198 A Baccalaureate Sermon
What a wonderful history is his. How did he succeed in
laying the largest portion of the then known world at his
feet? By what genius did he successively triumph over the
courageous Samnites and the warlike Carthaginians, the
effeminate Syrians, and the virile Teutons, the ultra-civilized
Greeks and the ultra-barbarous Goths? By dint of the
qualities which were preeminently his own—belief in dis-
cipline, respect for order, reverence for law, unselfish citi-
zenship, and sterling patriotism. Or, to sum up all these
qualities in a single word, by his splendid loyalty. That is
Roman culture.
Until the republic of Rome commenced its career on the
downward grade, nothing in history is more admirable than
the demeanor of the Roman citizen towards the State.
Never did his beloved country beckon to him in vain. No
matter what office he was called upon to hold, no matter
what dignity his country required him to assume, no matter
what inconvenience was thrust upon him, the Roman was
ever ready, aye, ready. Cincinnatus leaves his plow to as-
sume the dictatorship with as great a readiness as Cicero
Ieayes the philosophical school to become a simple quaestor,
and mark this point, for it is the Roman’s greatest glory,
it was his pride to return to civil life, poorer than when he
left it, just as was the case with our own statesman, James
Stephen Hogg. It is solely to this wonderful disinterested
loyalty, to this noble self-effacement that the invincibility
of the race was due. By dint of his loyalty the Roman
prospered, conquered, governed. The Romans were law-
giving because they were law-abiding. They were conquer-
ors because they first conquered themselves. They were
preeminently masterful because they were unshakably loyal.
They marched triumphantly from victory to victory because
they believed in and consequently were amenable to disci-