The New Ministers Great Opportunity | Page 5

While he was passing through the happy years of
early-childhood, the fierce clash of arms resounded through the little
strip of territory which then made up the United States. I can hardly
realize that, as a child, he heard as a fresh, new, real story, of the deeds
of Lexington, from the lips of men then young who had been in the

fight, or listened as one of an eager group gathered about the fireside,
or in the old, now deserted tavern on the turnpike, to the story of
Bunker Hill.
"And when, the yoke of tyranny thrown off, in our country and in
France, Lafayette, the mere mention of whose name brings tears to the
eyes of every true American, came to see the America that he loved and
that loved him, he on whose cold, rigid face I now look down, joined in
one of those enthusiastic throngs that made the visit like a Roman
Triumph.
"But turn to the world of Nature, and think of the panoramic scenes that
have passed before those now impassive eyes. In our friend's boyhood
there was no practical mode of swift communication of news. In great
emergencies, to be sure, some patriot hand might flash the beacon-light
from a lofty tower; but news crept slowly over our hand-breath nation,
and it was months after a presidential election before the result was
generally known. He lived to see the telegraph flashing swiftly about
the globe, annihilating time and space and bringing the scattered
nations into greater unity.
"And think, my hearers, for one moment, of the wonders of electricity.
Here is a power which we name but do not know; which flashes
through the sky, shatters great trees, burns buildings, strikes men dead
in the fields; and we have learned to lead it, all unseen, from our
house-tops to the earth; we tame this mighty, secret, unknown power
into serving us as a a daily messenger; and no man sets the limits now
to the servitude that we shall yet bind it down to.
"Again, my hearers, when our friend was well advanced in life, there
was still no better mode of travel between distant points than the slow,
rumbling stage-coach; many who are here remember well its delays and
discomforts. He saw the first tentative efforts of that mighty factor
steam to transport more swiftly. He saw the first railroad built in the
country; he lived to see the land covered with the iron net-work.
"And what a transition is this! Pause for a moment to consider it. How
much does this imply. With the late improvements in agricultural

machinery, with the cheapening of steel rails, the boundless prairie
farms of the West are now brought into competition with the fields of
Great Britain in supplying the Englishman's table, and seem not
unlikely, within this generation, to break down the aristocratic holding
of land, and so perhaps to undermine aristocracy itself."
So the preacher continued, speaking of different improvements, and
lastly of the invention of daguerreotypes and photographs. He called
the attention of his hearers to this almost miraculous art of indelibly
fixing the expression of a countenance, and drew a lesson as to the
permanent effect of our daily looks and expression on those among
whom we live. He considered at length the vast amount of happiness
which had been caused by bringing pictures of loved ones within the
reach of all; the increase of family affection and general good feeling
which must have resulted from the invention; he suggested a possible
change in the civilization of the older nations through the constant
sending home, by prosperous adopted citizens, of photographs of
themselves and of their homes, and alluded to the effect which this
must have had upon immigration.
Finally he adverted to the fact that the sons of the deceased, who sat
before him, had not yielded to the restless spirit of adventure, but had
found "no place like home."
"But I fear," he said at last, "that the interest of my subject has made
me transgress upon your patience; and with a word or two more I will
close.
"When we remember what hard, trying things often arise within a
single day, let us rightly estimate the patient well-doing of a man who
has lived a blameless life for a hundred years. When we remember
what harm, what sin, can be crowded into a single moment, let us
rightly estimate the principle that kept him so close to the Golden Rule,
not for a day, not for a decade or a generation, but for a hundred years.
"And now, as we are about to lay his deserted body in the earth, let not
our perceptions be dulled by the constant repetition in this world of
death and burial. At this