Great Men As Prophets Of A New Era
Newell Dwight Hillis
10 chapters
4 hour read
Selected Chapters
10 chapters
Great Men as Prophets of a New Era
Great Men as Prophets of a New Era
REBUILDING EUROPE IN THE FACE OF WORLD-WIDE BOLSHEVISM THE BLOT ON THE KAISER'S 'SCUTCHEON Cloth, GERMAN ATROCITIES Cloth, Each 12mo. cloth, STUDIES OF THE GREAT WAR What Each Nation Has at Stake LECTURES AND ORATIONS BY HENRY WARD BEECHER Collected by Newell Dwight Hillis THE MESSAGE OF DAVID SWING TO HIS GENERATION Compiled, with Introductory Memorial Address by Newell Dwight Hillis ALL THE YEAR ROUND Sermons for Church and Civic Celebrations THE BATTLE OF PRINCIPLES A Study of the Heroism and
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Foreword
Foreword
Great institutions are the shadows that great men cast across the centuries. A great law, a great liberty, a great art or tool or reform represents a great soul, organized, and made unconsciously immortal for all time. Explorers trace the Nile or Amazon back to the lake in which the river takes its rise. Historians trace institutions back to some hero from whose mind and heart the life-giving movement pours forth. When the scholar travels back to the far-off beginnings of jurisprudence, he comes
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I DANTE (1265–1321)
I DANTE (1265–1321)
All scholars are agreed as to the classes of men who build the State. There are the soldiers who keep the State in liberty, the physicians who keep the State in health, the teachers who sow the land with wisdom and knowledge, the farmers and merchants who feed and clothe the people, the prophets who keep the visions burning, and the poets who inspire and fertilize the soul of the race. But in every age and clime, the poet has been the real builder of his city and country. The only kind of work t
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II SAVONAROLA (1452–1498)
II SAVONAROLA (1452–1498)
When the first warm days of May come to a land chilled through with the frosts of winter, all pastures and meadows, all vineyards and orchards, even the desert and the mountain rift awake to a new bloom and beauty. The revival of learning which culminated in that golden age known as the Renaissance was ushered in by the poet Dante, with his love for Beatrice and his immortal poem called the Divine Comedy . Dante has been likened unto that angel who descended from Heaven and, standing with one fo
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III WILLIAM THE SILENT (1533–1584)
III WILLIAM THE SILENT (1533–1584)
Be the reasons what they may, liberty owes much to little lands and confined peoples. Go back to any age and continent, place side by side a little nation and a large one, and if the first has made for liberty and progress, the second has often made for bondage and superstition. For the beginnings of morals and religion we go back, not to that widely extended state named Babylon, but to little Palestine, shut in between the desert and the deep sea. For the beginnings of art and culture we go not
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IV OLIVER CROMWELL (1599–1658)
IV OLIVER CROMWELL (1599–1658)
Society's ingratitude to its heroes and leaders is proverbial. Earth's bravest souls have been misunderstood in youth, maligned in manhood and neglected in old age. The fathers slay the prophets, the children build the sepulchres, and the grandchildren wear deeply the path the heroes trod. History teems with illustrations of this principle. Socrates is the wisest prophet, the noblest teacher, the truest citizen and patriot that Athens ever had, and Athens rewards him with a cup of poison. In a c
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V JOHN MILTON (1608–1674)
V JOHN MILTON (1608–1674)
By common consent, critics acclaim John Milton the greatest Latin scholar, the foremost man of letters and one of the two first literary artists England has produced. Historians have united to give him a place among the ten great names in English history. Take out of our institutions Milton's plea for the liberty of the printing press, his views on education, and all modern society would be changed. Tennyson called Milton "the God-gifted organ-voice of England, the mighty-mouthed inventor of har
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VI JOHN WESLEY (1703–1791)
VI JOHN WESLEY (1703–1791)
Now that long time has passed, the two bright names of the eighteenth century are seen to be the names of Washington and Wesley. The statement will come with a note of shock to many readers, but beyond most critical estimates, it is one that will stand examination. Time has a way of reversing judgments, and not the least of the changes in men's thought has been the gradual transformation in the attitude of the historian toward Wesley, carried to his grave by six poor men in 1791. Now that one hu
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VII GARIBALDI (1807–1882)
VII GARIBALDI (1807–1882)
Among the builders of the New Italy, history has made a large place for Mazzini, the agitator and author, and for Cavour, the statesman, but the common people have kept the first place in their heart for Garibaldi, the soldier, and hero. Mazzini was the John the Baptist of the movement, who descended upon the political ills and wrongs of his time, carrying a torch in one hand and a sword in the other. Cavour was the statesman of the movement, a most skillful diplomat, who organized political and
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VIII JOHN RUSKIN (1819–1900)
VIII JOHN RUSKIN (1819–1900)
The genius of John Ruskin's message is in a single sentence: "Life without industry is guilt, and industry without art and education is brutality." He held that all the doing that makes commerce is born of the thinking that makes scholars, and that all the flying of looms and the whirling of spindles begins with the quiet thought of some scholar, hidden in a closet, or sequestered in a cloister. He never made the mistake of supposing that education would change a ten-cent boy into a thousand-dol
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