“A few years ago I walked from the ruined palaces of the Cæsars down the slope of the Palatine Hill into the Roman Forum. The way was paved with stones which were put there twenty-six hundred years ago by the shepherds and farmers from the Alban Hills. Their virtues were as strong and rugged as the stones with which their streets were paved, and their descendants, imitating those virtues, ruled the world for a thousand years. But at last, licentiousness, extravagance, and lust for wealth came in and rotted the moral fiber of the Empire, until the very men who had sworn to guard the nation sold the positions of honor and trust, and even the Empire itself, at public auction at the city gates, as cattle and sheep were sold in the open market; and Rome fell from its high estate never to rise again. It was a literal exemplification of the proverb which was old even then, that ‘righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.’
“But why multiply illustrations? The history of the world is full of them, and, on the other side, none more marked than is shown in our own land in the marvelous progress which the New South has made since the curse of human slavery was lifted from her in the desolation and horror of the Civil War.
“This town, this State, this nation is just exactly what you and I, as individuals, are making it to-day. The past is unchangeable, the future is in the hands of God. Only the present is ours. We have come in our own experience to times of great unrest and discontent with existing conditions. I am glad of it. It shows that the world is growing better and that we are not satisfied to-day with the solution of the problems of yesterday, but it does not follow that the new problems of to-day are unsolvable. It simply proves that there is still room in the world for a large amount of civic righteousness and that it is for the individual citizen to prove that the supply has not been exhausted.
“There is an old hymn which we sing in our churches,
“ ‘We are building, building every day,
A temple which the world may not see,
We are building, building every day,
Building for eternity.’
So far as the immortal and divine in us is concerned, the hymn is all right, but so far as this work-a-day world is affected by our actions I would paraphrase it thus,
“ ‘We are building, building every day,
A temple which the world can see,
We are building, building every day,
Building for humanity.’
“A few days ago I read a story in a newspaper of a man who advertised that he wanted to buy a horse. In a day or two men came with all sorts and kinds, young and old, blind and lame and halt. They told him of the splendid records of the old hacks, and the great possibilities of the young colts, till he finally sent them all away, saying, ‘I don’t care anything about your “has beens” or your “to be’s,” what I want now, is an “is-er.”’
“The men of New England are the heirs to-day of more than two centuries of growth, and progress, and education, and we owe it to ourselves and to our children to add something in our lives to the sum total of human happiness and the public welfare; for there is a mighty difference between always trying to get the better of the community in which we live, and giving to the community the best that there is in us.
“From the very beginning of our State, till now, there have never been lacking men, who, by their strength of character and devotion to the public welfare, have made an impress on their day and generation, until at length Connecticut is known among her sister States as “The Land of Steady Habits.” I can only refer now to two of them, Colonel Abraham Davenport of Stamford, and Hon. Roger Sherman of New Milford. Of the first, Timothy Dwight, in his book entitled ‘Travels in New England and New York,’ tells us that he was a judge in Danbury and a member of the Governor’s Council in Hartford, and cites this incident concerning him: