THE DIGNITY OF LABOR HALL The dignity of labor! Consider its achievements. Dismayed by no difficulty, shrinking from no exertion, exhausted by no struggle, ever eager for renewed efforts, in its persevering promotion of human happiness, "clamorous labor knocks with its hundred hands at the golden gate of the morning," obtaining each day fresh benefactions for the world! Labor clears the forest and drains the morass and makes "the wilderness rejoice and blossom as the rose." Labor drives the plow, scatters the seeds, reaps the harvest, grinds the corn, and converts it into bread, the staff of life. Labor gathers the gossamer web of the caterpillar, the cotton from the field, the fleece from the flock, and weaves it into raiment, soft and warm and beautiful-the purple robe of the prince and the gray gown of the peasant being alike its handiwork. Labor molds the brick, and splits the slate, and quarries the stone, and shapes the column, and rears not only the humble cottage, but the gorgeous palace, the tapering spire, and the stately dome. Labor, diving deep into the solid earth, brings up its long-hidden stores of coal to feed ten thousand furnaces, and in millions of habitations to defy the winter's cold. Labor explores the rich veins of deeply buried rocks, extracting the gold and silver, the copper and tin. Labor melts the iron and molds it into a thousand shapes for use or ornament, from the massive pillar to the tiniest needle, from the ponderous anchor to the wire gauze. Labor hews down the gnarled oak, and shapes the timber, and builds the ship, and guides it over the deep, plunging through the billows and wrestling with the tempest, to bear to our shores the produce of every clime. Labor, laughing at difficulties, spans majestic rivers, carries viaducts over marshy swamps, suspends bridges over deep ravines, pierces the solid mountain with its dark tunnel, blasting rocks and filling hollows, and, while linking together, with its iron but loving grasp, all nations of the earth, verifying in a literal sense the ancient prophecy, "Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low!" Labor draws forth its delicate iron thread, and, stretching it from city to city, from province to province, through mountains and beneath the sea, realizes more than fancy ever fabled while it constructs a chariot on which speech may outstrip the wind, for the telegraph flies as rapidly as thought itself. Labor, a might magician, walks forth into a region uninhabited and waste. He looks earnestly at the scene so quiet in its desolation, then, waving his wonder-working wand; those dreary valleys smile with golden harvests, the furnace blazes, the anvil rings, the busy wheel whirls around, the town appears. The mart of commerce, the hall of science, the temple of religion, rear their lofty fronts. A forest of masts, gay with varied pennons, rises from the harbor; representatives of far-off regions make it their resort. Science enlists the elements of earth and heaven in its service. Art, awakening, clothes its strength with beauty. Civilization smiles, Liberty is glad, Humanity rejoices, Piety exults, for the voice of Industry and Gladness is heard in the land. PUBLIC OPINION CANON FARRAR Public opinion is a grand power. It is a mighty engine for good, if we can array it on our side. He who despises it must be either more or less than man; he must be puffed up by a conceit which mars his usefulness or he must be too abject to be reached by scorn. He, therefore, that affects to despise public opinion stands selfcondemned. But yet public opinion has many a time been arrayed on the side of wrong, and he who is not afraid to brave it in defense of righteousness, he who, in a cause which he knows to be good, but which his fellow-men do not yet understand, is willing to be ranked among idiots and fools, he is a partaker with all those who, through faith and patience, have inherited the promises. It was thus-it was for the cause of scientific truth-that Roger Bacon bore his long imprisonment, and Galileo sat contented in his cell. It was thus-it was for the cause of religious truth—that Luther stood undaunted before kings. It was thus that, to wake the base slumbers of a greedy age, Wesley and Whitefield were content to "Stand pilloried on Infamy's high stage, It was thus that Wilberforce faced in Parliament the sneers and rage of wealthy slave-owners. It was thus, "in the teeth of clinched antagonisms," that education was established, that missions were founded, that the cause of religious liberty was won. The persecuted object of to-day is the saint and exemplar of tomorrow. St. John enters the thronged streets of the capital of Asia as a despised Galilean and an unnoticed exile, but when genera tions have passed away it is still his name which clings to its indistinguishable ruins. St. Paul stands in his ragged gabardine, too mean for Gallio's supreme contempt, but to-day the cathedral dedicated to his honor towers over the vast imperial city where the name of Gallio is not much heard. Says a great orator, "Count we over the chosen heroes of this earth, and I will show you the men who stood alone, while those for whom they toiled and agonized poured on them contumely and scorn." They were glorious iconoclasts sent out to break down the Dagons worshiped by their fathers. The very martyrs of yesterday who were hooted at, whom the mob reviled and expatriated-to-day the children of the very generation who mobbed and reviled them are gathering up their scattered ashes to deposit in the golden urn of their nation's history. A INDEX OF TOPICS Academic mode, the, 67. Acting and conventions, 51. Advocate vs. Academician, 321. Analysis of phases of speech, 7. B Balanced emphasis, 313. Bodily alertness and the observer, Carus, P., quoted, 26. Children's actions as emotion, 90. Children under five years, method Common reading defined, 41. 59. Compound stress, 210. Concluding cadences, emphasis in, Conscious criticism, 150. CONVERSATIONAL MODE, THE, 55. Corollaries on gesturing, 137-138. Bodily alertness as an aid to speak- Criticism of tone, 304-305. |