Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 1.djvu/293



But to urge the point of greatest moment: should any of your sons demand by what examples they are to form their lives, how would you reply? For you well know that it is not only by bodily exercises, by seminaries of learning, or by instructions in music, that our youth are trained, but much more effectually by public examples. Is it proclaimed in the theater that a man is honored with a crown for his virtue, his magnanimity, and his patriotism, who yet proves to be abandoned and profligate in his life? The youth who sees this is corrupted. Is public justice inflicted on a man of base and scandalous vices like Ctesiphon? This affords excellent instruction to others. Doth the judge who has given a sentence repugnant to honor and to justice return home and instruct his son? That son is well warranted to reject his instruction. Advice in such a case may well be called impertinence. Not then as judges only, but as guardians of the state, give your voices in such a manner that you may approve your conduct to those absent citizens who may inquire what hath been the decision. You are not to be informed, Athenians, that the reputation of our country must be such as theirs who receive its honors. And surely it must be scandalous to stand in the same point of view, not with our ancestors, but with the unmanly baseness of Demosthenes.

Think on this critical season, in which you are to give your voices. In a few days the