nything worth while had really
happened in America. Since 1870 there had been a round of centennials.
It was a good thing in the busy glorification of a brilliant present,
and a glorious future, that we rehearsed the struggle and hardships by
which we had arrived to this great inheritance of blessing and
prosperity.

"The United States Government is a bubble-bursting nationality," said
Lord John Russell, but every year since has disproved the accuracy of
this jeer. Even our elections disproved it. Candidates for the
Presidency are pushed out of sight by a sudden wave of split tickets. In
the elections of 1883, in Ohio ten candidates were obliterated; in
Pennsylvania five were buried and fifteen resurrected. In Indiana, the
record of names in United States political quicksands is too long too
consider, the new candidates that sprang up being still larger in
numbers. And yet only six men in any generation become President. Out of
five thousand men, who consider themselves competent to be captains,
only six are crowned with their ambition. And these six are not
generally the men who had any prospect of becoming the people's choice.
The two political chiefs in convention, failing on the thirtieth ballot
to get the nomination, some less conspicuous man is chosen as a
compromise. Political ambition seems to me a poor business. There are
men more worthy of national praise than the successful politicians; men
like Isaac Hull; men whose generous gifts and Christian careers
perpetuate the magnificent purposes of our lives. Isaac Hull was a
Quaker--one of the best in that sect. I lived among quakers for seven
years in Philadelphia, and I loved them. Mr. Hull illustrated in his
life the principles of his sect, characterised by integrity of finance
and of soul. He rose to the front rank of public-spirited men, from the
humble duties of a farmer's boy. He was one of the most important
members of the Society of Friends, and I valued the privilege of his
friendship more than that of any celebrity I ever knew. He lived for the
profit in standards rather than for wealth, and he passed on to a wider
circle of friends beyond.

I have a little list of men who about this time passed away amid many
antagonisms--men who were misunderstood while they lived. I knew their
worth. There was John McKean, the District Attorney of New York, who
died in 1883, when criticism against him, of lawyers and judges, was
most bitter and cruel. A brilliant la