they have cononized the most gigantic liars, and buried the great thieves in marble and gold. Under the loftiest monuments sleeps the dust of murder, Imposture has always worn a crown. The world is beginning to change because the people are beginning to think. To think is to advance. Everywhere the great minds are investigating the creeds and the superstitions of men-the phenomena of nature, and the laws of things. At the head of this great army of investigators stood Humboldt-the serene leader of an intellectual host-a king by the suffrage of science, and the divine right of genius. And to-day we are not honoring some butcher called a soldier some wily politician called a statesman-, some robber called a king-nor some malicious metaphysician called a saint. We are honoring the grand Humboldt, whose victories were all achieved in the arena of thought, who destroyed prejndice, ignorance and error—not men, who shed light-not blood, and who contributed to the knowledge, the wealth, and the hapiness of all mankind. We associate the name of Humboldt with oceans, continents, mountains and volcanoes-with the great palms—the wide deserts—the snow-lipped craters of the Andes with primeval forests and European capitals-with wildernesses and universities-with savages aud savans with the lonely rivers of unpeopled wasteswith peaks and pampas, and steppes, and cliffs and crags -with the progress of the world-and every science known to man, and with every star glittering in the immensity of space. He was never Humboldt adopted none of the soul-shrinking creeds of his day, wasted none of his time in the stupidities, inanities and contradictions of theological metaphysics; he did not endeavor to harmonize the astronomy and geology ot a barbarous people with the science of the nineteenth century. Never, for one moment, did he abandon the sublime standard of truth; he investigated, he studied, he thought, he seperated the gold from the dross in the crucible of his grand brain. found on his knees before the altar of superstition. He was never found on his knees before the altar of superstition. He stood erect by the grand tranquil column of reason. He was an admirer, a lover, an adorer of nature, and at the age of ninety, bowed by the weight of nearly a century, covered with the insignia of honor, loved by a nation, respected by a world, with kings for his servants, he laid his weary head upon her bosom-upon the boso n of the universal Mother--and with her loving arms around him, sank into the slumber called Death. The world is his monument; upon the eternal granite of her hills he inscribed his name, and there upon everlasting stone his genius wrote this sublimest of truth: "THE UNIVERSE IS GOVERNED BY LAW." |