The Gavelyte, February 1909

CEDAR'l'ILLE COLLEGE. hand of the executioner then desert at this crisis the cause of my country''. That we are facing a criRis it would be hypocrisy to deny. The que, tionR is: Shall we be deaf to the lessons of the past, thus following the inevitable course of evil, or shall we realize the need of reform And the need of men, men who love principle anrl justice and will stand by their own convictions. "\\ hat constitute a state?" Ask Sir William Jones in his ode in imitation of Alcaeus. ''Not high raised battlements or labored mound. Thick wal Is or moated gate; ot cities proud with spires and turrets crowned, Not bays and broad armed ports, Where laughing at the storm rich nm·ies ride; L ot starred and spangled courts; L o. Men, high minded men; . Men who their duties know and know their rightR, and knowing rlare maintain." But'as hope and incentive we have these words of Dean Farrar: "In numbers, you are now or soon inevitably must be the greatest, in Rtrength, the most overwheiming; in wealth, the most affluent of all the ChriRtian nationR throughout the world." In these things you excel other nations, why? Mainly because your fathern feared God. Shall America then dare to kick down that la,lder by which she-did ascend and, despising the holiness, which waR once her sing:e excellence, now in the day of her boundless prnHperity to make in the common life of her citizens a league with death and a covenant with Hell? I do not for a moment believe it. I lwl ive that Rhe will be preserved from all ~uc:h perils by the memories of the dead and the virtues of the living. l believe that she will nut suffer the wise voices of the holy and thoughtful few to be drowned in noisier and baser sounds. I believe that Hhe will listen to the great angels of History, ,·unHi·ii>n<:e and experienct1, which as the great teachers of mankirnl 1•v1·1· 1 «'JH·at to us tht1 t1t<-'rnal aC'centR of the moral law. 26