Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures Part 15

"Through the days and weeks of agony that followed, he saw his sun slowly sinking, the plans and purposes of his life broken and the sweetest of household ties soon to be severed.

"Masterful in mortal weakness he became the center of a nation's love, and enshrined in the prayers of the Christian world.

"As the end drew near, his youthful yearning for the sea returned. The White House palace of power became a hospital of pain. He begged to be taken from its prison walls and stifling air.

"Silently, tenderly the love of a great people bore the pale sufferer to the longed-for healing of the sea. There with wan face lifted to the cooling breeze, he looked wistfully out upon the changing wonders of the ocean; its far-off sails white in the morning light; its restless waves rolling sh.o.r.eward to break in the noon-day sun; the red clouds of evening arching low, kissing the blue lips of the sea, and above the serene, silent pathway to the stars.

"Let us believe his dying eyes read a mystic meaning only the parting soul can know; that he heard the waves of the ebbing tide of life breaking on the far-off sh.o.r.e, and felt already upon his wasted brow the calm, sweet breath of heaven's morning."

Place behind these utterances the rich voice and magnetic manner of the "Plumed Knight" of the platform, and you can realize what oratory means.

If you will here pardon me for going from the sublime to the ridiculous, I will show you how a bit of a school boy rhetoric may win its way over solid argument. In the country school I attended, there was a debating society. Parents as well as their sons were admitted to the society and the public was invited to the debates. On one occasion the question for debate was: "Which is the more attractive, the works of nature or the works of art?"

There had been an appeal from a general debate and this time one speaker was chosen from each side. My father was chosen to represent the negative and I the affirmative. My father was a good speaker but so fond of facts he had no use for rhetoric. I had the opening address of thirty minutes, my father had forty-five minutes and I had fifteen minutes to close the debate.

As father talked I wondered how he ever got hold of so many facts. He piled them up until my first address was swept away by the triumphs of art. The only hope I had for the affirmative was in the closing fifteen minutes. Fortunately for me, the judge was a bachelor and very much in love with a golden-haired, accomplished young woman who lived in a country home very near the schoolhouse, and was then in the audience. In closing the debate I referred to father's address in a complimentary manner, and then asked the judge to be seated in imagination on a knoll nearby. On one side of that knoll I placed all my father had claimed for art, withholding nothing. On the other side was the home of this Blue Gra.s.s belle. I began a description of her home and personality. I pictured "the orchard, the meadow, the deep tangled wild-wood and every loved spot" the judge well knew. I pictured the brook that ran through the meadow into the woodland and on down the valley, singing as it ran,

"I wind about and in and out, With here a blossom sailing; Here and there a l.u.s.ty trout, And here and there a grey-ling."

When my time was half gone I felt I was gone too unless I could get a little nearer the heart of the judge. Opening the door art had made to shut in the flowers of a lovely family I brought out the golden-haired girl.

Taking off the sun-bonnet of art, that the good-night kisses of the sinking sun might enrich her rosy cheeks and golden tresses, I sent her strolling down the winding walk hedged in by hawthorn and hyacinth to the water's brink. Here I gave her a cus.h.i.+on of blue-gra.s.s, and with the rising moon pouring its s.h.i.+mmering sheen upon the ripples at her feet, I sent her voice floating away on the evening air singing: "Roll on silver moon, guide the traveler on his way." Here the audience cheered, the judge smiled and I felt encouraged.

With but two minutes left I had the shapely fingers of nature, take out the hair-pins of art and the golden tresses fall about the snowy neck of nature. Then came the untying of the shoe-strings of art; off came the shoes and stockings of art, and the pretty feet of nature were dipping in the limpid stream. I said, "Judge, the question is, which is the more attractive, the works of nature or the works of art?

With my father's picture of steam engines, stage coaches, reapers, binders, mowing machines and every known triumph of art on one side; on the other the highest type of the world's creation, a beautiful woman, the stars of nature stooping to kiss her brow, and laughing waters of nature leaping to kiss her feet; where your eyes would rest there let your decision be given."

After the debate a friend said to me: "It was that last home picture that saved you." My father who heard the remark said, "Yes, a picture of a red-headed girl was.h.i.+ng her feet in a goose branch." I may add, I was careful after the contest not to get very near the young lady with whom I had taken such platform liberty.

Reason, rhetoric, pathos, poetry, diction, gesture, wit and humor, each has its place on the platform. While logic sounds the depths of thought, humor ripples its surface with laughing wavelets. While reason cultivates the cornfields of the mind, rhetoric beautifies the pleasure gardens.

John B. Gough was the most popular platform orator of his day. He began lecturing at from two to five dollars an evening. He grew in popularity until he was in demand at five hundred dollars a lecture, and no one before or since more successfully used all the arts of the platform, from the comic that drew the very rabble of the streets, to flights of eloquence that captured college culture. It has been well said: "While Gough was a great preacher of righteousness, he was a whole theatre in dramatic delivery." Lecturers, like preachers, are fishers of men, and there are as many kinds of people in an average audience as there are kinds of fish in the sea. It requires variety of bait for humanity as well as for fish.

Sam Jones used slang as one kind of bait and he used to say: "It beats all how it draws." I saw this verified at Ottawa, Kansas, Chautauqua.

Giving a Sat.u.r.day evening lecture he baited the platform with slang, satire and humor. Sunday afternoon an hour before time for his lecture the people were hurrying to the auditorium. When presented to the great audience he said: "Record! Record! Record!" I remember the sermon as one of the sweetest and most powerful I ever heard. Its influence will not cease this side the eternal morning.

Rowland Hill, the popular London preacher, used quaint humor to draw the people, and powerful appeal to sweep them into the kingdom.

It is said the fountain of laughter and fountain of tears lie very close together. My experience has been, that often the best way to the fountain of tears is by the way of the fountain of laughter. Some years ago at Ocean Grove, New Jersey, I was to lecture on the subject, "Boys and Girls, Nice and Naughty." A wealthy widow and her only son were there from New York, where the young boy had been leading a "gay life." Ocean Grove with its quiet, moral atmosphere was a dull place for this young man. He happened to read the subject for the lecture on the bulletin board, and thinking it suggestive of humor he went to hear the lecture. He had what he went for, as the lecture did deal with the fountain of laughter, but it also dealt with the fountain of tears. It swung the red lantern of danger athwart the pathway of the wayward young man. Following a story of mother love, I said: "Young man, let the cares and burdens of life press you down to the very earth, let the great waves of sorrow roll over your soul, but let no act of yours ever roll a clod upon the coffin of her, whose image, enshrined upon the inner walls of your memory, white winters and long bright summers can never wash away."

A minister told me after, that in a young people's meeting this young man arose and said: "I attended a lecture at Ocean Grove, thinking I would have a humorous entertainment. I left the auditorium the saddest soul in the great audience. Going down to the beach I tried to drive away the spell, but it grew upon me. I could see how I had grieved my mother, and the past came rolling up like the waves of the ocean. I shuddered as they broke on my awakened conscience and quickened memory. Behind me was an unhallowed past, and before me the brink of an awful eternity. There and then I resolved to change my course.

Alone under the stars I made my resolve and then started to my mother.

She was waiting for me, and said: 'My son, I wished for you at the lecture this evening. I think you would have enjoyed it.' I then told her I was determined to lead a new life and had come to seal my vow with her kiss."

That young man went to the lecture to laugh, he left to walk alone with G.o.d under the stars by the ocean deep, there to decide to lead a righteous life, and seal the vow with a loving mother's kiss.

So while in my humble way I have endeavored to use the arts that entertain I have cherished the purpose to better human lives.

I have referred to the platform as being baited for humanity. Have you ever considered how it is baited to resist the forces of evil?

The day was when Satan had an attraction trust that controlled about the whole output of entertainment. The platform now is a picture gallery where is to be had all beauty in nature, from our own land to the land of the midnight sun.

In moving pictures it presents to those who never saw s.h.i.+p, sail or sea, the landing of a great steamer, with splas.h.i.+ng of spray as real as if seen from the dock. To those who enjoy music it furnishes band concerts, orchestra, bell-ringing, quartettes, solos, plantation melodies, rag-time tunes and women whistlers.

The platform today beats the devil in output of entertainment. It has scoured field and forest, trained birds and dogs to round out the program of a chautauqua.

Its breadth takes in all creeds and kinds. While it greets with waving lilies Bishop Vincent, leader of the great chautauqua movement, it cordially welcomes the priest, the Jew, the Chinaman, the negro, republican, democrat, progressive, prohibitionist, socialist and suffragist.

The platform has grown to be a great university, a musical festival, a zoological garden, an art inst.i.tute, an agricultural college and a domestic science school.

Do you ask has the platform any blemishes? I answer yes. All enterprises have their blemishes. The press is a potent power for good and yet many bad things get into print. Sometimes from the platform come voices without the ring of sincerity, entertainments without uplifting influence and anecdotes without respect to public decency.

When attending platform entertainments one should discriminate as when eating fish, enjoy the meat and discard the bones. With good taste in selection one rarely ever need go away hungry.

I am often asked: "Where do you find the most appreciative audiences?"

First, I would reply, in rural communities where the people are not surfeited with entertainment. Second, I would say, applause does not always mean appreciation. It is said "still water runs deep." In Chickering Hall, New York, one Sunday afternoon a lady sat before me whose diamonds and dress indicated wealth. A lad sat by her side. My subject was, "The Safe Side of Life for Young Men." It was a temperance address and the thought came to me; that lady is a wine drinker and she is disappointed that I am to talk temperance. She did not cheer with the audience, nor did she give any expression of face that would indicate her interest, except that she kept her eyes fixed upon the speaker. At the close she came to the platform and said: "I brought my son with me and you said what I wanted him to hear; I thank you," and with this she took my hand saying, "Again I thank you," and turning away, left a coin in my hand.

I put it in my pocket, and on returning to the hotel found she had given me a twenty dollar gold piece. That was gold standard appreciation.

I am frequently asked: "What do you recall as the best introduction you ever had?"

I have had all kinds, some amusing, but the one I cherish most was given by Ferd Schumacher, the deceased oatmeal king of Akron, Ohio. He came to this country from Germany. By industry and economy he acc.u.mulated enough money to engage in making oatmeal. When he had rounded up more than a million of dollars in wealth, the insurance ran out on his great "Jumbo Mills" in Akron. The insurance company raised the rate and while he was d.i.c.kering with the company, the great plant was swept away in a midnight fire. Mr. Schumacher was a very earnest temperance man and was to introduce me for the W.C.T.U. in the large armory the Sunday after the fire. It was supposed he would not be present because of the severe strain and his great loss. But prompt to the minute he entered the door, and 'mid the applause of sympathetic friends he took the platform.

In presenting the speaker he said: "Ladies and schentlemen, I must be personal for a moment while I thank the people of Akron for their sympathy. I did not know I had so many good friends. But the mill vot vos burned vos made of stone and vood and nails and paint. We come to talk to you about a fire vot is burning up the homes, the hopes, the peace of vimen and children and the immortal souls of men; vill you please take your sympathy off of Ferd Schumacher and give it to Mr.

Bain while he talks about the great fire of intemperance."

I am opposed to indiscriminate immigration to this country, but if the old world has any more Ferd Schumachers desiring to come to America, may He who rules winds and waves, fill with harmless pressure the billows on which they ride and give them safe entrance into our country's haven.

Many inquire of me about the lyceum platform as a profession. My answer is: "like the famed s.h.i.+eld it has two sides." One who has a lovely home and rarely leaves it said to me: "I envy you your life-work. You get to see the country, visit the great cities, meet the best people and get fat fees for your lectures." How distance does lend enchantment to the view sometimes!

A few years ago we notified the bureaus not to make engagements away from the railroads in the northwest during the blizzard months. A letter came saying: "Enter Wessington College, outside of Woonsocket."

We supposed outside meant adjacent. Arriving at Woonsocket in a blizzard I found Wessington seventeen miles away. Wrapped in robes I made the drive, arriving about six o'clock in the evening. On arrival I was informed that smallpox had broken out in the village. The hotel had been quarantined but a room had been engaged for me in a private home. While taking my supper my hostess said: "Would you know smallpox if you were to see the symptoms?"

"Know what? Why do you ask that?" I asked.

She called attention to the face of her daughter who was serving the supper. One glance and my appet.i.te fled, as I said: "Excuse me, please. I must get ready for my lecture," and I left the room. One hour later I stood before a vaccinated audience with visions of smallpox floating before me, and for days after I imagined I could feel it coming.

Add to this experience midnight rides on freight trains, long drives in rain, mud and storm, ten minutes for lunch at sandwich counter, eight months of the year away from home--the only heaven one who loves his family has on earth, and you have a taste of the side my neighbor did not see.

There is, however, a bright side. Whoever can get the ear of the public from the platform, has an opportunity to sow seed, the fruit of which will be gathered by angels when he has gone to his reward. One so long on the platform as I have been, cannot fail in having experiences that gladden the heart, if he has done faithful service.

Out of hundreds I select one experience that should encourage all who labor in the Master's vineyard. I had traveled two hundred miles in a day to reach an engagement, and the last seven miles in a buggy over a miserable road. I did not reach the village until nine o'clock.

Without supper and chilled by the ride, I threw off my wraps and wearily made my way through the lecture. A little later in my room at the hotel, while I was taking a lunch of bread and milk, a minister entered and said: "You seem to be very tired." When I answered, "Never more so," he replied: "I have a story to tell you which will perhaps rest you."

Continuing he said: "Some twenty years ago, you lectured in a village where there was a state normal school. It was Sunday evening. At the hotel were three young men, and to see the girls of the college, these young men went to the lecture. One was the only son of a wealthy widow. He had not seen his mother for months. She had begged him to come home, but he was sowing his wild oats and ashamed to face his mother. That evening you made an earnest appeal to young men in the name of home and mother. The arrow went to the heart of the wild young fellow. On returning to the hotel he said to his companions: 'Come up to my room, let's have a talk.' On entering the room he closed the door and said: 'Boys, I want to open my heart to you. I am overwhelmed with a sense of wrong-doing. I am done with the saloon, done with the gambling table, done with evil a.s.sociations. I am going home to-morrow and make mother happy. Boys, let's join hands and swear off from drink and evil habits; let's honor our manhood and our mothers.'

"Now for the sequel that I think will rest you. That wild boy is now a wealthy man. I give you his name, though I would not have you call it in public. He is a Christian philanthropist, and has never broken his pledge. The second boy holds the highest office in the gift of this government in a western territory, and the third stands before you now, an humble minister of the gospel."

It did rest me. I would rather have been the humble instrument in turning those three young men to a righteous life, than to wear the brightest wreath that ever encircled a stateman's brow.