Kansas University Weekly.
373
Charlemagne.
[First place in the preliminary contest was given to Will T. McMurray, who will represent Kansas University in the State Oratorical contest to be held in Topeka Feb. 26].
In an old ivy-walled church at Aix-la-Chapelle there is a lonely tomb. Its place is marked by no stately monument and but for its very lonliness it might pass unnoticed. A simple, moss-covered slab of stone bears the two words "Carolo Magno."
At these words the cold, dust-laden walls of the cathedral vanish; the streets of the staid old German town are again filled with all the pomp and splendor of a conquering army. The very mountain peaks, "those grim sentinels of the past ages," seem to lift their gray heads higher into the blue vault of Heaven, for they too are proud of the remembrance of the time when "Saxon kings from Britain, Saracen, Emirs from Spain, Lombard Dukes from Italy and the wild Slavonian chieftains" flocked to Aix-la-chapelle" to pay homage to the "greatest man of early European times,"to the master mind that shaped the destiny of the world, Charles the Great or Charlemagne.
The name attracts our thought to the formative period immediately following the final dissolution of the Roman Empire. Rome the once proud mistress of the world had met the inevitable end of all despotic governments. The thundering tramp of Gothic Legion and Vandal hosts was no longer heard; those barbarian hordes had worked their will upon the decayed and dying civilization. The arts and sciences of Greece, fostered by Rome had been almost entirely destroyed by the successive waves of barbarism that had swept over them. Even Christianity seemed to have well nigh lost its civilizing power. A sombre cloud of desolation was fast settling down over all Europe. There were two forces at war with one another; the one, the instinct of separation, disorder and anarchy caused by the ungoverned impulses and savage ignorance of the barbarian invaders; the other, the inner longing of the better minds for a formal unity of government. Upon the result of the struggle depended the fate of Europe, and the fate of Europe was the fate of the world. It was indeed a crisis in human affairs, but in answer to the cries of a dying civilization a mighty helper appeared in the person of Charlemagne.
were joined together in one mighty empire. Civilization was again revived.
In him Christianity found a new champion. The arts and sciences gained a protector. By him, the wild nations scattered over Europe
Taking up the scepter of his father and entering upon the administration of the affairs of Europe, he found his inheritance merely a collection of races scattered over the vast area from the Baltic to the Mediterranean sea. There was no cohesive force to bind together that vast aggregation of tribes; no common centralized power to which they might look for their laws. Learning for them was to be found only in the teachings of a few fearless mission monks. They, in the spirit of a good cause, had braved every danger to carry the Divine message to those ignorant northern people, whose rude and simple hearts had not yet felt the power of the Christian religion that was to "lay the foundation of modern nationality and develop European civilization." They made their homes in the gloomy recesses of the forest. They knew no law but that of the sword. To be great in war was the one ambition that ever stirred their savage breasts. Disorder reigned supreme.
But Charlemagne recognized the evils of the time and conquered them with that indomitable will which stamped him as "the greatest man for war and policy the world had known or was to know until a thousand years had elapsed." He clearly perceived the mighty power for conquest that had been given him in the command of such an army as that with which Charles Martel had defeated the followers of the "False Prophet." But he did not seek to become a mere military leader. His was a nobler and a grander mission than to climb to the throne of a world-conqueror over the bodies of his slaughtered soldiers. To Christianize as well as subjugate was the mission of Charlemagne.
But if you would not doubt his military genius, follow him through his numerous campaigns. See him as he hastens to the North to repel an invasion of those stubborn war-like Saxons or to the East to suppress the rebellious Slavs. See him flying to the South to drive back the infidel hosts of Mohammed who are fighting with the terrible religious fanaticism of the East, threatening to overrun Europe and blot out the last trace of Christianity. See him pressing over the Alps into Italy to aid a suppliant Pope, conquering the Lombards and placing the "iron crown of Lombardy" on his own head; and then, considering well the magnitude of these achievements, form your own estimate of the military genius of the man.
But the supreme greatness of Charlemagne lies in his solution of the perplexing problem of