18 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 
and steep the people in sorrow and despair. But who shall say 
that out of all this evil no good has come? 
Alexander was completing the work begun so gloriously on 
the plain of Marathon. There we see the hosts of Persia come 
forth from the centre of Asia to determine the destinies of 
Kurope. The East with its effeminacy, its sophistry, its elastic 
morality, and its heathenish religions, seeking to trample in 
the dust the more vigorous civilization, the more manly institu- 
tions, the truer and more practical philosophy, the purer moral- 
ity and the higher order of society and government of the 
West. On the field of Marathon nothing is visible except con- 
fusion, carnage and victory on the part of the brave Athenians; 
but the historian now sees in it results far-reaching and _per- 
manent. Ten years later the noble band of Spartans made a 
Thermopylae, forever famous in the same cause, and a Salamis 
and Plataea finished the work as far as the Grecian States were 
concerned. In time Greece was swallowed up by Macedon and 
Alexander the Great rolls back forever the tide of Orientalism 
from Europe. But he did more than act as the Sentinel for the 
West; he opened a highway between Asia and Europe, which 
brought into barbarous Europe whatever of the _ civilization, 
learning, refinement, and arts of Asia were worth transplanting. 
The effete civilizations of Egvnt, Syria, and of the East, 
generally had to give place to the more virile energies of the 
West. The fruitage of the seeds thus planted is seen in the 
grand results produced by the occupation of Egypt and India 
by British power at the present day. 
Did the wars with Napoleon produce no good? Who shalt 
say that the shock to the nations of Europe did not electrify 
and energize them; thus doing much to bring into being modern 
Europe. It gave to England the immortal memories of a Nel- 
son and a Wellington, of a Trafalgar and a Waterloo. Who 
shall estimate the value to the world of such object lessons of 
courage and strength—lessons that will thrill the hearts of 
Britons for all time, and be high and noble incentives to duty 
in every sphere of life. 
