Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1901-12-12

In summer honeysuckles Chamber over the
trelllses.. On one side there stands gar.
den, which is only farm condensed. On
the other side there is stretch of meadow
land with thick grass, and as the wind
breathes over it it looks like the deep
green ocean waves. There goes a brook,
tarrying long in its windings, as if loatb
to leave the spot where the reeds sing,
and the cattle stand at MONDAY under the
shadow of the weeping willows. In win.
ter the sled comes through the cracking
snow with huge logs from the woods, and
the barn floor quakes under the thumpings
Of the fail or the deafening buzz Of the
thrashing machine. Horses stand beneath
NOV poles bending under. loads of hay
and .whinny to the we'll filed oat bins.
Comfort laughs at the wind rafting the
sashes and clicking the icicles from the
caves.
Praise God for the great harvests that
have been reaped this last year! Some Of
them injured by drought or insects or
freshets were not as bountiful as usual,
others far in excess of what have ever be-
fore been gathered, while higher prices
will help make up for any decreased sup
ply. Sure sign of agricultural prosperity
we have In the fact that cattle and horses
and sheep and swine and all farm animals
have during. the last two years increased
in value. Twenty million swine slaught-
left.
If the ancients in their festivals present.
ed theif rejoicings before Ceres, the god
dess of corn and tillage, shall we neglect
to rejoice in the presence of the great
God now? From Atlantic to Pacific let
the American nation celebrate the victories
of the plow.
L come next to speak of the conquests
OF the American hammer. It's iron arm
has fought its way down from the begin
ming to the present. Under its swing the
city of Enoch rose, and the foundry of
rpSOnnHpH fb1, I'll AZ, ,tol
on the deluge. AT its clang ancient tenn
pies spread their magnifcence and char
lots rushed out fit for the battle. Its iron
fist smote the marble of Paros, and it rose
in sculptured Minervas and struck the
Pentellcan mines until from them Par
thenon was reared winter than a palace
OF Ice and pure as an angels dream.
Damascus and Jerusalem and Rome and
Venice and Paris and London and Phila-
delphla and New York and Washington
are but the long protracted echoes of the
hammer. Under the hammer everywhere
dwellings have gone up, ornate and luxu-
rious. Schoolhouses, lyceums, hospitals
and asylums have added additional glory
to the enterprise as well as the bene-
ficence of the American people.
Vast public works have been construct
ed, bridges have been built over rivers
and tunnels dug under mountains and
churches of matchless beauty have gone
up for Him who had not where to lay
His head, and the old theory is exploded
that because Christ was born in manger
Edward Eggleston and Will Carleton
and Mark Twain and John Kendrick
Bangs and Marion Harland and Margaret
Sangster and Stockton and Churchill and
Hopkinson Smith and Irving Bachelor and
Julia Ward Howe and Amelia Barr and
Brander Matthews and Thomas Nelson
Page and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and
William Dean Howells and score of 9TH
ers, some of them fixed stars and some
meteors.
As the pen has advanced our colleges
and universities and observatories have
followed the waving of its plume. Our lit
erature is of two kinds-that on foot and
that on the wing. BY the former [ mean
the firm and substantial works which will
go down through the centuries. When, on
the other hand. | speak of literature on
the wing, L mean the newspapers of the
land. They fly swiftly and vanish, but
leave permanent results upon the public
mind. They fall noiselessy as a snow
flake, but with the strength of an Alpine
glacier.
This unparalleled multiplication of intel
ligence will either make or break us.
Every morning and evening our telegraph
offices, with huge wire rakes, gather up
the news of the nation and of the whole
world, and men write to some purpose
when they make a pen out of thunder
bolt.
1t needs great energy and decision and
perseverance for. man to be ignorant in
this country to-day 1t seems to me that
it requires more effort for him to keep out
knowledge than to let it in The mail
bags at the smallest postoffices disgorge
pie: Academies with maps, globes and
philosophic apparatus have been taking
the places of those institutions where thir-
ty or forty years. ago you were put to the
torture. Men selected for their qualifca-
tions are intrusted with the education of
our youth instead of those teachers who
formerly with drover's shout and goad
compelled the young generations up the
hill of science. Happy childhood! What
with broken tops and torn kites and the
trial of losing the best marble and stump
ing your foot against stone and some
body sticking pin into you to see wheth-
er you will jump and examination day,
with four or five wise men looking over
their spectacles to see if YOU can parse the
first page in Young's ''Night Thoughts.
pies and propositions get into grand riot.
How things have marvelously- changed!;
We used to cry because we had to go to
school. Now children cry if they cannot
go. Many of them can intelligently dis
cuss political topics long before they have
seen ballot box or, teased by some poetic
muse, can compose articles for the news.
papers. Philosophy and astronomy and
chemistry have been so improved that he
must be a genius at dullness who knows
nothing about them.
On one shelf of a poor mans library is
more practical knowledge than in the 4O0,-
900 volumes of ancient Alexandria, and
education is possible for the most INDECENT,
and no legislature or congress for the last
fifty years has assembled which has not
had it in rail splitters and farmers and
drovers or men who have been accustomed
to toiling with the hand and the foot.
Lift up your eyes, o nation of Gods
right hand, at the glorious prospects!
Build larger your barns for the harvests;
dig deeper the watts for the spoil of the
vineyards; enlarge the warehouses for the
merchandise; multiply galleries of art for
the pictures and statues. Advance, o ma
tion of Gods right hand, but remember
that national wealth, if unsanctified. is
sumptuous waste, is moral ruin, is magnifi-
cent woe. is splendid rottenness, is gilded
death, Woe to us for the wine watts if
drunkenness wallows in them! Woe to us
for the harvests if greed sickles them!
Woe to us for the merchandise if avarice
swallows it! Woe to us for the cities il