Mr. Chairman, My Lords and Gentlemen:—I can scarcely find fitting words to express my gratitude for the warm and genial manner in which the toast of "American Literature" has been received by this distinguished assembly. I wish that the honor of responding to it had been placed in worthier hands. Two at least of our most eminent men of letters I thought were in England, or near it—one, that most original, subtle, poetical and graceful of thinkers and essayists, Mr. Emerson [cheers]; the other, one of our most distinguished poets and prose-writers, second to none in the highest spheres of imagination and humor: Mr. Lowell. [Cheers.] I had hoped to meet them both, but I look in vain for their friendly and familiar faces. In their absence, I venture to return thanks most sincerely, but briefly, for the eloquent and sympathetic words with which the distinguished prelate has spoken of our literature. I do so in behalf of the eminent poets and prose-writers in every department of literature and science, many of whose names tremble on my lips, but the long roll-call of which I will not enumerate, who are the living illustrators of our literature, and who it is a gratification to know are almost as familiar and highly appreciated in the old land of our forefathers as they are at home [cheers]; but I for one like to consider them all as fellow-citizens in the great English-speaking Republic of letters—where all are brothers, not strangers to each other. And as an illustration of this, I believe that it is not long since one of our famous poets whose exquisite works are familiar in every palace and every cottage all over the world where the English language is spoken—Mr. Longfellow—was recently requested to preside at one of your meetings. [Cheers.]
I can produce nothing new on that great subject, which seems the inevitable one for an American on such an occasion as this, the international bond of a common language, a common literature, and centuries of common history and tradition, which connects those two great nations, the United Empire and the United Republic. May the shadows of both never grow less and may that international bond strengthen its links every year! [Cheers.] What is the first hallowed spot in the Transatlantic pilgrimage of every true American? What is the true Mecca of his heart? Not the hoary tombs of the Pharaohs, and the one hundred gated cities of the Nile. Not the Acropolis and the Parthenon, the plains of Marathon, the Pass of Thermopylæ, thrilling as they are with heroic and patriotic emotion; not the Forum and the Coliseum and the triumphal arches of Rome. No; the pious pilgrim from the Far West seeks a sequestered, old-fashioned little town, in the heart of the most delicious rural scenery that even old England can boast; he walks up a quiet, drowsy, almost noiseless street, with quaint old houses, half brick, half timber, hardly changed of aspect since they looked out on the Wars of the Roses. He comes to an ancient, ivy-mantled tower hard by a placid, silvery stream on which a swan is ever sailing; he passes through a pleached alley under a Gothic gateway of the little church, and bends in reverence before a solitary tomb, for in that tomb repose the ashes of Shakespeare. [Cheers.] We claim our share in every atom of that consecrated dust. Our forefathers, who first planted the seeds of a noble civilization in New England and Virginia, were contemporaries and countrymen of the Swan of Avon. So long as we all have an undivided birthright in that sublimest of human intellects, and can enjoy, as none others can, those unrivalled masterpieces, Americans and Englishmen can never be quite foreigners to each other though seas between as broad have rolled since the day when that precious dust wore human clothing. [Cheers.]
And what is the next resting-place in our pilgrim's progress—the pilgrim of Outre-Mer? Surely that stately and beautiful pile which we have all seen in our dreams long before we looked upon it with the eyes of flesh, time-honored Westminster Abbey. I can imagine no purer intellectual pleasure for an American than when he first wanders through those storied aisles, especially if he have the privilege which many of our countrymen have enjoyed, of being guided there by the hand of one whose exquisite urbanity and kindliness are fit companions to his learning and his intellect, the successor of the ancient Abbot, the historian of the Abbey, the present distinguished Dean of Westminster [Dean Stanley], to whom we have listened with such pleasure to-night. [Cheers.] And it will be in the Poets' Corner that we shall ever linger the longest. Those statues, busts and mural inscriptions are prouder trophies than all the banners from the most ensanguined battle-fields that the valor of England has ever won, and with what a wealth of intellect is that nation endowed which after the centuries of immortal names already enshrined there has had the proud although most melancholy honor of adding in one decade—scarcely more than ten years—the names of Macaulay, Grote, Dickens, Thackeray, and Lytton? [Cheers.] They are our contemporaries, not our countrymen; but we cannot afford to resign our claim to some portion of their glory as illustrators of our common language. And I would fain believe that you take a fraternal interest in the fame of those whom we too have lost, and who were our especial garland—Washington Irving, Fenimore Cooper, Everett, Hawthorne, and Prescott.
But I have trespassed far longer upon your attention than I meant to do when I arose; and I shall therefore only once more thank you for the great kindness with which you have received the toast of the Literature of the United States. [Cheers.]
JOHN PHILIP NEWMAN
COMMERCE
[Speech of Rev. Dr. John P. Newman, at the 115th annual banquet of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, May 8, 1883. The President, George W. Lane, presided, and said: "Gentlemen, I give you the fifth regular toast: 'Commerce—distributing to all regions the productions of each, and, providing for the wants of all, it combines in friendly intercourse the nations of the earth.' To this toast the Rev. Dr. Newman will respond.">[
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Chamber Of Commerce of New York:—This is a beautiful toast—beautiful both in structure and sentiment and would that it were true. [Applause.] It is true in theory but not in history. It may be the voice of prophecy whose fulfilment shall be a sublime fact. It is in the highest degree worthy of this Chamber of Commerce and cannot fail in its peaceful mission among the nations of the earth. [Applause.] But the ages testify that selfishness and greed have marked the commercial history of the world. How splendid have been the achievements of commerce, and how deplorable its failure to realize its legitimate mission—to unify the human race. "Get all you can, and keep all you get," were the selfish maxims that influenced the Dutch merchants in Sumatra, Java, and Ceylon. The renowned merchants of Portugal planted their commercial colonies on the rich coasts of Malabar, took possession of the Persian Gulf and transformed the barren island of Ormus into a paradise of wealth and luxury. But of that far-famed island Milton sung in these truthful and immortal lines:—
"High, on a throne of royal state which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind.
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand,
Show'rs on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat."