Chapter XXXII: Part II (1)

Base art thou yet, oh, Rum, as when the wise man warned us of thy power and bade us flee thy enchantment. Vile art thou yet as when thou first went forth on thy unholy mission――filling earth with desolation and madness, woe and anguish. Deadly art thou yet as when thy envenomed tooth first took fast hold on human hearts, and thy serpent tongue first drank up the warm life-blood of immortal souls. Accursed art thou yet as when the bones of thy first victim rotted in a damp grave, and its shriek echoed along the gloomy caverns of hell. Yes, thou infernal spirit of rum, through all past time hast thou been, as through all coming time thou shalt be, accursed everywhere.

In the fiery fountains of the still; in the seething bubbles of the caldron; in the kingly palace and the drunkard’s hovel; in the rich man’s cellar and the poor man’s closet; in the pestilential vapors of foul dens and in the blaze of gilded saloons; in the hand of beauty and on the lip of manhood, rum is vile and deadly and accursed everywhere.

Rum, we yield not to thy unhallowed influence, and together we have met to plan thy destruction. And by what new name shall we call thee, and to what shall we liken thee when we speak of thy attributes? Others may call thee child of perdition, the base-born progeny of sin and Satan, the murderer of mankind and the destroyer of immortal souls; but I will give thee a new name among men and crown thee with a new horror, and that new name shall be the sacramental cup of the Rum-Power, and I will say to all the sons and daughters of earth――Dash it down! And thou, Rum, shalt be my text in my pilgrimage among men, and not alone shalt my tongue utter it, but the groans of orphans in their agony and the cries of widows in their desolation shall proclaim it the enemy of home, the traducer of childhood, and the destroyer of manhood, and whose only antidote is the sacramental cup of temperance, cold water!

* * * * *

THE POWER OF HABIT.

(DESCRIPTIVE, SPIRITED AND DRAMATIC.)

I REMEMBER once riding from Buffalo to the Niagara Falls. I said to a gentleman, “What river is that, sir?”

“That,” said he, “is Niagara river.”

“Well, it is a beautiful stream,” said I; “bright, and fair and glassy. How far off are the rapids?”

“Only a mile or two,” was the reply.

“Is it _possible_ that only a mile from us we shall find the water in the turbulence which it must show near the Falls?”

“You will find it so, sir.” And so I found it; and the first sight of Niagara I shall never forget.

Now, launch your bark on that Niagara river; it is bright, smooth, beautiful, and glassy. There is a ripple at the bow; the silver wake you leave behind adds to your enjoyment. Down the stream you glide, oars, sails, and helm in proper trim, and you set out on your pleasure excursion.

Suddenly some one cries out from the bank, “Young men, ahoy!”

“What is it?”

“The rapids are below you!”

“Ha! ha! we have heard of the rapids; but we are not such fools as to get there. If we go too fast, then we shall up with the helm, and steer to the shore; we will set the mast in the socket, hoist the sail, and speed to the land. Then on, boys, don’t be alarmed, there is no danger.”

“Young men, ahoy there!”

“What is it?”

“The rapids are below you!”

“Ha! ha! we will laugh and quaff; all things delight us. What care we for the future! No man ever saw it. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. We will enjoy life while we may, we will catch pleasure as it flies. This is enjoyment; time enough to steer out of danger when we are sailing swiftly with the current.”

“Young men, ahoy!”

“What is it?”

“Beware! beware! The rapids are below you!”

“Now you see the water foaming all around. See how fast you pass that point! Up with the helm! Now turn! Pull hard! Quick! quick! quick! pull for your lives! pull till the blood starts from your nostrils, and the veins stand like whip-cords upon your brow! Set the mast in the socket! hoist the sail! Ah! ah! it is too late! Shrieking, howling, blaspheming, over they go.”

Thousands go over the rapids of intemperance every year, through _the power of habit_, crying all the while, “_When I find out that it is injuring me, I will give it up!_”

* * * * *

WHAT IS A MINORITY?

WHAT is a minority? The chosen heroes of this earth have been in a minority. There is not a social, political, or religious privilege that you enjoy to-day that was not bought for you by the blood and tears and patient suffering of the minority. It is the minority that have vindicated humanity in every struggle. It is a minority that have stood in the van of every moral conflict, and achieved all that is noble in the history of the world. You will find that each generation has been always busy in gathering up the scattered ashes of the martyred heroes of the past, to deposit them in the golden urn of a nation’s history. Look at Scotland, where they are erecting monuments――to whom?――to the Covenanters. Ah, _they_ were in a minority. Read their history, if you can, without the blood tingling to the tips of your fingers. These were in the minority, that, through blood, and tears, and bootings and scourgings――dying the waters with their blood, and staining the heather with their gore――fought the glorious battle of religious freedom. Minority! if a man stand up for the right, though the right be on the scaffold, while the wrong sits in the seat of government; if he stand for the right, though he eat, with the right and truth, a wretched crust; if he walk with obloquy and scorn in the by-lanes and streets, while the falsehood and wrong ruffle it in silken attire, let him remember that wherever the right and truth are there are always

“Troops of beautiful, tall angels”

gathered round him, and God Himself stands within the dim future, and keeps watch over His own! If a man stands for the right and the truth, though every man’s finger be pointed at him, though every woman’s lip be curled at him in scorn, he stands in a majority; for God and good angels are with him, and greater are they that are for him, than all they that be against him.

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CHAUNCEY MITCHELL DEPEW.

AMERICA’S MOST FAMOUS AFTER-DINNER ORATOR.

IT is impossible in a sketch like this to do justice to the remarkable versatility of Mr. Depew. His admirable addresses would fill several bulky volumes. As an after-dinner speaker, he is without a peer, and his wit, logic and eloquence never fail him. What could be more apt than his words, when, upon entering a public hall where a number of leading men were straining themselves to prove the Christian religion a delusion and a sham, and there were instant and clamorous calls for him, he said: “Gentlemen, my mother’s Bible is good enough for me; have you anything better to offer?” And then with touching pathos and impassioned words he made an appeal for the religion which they reviled, which must have pierced the shell of more than one agnostic heart.

Chauncey Mitchell Depew was born at Peekskill, New York, April 23, 1834. His remote ancestors were French Huguenots, who founded New Rochelle, in Westchester County. His father, Isaac Depew, was a prominent and highly esteemed citizen of Peekskill, and his mother, Martha Mitchell, was a representative of the distinguished New England family, one of whose members, Roger Sherman, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Chauncey spent his boyhood in Peekskill, where he prepared for college. He was a bright student, and at the age of eighteen entered Yale College, from which he was graduated in 1856, with one of the first honors of his class. In June, 1887, Yale conferred upon him the degree of LL.D. It will be noted that Mr. Depew reached his majority at about the time of the formation of the Republican Party. Although of Democratic antecedents, he had been a close student of politics and his sympathies were with the aims of the new political organization, to which he speedily gave his allegiance.

Mr. Depew studied law in his native village, and was admitted to the bar in 1858. In the same year, he was elected as a delegate to the Republican State Convention, this being an acknowledgment of the interest he had taken in the party, and the skill and energy he had shown in advocating its policy. He began the practice of law in 1859, and was highly successful from the first. In his early manhood, his striking power as a stump speaker, his readiness at repartee, and his never-failing good humor, made him a giant in politics, to which he was literally forced to give attention. But with all these extraordinary gifts, he could launch the thunderbolts of invective against wrong and stir the profoundest depths of emotion by his appeals. He loved liberty and hated oppression, and has always believed that the United States of America is the happiest and greatest country upon which the sun ever shone. His patriotic speeches are models of eloquence and power.

In 1860 he took the stump for Abraham Lincoln and added greatly to his reputation as a ready, forceful, and brilliant pleader for that which he believed to be right. It cannot be denied that he contributed much to the success of that memorable election.

In 1861 Mr. Depew was nominated for the Assembly in the Third Westchester County District, and, although the constituency was largely Democratic, he was elected by a handsome majority. He fully met all the high expectations formed, and was re-elected in 1862. By his geniality, wit, integrity and courtesy he became as popular among his political opponents as among his friends. He was made his party’s candidate for Secretary of State, directly after the Democrats had won a notable triumph by the election of Horatio Seymour as Governor; but by his dash and brilliancy and his prodigious endurance (he spoke twice a day for six weeks), he secured a majority of 30,000. So admirably did he perform the duties of the office that he was offered a renomination, but declined.

During the administration of President Johnson, Secretary of State Seward appointed Mr. Depew Minister to Japan, but after consideration, the offer was declined. He seemed to have decided to withdraw from politics and to devote his time and energies to his profession. That shrewd railway man and financier, Commodore Vanderbilt, had watched the career of Depew, and had formed a strong admiration for him, while the eldest son, William H. Vanderbilt, became his firm friend. In 1866 Mr. Depew was appointed the attorney for the New York and Harlem Railroad Company, and three years later, when that road was consolidated with the New York Central, he was made the attorney of the new organization, being afterward elected a member of the Board of Directors.

As other and extensive roads were added to the system, Mr. Depew, in 1875, was promoted to be general counsel for them all, and elected to a directorship in each of the numerous organizations. The year previous the Legislature had made him Regent of the State University, and one of the Commissioners to build the Capitol at Albany.

In 1884 the United States senatorship was tendered to Mr. Depew, but he was committed to so many business and professional trusts that he felt compelled to decline the honor. Two years before, William H. Vanderbilt had retired from the presidency of the New York Central, and in the reorganization Mr. Depew was made Second Vice-President. The President, Mr. Rutter, died in 1885, and Mr. Depew was elected to the presidency, which office he still holds.

At the National Republican Convention of 1888, New York voted solidly for Mr. Depew as its candidate for the Presidency, but he withdrew his name. At the convention at Minneapolis in 1892 he was selected to present the name of President Harrison, and made one of the best speeches of his life. When Mr. Blaine resigned as Secretary of State, President Harrison urged Mr. Depew to accept the place, but after a week’s deliberation he felt obliged to decline the honor. He has, however, continued to take an active interest in politics.

During the last ten years Mr. Depew has been frequently abroad, and some of his happiest speeches have been delivered on board steamers and in foreign banqueting halls, where he never forgets to speak in words of patriotic praise of America.

* * * * *

THE PILGRIMS.

THEY were practical statesmen, these Pilgrims. They wasted no time theorizing upon methods, but went straight at the mark. They solved the Indian problem with shotguns, and it was not General Sherman, but Miles Standish, who originated the axiom that the only good Indians are the dead ones. They were bound by neither customs nor traditions, nor committals to this or that policy. The only question with them was, Does it work? The success of their Indian experiment led them to try similar methods with witches, Quakers, and Baptists. Their failure taught them the difference between mind and matter. A dead savage was another wolf under ground, but one of themselves persecuted or killed for conscience sake sowed the seed of discontent and disbelief. The effort to wall in a creed and wall out liberty was at once abandoned, and to-day New England has more religions and not less religion, but less bigotry, than any other community in the world.

In an age when dynamite was unknown, the Pilgrim invented in the cabin of the “Mayflower” the most powerful of explosives. The declaration of the equality of all men before the law has rocked thrones and consolidated classes. It separated the colonies from Great Britain and created the United States. It pulverized the chains of the slaves and gave manhood suffrage. It devolved upon the individual the functions of government and made the people the sole source of power. It substituted the cap of liberty for the royal crown in France, and by a bloodless revolution has added to the constellation of American republics, the star of Brazil. But with the ever-varying conditions incident to free government, the Puritan’s talent as a political mathematician will never rust. Problems of the utmost importance press upon him for solution. When, in the effort to regulate the liquor traffic, he has advanced beyond the temper of the times and the sentiment of the people in the attempt to enact or enforce prohibition, and either been disastrously defeated or the flagrant evasions of the statutes have brought the law into contempt, he does not despair, but tries to find the error in his calculation.

If gubernatorial objections block the way of high license, he will bombard the executive judgment and conscience by a proposition to tax. The destruction of homes, the ruin of the young, the increase of pauperism and crime, the added burdens upon the taxpayers by the evils of intemperance, appeal with resistless force to his training and traditions. As the power of the saloon increases the difficulties of the task, he becomes more and more certain that some time or other and in some way or other he will do that sum too.

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HENRY WOODFIN GRADY.

THE BRILLIANT SOUTHERN ORATOR AND JOURNALIST.

IT is only a few times in a century that some unselfish soul, coupled with a towering genius of mind, rises in grandeur and goodness so far above his fellows as to command their almost worshipful admiration and love. Such a man was Henry W. Grady. No written memorial can indicate the strong hold he had upon the Southern people, nor portray that peerless personality which gave him his marvelous power among all men with whom he came into contact.

Grady was, perhaps, above all other prominent political leaders of his times, devoid of sectional animosities, and did more, by voice and pen, than any other man, during the decade of his prominence, to bridge the bloody chasm between the North and South, which designing politicians on both sides were endeavoring to keep open. Notwithstanding the fact that his father was a Southern slaveholder, and lost his life in fighting for the cause of secession, young Grady recognized the providence of God in the failure of that cause, and rejoiced in the liberation of the black man, though with his fallen shackles lay the wrecked fortune of himself, his widowed mother and his beloved Southland. The Union was the pride of Grady’s life. Daniel Webster was not more loyal to its Constitution or bolder in defending its principles. In writing or speaking on any subject to which he was moved by an inspiring sense of patriotism or conviction of duty, he was always eloquent, logical, aggressive and unanswerable. It was with logic, earnest honesty of conviction and a tongue of tender pathos and burning eloquence, together with a personal magnetism that always accompanies a great orator, that he literally mastered his audiences, regardless of their character, chaining them to the train of his thought, and carrying them captive to his convictions. Such a man could not be held within the narrow limits of any section. Wherever he went the power of his individuality quickly made him known, and his splendid genius needed only an opportunity to make him famous.

Like Patrick Henry, his great fame as an orator rested principally upon three speeches. One was made before the New England Society, at a banquet held in New York, in 1889, in which his theme was “The New South” and its message to the North. Another was at the State Fair at Dallas, Texas; but the most magnificent and eloquent effort of his life was delivered in Boston, December 13, 1889, just ten days before he died. The theme of this address was “The Race Problem,” and it is accorded by all who heard it, or have read it, as the most soul-stirring speech, and, withal, the fairest and most practical discussion of this vexed subject which has yet been presented by any man.

Henry Woodfin Grady was born in Atlanta, Georgia, May 17, 1851, and died there December 23, 1889. His father was a merchant in that city before the war, and Henry was the oldest of a family of three children. His mother, whose maiden name was Gartrell, was a woman of strong mind, quick intelligence, deep religious convictions, sweetness of disposition, and force of character happily blended. Grady was a boy of promise, and his youth was a fair index of his after-life. He was always brilliant, industrious, patriotic, enterprising, conscientious, and devoted to his parents to a marked degree. The tragic death of his father, when the boy was fourteen, profoundly affected him, but it, perhaps, hastened his own precocious growth by leaving him as the mainstay of his mother in providing for the family.

At the age of seventeen Henry Grady was graduated at the University of Georgia (1868); but he subsequently attended the University of Virginia, where he took his degree before he was twenty years old, and in less than a year was married to the sweetheart of his youth. His majority found him occupying the position of editor and part owner of the Rome (Georgia) “Commercial.” This failed, and cost the young editor nearly all his savings. Soon after this he removed to Atlanta, and connected himself with the Atlanta “Herald,” the columns of which he made the brightest in the South; but misfortune overtook its financial management and consumed all the remainder of Grady’s fortune. Thus, at twenty-three years of age, he had failed twice and was almost despairing when the old adage, “A friend in need is a friend indeed,” was now verified to him. Cyrus W. Field loaned the penniless young man twenty thousand dollars to buy a controlling interest in the Atlanta “Constitution.” He made it the greatest paper in the South.

Besides the editorial work on his own paper, Mr. Grady contributed much to others, among them the New York “Ledger,” to which he contributed a series of articles on “The New South,” the last of which was published only a few days before his death. When his brilliant and beneficent career was cut short at the early age of thirty-eight, the whole country had become interested in his work, and joined in common mourning over his loss. A fund of over twenty thousand dollars, contributed from all parts of the country, was quickly collected to build a monument to his memory. It was erected in Atlanta, Georgia, and unveiled with imposing ceremonies on October 21, 1891.

One who knew Henry W. Grady well thus writes of him: “He had a matchless grace of soul that made him an unfailing winner of hearts. His translucent mind pulsated with the light of truth and beautified all thought. He grew flowers in the garden of his heart and sweetened the world with the perfume of his spirit. His endowments are so superior, and his purposes so unselfish that he seemed to combine all the best elements of genius and live under the influence of an almost divine inspiration. When building an aircastle over the framework of his fancy, or when pouring out his soul in some romantic dream, or when sounding the depths of human feeling by an appeal for sweet charity’s sake, his command of language was as boundless as the realm of thought, his ideas as beautiful as pictures in the sky, and his pathos as deep as the well of tears.”

* * * * *

THE NEW SOUTH.¹

¹ Copyright, H. C. Hudgins, publisher of “Life of Grady.”

THERE was a South of secession and slavery――that South is dead. There is a South of Union and freedom――that South is living, breathing, growing every hour.

I accept the term, “The New South,” as in no sense disparaging to the Old. Dear to me is the home of my childhood and the traditions of my people. There is a New South, not through protest against the Old, but because of new conditions, new adjustments, and, if you please, new ideas and aspirations. It is to this that I address myself. You have just heard an eloquent description of the triumphant armies of the North, and the grand review at Washington. I ask you, gentlemen, to picture, if you can, the foot-sore soldier, who, buttoning up in his faded gray jacket the parole which was taken, testimony to his children of his fidelity and faith, turned his face southward from Appomattox in April, 1865. Think of him as ragged, half-starved, heavy-hearted, enfeebled by want and wounds. Having fought to exhaustion, he surrenders his gun, wrings the hands of his comrades, and, lifting his tear-stained and pallid face for the last time to the graves that dot the old Virginia hills, pulls his gray cap over his brow and begins the slow and painful journey. What does he find?――let me ask you, who went to your homes eager to find all the welcome you had justly earned, full payment for your four years’ sacrifice――what does he find, when he reaches the home he left four years before? He finds his house in ruins, his farm devastated, his slaves freed, his stock killed, his barns empty, his trade destroyed, his money worthless, his social system, feudal in its magnificence, swept away, his people without law or legal status, his comrades slain, and the burdens of others heavy on his shoulders. Crushed by defeat, his very traditions gone, without money, credit, employment, material, or training――and, besides all this, confronted with the gravest problem that ever met human intelligence――the establishing of a status for the vast body of his liberated slaves.

What does he do――this hero in gray with a heart of gold――does he sit down in sullenness and despair? Not for a day. Surely, God, who had scourged him in his prosperity, inspired him in his adversity! As ruin was never before so overwhelming, never was restoration swifter.

The soldiers stepped from the trenches into the furrow; the horses that had charged upon General Sherman’s line marched before the plow, and fields that ran red with human blood in April were green with the harvest in June. From the ashes left us in 1864, we have raised a brave and beautiful city; and, somehow or other, we have caught the sunshine in the bricks and mortar of our homes and have builded therein not one single ignoble prejudice or memory.

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

* * * * *

REGARD FOR THE NEGRO RACE.

From speech on the Race Problem, at annual banquet of the
Boston Merchants’ Association, Dec., 1889.

THE resolute, clear-headed, broad-minded men of the South――the men whose genius made glorious every page of the first seventy years of American history――whose courage and fortitude you tested in four years of the fiercest war――realize, as you cannot, what this race problem means――what they owe to this kindly and dependent race. Nor are they wholly to blame for the presence of slavery. The slave-ships sailed from your ports――the slaves once worked in your fields, and you sold them to the South. Neither of us now defends the traffic, nor the institution.

The love the whites of the South feel for the negro race you cannot measure nor comprehend. As I attest it here, the spirit of my old black mammy from her home up there looks down to bless, and through the tumult of this night steals the sweet music of her croonings as thirty years ago she held me in her black arms and led me smiling into sleep. This scene vanishes as I speak, and I catch a vision of an old Southern home, with its lofty pillars, and its white pigeons fluttering down through the golden air. I see women with strained and anxious faces, and children alert yet helpless. I see night come down with its dangers and its apprehensions, and in a big homely room I feel on my tired head the touch of loving hands――now worn and wrinkled, but fairer to me yet than the hands of mortal woman, and stronger yet to lead me than the hands of mortal man――as they lay a mother’s blessing there while at her knees――the truest altar I yet have found――I thank God that she is safe in her sanctuary, because her slaves, sentinel in the silent cabin or guard at her chamber door, puts a black man’s loyalty between her and danger.

I catch another vision. The crisis of battle――a soldier struck, staggering, fallen. I see a slave, scuffling through the smoke, winding his black arms about the fallen form, reckless of the hurtling death――bending his trusty face to catch the words that tremble on the stricken lips, so wrestling meantime with agony that he would lay down his life in his master’s stead. I see him by the weary bedside, ministering with uncomplaining patience, praying with all his humble heart that God will lift his master up, until death comes in mercy and in honor to still the soldier’s agony and seal the soldier’s life. I see him by the open grave, mute, motionless, uncovered, suffering for the death of him who in life fought against his freedom. I see him when the mound is heaped and the great drama of his life is closed, turn away and with downcast eyes and uncertain step start out into new and strange fields, faltering, struggling, but moving on, until his shambling figure is lost in the light of this better and brighter day. And from the grave comes a voice saying, “Follow him! Put your arms about him in his need, even as he put his about me. Be his friend as he was mine.” And out into this new world――strange to me as to him, dazzling, bewildering both――I follow! And may God forget my people――when they forget these.

* * * * *

APPEAL FOR TEMPERANCE.¹

(In no cause in which his sympathies were enlisted was Mr.
Grady more active and earnest than in that of temperance. The
following extract is from one of his speeches delivered during
the exciting local campaign in Georgia in 1887.)

¹ Copyright, C. H. Hudgins & Co.

MY friends, hesitate before you vote liquor back into Atlanta, now that it is shut out. Don’t trust it. It is powerful, aggressive and universal in its attacks. To-night it enters an humble home to strike the roses from a woman’s cheek, and to-morrow it challenges this Republic in the halls of Congress. To-day it strikes a crust from the lips of a starving child, and to-morrow levies tribute from the government itself. There is no cottage in this city humble enough to escape it――no palace strong enough to shut it out. It defies the law when it cannot coerce suffrage. It is flexible to cajole, but merciless in victory. It is the mortal enemy of peace and order. The despoiler of men, the terror of women, the cloud that shadows the face of children, the demon that has dug more graves and sent more souls unshrived to judgment, than all the pestilences that have wasted life since God sent the plagues to Egypt, and all the wars since Joshua stood beyond Jericho. O my countrymen! loving God and humanity, do not bring this grand old city again under the dominion of that power. It can profit no man by its return. It can uplift no industry, revive no interest, remedy no wrong. You know that it cannot. It comes to turn, and it shall profit mainly by the ruin of your sons and mine. It comes to mislead human souls and crush human hearts under its rumbling wheels. It comes to bring gray-haired mothers down in shame and sorrow to their graves. It comes to turn the wife’s love into despair and her pride into shame. It comes to still the laughter on the lips of little children. It comes to stifle all the music of the home and fill it with silence and desolation. It comes to ruin your body and mind, to wreck your home, and it knows that it must measure its prosperity by the swiftness and certainty with which it wreaks this work.

FAMOUS WOMEN ORATORS AND REFORMERS

Illustration: FAMOUS WOMEN ORATORS AND REFORMERS

BELVA A. LOCKWOOD • SUSAN B. ANTHONY
FRANCES WILLARD • MARY A. LIVERMORE • JULIA WARD HOWE
ELIZABETH C. STANTON • ANNA DICKINSON

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JULIA WARD HOWE.

AUTHOR OF THE “BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC.”

ON Beacon Street, Boston, in an old-fashioned home, lives a woman mingling the twilight of her eventful life with the evening of the closing century, who has been a potent factor in its progress and developments. In her unpretentious little home have sat and talked the greatest men of America, and many of the European celebrities who have visited this country. Even the casual visitor to the home of this aged woman feels in the atmosphere of the place, with its mementoes of great men and women, some indefinable flavor, like a lingering perfume which tells him there has been high thinking and noble speech within the walls which surround him.

This noted poet, author, and philanthropist was born in New York City on May 27, 1819. Her father was Samuel Ward, and she numbers among her ancestors the famous General Marion, of South Carolina; Governor Samuel Ward, of Rhode Island; and Roger Williams, the apostle of religious tolerance. F. Marion Crawford, the novelist, is the son of her sister, who married Mr. Crawford, the artist. Mrs. Howe’s mother died when she was only five years of age, and her father five years later. But he had been a prosperous banker and provided to give her every advantage of a liberal education, which provision was carried out――her instructions including music, German, Greek, and French. She began to write verses while very young.

In 1843 Miss Ward was married to Doctor Samuel G. Howe. They went abroad on their wedding tour, spending a year in the Old World. Again, in 1850, she went to Europe, passing the winter in Rome with her two youngest children. The next year she returned to Boston, and in 1852 and 1853 published her first volume of poems, entitled “Passion Flowers,” which attracted much attention. At the same time her “Words for the Hour, a Drama in Blank Verse,” was produced in a leading theatre in New York and also in Boston. Her interest in the anti-slavery question began in 1851. In 1857 she visited Havana, and published her observations in a book, entitled “A Trip to Cuba,” which so vigorously attacked the degrading institutions of the Spanish rule that its sale has since been prohibited on that island. In 1861 appeared her famous “Battle Hymn of the Republic” with the chorus “John Brown’s Body, etc.,” which was published in her third volume, entitled “Later Lyrics.” The song and chorus at once became known throughout the country and was sung everywhere. In 1867 Mrs. Howe and her husband visited Greece, and won the gratitude of that nation by aiding them in the effort they were making for national independence. Her book “From Oak to Olive” was written after her visit to Athens. In 1868 Mrs. Howe joined the Woman Suffrage Movement, and the next year, before the Legislature in Boston, made her first speech urging its principles; and from that time forward has been officially connected with the movement.

Mrs. Howe visited England in 1872, where she lectured in favor of arbitration as the means of settling national and international disputes. At the same time she held, in London, a series of Sunday-evening services, devoted to Christian missionary work. During the same year she attended, as a delegate, the Congress for Prison Reform, held in London. On her return to the United States she organized or instituted the Woman’s Peace Festival, which still meets every year on the twenty-second of June.

Since her husband’s death, in 1876, Mrs. Howe has preached, lectured and traveled much in all parts of the United States, the most popular of her lectures being “Is Polite Society, Polite?” “Greece Revisited,” and “Reminiscences of Longfellow and Emerson.” In 1878 Mrs. Howe made another journey abroad, and spent over two years in travel in England, France, Italy, and Palestine. She was one of the presiding officers of the Woman’s Rights Congress, which met at Paris, and she lectured in that city and in Athens on the work of the various women’s associations in America. She has served as President in the Association of Advancement for Women for several years, and, notwithstanding her advanced age, retains her connection with this organization, and is an earnest promoter of their interest. She has formed a number of social Women’s Clubs, having for their object, mental improvement, in which the members study Latin, French, German, literature, botany, political economy and many other branches. She has been a profound student of philosophy, and has written numerous essays on philosophical themes.

Mrs. Howe’s three living daughters, all of whom are married, have been followers of her theories concerning woman’s freedom. One of them, Mrs. Laura Richards, is a well-known writer of stories for children, some of them being classics of their kind. “Captain January” is her best-known book. Mrs. Maud Howe Elliot, the third daughter, is a successful lecturer and also a novelist. Mrs. Florence Howe Hall, another daughter of Mrs. Howe, is a writer of acknowledged ability on social topics.

* * * * *

BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC.

MINE eye hath seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are
stored:
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift
sword;
His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling
camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps,
His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in rows of burnished steel;
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall
deal;”
Let the Hero born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

* * * * *

OUR COUNTRY.

ON primal rocks she wrote her name,
Her towers were reared on holy graves,
The golden seed that bore her came
Swift-winged with prayer o’er ocean waves.

The Forest bowed his solemn crest,
And open flung his sylvan doors;
Meek Rivers led the appointed Guest
To clasp the wide-embracing shores;

Till, fold by fold, the broidered Land
To swell her virgin vestments grew,
While Sages, strong in heart and hand,
Her virtue’s fiery girdle drew.

O Exile of the wrath of Kings!
O Pilgrim Ark of Liberty!
The refuge of divinest things,
Their record must abide in thee.

First in the glories of thy front
Let the crown-jewel Truth be found:
Thy right hand fling with generous wont
Love’s happy chain to furthest bound.

Let Justice with the faultless scales
Hold fast the worship of thy sons,
Thy commerce spread her shining sails
Where no dark tide of rapine runs.

So link thy ways to those of God,
So follow firm the heavenly laws,
That stars may greet thee, warrior-browed,
And storm-sped angels hail thy cause.

O Land, the measure of our prayers,
Hope of the world, in grief and wrong!
Be thine the blessing of the years,
The gift of faith, the crown of song.

* * * * *

THE UNSPEAKABLE PANG.

(FROM “A TRIP TO CUBA, 1860.”)

WHO are these that sit by the long dinner-table in the forward cabin, with a most unusual lack of interest in the bill of fare? Their eyes are closed, mostly, their cheeks are pale, their lips are quite bloodless, and to every offer of good cheer, their “No, thank you,” is as faintly uttered as are marriage-vows by maiden lips. Can they be the same that, an hour ago, were so composed, so jovial, so full of dangerous defiance to the old man of the sea? The officer who carves the roast beef offers at the same time a slice of fat; this is too much; a panic runs through the ranks, and the rout is instantaneous and complete....

To what but to Dante’s Inferno can we liken this steamboat-cabin, with its double row of pits, and its dismal captives? What are those sighs, groans, and despairing noises, but the _alti guai_ rehearsed by the poet? Its fiends are the stewards who rouse us from our perpetual torpor with offers of food and praises of shadowy banquets,――“Nice mutton-chop, sir? roast-turkey? plate of soup?” Cries, of “No, no!” resound, and the wretched turn again and groan. The philanthropist has lost the movement of the age,――keeled up in an upper ♦berth, convulsively embracing a blanket――what conservative more immovable than he? The great man of the party refrains from his large theories, which, like the circles made by the stone thrown into the water, begin somewhere and end nowhere. As we have said, he expounds himself no more, the significant forefinger is down, the eye no longer imprisons yours. But if you ask him how he does, he shakes himself as if like Farinata――

“averse l’inferno in gran dispetto,”

“he had a very contemptible opinion of hell.”

♦ ‘birth’ replaced with ‘berth’

Let me not forget to add, that it rains every day, that it blows every night, and that it rolls through the twenty-four hours till the whole world seems as if turned bottom upwards, clinging with its nails to chaos, and fearing to launch away.... But all things have an end, and most things have two. After the third day, a new development manifests itself. Various shapeless masses are carried up-stairs and suffered to fall like snow-flakes on the deck, and to lie there in shivering heaps. From these larvæ gradually emerge features and voices,――the luncheon-bell at last stirs them with the thrill of returning life. They look up, they lean up, they exchange pensive smiles of recognition,――the steward comes, no fiend this time, but a ministering angel; and lo! the strong man eats broth, and the weak woman clamors for pickled oysters.

Illustration: (‡ decoration)

Illustration: (‡ decoration)

MRS. MARY ASHTON RICE LIVERMORE.

FAMOUS SCHOLAR, TEACHER, ARMY NURSE, EDITRESS,
LECTURER, ABOLITIONIST AND WOMAN’S SUFFRAGIST.

IT seems almost incredible,” says a writer, “that a woman now so famous made mud pies in her childhood, was often sent supperless to bed, and was frequently bounced down into a kitchen chair with an emphasis that caused her to see stars.” When a young girl, struggling to support herself, she took in shop-work, made shirts, and subsequently learned the trade of a dressmaker, at which she worked for twenty-five cents a day. At eighteen she ran away from home like a boy, and spent three eventful years on a Southern plantation――years full of comedy and tragedy, and packed with thrilling experiences. Here were nearly five hundred slaves, with whom, and with their white masters, she was brought face to face daily. Here she witnessed scenes as tragic as any described in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Her description of the whipping of negro Matt, the cooper; his agonizing but unavailing plea for mercy; her subsequent visit alone to his cabin, when she entreated him to “run away, Matt, I’ll help you,” and his lonely death, will bring tears to the eyes of every reader.

Mrs. Livermore was the daughter of Timothy Rice, and was born in Boston, December 19, 1821. Notwithstanding the above reference to her early experiences, Mrs. Livermore had and improved all the advantages of the time for a thorough education. She graduated from the public schools of Boston at the age of fourteen, receiving a medal for good scholarship, and afterwards completed a four years’ course in the seminary at Charleston, Mass., in two years, and was elected a member of the faculty as a teacher of Latin and French. While performing these duties she continued the study of Greek and metaphysics under private tutors, and at the age of eighteen, as above suggested, she left home and went South to take charge of a family school on a plantation in Southern Virginia, remaining there nearly thee years. Her experiences in the South made her a most radical abolitionist, and on her return North she actively seconded every movement for the freedom of the slaves. She opened a select school for young ladies from fourteen to twenty years, at Duxbury, Mass., but relinquished it in 1845 on her marriage to Dr. D. P. Livermore, a Universalist minister, in Falls River, Mass. She made a most excellent minister’s wife, organizing literary clubs among the membership, and wrote many hymns and songs for church and Sunday-school books. She was also an active temperance worker, organizing a cold-water army of 1500 boys and girls, whom she delighted with temperance stories which she wrote and read to them. These stories were published in 1844 under the title of the “Children’s Army.” In 1857 she removed with her husband to Chicago, where Mr. Livermore became the editor of the Universalist organ for the Northwest, with his wife as assistant editor. During her husband’s absence in his church work she had charge of the entire establishment, paper, printing office and publishing house included, and wrote for every department of the paper except the theological, at the same time furnishing stories and sketches to Eastern publications, and was also active and untiring in Sunday-school, church and charitable work. At the convention in 1860, when Abraham Lincoln was nominated, she was the only woman reporter who had a place among the hundred or more of men. During the Civil War she made her name famous by resigning all positions, save that on her husband’s paper, even securing a governess for her children, and devoting herself entirely to the work of relief and assistance to the soldiers through the United States Sanitary Commission. She organized Soldiers’ Aid Societies, delivered public addresses, wrote circulars, bulletins and reports, and made trips to the front with sanitary stores, giving personal attention to the distribution of the same, and bringing back numbers of invalid soldiers, accompanying many of them in person to their homes. She organized and conducted Sanitary Fairs, detailed nurses for the hospitals and accompanied them to their posts, and at the close of the war published her reminiscences, entitled “My Story of the War,” which is regarded as the most complete record of the hospital and sanitary work in the Northern army during this great fratricidal struggle.

Returning home after the war Mrs. Livermore became an ardent supporter of the Woman’s Suffrage movement as the best means not only of improving the condition of women, but with the broad, philanthropic idea of giving them a greater opportunity for doing good. Before the war she had opposed the placing of the ballot in the hands of women, but her experiences in the army taught her differently. She arranged for the first Woman’s Suffrage Convention in Chicago, elicited the aid of the leading clergymen of the city, and secured the attendance of the most prominent advocates of the cause from various parts of the country. The association was duly organized with Mrs. Livermore as its first president. “The Agitator,” a Woman’s Suffragist paper, was started by her in 1869 at her own expense and risk, in which she espoused the temperance cause, as well as woman’s suffrage. In 1870 she became the editor of the “Woman’s Journal” of Boston, and the family removed to Melrose, Massachusetts. Mrs. Livermore, however, retained the editorship but two years, resigning it, in 1872, that she might give her more undivided time to the lecture field.

During the last quarter century she has been heard in the lyceum courses of this country, visiting almost every State in the Union, and also lecturing at many points in Europe. The volume “What Shall We Do with Our Daughters and Other Lectures,” published in 1883, and a subsequent of the same character comprise her most important published discourses. The charm of Mrs. Livermore’s manner and the eloquence of her delivery have been equalled by few modern speakers. “At her feet,” writes one of her eulogists, “millions of people have sat and listened in admiration and wonder. The rich and poor, the high and low, the learned and unlearned, have been alike thrilled and moved by her burning words. She has swayed brilliant audiences of fashion; has spoken in State prisons, jails and penitentiaries; to audiences composed of outcasts; and to audiences numbering thousands of children. With untold wealth of mental resources, and a brain teeming with soul-stirring thoughts, these lectures overflow with grand principles; while the extraordinary scenes, thrilling stories, and remarkable facts given in them illustrate those principles with great clearness and force. Throughout her public speeches, whatever the theme, the listener never tires, but is rather uplifted by the ‘golden thoughts’ and ‘living truths’ that enrich them from beginning to end.”

During this period her pen was not idle. Her articles have appeared in the “North American Review,” the “Arena,” the “Chautauquan,” “Independent,” “Youth’s Companion,” “Christian Advocate,” “Woman’s Journal” and other high-class periodicals. She is identified with the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, for ten years being president of the Massachusetts branch of that organization. She is also president of the American Woman’s Suffrage Association, of the Beneficent Society of the New England Conservatory of Music, and was the first president for two years of the Woman’s Congress. Mrs. Livermore, notwithstanding her advanced age, keeps steadily at work with voice, pen and influence. After she was seventy-five years of age, at the earnest request of many prominent friends and admirers throughout the United States, she wrote her autobiography, a large volume of over 700 pages, issued in 1897.

We cannot better close this article than by quoting, from Mrs. Livermore herself, a retrospective paragraph with a prospective closing which is beautiful to witness in one standing, as she now does, in the twilight of a long and eventful career: “I cannot say that I would gladly accept the permission to run my earthly race once more from beginning to end. I am afraid it would prove wearisome――‘a twice-told tale.’ And so while rejoicing in the gains of the past and in the bright outlook into the future, I prefer to go forward into the larger life that beckons me further on, where I am sure it will be better than here. And when the summons comes, although the world has dealt kindly with me, I shall not be sorry to lift the latch and step out into ‘that other chamber of the King, larger than this and lovelier.’”

* * * * *

USEFUL WOMEN.¹

(FROM “WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH OUR DAUGHTERS,” 1883.
LECTURES ON “_Superfluous Women_.”)

¹ Copyright, Lee & Shepard, Boston, Mass.

ROSA BONHEUR has achieved world-wide fame and pecuniary independence as one of the most skilful painters of animals; the boldness and independence of her own character inspiring her pencil, and her faithfulness to nature giving great force to her work. The whole civilized world does homage to her genius; and, during the siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War, the Crown Prince of Prussia gave orders that her studio and residence at Fontainebleau should be spared and respected.

Florence Nightingale, well born, highly educated, and brilliantly accomplished, gave herself to the study of hospitals, and of institutions for the diseased, helpless, and infirm. Appreciating the work of the Sisters of Charity in the Catholic Church, she felt the need of an institution which should be its counterpart in the Protestant Communion. She visited civil and military hospitals all over Europe, studied with the Sisters of Charity in Paris their system of nursing and hospital management, and went into training as a nurse in the House of the Protestant Deaconesses at Kaiserwerth on the Rhine. For ten years she served an apprenticeship, preparing for the great work of her life. Her opportunity came during the war in the Crimea, when through incompetence, and utter disregard of sanitary laws, the rate of mortality in the English hospitals surpassed that of the fiercest battles. Horror and indignation were felt throughout England. Miss Nightingale offered her services to the government with a corps of trained nurses, was accepted, and went to Constantinople.

The disorder, the want――while storehouses were bursting with the needed hospital supplies――the incompetence, the uncleanliness, the suffering and death created general dismay. Unappalled by the shocking chaos, Miss Nightingale ordered the storehouses at Scutari to be broken open, when want gave place to abundance; and soon her executive skill and rare knowledge transformed the hospitals into models of order and comfort. She spared herself no labor, sometimes standing twenty hours in succession giving directions, and refusing to leave her post, even when she broke down with hospital-fever. Sadly overworked, her patience and cheerfulness were unfailing, winning the love of the roughest soldiers; and, as she walked the wards, men too weak to speak plucked her gown with feeble fingers, or kissed her shadow as it fell athwart their pillow. She expended her own vitality in this work, and returned to England an invalid for life. But not an idle invalid, for from her sick-room there have gone plans for the improvement of hospitals and the training of nurses wrought out by her busy brain and pen.

Caroline Herschel, sister of the great astronomer, was his constant helper and faithful assistant, in this character receiving a salary from the king. In addition she found time to make her own independent observations, discovering comets, remarkable nebulæ, and clusters of stars, and receiving from the Royal Society a gold medal in recognition of her work.