r with all the respect which is due to you and your
constituency, deeply sensible of the honor which has been done me in
making me the mouthpiece of the sentiment of appreciation and regard
with which the nation welcomes you to this great festival of peace and
of progress.

Upon none of the arts or professions has the tremendous acceleration of
progress in recent years had more effect than upon that of which you are
the representatives. We easily grow used to miracles; it will seem a
mere commonplace when I say that all the wonders of the magicians
invented by those ingenious oriental poets who wrote the "Arabian
Nights" pale before the stupendous facts which you handle in your daily
lives. The air has scarcely ceased to vibrate with the utterances of
kings and rulers in the older realms when their words are read in the
streets of St. Louis and on the farms of Nebraska. The telegraph is too
quick for the calendar; you may read in your evening paper a dispatch
from the antipodes with a date of the following day. The details of a
battle on the shores of the Hermit Kingdom, a land which a few years ago
was hidden in the mists of legend, are printed and commented on before
the blood of the wounded has ceased to flow. Almost before the smoke of
the conflict has lifted we read the obituaries of the unsepultured dead.
And not only do you record with the swiftness of thought these incidents
of war and violence, but the daily victories of truth over error, of
light over darkness; the spread of commerce in distant seas, the
inventions of industry, the discoveries of science, are all placed
instantly within the knowledge of millions. The seeds of thought,
perfected in one climate, blossom and fructify under every sky, in every
nationality which the sun visits.

With these miraculous facilities, with this unlimited power, comes also
an enormous responsibility in the face of God and man. I am not here to
preach to you a gospel whose lessons are known to you far better than to
me. I am not calling sinners to repentance, but I am following a good
tradition in stirring up the pure minds of the righteous by way of
remembrance. It is well for us to reflect on the vast import, the
endless chain of results, of that globe-encircling speech you address
each day to the world. Your winged words have no fixed flight; like the
lightning, they traverse the ether according to laws of their own. They
light in every clime; they influence a thousand