e divine
petroleum of authority. Compare this king with Haeckel, who towers an
intellectual colossus above the crowned mediocrity. Compare George Eliot
with Queen Victoria. The queen is clothed in garments given her by blind
fortune and unreasoning chance, while George Eliot wears robes of glory
woven in the loom of her own genius.

The world is beginning to pay homage to intellect, to genius, to heart.

We have advanced. We have reaped the benefit of every sublime and heroic
self-sacrifice, of every divine and brave act; and we should endeavor
to hand the torch to the next generation, having added a little to the
intensity and glory of the flame.

When I think of how much this world has suffered; when I think of how
long our fathers were slaves, of how they cringed and crawled at the
foot of the throne, and in the dust of the altar, of how they abased
themselves, of how abjectly they stood in the presence of superstition
robed and crowned, I am amazed.

This world has not been fit for a man to live in fifty years. It was not
until the year 1808 that Great Britain abolished the slave trade. Up to
that time her judges, sitting upon the bench in the name of justice,
her priests, occupying her pulpits, in the name of universal love, owned
stock in the slave ships, and luxuriated upon the profits of piracy and
murder. It was not until the same year that the United States of
America abolished the slave trade between this and other countries, but
carefully preserved it as between the States. It was not until the 28th
day of August, 1833, that Great Britain abolished human slavery in
her colonies; and it was not until the 1st day of January, 1863, that
Abraham Lincoln, sustained by the sublime and heroic North, rendered our
flag pure as the sky in which it floats.

Abraham Lincoln was, in my judgment, in many respects, the grandest
man ever President of the United States. Upon his monument these words
should be written: "Here sleeps the only man in the history of the
world, who, having been clothed with almost absolute power, never abused
it, except upon the side of mercy."

Think how long we clung to the institution of human slavery, how long
lashes upon the naked back were a legal tender for labor performed.
Think of it. The pulpit of this country deliberately and willingly, for
a hundred years, turned the cross of Christ into a whipping post.

With every drop of my blood I hate and execrate every form of tyranny,
ev