Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 5.djvu/292

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS

tion was asked why it was remembered, the reply was that father had told son, from generation to generation, "If you pass that river you are safe."

We must also look to foreign relations. We are called cosmopolitan by our critics, the friends of every country but our own. That is not so. We are the friends of our own country first and foremost — but there is no nationalism worth having which does not cast its eye beyond the border of its own nationality. We wish our country -to be friendly with other countries in the interest of our own. Why should we not be friendly? I am not aware of any cause which separates us in enmity from any country in the world. I know many reasons why we should cultivate their friendship.

Swift, in one of his memorable pieces, was pleading against the abolition of Christianity. After giving a variety of reasons, he ended by saying that if Christianity were abolished the Funds would fall at least a quarter per cent. Swift reserved that argument to the last, on the ground that his intelligent hearers would prob- ably consider it to be the best and most cogent. I will offer you a fiscal reason to show what quarreling means. Between 1898 and 1905 British consols had fallen about 20 per cent, and Kussians about 30 per cent. Germany, which had been much more moderate in that way, had fallen about 10 per cent., but the funds of Spain and Italy, which had both rather forsworn 252

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