NEW YORK SPEECH ON LEARNING OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S ASSASSINATION "Fellow citizens! Clouds and darkness are round about Him! His pavilion is dark waters and thick clouds of the skies! Justice and judgment are the establishment of His throne! Mercy and truth shall go before His face! Fellow citizens! God reigns, and the Government at Washington still lives!" General James A. Garfield. DESCRIPTION OF CHRIST The following epistle is said to have been taken by Napoleon from the records of Rome when he deprived that city of so many valuable manuscripts. It was written at the time and on the spot where Jesus commenced his ministry, by Publius Lentulus, Governor of Judea, to the senate of Rome, Caesar, emperor. It was the custom in those days for the governor to write home any event that transpired while he held his office. "Conscript Fathers: In these our days appeared a man named Jesus Christ, who is yet living among us, and of the Gentiles is accepted as a prophet of great truth; but his own disciples call him the son of God. He hath raised the dead and cured all manner of diseases. He is a man of stature somewhat tall and comely, with a ruddy countenance, such as the beholder may both love and fear. His hair is the color of a filbert when fully ripe, plain to his ear, whence downward it is more of orient color, curling and waving on his shoulders; in the middle of his head is a seam of long hair, after the manner of the Nazarites. His forehead is plain and delicate; the face without spot or wrinkle, beautiful with a comely red; his nose and mouth are exactly formed; his beard is the color of his hair and thick, not of any length, but forked. "In reproving, he is terrible; admonishing, courteous; in speaking, very modest and wise; in proportion of body, well-shaped. None have seen him laugh, many have seen him weep. A man for his surpassing beauty excelling the children of men." WE SEE WITH OUR VISION IMPERFECT We see with our vision imperfect, Such causes of dread or fear, And some that may never be near; Whose purpose we cannot see, As our day, our strength shall be. Cary. DEATH The fiat of nature is inexorable. There is no appeal for relief from the great law which dooms us to dust. We flourish and fade as the leaves of the forest, and the flowers that bloom and wither in a day have no frailer hold upon life than the mightiest monarch that ever shook the earth with his footsteps. Generations of men will appear and disappear as the grass, and the multitude that throng the world today will disappear as the footsteps on the shore. Men seldom think of the great event of death until the shadow falls across their own pathway, hiding from their eyes the faces of loved ones whose living smile was the sunlight of their existence. Death is the antagonist of life, and the cold thought of the tomb is the skeleton of all feasts. We do not want to go through the dark valley, although its dark passage may lead to Paradise; we do not want to lie down in the damp grave, even with princes for bedfellows. In the beautiful drama of lon, the hope of immortality, so eloquently uttered by the death-devoted Greek, finds deep response in every thoughtful soul. When about to yield his young existence as a sacrifice to fate, his Clemantha asks if they should meet again, to which he replies: "I have asked that dreadful question of the hills that look eternal-of the clear streams that flow forever-of the stars among whose fields of azure my raised spirit has walked in glory. All were dumb; but as I gaze upon thy living face I feel that there is something in the love that mantles through its beauty that cannot wholly perish. We shall meet again, Clemantha." George D. Prentice. GOD GIVE US MEN God give us men. The time demands Men whom the lust of office does not kill; Men who possess opinions and a will; Men who can stand before a demagogue Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog J. G. Holland. INDEX TITLES AND AUTHORS A star * indicates that the selection did not take a prize, although Abou Ben Adhem. Leigh Hunt 122 80 47 7 93 200 Brave Love. Anon 155 149 229 51 46 384 306 140 205 185 334 391 44 149 28 249 175 385 325 12 234 232 359 49 31 327 376 168 146 417 124 420 163 62 77 55 120 426 209 387 17 425 196 318 52 172 |