Patriotic Orations

),*t^ I.I.- htn, Digitized by the Internet Arcliive in 2010 with funding from The Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant http://www.archive.org/details/patrioticorationOOinfowl ^ome 0tf)tv Wotksi of CHARLES HENRY FOWLER MISSIONARY ADDRESSES $1.00 net MISSIONS AND WORLD MOVEMENTS (Booklet) . .25 net ADDRESSES ON NOTABLE OCCASIONS ... L50 net PATRIOTIC ORATIONS CHARLES HENRY FOWLER Late Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church Prepared for publication By his son Carl Hitchcock Fowler With an Introduction By John Wesley Hill Pastor Metropolitan Temple, New York NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & GRAHAM Copyright, 1910. by EATON & MAINS ^?ra J^icc^cocfe ifotoler the partneb of his life for nearly forty years, Whose Constant Care, Exquisite Sympathy, Ceaseless Industry, Unwavering Consecration, and Undying Devotion Encouraged, Strengthened, Supported, Inspired the Author of these Orations JN Ways the World Knew Not, Making Possible his ever Greater Achievements, Herself Consitmed by her Sustaining Love, IN Father's Name I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME. m ORATIONS PAGE ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1 ULYSSES S. GRANT 113 WILLIAM McEINLEY 187 WASHINGTON—A PROVIDENTIAL MAN 245 GREAT DEEDS OF GREAT MEN 259 PORTRAITS CHARLES HENRY FOWLER Frontispiece Facing Page ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1 ULYSSES S. GRANT 113 WILLIAM McKINLEY 187 GEORGE WASHINGTON 245 yi» INTRODUCTION "Patriotism is a lichen clinging to its own rock." It grows by the century in its original habitat. It defies alike the frost and ice of the frigid zone and the suns and sands of equatorial deserts. It re- sists transplanting. Captive Israelites with their harps hanging upon the willows of Babylon were not more songless than are the French immigrants, driven out of their faith generations ago, camping to-day in the heart of London, using English freedom, English language, and Middle Age shoes. A king transplanted from the Clyde to the Thames and followed by constant and liberal patronage has barely succeeded in giving a healthy color to this lichen carried from Scotland to England. In our own land, at the confluence of all the great races, where we have foreign cities only second in size to the great foreign capitals, we are under special need to cultivate this virtue of patriotism which is the religion of the soil. Patriotism, the religion of the soil, is the handmaid of the religion of the soul. It is true that a man may have patriotism and not have religion, but it is hard to see how he can have religion and not have patriotism. If one would establish a despotism, he ought first to establish a X INTRODUCTION government priesthood, supported by the government, and dependent only on the government. These men at the centers of power, with their hands on the individual and public conscience, determine the foundations and stability of government. The old governments are those which have carefully kept in league with the dominant faiths. King Edward is the head of the English Church, the Czar is the head of the Russian Church, William the Second is the chief figure of the German Lutheran Church. Thus it is important in our Republic that the ministers of religion should also be patriots. Patriotism can be maintained by a country only when its fires are kindled from the altars of religion. Righteous war is possible only when the principles involved spring from religion. The conscience of the people must be enlisted or the citizens will not enlist. War cannot be or- dained and maintained on a mere financial issue. It defeats itself. It costs more than it comes to. It consumes its own motive. Only the people's conscience can maintain the public spirit up to the fighting point. These considerations make doubly welcome the appearance of this volume of "Patriotic Orations.'* They need no introduction, for multitudes have heard and been captivated by them, lost in admira- tion divided between the subject and the speaker. Their author, Charles Henry Fowler, is no longer INTRODUCTION xi with us. He has "marched across the great pontoon into the living presence of our mighty dead.*' It is too soon to fully appreciate him. We lack the dis- tance essential to perspective. One must stand away from the mountain if he would behold its mag- nitude. Time is a necessary element in the analysis of character. The passing years are the solemn priests which anoint and enthrone the prophets of God. About living men we have opinions, about departed men we have judgments. When they no longer occupy space, dispute ambitions, or awaken rivalry, then we are wont to lavish epitaphs where we once begrudged bread. Now that Bishop Fowler has stepped from our midst, we see him in clearer light. His character was constructed upon a colossal scale. He would not toy with trifles. He was better able to bend the bow of Ulysses. His was a hand for great tasks and a heart for heavy burdens. He was a student of events. His intellect was cosmopolitan, his vision boundless. He was the constant friend whose hand never slipped from the grasp of a confiding brother and who became a full partner in the sufferings of those he loved. I like to think of him as he was known only to those who enjoyed the unstinted hospitality of his home,—the true exemplar of a friendship as rare as it was beautiful, its char- acteristic tenacity, its grip steel-like, its bonds adamant, a friendship typed by his own figure of xii INTRODUCTION the sturdy oak upon the mountain side against which the storm beats in vain; the loving husband and father, whose home was to him the vestibule of heaven. In public he was the commanding preacher of the Word, simple, direct, dramatic, abounding in spiritual force and power, all centered in Christ and him crucified, his loyalty to the Word of God unquestioning and unquestionable; great in all departments as an administrator, preacher, writer, lecturer, organizer—originating and devel- oping new fields of labor and new movements, planning for the enlargement and expansion of world-wide missionary activities, planting hospitals and churches, schools, colleges, and universities everywhere; the peerless patriot, devoted to flag and country, alive to the perils and conscious of the responsibilities of his time; himself the eulogist of the martyred Lincoln, the neighbor of Grant, the adviser of McKinley, and the personal friend of Roosevelt, who, as President at the time of the decease of this great man of the Church, sent to the stricken wife and son a wreath of lilies from the White House—a tribute of his personal sympathy and an oflScial expression of the nation's grief. This man was the matchless orator, who with true historic insight and imagination made the past a living present, transfigured the commonplace, idealized the heroes of the ages until they stood illumined, radiant with the breathing, palpitating INTRODUCTION xlli vitality of his own onrushing manhood. He handled his themes as a skilled musician does his favorite instrument, infusing them with the im- pulses of his own soul, one moment blazing with the zeal of the patriot and the next tender as a sorrowing mother; at all times and in all places the simple, unaffected Christian, gentle in spirit, generous in thought, kind in speech, and boundless in sympathy. These great qualities of mind and soul which enriched and illuminated his character are wrought into the warp and woof of this book. They reap- pear in the deft touches by which he analyzes and idealizes his chosen heroes. They bind into unity and stamp with striking originality these wonderful orations. The multitudes who once sat enthralled beneath the imposing personality of the superb orator will turn with quickened step toward the whispering gallery of the great master stretch- ing through this volume. Such a book deserves an abiding hearing,—not only for its own cause, its characters and its rhetoric, but on account of the rich blood poured into it. The orations speak for themselves. They possess the heat and power of honest, intelligent conviction, containing thought enough for the gravest and patriotism enough for the most fervent, combining logical robust- ness and accuracy with mental alertness and in- spiring imagination, conducting the reader into xiv INTRODUCTION the throne room of the deathless personalities por- trayed. I know of no other book consecrated to patriotism comparable with this. The orations thrill like martial music in places and cut like knives in others, while at times the reader will hear the clash of saber and feel the rush of cavalry charge. If, as Milton said, "Books contain the lifeblood of their authors," then this volume is the lifeblood of Bishop Fowler. The orations, wise in selection and wide in research, are magnetic in touch, instructive in substance, logical in under- current, poetical in imagery, vibrant with emotion, patriotic in instinct, and resistless in culmination. Delivered by word of mouth, they commanded a wide field, compelled appreciative hearing, and inspired many a life to higher, nobler living. Committed to the printed page, the field of their influence widens, and their place in literature be- comes permanent. Like the lighthouse at Calais, these orations will never grow dim. John Wesley Hill. ABRAHAM LINCOLN From an original oil portrait by Theodore Pine, Never before published. ABRAHAM LINCOLN A eulogy on the life of President Lincoln was delivered by Dr. Fowler, then pastor of the First Methodist Episcopal Church, Chicago, Illinois, in Bryan Hall, in that city, on May 4, 1865, the day of the interment at Springfield. Subsequently, in 1894, Bishop Fowler, then resident in Minneapolis, prepared and delivered the oration in substantially its present form.

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