end." ... "It was only natural
that I should try to meet him half-way," the friend said later, in
explanation of his own changed attitude. He had been won by real
comradeliness. "It was this devotion to the men in college that led him
into the holy of holies of many a man's heart," wrote a friend, "causing
many of us to feel in a very real way the sentiment expressed by Mrs.
Browning:

"The face of all the world is changed, I think
Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul."

III

COMPANIONSHIP WITH THE PAST

What, courage from companionship with the past? The pessimist says,
"Impossible! The past was so much better than the present. See how the
country is going to the dogs!" and they point to the revelations of
dishonesty in high places. "There were no such blots on our records when
the country was young."

A public man gave an effective answer to such croakers when he said:

"As we go on year by year reading in the newspapers of the dreadful
things that are occurring; wicked rich men, wicked politicians and
wicked men of all kinds, we are apt to feel that we have fallen on very
evil times. But are we any worse than our fathers were? John Adams, in
1776, was Secretary of War. He wrote a letter which is still in
existence, and told of the terrible corruption that prevailed in the
country; he told how everybody was trying to rob the soldiers, rob the
War Department, and he said he was really ashamed of the times in which
he lived. When Jefferson was President of the United States it was
thought that the whole country was going to be given over to French
infidelity. When Jackson was President people thought the country
ruined, because of his action in regard to the United States Bank. And
we know how in Polk's time the Mexican War was an era of rascality and
dishonesty that appalled the whole country."

It is a mistake to look back a generation or two and say, "The good old
days were better than these." In the address already referred to the
speaker continued:

"Only thirty years ago, on my first visit to California, I went with a
friend to the mining district in the Sierras. One summer evening we sat
upon the flume looking over the landscape. My friend was a distinguished
man of great ability. In the distance the sun was setting, reflecting
its light on the dome of the Capitol of the state, at Sacramento, twenty
miles off. He turned to me and said suddenly: 'I would like to be you
fo