"We have reached the point that marks perfect harmony in every household, when the husband confesses that the pies which his wife cooks are as good as those his mother used to bake; and we admit that the sun shines as brightly and the moon as softly as it did 'before the war.' We have established thrift in the city and country. We have fallen in love with work. We have restored comforts to homes from which culture and elegance never departed. We have let economy take root and spread among us as rank as the crab grass which sprung from Sherman's cavalry camps, until we are ready to lay odds on the Georgia Yankee, as he manufactures relics of the battle-field in a one-story shanty and squeezes pure olive-oil out of his cottonseed, against any downeaster that ever swapped wooden nutmegs for flannel sausages in the valley of Vermont.

66

Above all, we know that we have achieved in these 'piping times of peace,' a fuller independence for the South than that which our fathers sought to win in the forum by their eloquence, or compel on the field by their swords.

"It is a rare privilege, sir, to have had a part, however humble, in this work. Never was nobler duty confided to human hands than the uplifting and upbuilding of the prostrate and bleeding South, misguided, perhaps, but beautiful in her suffering, and honest, brave, and generous always. In the record of her social, industrial, and political restoration we await with confidence the verdict of the world. . .

"The old South rested everything on slavery and agriculture, unconscious that these could neither give nor maintain healthy growth. The new South presents a perfect Democracy, the oligarchs leading in the popular movement—a social system compact and closely knitted,

less splendid on the surface but stronger at the core; a hundred farms for every plantation, fifty homes for every palace, and a diversified industry that meets the complex needs of this complex age.

The new South is enamored of her new work. Her soul is stirred with the breath of a new life. The light of a grander day is falling fair on her face. She is thrilling with the consciousness of a growing power and prosperity. As she stands upright, full-statured and equal among the people of the earth, breathing the keen air and looking out upon the expanding horizon, she understands that her emancipation came because in the inscrutable wisdom of God her honest purpose was crossed and her brave armies were beaten.

I

"This is said in no spirit of time-serving or apology. The South has nothing for which to apologize. She believes that the late struggle between the States was war and not rebellion, revolution and not conspiracy, and that her convictions were as honest as yours. should be unjust to the dauntless spirit of the South and to my own convictions if I did not make this plain in this presence. The South has nothing to take back. In my native town of Athens is a monument that crowns its central hills—a plain, white shaft. Deep cut in its shining side is a name dear to me above the names of men, that of a brave and simple man who died in a brave and simple faith. Not for all the glories of New England-from Plymouth Rock all the way—would I exchange the heritage he left me in his soldier's death. To the feet of that shaft I shall send my children's children to reverence him who ennobled their name with his heroic blood. But, sir, speaking from the shadow of that memory, which I honor as I do nothing else on earth, I say that the cause in which he suffered and for

which he gave his life was adjudged by higher and fuller wisdom than his or mine, and I am glad that the omniscient God held the balance of battle in His Almighty hand, and that human slavery was swept forever from American soil-the American Union saved from the wreck of war.

"This message, Mr. President, comes to you from consecrated ground. Every foot of the soil about the city in which I live is sacred as a battle-ground of the Republic. Every hill that invests it is hallowed to you by the blood of your brothers who died for your victory, and doubly hallowed to us by the blood of those who died hopeless, but undaunted, in defeat-sacred soil to all of us, rich with memories that make us purer and stronger and better, silent but stanch witnesses in its red desolation of the matchless valor of American hearts and the deathless glory of American arms--speaking an eloquent witness, in its white peace and prosperity, to the indissoluble union of American States and the imperishable brotherhood of the American people.

"Now, what answer has New England to this message? Will she permit the prejudice of war to remain in the hearts of the conquerors, when it has died in the hearts of the conquered? Will she transmit this prejudice to the next generation, that in their hearts, which never felt the generous ardor of conflict, it may perpetuate itself? Will she withhold, save in strained courtesy, the hand which, straight from his soldier's heart, Grant offered to Lee at Appomattox? Will she make the vision of a restored and happy people, which gathered. above the couch of your dying captain, filling his heart with grace, touching his lips with praise and glorifying his path to the grave; will she make this vision, on which the last sigh of his expiring soul breathed a bene

diction, a cheat and a delusion? If she does, the South, never abject in asking for comradeship, must accept with dignity its refusal; but if she does not-if she accepts with frankness and sincerity this message of good will and friendship, then will the prophecy of Webster, delivered in this very Society forty years ago, amid tremendous applause, be verified in its fullest and final sense, when he said: 'Standing hand to hand and clasping hands, we should remain united as we have for sixty years, citizens of the same country, members of the same government, united all, united now, and united forever. There have been difficulties, contentions, and controversies, but I tell you that in my judgment

'Those opposed eyes,

Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven,

All of one nature, of one substance bred,

Did lately meet in th' intestine shock,

Shall now, in mutual, well-beseeming ranks
March all one way.'"

Homiletic Oratory is that form of public speaking used in the pulpit. It is a class by itself, in that it may contain all other forms of oratory,

Homiletic
Oratory.

and utilize them for the delivery of moral and religious sentiments. Pulpit address is differentiated from other kinds of public speaking by place of delivery rather than by the form of discourse. A sermon may be as didactic in the statement of doctrinal truth as any lecture in the schools. It may be demonstrative in form or expository in method, it may be spoken in eulogy over the dead; and yet it is a pulpit oration because it is delivered

in a church. But the eloquence of the pulpit has had a great influence in moulding the thought of the world, and deserves a separate place in our classification. Some of the most celebrated orators in history have been preachers, and at the present day the pulpit invites men of talent, learning, and eloquence to the teaching of religious truths.