Kings of the earth have fought that they might hold the power in their own hands, and the many might be subject to them. The people have risen, and grown strong, until at last they have trampled the king and the army under their feet, and have rushed into the citadel and the palace and taken possession, and the citadel of oppression and the palace of luxury have become the temple of liberty. The priests have fought long that they might keep the people out of the temple and hold the mysteries of religion an exclusive possession. But the people have surged up against the priests and trampled them under foot, and occupied the temple of religion. The temples of earning are open; the kings of learning stand at the door, and with their scepters beckon you to come and share their coronation and their crown. The priests of learning bid you come, that they may open to you the mysteries of literature. For in the republic of letters there is no aristocracy but that of service. And they only are great who have learned how best to serve their fellow-men.
The triumph that I read in your eyes is not a false triumph. You have plucked the first fruits, and all the other brightest and best are before you for your plucking. The expectation that I read in your eyes is not a delusive expectation. The fruit is yours. The desire that I read in your eyes is not a cheating desire. The aspiration that burns within you for learning may have its gratification. You have no money? Literature is cheap. You have no time? You have as much time as Schliemann had, who stood in the long line before the postoffice and studied his Greek while waiting for the letters. You have as much time as Mary Somerville had, who wrote the volume which gave her a princely reputation among astronomers, while tending with motherly care the children in the nursery pulling at her skirts. The forces of nature come out of the ground and offer themselves to you to do the drudgery which aforetime was left to human hands, that you may have time to learn the truth of God, and the works of God, and the will of God. We stand to-day on the mountain height. We look just across the valley. The Jordan is no longer overflowing its banks, but is a narrow and shallow stream. The promised land lies there in all its richness and brilliance, and God’s providence utters its promise to us Americans in this nineteenth century: “Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord thy God has given thee this land for a possession forever.”