The World's Best Orations Part 12

It is vain to offer as an excuse, that public men are not to be reproached for the evils that may happen to ensue from their measures. This is very true, where they are unforeseen or inevitable. Those I have depicted are not unforeseen; they are so far from inevitable, we are going to bring them into being by our vote. We choose the consequences, and become as justly answerable for them as for the measure that we know will produce them.

By rejecting the posts, we light the savage fires--we bind the victims. This day we undertake to render account to the widows and orphans whom our decision will make, to the wretches that will be roasted at the stake, to our country, and I do not deem it too serious to say, to conscience and to G.o.d. We are answerable, and if duty be anything more than a word of imposture, if conscience be not a bugbear, we are preparing to make ourselves as wretched as our country.

There is no mistake in this case; there can be none. Experience has already been the prophet of events, and the cries of our future victims have already reached us. The western inhabitants are not a silent and uncomplaining sacrifice. The voice of humanity issues from the shade of their wilderness. It exclaims, that while one hand is held up to reject this treaty, the other grasps a tomahawk. It summons our imagination to the scenes that will open. It is no great effort to the imagination to conceive that events so near are already begun. I can fancy that I listen to the yells of savage vengeance and the shrieks of torture. Already they seem to sigh in the west wind--already they mingle with every echo from the mountains.

It is not the part of prudence to be inattentive to the tendencies of measures. Where there is any ground to fear that these will be pernicious, wisdom and duty forbid that we should underrate them. If we reject the treaty, will our peace be as safe as if we executed it with good faith? I do honor to the intrepid spirit of those who say it will. It was formerly understood to const.i.tute the excellence of a man's faith to believe without evidence and against it.

But as opinions on this article are changed, and we are called to act for our country, it becomes us to explore the dangers that will attend its peace, and to avoid them if we can.

Few of us here, and fewer still in proportion of our const.i.tuents, will doubt that, by rejecting, all those dangers will be aggravated. . . .

ST. ANSELM (1032-1109)

St. Anselm, who has been called the acutest thinker and profoundest theologian of his day, was born in Piedmont about 1032. Educated under the celebrated Lanfranc, he went to England in 1093 and became Archbishop of Canterbury. He was banished by William Rufus as a result of a conflict between royal and ecclesiastical prerogative.

He died in 1109. Neale calls him the last of the great fathers except St. Bernard, and adds that "he probably possessed the greatest genius of all except St. Augustine."

The sermon here given, the third of the sixteen extant, is given entire from Neale's translation. It is one of the best examples of the Middle-Age style of interpreting all Scripture as metaphor and parable. It contains, moreover, a number of striking pa.s.sages, such as, "It is a proof of great virtue to struggle with happiness."

THE SEA OP LIFE

"And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a s.h.i.+p, and to go before him to the other side, while he sent the mult.i.tude away." (Matt, xiv, 22.)

In this section, according to its mystical interpretation, we have a summary description of the state of the Church, from the coming of the Savior to the end of the world. For the Lord constrained his Disciples to get into a s.h.i.+p, when he committed the Church to the government of the Apostles and their followers. And thus to go before him unto the other side,--that is, to bear onwards towards the haven of the celestial country, before he himself should entirely depart from the world. For, with his elect, and on account of his elect, he ever remains here until the consummation of all things; and he is preceded to the other side of the sea of this world by those who daily pa.s.s hence to the Land of the Living. And when he shall have sent all that are his to that place, then, leaving the mult.i.tude of the reprobate, and no longer warning them to be converted, but giving them over to perdition, he will depart hence that he may be with his elect alone in the kingdom.

Whence it is added, "while he sent the mult.i.tude away." For in the end of the world he will "send away the mult.i.tude" of his enemies, that they may then be hurried by the Devil to everlasting vd.a.m.nation. "And when he had sent the mult.i.tude away, he went up in a mountain to pray." He will not send away the mult.i.tude of the Gentiles till the end of the world; but he did dismiss the mult.i.tude of the Jewish people at the time when, as saith Isaiah, "He commanded his clouds that they should rain no rain upon it"; that is, he commanded his Apostles that they should preach no longer to the Jews, but should go to the Gentiles. Thus, therefore, he sent away that mult.i.tude, and "went up into a mountain"; that is, to the height of the celestial kingdom, of which it had been written, "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who shall rise up in his holy place?" For a mountain is a height, and what is higher than heaven? There the Lord ascended. And he ascended alone, "for no man hath ascended up into heaven save he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven." And even when he shall come at the end of the world, and shall have collected all of us, his members, together, and shall have raised us into heaven, he will also ascend alone, because Christ, the head, is one with his body. But now the Head alone ascends,--the Mediator of G.o.d and man --the man Christ Jesus. And he goes up to pray, because he went to the Father to intercede for us. "For Christ is not entered into holy places made with hands, which are figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of G.o.d for us."

It follows: "And when the evening was come, he was there alone."

This signifies the nearness of the end of the world, concerning which John also speaks: "Little children, it is the last time."

Therefore it is said that, "when the evening was come, he was there alone," because, when the world was drawing to its end, he by himself, as the true high priest, entered into the holy of holies, and is there at the right hand of G.o.d, and also maketh intercession for us. But while he prays on the mountain, the s.h.i.+p is tossed with waves in the deep. For, since the billows arise, the s.h.i.+p may be tossed; but since Christ prays, it cannot be overwhelmed. ...

We may notice, also, that this commotion of the waves, and tottering or half-sinking of Peter, takes place even in our time, according to the spiritual sense daily. For every man's own besetting sin is the tempest. You love G.o.d; you walk upon the sea; the swellings of this world are under your feet. You love the world; it swallows you up; its wont is to devour, not to bear up, its lovers. But when your heart fluctuates with the desire of sin, call on the divinity of Christ, that you may conquer that desire. You think that the wind is then contrary when the adversity of this world rises against you, and not also when its prosperity fawns upon you. For when wars, when tumults, when famine, when pestilence comes, when any private calamity happens even to individual men, then the wind is thought adverse, and then it is held right to call upon G.o.d; but when the world smiles with temporal felicity, then, forsooth, the wind is not contrary. Do not, by such tokens as these, judge of the tranquillity of the time; but judge of it by your own temptations. See if you are tranquil within yourself; see if no internal tempest is overwhelming you. It is a proof of great virtue to struggle with happiness, so that it shall not seduce, corrupt, subvert. Learn to trample on this world; remember to trust in Christ. And if your foot be moved,--if you totter,--if there be some temptations that you cannot overcome,--if you begin to sink, cry out to Jesus, Lord, save me. In Peter, therefore, the common condition of all of us is to be considered; so that, if the wind of temptation endeavor to upset us in any matter, or its billows to swallow us up, we may cry to Christ. He shall stretch forth his hand, and preserve us from the deep.

It follows: "And when he was come into the s.h.i.+p, the wind ceased."

In the last day he shall ascend into the s.h.i.+p of the Church, because then he shall sit upon the throne of his glory; which throne may not unfitly be understood of the Church. For he who by faith and good works now and always dwells in the Church shall then, by the manifestation of his glory, enter into it. And then the wind shall cease, because evil spirits shall no more have the power of sending forth against it the flames of temptation or the commotions of troubles; for then all things shall be at peace and at rest.

It follows: "Then they that were with him in the s.h.i.+p came and wors.h.i.+pped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of G.o.d." They who remain faithfully in the Church amidst the tempests of temptations will approach to him with joy, and, entering into his kingdom with him, will wors.h.i.+p him; and, praising him perpetually, will affirm him of a truth to be the Son of G.o.d. Then, also, that will happen which is written concerning the elect raised from death: "All flesh shall come and shall wors.h.i.+p before my face," saith the Lord. And again: "Blessed are they that dwell in thy house; they will always be praising thee." For him, whom with their heart they believe unto righteousness, and with their mouth confess to salvation, him they shall see with their heart to light, and with their mouth shall praise to glory, when they behold how ineffably he is begotten of the Father, with whom he liveth and reigneth, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, G.o.d to all ages of ages. Amen.

THOMAS ARNOLD (1795-1842)

Doctor Thomas Arnold, the celebrated head master of Rugby was born June 13th, 1795, at West Cowes, in the Isle of Wight, where his father, William Arnold, was a Collector of Customs. After several years at Winchester school, he went to Oxford where in 1815 he was elected a fellow of Oriel College. His intellectual bent showed at Oxford, on the one hand, in fondness for Aristotle and Thucydides, and on the other in what one of his friends has described as "an earnest, penetrating, and honest examination of Christianity." As a result of this honesty and earnestness, he became and remains a great force wherever English is spoken. Elected head master of Rugby in December 1827, and remaining in charge of that school for nearly fourteen years, he almost revolutionized and did much to civilize the English system of public education. When he left Rugby, in December 1841, it was to go to Oxford as professor of Modern History, but his death, June 12th, 1842, left him remembered by the English-speaking world as "Arnold of Rugby." He left five volumes of sermons, an edition of 'Thucydides,' a 'History of Rome' in three volumes, and other works, but his greatest celebrity has been given him by the enthusiastic love which his manly Christian character inspired in his pupils and acquaintances, furnis.h.i.+ng as it did the master motive of 'Tom Brown at Rugby,' a book which is likely to hold the place it has taken next to 'Robinson Crusoe' among English cla.s.sics for the young.

The sermon here republished from the text given in 'Simons's Sermons of Great Preachers,' is an ill.u.s.tration of the eloquence which appeals to the mind of others, not through musical and beautiful language so much as through deep thought and compact expression.

THE REALITIES OF LIFE AND DEATH

"G.o.d is not the G.o.d of the dead, but of the living."--Matt. xxii. 32

We hear these words as a part of our Lord's answer to the Sadducees; and, as their question was put in evident profaneness, and the answer to it is one which to our minds is quite obvious and natural, so we are apt to think that in this particular story there is less than usual that particularly concerns us. But it so happens, that our Lord, in answering the Sadducees, has brought in one of the most universal and most solemn of all truths,--which is indeed implied in many parts of the Old Testament, but which the Gospel has revealed to us in all its fullness,--the truth contained in the words of the text, that "G.o.d is not the G.o.d of the dead, but of the living."

I would wish to unfold a little what is contained in these words, which we often hear even, perhaps, without quite understanding them; and many times oftener without fully entering into them. And we may take them, first, in their first part, where they say that "G.o.d is not the G.o.d of the dead."

The word "dead," we know, is constantly used in Scripture in a double sense, as meaning those who are dead spiritually, as well as those who are dead naturally. And, in either sense, the words are alike applicable: "G.o.d is not the G.o.d of the dead."

G.o.d's not being the G.o.d of the dead signifies two things: that they who are without him are dead, as well as that they who are dead are also without him. So far as our knowledge goes respecting inferior animals, they appear to be examples of this truth. They appear to us to have no knowledge of G.o.d; and we are not told that they have any other life than the short one of which our senses inform us. I am well aware that our ignorance of their condition is so great that we may not dare to say anything of them positively; there may be a hundred things true respecting them which we neither know nor imagine. I would only say that, according to that most imperfect light in which we see them, the two points of which I have been speaking appear to meet in them: we believe that they have no consciousness of G.o.d, and we believe that they will die. And so far, therefore, they afford an example of the agreement, if I may so speak, between these two points; and were intended, perhaps, to be to our view a continual image of it. But we had far better speak of ourselves. And here, too, it is the case that "G.o.d is not the G.o.d of the dead." If we are without him we are dead; and if we are dead we are without him: in other words, the two ideas of death and absence from G.o.d are in fact synonymous.

Thus, in the account given of the fall of man, the sentence of death and of being cast out of Eden go together; and if any one compares the description of the second Eden in the Revelation, and recollects how especially it is there said, that G.o.d dwells in the midst of it, and is its light by day and night, he will see that the banishment from the first Eden means a banishment from the presence of G.o.d.

And thus, in the day that Adam sinned, he died; for he was cast out of Eden immediately, however long he may have moved about afterwards upon the earth where G.o.d was not. And how very strong to the same point are the words of Hezekiah's prayer, "The grave cannot praise thee, Death cannot celebrate thee; they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth"; words which express completely the feeling that G.o.d is not the G.o.d of the dead. This, too, appears to be the sense generally of the expression used in various parts of the Old Testament, "Thou shalt surely die." It is, no doubt, left purposely obscure; nor are we ever told, in so many words, all that is meant by death; but, surely, it always implies a separation from G.o.d, and the being--whatever the notion may extend to--the being dead to him. Thus, when David had committed his great sin, and had expressed his repentance for it, Nathan tells him, "The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die": which means, most expressively, thou shalt not die to G.o.d. In one sense David died, as all men die; nor was he by any means freed from the punishment of his sin: he was not, in that sense, forgiven; but he was allowed still to regard G.o.d as his G.o.d; and, therefore, his punishments were but fatherly chastis.e.m.e.nts from G.o.d's hand, designed for his profit, that he might be partaker of G.o.d's holiness. And thus, although Saul was sentenced to lose his kingdom, and although he was killed with his sons on Mount Gilboa, yet I do not think that we find the sentence pa.s.sed upon him, "Thou shalt surely die;" and, therefore, we have no right to say that G.o.d had ceased to be his G.o.d, although he visited him with severe chastis.e.m.e.nts, and would not allow him to hand down to his sons the crown of Israel. Observe, also, the language of the eighteenth chapter of Ezekiel, where the expressions occur so often, "He shall surely live," and "He shall surely die."

We have no right to refer these to a mere extension on the one hand, or a cutting short on the other, of the term of earthly existence.

The promise of living long in the land, or, as in Hezekiah's case, of adding to his days fifteen years, is very different from the full and unreserved blessing, "Thou shalt surely live." And we know, undoubtedly, that both the good and the bad to whom Ezekiel spoke died alike the natural death of the body. But the peculiar force of the promise, and of the threat, was, in the one case, Thou shalt belong to G.o.d; in the other, Thou shalt cease to belong to him; although the veil was not yet drawn up which concealed the full import of those terms, "belonging to G.o.d," and "ceasing to belong to him": nay, can we venture to affirm that it is fully drawn aside even now?

I have dwelt on this at some length, because it really seems to place the common state of the minds of too many amongst us in a light which is exceedingly awful; for if it be true, as I think the Scripture implies, that to be dead, and to be without G.o.d, are precisely the same thing, then can it be denied that the symptoms of death are strongly marked upon many of us? Are there not many who never think of G.o.d or care about his service? Are there not many who live, to all appearances, as unconscious of his existence as we fancy the inferior animals to be? And is it not quite clear, that to such persons, G.o.d cannot be said to be their G.o.d? He may be the G.o.d of heaven and earth, the G.o.d of the universe, the G.o.d of Christ's Church; but he is not their G.o.d, for they feel to have nothing at all to do with him; and, therefore, as he is not their G.o.d, they are, and must be, according to the Scripture, reckoned among the dead.

But G.o.d is the G.o.d "of the living." That is, as before, all who are alive, live unto him; all who live unto him are alive. "G.o.d said, I am the G.o.d of Abraham, and the G.o.d of Isaac, and the G.o.d of Jacob;"

and, therefore, says our Lord, "Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob are not and cannot be dead." They cannot be dead because G.o.d owns them; he is not ashamed to be called their G.o.d; therefore, they are not cast out from him; therefore, by necessity, they live. Wonderful, indeed, is the truth here implied, in exact agreement, as we have seen, with the general language of Scripture; that, as she who but touched the hem of Christ's garment was, in a moment, relieved from her infirmity, so great was the virtue which went out from him; so they who are not cast out from G.o.d, but have anything: whatever to do with him, feel the virtue of his gracious presence penetrating their whole nature; because he lives, they must live also.

Behold, then, life and death set before us; not remote (if a few years be, indeed, to be called remote), but even now present before us; even now suffered or enjoyed. Even now we are alive unto G.o.d or dead unto G.o.d; and, as we are either the one or the other, so we are, in the highest possible sense of the terms, alive or dead. In the highest possible sense of the terms; but who can tell what that highest possible sense of the terms is? So much has, indeed, been revealed to us, that we know now that death means a conscious and perpetual death, as life means a conscious and perpetual life. But greatly, indeed, do we deceive ourselves, if we fancy that, by having thus much told us, we have also risen to the infinite heights, or descended to the infinite depths, contained in those little words, life and death. They are far higher, and far deeper, than ever thought or fancy of man has reached to. But, even on the first edge of either, at the visible beginnings of that infinite ascent or descent, there is surely something which may give us a foretaste of what is beyond. Even to us in this mortal state, even to you advanced but so short a way on your very earthly journey, life and death have a meaning: to be dead unto G.o.d or to be alive to him, are things perceptibly different.

For, let me ask of those who think least of G.o.d, who are most separate from him, and most without him, whether there is not now actually, perceptibly, in their state, something of the coldness, the loneliness, the fearfulness of death? I do not ask them whether they are made unhappy by the fear of G.o.d's anger; of course they are not: for they who fear G.o.d are not dead to him, nor he to them. The thought of him gives them no disquiet at all; this is the very point we start from. But I would ask them whether they know what it is to feel G.o.d's blessing, For instance: we all of us have our troubles of some sort or other, our disappointments, if not our sorrows. In these troubles, in these disappointments,--I care not how small they may be,--have they known what it is to feel that G.o.d's hand is over them; that these little annoyances are but his fatherly correction; that he is all the time loving us, and supporting us? In seasons of joy, such as they taste very often, have they known what it is to feel that they are tasting the kindness of their heavenly Father, that their good things come from his hand, and are but an infinitely slight foretaste of his love? Sickness, danger,--I know that they come to many of us but rarely; but if we have known them, or at least sickness, even in its lighter form, if not in its graver,-- have we felt what it is to know that we are in our Father's hands, that he is with us, and will be with us to the end; that nothing can hurt those whom he loves? Surely, then, if we have never tasted anything of this: if in trouble, or in joy, or in sickness, we are left wholly to ourselves, to bear as we can, and enjoy as we can; if there is no voice that ever speaks out of the heights and the depths around us, to give any answer to our own; if we are thus left to ourselves in this vast world,--there is in this a coldness and a loneliness; and whenever we come to be, of necessity, driven to be with our own hearts alone, the coldness and the loneliness must be felt. But consider that the things which we see around us cannot remain with us, nor we with them. The coldness and loneliness of the world, without G.o.d, must be felt more and more as life wears on: in every change of our own state, in every separation from or loss of a friend, in every more sensible weakness of our own bodies, in every additional experience of the uncertainty of our own counsels,--the deathlike feeling will come upon us more and more strongly: we shall gain more of that fearful knowledge which tells us that "G.o.d is not the G.o.d of the dead."

And so, also, the blessed knowledge that he is the G.o.d "of the living" grows upon those who are truly alive. Surely he "is not far from every one of us." No occasion of life fails to remind those who live unto him, that he is their G.o.d, and that they are his children.

On light occasions or on grave ones, in sorrow and in joy, still the warmth of his love is spread, as it were, all through the atmosphere of their lives: they for ever feel his blessing. And if it fills them with joy unspeakable even now, when they so often feel how little they deserve it; if they delight still in being with G.o.d, and in living to him, let them be sure that they have in themselves the unerring witness of life eternal:--G.o.d is the G.o.d of the living, and all who are with him must live.

Hard it is, I well know, to bring this home, in any degree, to the minds of those who are dead: for it is of the very nature of the dead that they can hear no words of life. But it has happened that, even whilst writing what I have just been uttering to you, the news reached me that one, who two months ago was one of your number, who this very half-year has shared in all the business and amus.e.m.e.nts of this place, is pa.s.sed already into that state where the meanings of the terms life and death are become fully revealed. He knows what it is to live unto G.o.d and what it is to die to him. Those things which are to us unfathomable mysteries, are to him all plain: and yet but two months ago he might have thought himself as far from attaining this knowledge as any of us can do. Wherefore it is clear, that these things, life and death, may hurry their lesson upon us sooner than we deem of, sooner than we are prepared to receive it. And that were indeed awful, if, being dead to G.o.d, and yet little feeling it, because of the enjoyments of our worldly life these enjoyments were of a sudden to be struck away from us, and we should find then that to be dead to G.o.d is death indeed, a death from which there is no waking and in which there is no sleeping forever.

CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR (1830-1886)

If "Eloquence consists in saying all that is necessary and no more."

President Arthur's inaugural address is one of its best examples. He was placed in a position of the gravest difficulty. He had been nominated for Vice-President as a representative of the "Stalwart"

Republicans when that element of the party had been defeated in National convention by the element then described as "Half-Breeds."

After the a.s.sa.s.sination of President Garfield by the "paranoiac"

Guiteau, the country waited with breathless interest to hear what the Vice-President would say in taking the Presidency. With a tact which amounted to genius, which never failed him during his administration, which in its results showed itself equivalent to the highest statesmans.h.i.+p, Mr. Arthur, a man to whom his opponents had been unwilling to concede more than mediocre abilities, rose to the occasion, disarmed factional oppositions, mitigated the animosity of partisans.h.i.+p, and during his administration did more than had been done before him to re-unite the sections divided by Civil War.

He was born in Fairfield, Vermont, October 5th, 1830. His father, Rev. William Arthur, a Baptist clergyman, born in Ireland, gave him a good education, sending him to Union College where he graduated in 1848. After teaching school in Vermont, he studied law and began practice in New York city. Entering politics as a Henry Clay Whig, and casting his first vote in 1852 for Winfield Scott, he was active as a Republican in the Fremont campaign of 1856 and from that time until elected to the Vice-Presidency took that strong interest in public affairs which led his opponents to cla.s.s him as a "professional politician." During the Civil War he was inspector-general and quarter-master general of New York troops. In 1871 President Grant appointed him collector of the port of New York and he held the office until July 1878. when he was suspended by President Hayes. Taking an active part in the movement to nominate General Grant for the Presidency to succeed Mr. Hayes. he attended the Republican convention of 1880, and after the defeat of the Grant forces, he was nominated as their representative for the Vice-Presidency. He died suddenly in New York city, November 18th, 1886, having won for himself during his administration as President the good-will of so many of his political opponents that the future historian will probably study his administration as that during which the most notable changes of the decade were made from the politics of the Civil War period.

INAUGURAL ADDRESS (Delivered September 22d, 1881)

For the fourth time in the history of the Republic its chief magistrate has been removed by death. All hearts are filled with grief and horror at the hideous crime which has darkened our land, and the memory of the murdered President, his protracted sufferings, his unyielding fort.i.tude, the example and achievements of his life and the pathos of his death will forever illumine the pages of our history.

For the fourth time, the officer elected by the people and ordained by the const.i.tution to fill a vacancy so created, is called to a.s.sume the executive chair. The wisdom of our fathers, foreseeing even the most dire possibilities, made sure that the government should never be imperiled because of the uncertainty of human life. Men may die but the fabric of our free inst.i.tutions remains unshaken. No higher or more a.s.suring proof could exist of the strength and permanence of popular government than the fact that though the chosen of the people be struck down, his const.i.tutional successor is peacefully installed without shock or strain except that of the sorrow which mourns the bereavement. All the n.o.ble aspirations of my lamented predecessor, which found expression during his life, the measures devised and suggested during his brief administration to correct abuses, to enforce economy, to advance prosperity, to promote the general welfare, to insure domestic security and maintain friendly and honorable relations with the nations of the earth, will be garnered in the hearts of the people and it will be my earnest endeavor to profit and to see that the nation shall profit by his example and experience.