on the Hudson, on the Potomac, from the Southern plains to the Western lakes, are engaged in the same offices of gratitude and love. Nor we, nor they alone; beyond the Ohio, beyond the Mississippi, along that stupendous trail of immigration from the East to the West, which, bursting into States as it moves westward, is already threading the Western prairies, swarming through the portals of the Rocky Mountains and winding down their slopes, the name and the memory of Washington on that gracious night will travel with the silver queen of heaven through sixty degrees of longitude, nor part company with her till she walks in her brightness through the Golden Gate of California, and passes serenely on to hold midnight court with her Australian stars. There and there only in barbarous archipelagos, as yet untrodden by civilized man, the name of Washington is unknown; and there, too, when they swarm with enlightened millions, new honors shall be paid with ours to his memory."

In my judgment the greatest living orator is William J. Bryan. I have never known a more gifted man. A thorough scholar — having like Lord Bacon taken all knowledge for his province a fearless champion of what he deems the right, he is in the loftiest sense "without fear and without reproach."

In introducing him to an immense audience in Bloomington when he was first a candidate for the Presidency, I said:

"The National Democracy in the Chicago convention selected for the Presidency a distinguished statesman of the great Northwest. For the first time in more than one hundred years of our history, a candidate for the great office has been taken from a State lying west of the Mississippi.

"In the nomination of our standard-bearer, the convention builded better than it knew. Each passing hour has but emphasized the wisdom of its choice. Truly it has been said: When the times demand the man, the man appears." The times demanded a great leader - the great leader has appeared! His campaign is the marvel of the age. From the Atlantic seaboard, two thousand miles to the westward, his eloquent words have cheered the despondent, given new hopes and aspirations to the people, touched the hearts of millions of his countrymen. In advocating his election we have kept the faith. We have not departed from the teachings of the fathers. We sacredly preserve the ancient landmarks-the landmarks of all previous Democratic conventions."

Rarely has a speech been uttered so effective in its imme

diate result as that of Mr. Bryan in the Democratic National Convention of 1896. The occasion was one never to be forgotten. When Mr. Bryan began his speech he had not been mentioned as a candidate for the Presidency; at its close there was no other candidate. The closing sentences of the memorable speech were:

"Our ancestors, when but three millions in number, had the courage to declare their political independence of every other nation; shall we, their descendants, when we have grown to seventy millions, declare that we are less independent than our forefathers? No, my friends, that will never be the verdict of our people. Therefore, we care not upon what lines the battle is fought. If they say bimetallism is good, but that we cannot have it until other nations help us, we reply that, instead of having a gold standard because England has, we will restore bimetallism, and then let England have bimetallism because the United States has it. If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we will fight them to the uttermost. Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests, and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: 'You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.""

The closing sentences of his "Prince of Peace" have been read in all languages:

"But this Prince of Peace promises not only peace but strength. Some have thought His teachings fit only for the weak and the timid and unsuited to men of vigor, energy, and ambition. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Only the man of faith can be courageous. Confident that he fights on the side of Jehovah, he doubts not the success of his cause. What matters it whether he shares in the shouts of triumph? If every word spoken in behalf of truth has its influence and every deed done for the right weighs in the final account, it is immaterial to the Christian whether his eyes behold victory or whether he dies in the midst of the conflict.

'Yea, though thou lie upon the dust,

When they who helped thee flee in fear,
Die full of hope and manly trust,
Like those who fell in battle here.
Another hand thy sword shall wield,
Another hand the standard wave,

Till from the trumpet's mouth is pealed
The blast of triumph o'er thy grave.'

Only those who believe attempt the seemingly impossible and, by attempting, prove that one with God can chase a thousand and two can put ten thousand to flight. I can imagine that the early Christians who were carried into the arena to make a spectacle for those more savage than the beasts, were entreated by their doubting companions not to endanger their lives. But, kneeling in the centre of the arena, they prayed and sang until they were devoured. How helpless they seemed and, measured by every human rule, how hopeless was their cause! And yet within a few decades the power which they invoked proved mightier than the legions of the emperor, and the faith in which they died was triumphant o'er all that land. It is said that those who went to mock at their sufferings returned asking themselves, 'What is it that can enter into the heart of man and make him die as these die?' They were greater conquerors in their death than they could have been had they purchased life by a surrender of their faith.

"What would have been the fate of the Church if the early Christians had had as little faith as many of our Christians now have? And, on the other hand, if the Christians of to-day had the faith of the martyrs, how long would it be before the fulfilment of the prophecy that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess?

Our faith should be even stronger than the faith of those who lived two thousand years ago, for we see our religion spreading and supplanting the philosophies and creeds of the Orient.

"As the Christian grows older he appreciates more and more the completeness with which Christ fills the requirements of the heart and, grateful for the peace which he enjoys and for the strength which he has received, he repeats the words of the great scholar, Sir William Jones:

'Before thy mystic altar, heavenly truth,

I kneel in manhood, as I knelt in youth.
Thus let me kneel, till this dull form decay,
And life's last shade be brightened by thy ray.""