there they were engaged in an ardent and vindictive dispute, as sometimes happens to you. This great controversy was on what all deemed to be the fundamental topic of eternal damnation. Frederick the Great was appealed to to decide the matter. He listened to the arguments on both sides and then considered the question. Finally he said, "My decision is this: In Neufchâtel those who don't believe in eternal damnation, so be it; and those who do believe in eternal damnation, let them be eternally damned.”

Gentlemen, I am sure you are all too clever and too acute not to see the application-one which I respectfully make in a protectionist community, you being protectionists. Now I am detaining you too long.

All I can say is, I have had such a reception in various parts of America; in Pittsburgh which I see is the Gibraltar of protection; in Chicago, which is the Gibraltar of many things; at Washington, and now, crowning the edifice in New York, I have had a reception which I can never forget. It will always remain. The personalities that I have made the acquaintance of, the questions put in motion in my mind, the enlargement of the horizons of my poor political contemplation, are things I can never forget; and I beg to thank you all most cordially for your extreme kindness and joviality in my respect to-night.

PATRICK FRANCIS MURPHY

IN HONOR OF JOSEPH CHOATE

Patrick Francis Murphy is one of the most graceful and witty of our after-dinner speakers. This speech was made at a dinner of the Pilgrims of the United States given in honor of Mr. Choate, in New York, January 17, 1917. Mr. George T. Wilson presided. The opening paragraph of Mr. Choate's speech gives a vivid picture of the occasion.

"Mr. Chairman and Brethren: It is impossible for me, by any words that I can utter, to do justice to this occasion. The beauty of it, the love of it, the honor of it, never have been surpassed in my personal experience. What a magical demonstration of love and affection this wonderful scene is! Truly I am not sure but that I am already in heaven. This overhanging canopy, spangled with the stars of our national banner; these walls, all around us, on every side, studded with stars; and looking down upon these eighty-five lights, sparkling before the same number of my warm and devoted friends-one for each year of my life-whose beaming faces show their good will, why may I not accept this as final, and believe that I have already reached the heavenly goal. At any rate it will never vanish from my memory, and when my time comes to 'wrap the drapery of my couch about me and lie down to pleasant dreams,' this scene will linger in my last thoughts as one of the pleasantest of them all. It is impossible for me to find language to express my gratitude for your unfailing kindness."

MR. CHAIRMAN, MY DISTINGUISHED GUEST, AND MEMBERS OF THE PILGRIMS-What a pleasure it is to listen to Mr. Wilson! He possesses in a remarkable degree an unrivaled fluency of words, but also has another quality which has been utilized to an enormous extent, that is, the quality of restraint. [Laughter.] He never uses ten words where a thousand would produce the same effect. [Laughter.] And in most every sentence he utters there are several words that must have been

very much astonished at the use to which they were put. [Laughter.]

Then listen again to Mr. Chauncey Depew, in whose footsteps I have followed for years. But, as is usual in those cases, in following in the footsteps of great men, a corresponding understanding is necessary. We seem only to catch their defects instead of grasping the spirit which has moved them to success. Mr. Depew has said to-night that he felt as good at eighty-three as he did at fifty. Somebody said that was an indication of an impaired mind. It reminds me of the statement made by the dean of American literature, Mr. Howells, when one of his companions, an author, said to him: "I don't seem to write as well to-day as I used to when I was young. I haven't the virility and vigor in my lines." "Nonsense," said Howells; "you write just as well as you ever did; your taste has improved, that's all!" [Laughter.] Not only has Mr. Depew's taste improved, but his work seems to be in consonance with it. [Renewed laughter.]

The chairman is very complimentary, of course, to all the speakers. It was the opinion of the ancients that the best way to improve mankind was to find out the qualities they lacked and then praise them for possessing them. [Laughter.] This was done on the principle that you can praise people into virtues more easily than you can rail them out of their vices. [Laughter.]

I cannot promise you a romantic entertainment which may not be fulfilled. In this life everybody sets out to do something. Everybody does something, yet nobody does what he sets out to do. In the Scripture we read that Saul goes out to find his father's asses, and he finds a kingdom. Columbus attempts a western passage to India, and he stumbles across an unexpected continent. So my remarks may be full of good things

-one can never tell. [Laughter.] No man can promise or help that. Every man has his good moments, and his ideas come and go irrespective of his wishes.

I like to bracket myself with Chauncey Depew. It reminds me of a good old Eastern proverb, which says, "There are only two creatures that can surmount the pyramids-the eagle and the snail." [Laughter.] Ideas are the common inheritance of

mankind. All authors, and some speakers, steal each other's thoughts, as gypsies do children, and then disfigure them to make them pass for their own. [Laughter.] It is done from purely intellectual benevolence, for the good of their neighbors' minds, like that devout lady who, out of pure regard for religion, stole a prayer book from a lady of her acquaintance. [Laughter.]

Some time ago Mr. Elihu Root spoke of the temptation to say things for their sound-to say things that will stir and run into superlatives. The commendation is excellent, and so are the Ten Commandments. The difficulty is in translating counsels of perfection into effective action. The art of saying brilliant things that shall sound right and yet be wrong, has made so many reputations and afforded comfort to so many people that no speaker can venture to neglect it. [Laughter.]

As you know, the speaker occupies a bed of roses, but if there is any one thorn that outrivals the serpent's tooth, it is the fear of repeating himself. Still, Nature has great powers of recuperation, and the repeated assertion of insignificant and significant things is going on all around us, and it has probably gone on since the beginning of time.

In the Garden of Eden, Eve probably never, to the moment of her death, passed a day but she asked Adam if "that affair of the apple was not very unfortunate." [Laughter.] And Adam assuredly answered her a thousand times, "Yes, Eve, it was very unfortunate." [Laughter.]

And so we repeat these things from the glamour of the present, or we take them from antiquity. There is nothing new under the sun. But there are many things which, by reason of their antiquity, are to all intents and purposes just as good as

new.

Now, we were discussing here with Dr. Finley that some of the schools, under a very noted man, are going to banish Latin and Greek. Well, the idea is not new. Some time ago Mr. Balfour said in England that he had learned as much of the classics as was necessary to induce the professors to teach him something else. And there was a bill introduced in Parliament some time ago where a grievance was cited against those universities which required the study of an alleged poet named Homer, who

encouraged the worship of Jupiter, Juno, Venus and other objectionable personages of classical indiscretion, although they lived in an atmosphere of elevated immorality. [Laughter.]

I listened to one phrase in Chauncey Depew's speech about the life that our distinguished guest has led, and I gathered from it that the usefulness of one's life is not so much in its length as the use to which it is put. You know it is one of the inconsistencies of human nature that while we all wish to live long, nobody wants to be old. While we all seem grieved at the shortness of life, there are many periods of it that appear intolerably long and we wish those periods at an end. We all wish to lengthen the span of life in general and to contract some of the parts of which it is composed. The minor longs to be of age, to arrive at distinction, and then to retire. So it seems we are looking over the fence of to-morrow in order to steal a march on time. [Laughter.]

And when I think of the life that our distinguished guest has led, I am reminded that in the Brahmin religion, when a man has reached and passed eighty-four, they declare he is a saint. They have a sacred feeling about that particular time of life. In the Hindustan language it is called "chaurasi," meaning the eighty-fourth year. So that in the Brahmin religion, our distinguished guest is "chaurasi," which means that he is totally exempt from all punishment, either celestial or mundane. [Laughter.]

Well, it would seem that the wise Hindu mind has foreseen that at that period of age there is a lessening of elasticity which impels a man to open rather than jump a gate, or to jump at a conclusion. [Laughter.] It seems to be the Hindu philosophy that in the autumn of life, when the ferment of the blood abates, the man who has supped fully of the world and its follies is generally apt to turn state's evidence against it. [Laughter.]

We know that cynical philosophy that old men give young men advice when they are no longer able to set a bad example. How different it is with our man here! How many times, at banquets, I have seen him rise, with that expansive, kindly shirt-bosom that seems to go out in confident folds to the audience. It is what Cæsar called "a convivium," which is living