acts of City Councils nor of obsequious Mayors nor in the State
House; the proclamations of Governors, with their failing virtue failing
them at critical moments, that generations will study what really befel;
but in the plain lessons of Theodore Parker in this hall, in Faneuil
Hall and in legislative committee rooms, that the true temper and
authentic record of these days will be read. The next generation will
care little for the chances of election that govern Governors now; it
will care little for fine gentlemen who behaved shabbily; but it will
read very intelligently in his rough story, fortified with exact
anecdotes, precise with names and dates, what part was taken by each
actor who threw himself into the cause of humanity and came to the
rescue of civilization at a hard pinch; and those who blocked its
course.

"The vice charged against America is the want of sincerity in leading
men. It does not lie at his door. He never kept back the truth for fear
of making an enemy. But, on the other hand, it was complained that he
was bitter and harsh; that his zeal burned with too hot a flame. It is
so hard in evil times to escape this charge for the faithful preacher.
Most of all, it was his merit, like Luther, Knox, and Latimer and John
the Baptist, to speak tart truth when that was peremptory and when there
were few to say it. His commanding merit as a reformer is this, that he
insisted beyond all men in pulpit--I cannot think of one rival--that
the essence of Christianity is its practical morals; it is there for
use, or it is nothing: If you combine it with sharp trading, or with
ordinary city ambitions to glaze over municipal corruptions or private
intemperance, or successful frauds, or immoral politics, or unjust wars,
or the cheating of Indians, or the robbing of frontier natives, it is
hypocrisy and the truth is not in you, and no love of religious music,
or dreams of Swedenborg, or praise of John Wesley or of Jeremy Taylor,
can save you from the Satan which you are."

CHAPTER XXXI.

The accord so generally given to the appointment of ex-Governor Jones,
of Alabama--a Gold Democrat, having views on domestic order in harmony
with the Administration--to a Federal judgeship was destined to be
followed by a bitter arraignment of President Roosevelt for having
invited Booker T. Washington to dine with him at the White House. As a
passing event not without interest, in this era of the times, indicative
of "sha