorious athlete or
the nobler intellectual gladiator; the
triumphant pageants of imperial Rome
when the laureled conqueror, with con-
suls and Judges and senate, with vic
torious legions with captive princes
and armies in chains, and the spoils of
vanquislled nations, moved in magnifi-
cent procession amid millions of specta-
tors,
''Who saw Rome's brightest day
Who saw the long victorious pomp
Wind down the Sacred Way
And through the believing Forum
And round the Supplants' Grove
Up to the everlasting gates
OF Capitolian Jove."
the most memorable anniversaries of
modern Europe and Asia-all are in
ferior to our national birthday in va
riety and fullness of feeling, in i'm
pressive simplicity and far-reaching
influence, and in the grandeur of the
events they commemorate.
He We're but a superficial observer
who should fail to discern beneath all
the bubble and sparkle and foam, and
in spite of the million-fold plash and
roar, a steady under current, silent
and strong, originating in the pro-
foundest convictions and poured from
the deepest founts of feeling; confined
to no narrow channel or favored zone,
but rising at earliest dawn on every
league of our Atlantic shore and keep
ing pace with the incoming flood of
EASTERN light, sweeping onward and
westward, tidal wave of joy, till the
broad continent is traversed, and the
chorus of ringing bells and booming
cannon and the diapason of mimic war
n,inge with the murmurs of the Pa
cific seas.
And what is the significance of all
this? Not holiday pleasure. Fond aa
Young America and children of a larg-
er growth justly are of the spectacle
of life and pomp and pyrotechnic
splendor, and the millionfold rattle and
roar of explosive toys and martial
music and stirring chimes and cannon
peals, all bespeaking universal gladness
and irresistible force. the sentiment
which creates this anniversary is far
dearar.
Nor is it chiefly pride of ancestry or
reverence for the fathers. Indeed, not
withstanding our patriotic societies,
''Sons and Daughters" of the great
and good, we have far too little of this.
We undervalue the men who carried
America in their heart and brain in
''the times that tried mems souls" Be
cause he has seen steam navigation
lights and telegraphs and phono-
graphs, the youth of ten or twelve
thinks himself wiser than Benjamin
Franklin The third-rate politician,
who has bought a seat in congress,
smiles patronizingly on George Wash
ington, who could not tell a lie and
who knew 50 little of the Strenuous
life and America as world power"
Yet glorious and true We're these, and
towering above most if not all of the
men OF to-day, as the monument of
the national capital lifts it's head
above the trade and tramp of business
the tumult and the shouting of the
streets, the wrangling and the babble
of congress. Thomas Jefferson James
Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John
Adams-ah there We're giants in those
days; and If our American Fourth of
July served no other purpose than to
keep their memories alive and watt
their names and deeds on the wings of
eloquence and song to distant lands
and ages, the service this day would
render to our country and to humanity
would still be of inestimable worth.
But reverence for ancestors is not the
chief ingredient in our cup of joy and |
to-day
Nor is it mainly love of country We |
cannot have too much of the genuine |
We cannot have too little of the sham. |
For the far northeast whence the wise |
men used to come New England; once !
supposed to be the brain of the nation; |
with her universal diffusion of knowl- |
edge and morality; her great education
al Institutions that still light the land:
her unsurpassed ingenuity, inventive
ness enterprise, energy, mind mixed |
with muscle, wringing wealth from
finty rock and barren sand and ocean
waste-for New England, with all her
precious history-for the Middle States
SO long the heart of the republic with
their Industrial activities and amazing
wealth, cause and effect combined in
ever-increasing volume; their vast
ever enlarging. ever multiplying cities |
New York. Philadelphia and the rest
mental and moral as we would fain be-
lieve, keeping pace with material pro-
gress-for the New South, purified by
sorrow and suffering, and looking with
confidence to the glory that
shall yet be hers, to the intelligence that
shall flourish like her corn and cane and
FRI grant leaf, to the peace and purity
that shall whiten her summer robes like