The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-01-10
PROPHET OF SIMPLE LIFE
REV. MR. RHYMES ADDRESS
 LAST NIGHT ON THoREAU.

Why He Did Not Get Ills A. E. from
 HarTard-Thoreau on Civilization
 Resistance to State Then and Now
 ThOreau in Touch With Nature Henry Ward Beeehers Tribute to
 Him.
 In the Church of the Messiah on Orange street last night Rev. Alexander F. Irvine delivered most interesting address upon Henry David Thoreau.
 MT. Irvine began by pieturing the many failures of Thoreau's life. He failed he said, in practically everything. In fact he failed so much that his failures were also canonization.
 Thoreau was born in 1917 and grad uated from Harvard in 1887, the year of Queen Victoria's ascension. He failed to obtain his degree because he protest ed again the $5 fee for graduation. saying that it was not worth 1t. Right here he struck the keynote of his life. He protested. During his college life there was nothing extraordinary about him. He was aloof and made few 1 friends.
 Upon graduation Thoreau began making pencils and he made the best pencil made in the United States. ! Mr. Irvine continuing told of the close friendship of Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Speaking of lectures deliver ed by the two men he said that the 1 greatest audience Emerson ever had was David Henry ThOreau. and the greatest audience Thoreau ever had was Ralph Waldo Emerson.
 Thoreau characterized civilization as a St. Vitus dance. Yet he was not a nullifier of civilization, but a simplifier. Mir. Irvine discussed Thoreau's book on Resistance to the State.'' Thoreau wrote on the duty of man to resist the state when the state was wrong, he said, and the state was wrong on the 1 question of slavery. We need another Thoreau to-day to teach the state of 1 Connecticut to resist laws being put upon its statute books for the special benefit of the few. While townships llS SSiIh, eAS DOdsshI hp to SSS SASShASAA to the United States senate.
 Thoreau he characterized as a lover of humanity. The one thing that hap | pened to Thoreau was that he got into touch with nature. In his life at Walden Pond he wanted to prove several things. l One was that he could live without l meat. Another, that he could live with out a clock. He did it. Yet he advised others not to follow his Walden Pond example. "Your problem is not my l problem; drop the pummet just where you are," is his advice to us all.
 Thoreau. MT. Irvine stated was the prophet of the simple life in America. And while that much distributed and discussed pamphlet "The Simple Life,' by Charles Wagner. is a good book, there is not one scintilla of it that can- not be found in Emerson and Thoreau. | Thoreau once built Hawthorne a boat and when he gave it to him he told ! him not to bother about steering 1t by the oars, but just to think hard and It would go in the direction that he wished it to. Hawthorne said that might do for Thoreau, but he could not 3Cn1eNe IL, t16 COulu ilOt ltiitih " tsASNs process. To-day. declared MT. Irvine, many people are thinking in that kind of a process. <t% I'M
 Once Horace Greeley took Thoreau to church in Brooklyn to hear Henry Ward Beecher. When Thoreau came into the church MT. Beecher had him come and sit by him on the platform, and in introducing him to the congre- gation he said: "I have got here man who can see God in every burning bush, in every sunset and in every sunrise Henry D. Thoreau." ', 7
 Thoreau is sometimes called harsh man and one to be feared. You need never be afraid of the man who is loved by children, said MT. Irvine. The children loved Thoreau dearly.
 Thoreau loved mankind but hated the institutions of the dead unkind. He wanted to live the simple life.
 In closing MT. Irvine said that to- day we cannot follow Thoreau but we. can all get in touch with nature.
 Upon the conclusion of the lecture few stereopticon slides showing Tho- reaus birthplace, home on Main street, Concord; Thoreau, Emerson, another friend, MT. Blake. Walden Pond and some other views associated with Tho