is now exhibited
everywhere in our country when a serious strike occurs. He was the chief
actor through the long struggles, military and civil, which attended
the birth of this nation, and took the gravest responsibilities which
could then fall to the lot of soldiers or statesmen; but he never
encountered, and indeed never imagined, the anxieties and dangers which
now beset the Republic of which he was the founder. We face new
difficulties. Shall we face them with Washington's courage, wisdom, and
success?

Finally, I ask your attention to the striking contrast between the
wealth of Washington and the poverty of Abraham Lincoln, the only one of
the succeeding Presidents who won anything like the place in the popular
heart that Washington has always occupied. Washington, while still
young, was one of the richest men in the country; Lincoln, while young,
was one of the poorest; both rendered supreme service to their country
and to freedom; between these two extremes men of many degrees as
regards property holding have occupied the Presidency, the majority of
them being men of moderate means. The lesson to be drawn from these
facts seems to be that the Republic can be greatly served by rich and
poor alike, but has oftenest been served creditably by men who were
neither rich nor poor. In the midst of the present conflicts between
employers and employed, between the classes that are already well to do
and the classes who believe it to be the fault of the existing order
that they too are not well to do, and in plain sight of the fact that
democratic freedom permits the creation and perpetuation of greater
differences as regards possessions than the world has ever known before,
it is comforting to remember that true patriots and wise men are bred
in all the social levels of a free commonwealth, and that the Republic
may find in any condition of life safe leaders and just rulers.

CHANNING

We commemorate to-day a great preacher. It is the fashion to say that
preaching is a thing of the past, other influences having taken its
place. But Boston knows better; for she had two great preachers in the
nineteenth century, and is sure that an immense and enduring force was
theirs, and through them, hers. Channing and Brooks! Men very unlike in
body and mind, but preachers of like tendency and influence from their
common love of freedom and faith in mankind. This city has learned by
rich experience that preaching becomes the