DELIVERED AT GROTON, MASS., OCTOBER 21, 1892
We celebrate this day as the anniversary of the discovery of the
American continent.
"The hand that rounded Peter's dome.
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,
Wrought in a sad sincerity;
Himself from God he could not free;
He builded better than he knew."
Of these lines of Emerson, the last three are as true of Columbus, as of
"The hand that rounded Peter's dome,
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,"
for he, too,
"Wrought in a sad sincerity;
Himself from God he could not free;
He builded better than he knew."
And shall we therefore say that he is not worthy of praise, of tribute, of memorials, of anniversary days, of centennial years, of national and international gatherings and exhibitions, that in some degree mankind may illustrate and dignify, if they will, the events that have followed the opening of a new world to our advanced and advancing civilization?
In great deeds, in great events, in great names, there is a sort of immortality, an innate capacity for living, a tendency to growth, to expansion, and thus what was but of little comment in the beginning is seen, often after the lapse of years, possibly only after the lapse of centuries, to have been freighted with consequences whose value can only be measured by the yearly additions to the sum of human happiness.
Franklin's experiments in electricity were followed at once by the common lightning-rod, but a century passed before the electrical power was utilized, and made subservient, in some degree, to the control of men.