254 HEREDITY. 



the most remarkable men in the East, and the most 

 essential, not only to its religions, but also to its 

 social and political salvation. [Applause.] When 

 I sailed through the iEgean, I was with Homer, and 

 I looked back toward the promontory at Beirut, 

 crowned with American schools of the first rank ; I 

 looked toward the towers of Robert College, on 

 which our Hamlin had raised, and was lifting and 

 lowering as our steamer passed by, the American 

 flag ; and I felt that so far as the solution of the 

 question of the East, in its Asiatic proportions, is 

 concerned, America, little as the fact is emphasized 

 as yet, has a part to act grander than was ever 

 played by the heroes of the Iliad. Her heroes are 

 at Beirut and on the Bosphorus in the colleges, and 

 yonder at San Francisco in the Chinese schools. 

 [Applause.] 



THE LECTURE. 



In the days of chivalry a marriage was usually 

 contracted with a sacred regard of the demands of 

 natural law, and not merely of those of social or 

 personal caprice. There were often required from 

 both parties careful certificates, not only of noble 

 descent, but of courage, loyalty, piety, and all the 

 chivalric virtues it was desired to transmit. Infi- 

 delity sometimes thinks that it has exclusive posses- 

 sion of the topic of the hereditary descent of good 

 traits and bad. If you put your ear upon the ground, 

 and listen, as it is my duty to do, as a student of 

 the signs of the times and an outlook committee 



