The Iola register., 1901-11-29


feel the effect Of crippled or en-
lorged mechanical enterprise. We all
have stock i'm every house that is
builded aud in every public convey
ance that is constructed and in every
ship that is sailed. When we see
the hardworking men of the land liv-
ing in comfortable abodes, with lux
uries upon their tables that once
even kings could not afford. having
the advantage of thorough education,
of accomplishment and art, we are
all ready at this season to unite with
them in praise to God for His good
ness.
Now, | come TO speak OF the con-
quests of the pen. This is the SYM
Dol of all intellectually. The paint
er's pencil and the sculptor's chisel
and the philosophers laboratory are
all brothers TO the pen. and there
fore this may be used as a 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 i'm
pressivc structure; or, having strolled
through the picture galleries of the
Louvre and the Luxembourg. they
are disgusted with our academies Of
art. IL 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. 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, ! 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 iurists 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 splcndor and power. Ed
ward Eggleston and Will Carleton
and Mark Twain and John kendrick
Bangs and Marion Harland and Mar
garet Sangster and Stockton and
Churchill and Hopkinson Smith and
Irving Bacheller 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 marvelously
changed! We used to cry because we
had TO 90 to school. Now children cry
il they cannot go. Many of them can
intelligently discuss political topics
long before they have seen a ballot box
or, leased by some poetic muse, can
compose articles for the newspapers.
Philosophy and astronomy and chem
istry have been so improved that he
must be genius at dulluess who
knows nothing about them. On one
shelf of poor mans library is more
practical knowledge than in the 400, -
900 volumes Of ancient Alexandria. and
education is possible for he most in
digcnt. and no legislature or congress
for the last 30 years has assembled
which has not had in it rail splitters
and farmers and drovers or men who
have been accustomed to toiing with
, the hand and the foot.
The grainfelds have passed their
haryeStS above the veto of drought and
/ deluge. The freight cars are not large
enough to bring down the grain to the
! seaboard. The canalboats are crowd
ed with breadstuffs. Hnrk to the rush
ing of the wheat through the great
! Chicago corn elevators! Hark TO the
rolling of the hogsheads of the Cincin-
natl pork packers! Enough to eat and
at low prices. Enough TO wear and of
home manufacture. II some have and
! some have not, then may God help
those who have to hand over to those
who have not! Clear the track for the
rail trains that rush on, bringing the
wheat and the cotton and the rice and
the barley and the oats and the hops
and the lumber and the leather and
! everything lot man ana every lnlnB
| for beast.
Lift up your eyes, q nation of Gods
right hand, at the glorious prospects!
Build larger your barns for the har-
vests. Dig deeper the watts for ths
spoil of the vineyards. Enlarge the
warehouses for the merchandise. Null
| tiply galleries OF art for the picture =
and statues. Advance, o nation OF
| Gods right hand, but remember that
national wealth, If unsanctified is
sumptuous waste, is moral ruin, is
magnificent woe, is splendid rotten
ness, is gilded death. Woe 10 us for the
wine watts II drunkenness wallows in
them! Woe to MS for the harvest if
| greed sickles them! Woe 10 us for the
merchandise if ayarice swallows i'll!
Woe to MS for the cities if misrule
walks them! Woe to the land if God
defying crime debauches i'll Our only
safety isin more Bibles. more churches,
more free schools, more good men and
more good women, more consecrated d
| ,F ,Is,V,