The Canton times. (Canton, Miss.) 1893-1906, 1901-12-06
them IA praise 70 God for His good

them IA praise 70 God for His good
ness.
Now, + come TO speak Of tho con-
quests Of the pen. This is the SYM
Dol Of all intellectually. The paint
er's pencil and the sculptor's chisei
and the philosophers laboratory are
all brothers to the pen, and there-
fore this may be used as symbol
of intellectual advancement. There
are those disposed to decry every
thing American. Having seen Mel
rose and Glastonbury by moonlight,
they never behold among us an inn
pressive structure; or, having strolled
through the picture galleries of the
Louvre and the Luxembourg, they
are Disguised with our academies Of
art. Tt makes me sick to hear these
people who have been TO Europe come
home talking with foreign accent
and aping foreign customs and talk
ing of moonlight on castles by the
sea. I think the biggest fool in the
country is the travelled fool.
But, considering the youth of our
nation and the fact that compare
lively few persons devote themselves
entirely to- literature, I think we
have great reason to thank God for
the progress of our American litera-
ture. As historians have we not had
in the past such men as Bancroft
and Prescott, as essayists Irving and
Emerson, as jurists Story and Mar
shall and Kent, as theologians Ed
wards and Hodge, as poets Pierre-
pont and Sprague and Longfellow
and Bryant, as sculptors Powers and
| such men as West and Cole and In
man and Kensett? And among the
living Americans what galaxies OF in
tellectual splendor and power! Ed
ward Eggleston and Will Carleton
and Mark Twain and John Ke:idrick
Bangs and Marion Harland and Mar
garet 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 Will
liam Dean Howells and score OF
| others, some of them fixed stars and
some meteors.
How things have marvelonsly
changed! We used to cry because we
had to go to school. Now children cry
if they cannot go. Many of them can
intelligently discuss political topics
long before they have seen ballot box
or, teased by some poetic muse, can
| compose articles for the newspapers.
Philosophy and astronomy and chem
istry 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 AGO.
600 volumes of ancient Alexandria, and
education is possible for the most in
digent, and no legislature or congress
for the last so years has assembled
which has not had in it rail splltters
and farmers and drovers or men who
have been accustomed to toiling with
the hand and the foot.
The grainfields have passed their
haryests above the veto OF drought anc
deluge. The freight cars are not large
| enough to bring down the grain to the
seaboard. The canalboats are crowd
ed with breadstuffs Hark to the rush
. ING of the wheat through the grea'
Chicago corn elevators! Hark to the
rolling of the hogsheads OF the Clncln
natl pork packers! Enough to eat ant
at low prices. Enough to wear and O.
home manufacture. If some have AM
: some have not, then may God hell
those who have to hand over to thos'
who have not! Clear the track for Thu
rail trains that rush on, bringing tn
: wheat and the cotton and the rice AM
the barley and the oats and the mop
and the lumber and the leather ant
, everything for man and everythin!
/ for beast. :,
Lift up your eyes, o nation of God
. right hand, at the glorious prospects
Build larger your barns for the har
vests. Dig deeper the watts for tn
!, snoil of the vineyards. Enlarge tn
warehouses for the merchandise. Mul
!. tiply galleries of art for the picture
and statues. Advance, o nation o
Gods right hand, but remember tina
e not;onal wealth, if unsanctified i
n snmptuous waste, is moral ruin,
:, MAGNIFICENT woe, is splendid rotten
t ness, is gilded death. Woe to us for tn
e vine watts if drunkenness wallows !
f tbeml Woe to us for the harvest
r creed sickles them! Woe to US Tor I'd
T merchandise if avarlce s"ailo"s !,
r Woe to us for the cities II mlsrui
: raIl<s them! Woe to the land if 10
+ defying crime debauches it! our onl
e safetvisin more Bibles, more churches
). more free schools, more good men an
1 more good women, more consecrate