The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-06-05

stored. But the old spirit of the Roman
people had passed away. Caesar had but
brushed aside the empty Journalism. 1t
was force alone that could hold together
and govern the Roman world.
Greece too achieved her brightest mill
tary glory and approached the ideal dem
ocratic government during the days of
her greatest enlightenment. Aeschylus
was soldier, and Euripides was born ON
the day that Sophocles as beautiful
boy of thirteen danced before the trophies
of Salamis 1t was in the days of her Gull
ture her poesy and art that the people
were great and strong. It was then that
the Athenians unterrified by the approach
of the fleets and armies of the great
king, incorruptible by the treasures of the
Orient. stoned Cyrcilus, who proposed an
advantageous but ignominious peace, that
the women of Athens stoned the wife of
Cyrcilus. They preferred to die in glorious
war, than to live and prosper as the hire
lings of the Persian King. They sent
Themistocles to Salamis. The heroic
past of the militant South is due to the
chivalric spirit of her people, more than
to great and brilliant leadership. 1t is
true that "Stonewall" Jackson trod the
earth as the mighty Titan of war before
whose face the armies were vanquished,
but behind him were the greatest soldiers
of the world. They were men whom death
could not terrify, whom defeat could not
disnonor. They glorfed a fallen cause
by the simple manhood of their lives, and
the heroism of their death. They cast
over the Southland the glamor of immor-
tai chivalry, and consecrated the cause
of Dixie" with a heroism of immortal
deeds Amid the misfortunes and wreck
of war we were the heirs of the priceless
treasure of their memories.
The danger that threatens us today is
the loss of the spirit of our fathers, the
moral and intellectual weakness of the
people. 1t is more to be dreaded than
the advance of imperial armies, than war
and pestilence and famine. The untimely
frosts or the parehing winds of summer
may blight and wither our green fields,
but the rain and sunshine will come again,
clothe hill and meadow in verdure and
harvest fields will wave in golden plenty.
The tempests may come and with tu-
multous floods destroy our farms or the
fires of CONGREGATIONS may burn fair cities
to ashes, but industry will claim the
waste places and cities will rise Phoenix
like from their ashes fairer than before.
The desolating spirit Of war may breathe
upon our land as il has done and leave
nothing behind but burying grounds and
dCsolatiOn and smoking ruins and mothers
and sisters in mourning but the olive
branch of peace will grow, the battle flags
will be furled. On the fields of death the
wild roses viii bloom in perennial beauty
and from soil consecrated by heroic
blood a nCbler race will come. But DER
the waste of moral desolation, there comes
no reiuvenating spring. 1t is then that
The furies will walk the earth again and
shake their serpent hair strong and
enlightened people forgetful of the golden
rule, unmindful of the universal law of
justice, may consent for the moment to
ride in charots of imperial glory, but they
will never drag the car of imperial power
Princes and Lords may flourish and may
fade
A breath can make them, as breath has
made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's
pride,
When once destroyed can never be sup
piled"
The Tutonic people have been distnc-
lively the race that has always fought
and struggled for the law of Justice and
equity. They have not submitted TO o2-
preston, nor have they Willingly inflicted
it upon others. AS a race of naked un-
armed barbarians on the banks of he
Rhine they died before the crushing dcs-
tiny of the Roman power. but never
surrendered. 1t was this shirt If free
dom that inspired the soldiers Of tie
Covenant when on Marston Moor and
Naseby Field they drove in headloag rout
the armies of the aliens. The same spirit
sustained the Revolutionary fathers when
almost without food and clothing, With
bare and bleeding feet tlley marched
through the snow to meet the army Of
the King at Yorktown. They submitted