...- . SM i°"
_ read on ledge and leaf, not solely legand for totteriug age, but history, told -
- in the roll of every driving wheel; told by the conquered parting crest of
“ the ocean foam, painted sublime by the harmony of natures laws, and .
heralded immortal by the never-dying melodies its pen and string have
sung. For iis monument, political liberty triumphant, a republic with a »
constitutional government, and a religious ideal whose God inspires to sac.
endness of duty and worship of truth, love and the desire for right. Time
is moving on toward eternity, while truths structure grows stronger and , A
greater, as one by one the jewels of discovery are added to the sacred walls
and as one by one the great problems relating to human life are solved.
There were never brighter hopes for the future. There was never more
work for all, work of expanding the uplifting elements of a Christian civ- _ a
ilizaion that have already done so much for man. There are empires of
prejudice and passion which know not of the peaceful rule of justice, and
the guiding power of reason. There are hearts of greed into which never
beamed the sunshine of love for the world. Science has its vast accnmu·
lation ot fact and law, and its present attainments are but the material-out
of which the palace is yet to be builded. And there is avast expanse upon V
the sea of intellect long lonesom for a sail. There are countless heights
surrounded by a cloud of mystery still unchmbed. Ambitious eagle
needs but attempt and courage, there is room in learning’s sky for every
' wing to spread and soar to the basking sunlight of knowledge.
The victories of the past have been fought with hoe and sword upon the ‘
dusty field of toil and strife. The problems of the future are to be solved
upon the loftier plain of the mind. Have you a smile, then make the sor.
row less. Have you a prayer, then lend Lispiration to the work. Have
yon a ballot, then the judge cannot be too just or the law.n;a.ker too con- ,
soious of the sacredness of his duty. "But you say the smile is weak, the .
prayer is faint and the ballot but one. `
On a hillside in Minnesota a little brooklet leaves its home, singing as it A
yields its course to the stone, singing until its murmers are hushed upon _
the bosom of a lake, to the sea; and so another brooklet, and many others I
until a lake, lingering long enough to echo back to lts prarie home itslong
farewell, joins its song with the song of other lakes to swell one chorus to ‘
sea. Formed by the melting snowflakes in Montana’s hills another stream ·
is started, singing as it goes upon its long winding journey, singing as it
rounds Dakota’s wheat fields, singing as it mocks Kansas‘s dusty plains ,
singing until its song is swelled by creek and river into a rolling chorus or l .
the sea, until it meets the chorus of the lakes to form the mighty Mis-
sissippi, whose onward course no mountain stone can turn, upon whose bos- `
som lioats the commerce of its valley, whose rich alluvial waters fertllize , _ _
· the broad areas of the South, whose springs and rivers form the mighty ,
waterway of the mightiest valley of a mighty earth.
` Bring more oo-operation and more purpose into work. And from where
the cotton stalk bends beneath its snowwhitc emblem of purity, where every _
breath is sweet with the song of the nightingale, and every zephyr faint »
with the ordorous breath of the maguolia and the rose; from the golden
gate, whose every mountain tissue yields in countless measuresithe yellow
shrine of the million, whose vine such fruit as did the ;Jewish scout never
lind in the beautiful land across the Jordon, from where the tool spark-