"Helston! Dear old Helston!" he exclaimed, and he stretched out his arms to the town and people, and there was such emotion, tenderness and love in that tone that the crowd wept though they could not tell why.
"He opened his speech in clear, ringing tones"
Sir James' proposer had called him a foreigner in little touch with English ideals. He proved the contrary. He called vividly to mind the days spent as a school lad among them, the exciting days of the hurling match
when Breage was defeated, and men nodded their heads and smiled as they remembered. Then sweeping into the closing address, he said:
"We need a strong and experienced hand at the helm in these perilous times, it is true, but far more do we need honesty, virtue, and manliness. Is youth, though inexperienced, yet with average intelligence, to be despised and condemned by the very fact of youth? Ask the rector or parish minister the names of the two most prominent lights in the expansion of religion, and he will say young Saul and youthful Timothy. Gray at thirty-four finished the most beautiful elegy in the English tongue. Milton began his career at a tender age. Shakespeare was but twenty-seven when his name became an authority on the drama. Napoleon, in his meteoric career, astonished and convulsed the world, yet he was a young man. What name more brilliant in English annals for courage and success than that of the well-beloved Wolfe of Quebec fame—yet he perished on the field of battle at the age of thirty.
"Civil government has also her young heroes. Need I mention the great name of Burke, who, at the age of twenty-six, won for himself a reputation for statesman-like judgment and skill that has placed his name high on the imperishable roll of fame. Need I mention Fox, and that other character who still lives as a blessing in the minds of Englishmen—still lives as the greatest diplomatist of the age—still lives in the agitation for liberty and fair representation that so pervades the country to-day?"
"Pitt! Pitt! Pitt!" roared the crowd.
"Aye, you have named him. Ask any bookman for a life of William Pitt, and he will hand you down a history of England from 1781 to 1806, for from twenty-one years of age down to the day of his death, his life has been a history of the empire. Is youth and inexperience to be despised? No! No!"
"No! No!" shouted the crowd, taking up the words of the speaker. "Huzza for Andrew Trembath!" And for the space of a few minutes the crowd let out its pent-up enthusiasm in wild gesticulating of hands and roaring of voices.