6
THE BATTALION.
was withot ambition; glory came to him unknown and crown
ed him unaware. It has been truly said of him: “He was
an Alexander without nis ambition, a Ciesar without his vice;
a Napoleon without his tyranny, and a Washington without
his reward.”
Milton too; that illustrious genius, who unlocked the
brazen gates of the fiery gulf, heard its raging howl, and saw
its maddening billows heave and toss, shall strike anew his
golden lyre in heaven when yonder sun shall stay his fiery
w’heels mid-heaven, sicken, darken and pitch lawless from
his flaming chariot into the chaos of universal ruin.
Nor is that all. The day is coming when those names
written in blood shall crumble and sink; when yonder firma
ment shall frown in blackness and terror; when the judgment
fires shall kindle around the pillars that stay creation, and
rolling their smoke and flame upward, fire the entire
starry dome; when burning worlds shall fly and lighten
through immensity; when the great car of eternity, rumbling
onward, shall ever travel over the bleak desolation and dis
mal loneliness of a burned up universe. Then shall the
names of the just tower far above those written in blood.
These are the examples of men who have gone before us
whose names are in history and whose lives are left as exam
ples to us. Which will we choose? If we choose to take for
our ideals such men as Caesar and Hannibal we might be
able to build great names as military geniuses, but we would
be admired only for that genius. Rather let us choose for
our examples such men as Washington, Henry and Jackson,
and let us try in every way to be, if possible, as great as they.
And let us always remember that in the making of character
that everything we do goes to make it, either for good or bad;
every action, every word, ay, every thought, as it flies on its
lightning wings through the dark recesses of the brain. We
now form habits; these are the grooves in which are to flow