Model Speeches for Practise | Page 9

welcome, all of you, dear brothers, to this our joyous
meeting! We must, we will call it joyous, tho it comes with many
saddening thoughts. Our last triennial meeting was a festival in a
double sense, for the same day that brought us together at our family
gathering gave a new head to our ancient household of the university.
As I look to-day in vain for his stately presence and kindly smile, I am
reminded of the touching words spoken by an early president of the
university in the remembrance of a loss not unlike our own. It was at
the commencement exercises of the year 1678 that the Reverend
President Urian Oakes thus mourned for his friend Thomas Shepard,
the minister of Charlestown, an overseer of the college: "Dici non
potest quam me perorantem, in comitiis, conspectus ejus, multo
jucundissimus, recrearit et refecerit. At non comparet hodie Shepardus
in his comitiis; oculos huc illuc torqueo; quocumque tamen inciderint,
Platonem meum intanta virorum illustrium frequentia requirunt;
nusquam amicum et pernecessarium meum in hac solenni panegyric,
inter nosce Reverendos Theologos, Academiae Curatores, reperire aut
oculis vestigare possum." Almost two hundred years have gone by
since these words were uttered by the fourth president of the college,
which I repeat as no unfitting tribute to the memory of the twentieth,
the rare and fully ripened scholar who was suddenly ravished from us
as some richly freighted argosy that just reaches her harbor and sinks
under a cloudless sky with all her precious treasures.
But the great conflict through which we are passing has made sorrow
too frequent a guest for us to linger on an occasion like this over every
beloved name which the day recalls to our memory. Many of the
children whom our mother had trained to arts have given the freshness

of their youth or the strength of their manhood to arms. How strangely
frequent in our recent record is the sign interpreted by the words "E
vivis cesserunt stelligeri!" It seems as if the red war-planet had replaced
the peaceful star, and these pages blushed like a rubric with the long list
of the martyr-children of our university. I can not speak their eulogy,
for there are no phrases in my vocabulary fit to enshrine the memory of
the Christian warrior,--of him--
"Who, doomed to go in company with Pain And Fear and Bloodshed,
miserable train, Turns his necessity to glorious gain--"
"Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth Forever, and to noble
deeds give birth, Or he must fall, to sleep without his fame, And leave a
dead, unprofitable name, Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;
And while the mortal mist is gathering, draws His breath in confidence
of Heaven's applause."
Yet again, O brothers! this is not the hour for sorrow. Month after
month until the months became years we have cried to those who stood
upon our walls: "Watchmen, what of the night?" They have answered
again and again, "The dawn is breaking,--it will soon be day." But the
night has gathered round us darker than before. At last--glory be to God
in the highest!--at last we ask no more tidings of the watchmen, for
over both horizons east and west bursts forth in one overflowing tide of
radiance the ruddy light of victory!
We have no parties here to-day, but is there one breast that does not
throb with joy as the banners of the conquering Republic follow her
retreating foes to the banks of the angry Potomac? Is there one heart
that does not thrill in answer to the drum-beat that rings all over the
world as the army of the west, on the morning of the nation's birth,
swarms over the silent, sullen earthworks of captured Vicksburg,--to
the reveille that calls up our Northern regiments this morning inside the
fatal abatis of Port Hudson? We are scholars, we are graduates, we are
alumni, we are a band of brothers, but beside all, above all, we are
American citizens. And now that hope dawns upon our land--nay,
bursts upon it in a flood of glory,--shall we not feel its splendors
reflected upon our peaceful gathering, peaceful in spite of those

disturbances which the strong hand of our citizen-soldiery has already
strangled?
Welcome then, thrice welcome, scholarly soldiers who have fought for
your and our rights and honor! Welcome, soldierly scholars who are
ready to fight whenever your country calls for your services! Welcome,
ye who preach courage as well as meekness, remembering that the
Prince of Peace came also bringing a sword! Welcome, ye who make
and who interpret the statutes which are meant to guard our liberties in
peace, but not to aid our foes in war! Welcome, ye whose healing
ministry soothes the anguish of the suffering and the