The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1910-06-28

US; and that in short, We are speed
ing headlong to destruction, upon the
reefs and breakers. These gloomy
disgnosticians and prognosticators,
of the present and prospective all
ments. which threaten our very ex-
istence, remind us of the husband
who went home, late and "groggy," to
his forlorn family, and soon fell into
peaceful sleep. His good wife
shifted the premonitory symptoms of
an imaginary cyclone and hurriedly
awoke John" to investigate. Hard
ly responsible, he opened the door
leading into the closet where the lin
burger was stored, instead Of the
door opening upon the outer world.
Realizing the danger, as he thought,
he shouted to his wife to prepare for
the worst, that the elements, were as
dark as the dickens and smelt like
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modicum of truth in all this, no one,
the least conversant with the true
conditions which surround us, will
dare deny, but more of that in due
time, I, for one, rejoice that fate Or
dained me to live and work out my
salvation through the setting and ris-
ing of the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. AS matter of fact, We
are living in the greatest country,
under the best system of government
and in the most marvellous age, Of
the worlds history: 1t is difficult
to see how the most careless student
of the past can arrive at any other
conclusion. Pessimists who compare
ours, with an imaginary golden age,
can, of course, see only the clouds,
without even a silver lining. One
of the foibles of human nature is to
magnify the past, minimize. the pres
ent, and decry the future. Then men
of old were giants, their motives
patriotic and their characters un-
blemished, while the present, is a
day of moral and intellectual pigmies.
Jefferson, dead, is a paragon Of ami
mails, a wise and unsullied states
man, whose very name is the en-
bodiment of our modern democratic
institutions. And yet, during his life,
he was prounouced a narrow and
petty demagogue, coward, an
atheist, and a destroyer of the ma
ton peace and happiness. The
penalty of greatness is, that it rare
ly gets its just rewards and
full fruition, until the grave closes
over all that is perishable. The in
telligent reader of history must have
been impressed with the fact that the
past is either "a fable, agreed upon,"
as Napoleon said, or little else, than
a carnival Of crime, war and perse-
cution. From Moses to the Macca-
bees, covering a period of fourteen
hundred years, there was almost con
stant war, with it's inevitable demor-
alization and corruption. For seven
centuries, from Romulus to the
Caesars, the peaceful gates of Rome
were closed only six years. Ten OF
the II Caesars, who ruled her des-
tines, died unnatural death-as
did most of the Emporers, during the
whole period of the Roman empire.
So late as the latter part of the six
teenth century, over eighteen thous-
and people were put to death, mainly
for religious reasons during the short
and bloody reign of the Duke OF
Alva, in the Netherlands. There were
more printing presses in Spain dur
ing the middle of the sixteenth, than
the middle of the nineteenth century,
and she is yet bleeding and groaning
under the wounds inflicted upon. her,
by the bigoted Philip II, who crush
ed out the liberty of conduct and
freedom of speech, in that unhappy
land. France swung from the
tyranny of kings to the tyranny OF
mobs; and while England throve and
prospered, through many long and
bloody wars, her last stand against the
littls South African Republic show
ed her decaying strength and forced
her to exclaim, as did an ancient gen.
eral after a successful battle: Zone
more such victory and I am undone." )"
How stands America in this list Of
notables? Since :he Revolution, the
combined length of her military cam
paigns has been only about ten years.
and the indications are that the beam
ing face of peace and happiness will
smile upon us for many decades to
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