oo--to know the truth and not hide it under a
bushel. Nine-tenths of the criticisms of the press one hears is the
braying of the galled jades or the crackling of thorns under a pot.

The press stands for light, not darkness. It is the greatest power in
our modern civilization. Thieves and rascals of high and low degree hate
and malign it, but no honest man has reasonable cause to fear the abuse
of its power. It is a beacon, and not a false light. It casts its
blessed beams into dark places, and while it brings countless crimes to
light, it also reveals to the beneficence of the world the wrongs and
needs of the necessitous. It is the embodiment of energy in the pursuit
of news, for its name is Light, and its aim is Knowledge. Ignorance and
crime flee from before it like mist before the God of Light. It stands
to-day

"For the truth that lacks assistance,
For the wrong that needs resistance,
For the future in the distance,
And the good that it can do."

It has no license to do wrong; it has boundless liberty and opportunity
to do good.

THEODORE TILTON

WOMAN

[Speech of Theodore Tilton at the sixtieth annual dinner of the New
England Society in the City of New York, December 22, 1865. The
Chairman, Joseph H. Choate, gave the following toast, "Woman--the
strong staff and beautiful rod which sustained and comforted our
forefathers during every step of the pilgrims' progress." Theodore
Tilton was called upon to respond.]

GENTLEMEN:--It is somewhat to a modest man's embarrassment, on
rising to this toast, to know that it has already been twice partially
spoken to this evening--first by my friend, Senator Lane from Indiana,
and just now, most eloquently, by the mayor-elect of New York [John T.
Hoffman], who could not utter a better word in his own praise than to
tell us that he married a Massachusetts wife. [Applause.] In choosing
the most proper spot on this platform as my standpoint for such remarks
as are appropriate to such a toast, my first impulse was to go to the
other end of the table; for hereafter, Mr. Chairman, when you are in
want of a man to speak for Woman, remember what Hamlet said, "Bring me
the recorder!"[7] [Laughter.] But, on the other hand, here, at this end,
a prior claim was put in from the State of Indiana, whose venerable
Senator [Henry S. Lane] has expressed himself disappointed at finding no
women present. So, as my toast introduces that