The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-11-14

but the bill!"--each gives a period in brief, almost down to the dawn of our own day.
 VoX populi, vox Del? It may be so, on the whole; but we would exclude such shout as that Jedburgh one of Burke Sir Walteru-perhaps the meanest cry ever raised as a good gray head went past The battle cries of soldiers tell us much--from the St. George for merry England!' of the days of Greasy and Agincourt to the "Hurrahs!" and "Vive Tempereursm of Waterloo, or the confederate yell of the American Civil war. But not less impressive, on occasion, Is a solitary voice. Say Sir Thomas More is on the scaffold, the fatal blow is struck, and the executloner, showing the severed member, cries; This Is the head of traitorv And does not the whole cha otic spirit of the French nation at the time of the Revolution shrlek out in the hour-long cry of an unknown Frenchman amid the hubbub and hor- TOT of sitting of the convention in the reign of terror; q demand the ar rest of the rogues and dastards!" The spirit of conquerors speaks in the jests of the British sailors at the siege of Quebec, when, grappling with the French flreshlps that bore down on them at night they shouted to each other in their rough fun. Hang me, Jack! Didst ever take hell in tow be- | fore?' Few men have had greater is- | sues hanging upon their words than l had the unknown French sentry who watched on the Flights of Abraham l aooVe Quebec on the night of Septem- 1 Der 12, 1759, as the 30 British boats stole down the river on their fateful errand. "Qui vive?" rang out through l the darkness. La France!r replied a quick-witted Highland officer on board
 "A quel regiment?" asked the suspi- cion sentry. De la reine," answered the Highlander. A convoy of provis- ions was expected, and the sentry was satisfied. Wolfe and many another man was free to pass on, to victory and to death. But what if the sentry had not 1
 been satisfied?
 Sometimes an anonymous word Is a loophole into personal character. as when a chance stranger, passing through Westminster abbey while Ben Johnsons' monument was being erected, gave the mason trifle to cut on the | medallion the words: 70 rare Ben JohnsonP' Sometimes they make a bit of bygone social life vocal to us. as when the watchman passing at night with his bell and lantern under Pepy's window cries: Past one of the clock, and cold, frosty, windy morningl" Such voices reach us in words like Christian. Lollard, Roundhead, Whig. Tory, Methodist, Ranter-for some one used these terms for the first time. And so with countryside say ings, old ballads, worldwide proverbs, nursery ditties, tales of folklore, an- | cient litanies-indeed, languages them selves-they are all echoes of past | anonymous voices. We think of the Breton fisherman's prayer as he puts out to sea--'tO God, do Thou help and ! 5N"tu AiS' 1iiy OSCdll IS bO great anu my poor boat so smalll" And that of the French soldier going into battle 70 God, if there be a God, save my soul, if I have soul!" NoF must we forget those poor women of Bedford whose talk together at their doors, overheard by Bunyan, led to his con- version, with all that followed upon that. Nor the old woman who said to Bishop Burnet, holding up her dry crust: q have all this and Christ" Nor the touching human kindness of those two untaught negro women mother and daughter-who, finding Mungo Park fainting and ready to die, out in the West African wilds, suc- cored him and brought him back to life, singing the while, in low chant: ''Let us pity the white man; no moth CT has he to bring him milk; no wife to grind his corn"
 Sir Walter Scott cherished a saving of an old Irishwoman whom he met on his tour in Ireland, and who spoke of herself as "an ould struggler" And who does not know that anonymous and delightful old lady who, in her att 1 tendance at sermon, received so much benefit from "that blessed word Meso- potamia"? Wordsworth's poem, "Step-
 ping Westward" read along with the