The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-07-12 00:00:00

trivial questions, while the weightier considerations of
renaoving stumbling-blocks, of enlarging liberty, and
strengthening the mental and moral resources of the
whole are passed by as if they did not exist. But in
proportion to the keenness of this grief, which an ancient
writer well called the bitterest of all griefs, is the de-
light in opportunities seized, in character under the
stress of misfortune or danger or temptation tried and
not giving way. We delight to think there are times
when circumstances give full employ to "hands which
the rod of empire might have swayed." We are roused to
a new sense of the value of great institutions and high
offices when we see that they call forth virtues of
which before we knew not, but which when called
forth are at once a vindication of those offices and in-
stitutions, and also diffuse their own savour far and
wide. This is what the Apostle means when in the
epistle of that day he speaks of the "earnest expecta-
tion" waiting "for the manifestations of the sons of
Gad." This application of our knowledge to the
anxious problems of human life, this unflinching de-
termination to see things as they are and to act in-
dependently of what is thought and said of us by
others, this perception at the right moment of the
right thing to be done and the right word to be
said, this presence of mind which can bring all
our faculties to bear on the very danger by which
they seem likely to be dispersed and dissipated, in
the accidents of fire and shipwreck, in the sudden
alarms of battle, in the shocks of revolution—these
are the qualities which in some measure the humblest
of us should strive to attain, and which the most gifted
of us should beware of losing or squandering. It is
these manifestations of unexpected strength which
give the charm to those famous scenes of fiction when
Achilles suddenly breaks out from the Grecian camp,
or when Ulysses throws aside his rags and stalks with
his deathful bow across the threshold of the suitors.
These are the qualities of a soldier-statesman. Such
a character, such a man, was that whose earthly close
we yesterday commemorated. To speak first of the
mission which moulded the character, it was like that
of Joshua, if not to found, yet to save an empire.
The Indian Empire! What an inheritance in that
name has been handed down from our fathers to us!
India, the new world which Alexander the Great first
revealed to Europe; India, the home of the earliest
traditions and language of the civilised races, the scene
of the mighty conflict between the most absolute
monotheism and the most elaborate polytheisms, the
scene of the mighty struggles by which a handful of
our countrymen built up a portentous empire; the
India of Clive and Hastings, of the illustrious states-
man Bentinck, which was sanctified by the missionary
zeal of Martyn of Duff and Wilson, and by the en-
lightened wisdom of prelates like Cotton and Heber!
Into the rich and varied land we had inherited we had
transfused the soul and mind of Christian Europe. We
had in turn enhanced our wealth and power by the pos-
session of the gorgeous East. It was this vast fabric
which 20 years ago suddenly tottered to its ruin. Never,
perhaps, in history was a larger demand made upon
the efforts of individual responsibility. Never, perhaps,
had so much depended on the instant energetic efforts
of a few, But in that dark hour there appeared
from behind the veil of ignorance which so often
separates the mind of the English people from the
affairs of India character after character, we might
say hero after hero, who by the strength of individual
purpose and of unwavering confidence in the goodness
of their cause, not only warded off the world-wide
calamity which had burst upon them, but also die-
closed to the eyes of Englishmen a host of warriors
and statesmen such as we hardly knew that we pos-
sessed. It was the very darkness of that crisis, the
overclouding of the brightness of the fortunes of
England, that enabled us to see, as we could not have
seen in broad daylight, the constellation of brilliant
stars that adorned the courts and camps of India
There was Havelock, whose march into Lucknow was
followed step by step with an eagerness and anxiety
crowned by the mingled exultation and lamentation
with which almost in the same moment we heard of
his victory and of his death. There were the two
Viceroys who met in Calcutta at the very crisis—the
one who in all that city showed the only face un-
blanched by fear, the other who sacrificed the troops
which were to have secured his own success in China.
There was Nicholson, worshipped in his army and by
the natives; Outram, the Bayard of Indian warfare,
and Clyde, the veteran of a hundred fights. Side by
side those two rival chiefs slept together in that church;
and now, himself laid at the feet of those mighty
soldiers, as they also at the feet of their predecessors in
the early wars of Afghanistan, there came the last and
greatest of all, the survivor of the two heroic
brothers, of whom it was not too much to say that
during the moments of that terrible time they
bore on their Atlantean shoulders the whole
fabric of British existence in India. It was the
happy fortune of the younger that he survived to
make us familiar with his form and features, his face
and character. He belonged, indeed, to that type of
men of which the English race is seegrand a represen-
tation. It was with good reason that when an illus-
trious artist wished to depict in the stately hall of one
of our greatest palaces of justice the signing of the
Magna Charts, he selected the rugged countenance
and rough, manly bearing of Joie Lawrence as the
likeness of the chief among the barons of England,
who won for us our liberties against King and Pope.
He was English, yet Scotch and Irish also by race
and character. On an occasion like that we would
rather dwell upon the inward spirit that lighted and
prompted the action of his " deedful life.' Deedful
indeed it was, and the hearts of Englishmen would
beat for many a day as they read of that tremendous
march of 30 miles a day, under the burning heat of
an Indian sun, which did more than any other one
thing to save our Empire. It was said that modern
luxury was destroying the plain living and high think-
ing of old. We might recall as an antiseptic to those
corrupting influences the example of that Spartan
simplicity, carried sometimes perhaps to excess, but
rooted in the genuine modesty and granite solidity,
which, if we could not always imitate or command, we
could not help admiring. We heard also in modern
days that the responsibility of the great officials in our
distant dependencies is of necessity relaxed and
enervated because of the increased control exercised
from the central source of power. It may be so, and
it may be inevitable ; but, nevertheless, there would
always be a lesson of profound instruction in the
example of a man who had the foresight to discern
what was needed to be done and the courage to do it
without fear of the consequences and without regard
to his own fame and fortune. We often heard
it said that to the cause of party all other influences
must be subordinated, that for the sake of keeping
a party together no interests are sacred ; that ap-
pointment must be made regardless of fitness. No
such thought, still less any thought of personal
aggrandisement, entered into the noble soul which
has passed away. He did not stand alone in this
respect, and the noble service to which he belonged
was penetrated with the spirit which the Emperor
Alexander Severus held among the chief sources of the
power of the early Christians, that they gave away their
offices to the best men, without respect of persons. His
unbroken success in India he owed to his thorough
knowledge, and if he failed in some of his undertakings
in England he owed it to a lack of knowledge which he
himself deplored. He was a fine example of the value
of India as a school of training for the breeding
of a race of civil and military administrators in
whom it is ingrained, not as a theory, but as a
duty, to study those complex forms of human cha-
racter, so unlike our own, and yet so deeply inetruc•
tive for us to contemplate, even without regard to
the usefulness of such a study for their effective
governance. It was this wide-seeing circumspection
which made every word of rebuke from him, to
Englishmen or natives, come with double force. A
story of him was worth recording as an instance of his
lofty dealing and good influence upon inferior minds.
During the conduct of some important cause for a
young Indian Rajah, the Prince endeavoured to place
in his hands, under the table, a bag of rupees. He
answered at once, "Young man, you have offered to
an Englishman the greatest insult which he could pos-
sibly receive. This time, in consideration of your youth,
I excuse it. Let me warn you by this experience never
again to commit so gross an offence against an English
gentlemen." Many of them would never forget the
moral effect upon themselves of his indefatigable, un-
tiring industry, so long as health and eyesight were left
to him—his profound contempt for the idle, lounging,
loitering habits in which so mush of human existence
is expended and destroyed. Any one who saw him
felt at once that his presence had a certain majestic
dignity and assured repose, which made us feel con-
fident that in his presence, and in whatever emergency,
we were perfectly safe. He was not only a leader of
men, but a leader on whom men could rely without
the apprehension of those sudden weaknessess and
betrayals by which some of the most gifted of the
human race have diffused around them a sense not of
security, but of mistrust. We were reminded when
we saw him of that passage in Isaiah which says,
"Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire?"
That is to say, who shall endure the scorching flame of
temptation, danger, pain? How shall we gain that
supernatural strength? And the answer of the prophet
is the only true one, "He that walketh righteously,"
But if we ask further why and how is this, the pro-
phet's following words give a reply. "His place of
defence shall be on the strong rocks, bread shall
be given him' his water shall be sure." That is
to say, he shell be like a man in an impregnable
fortress. Though the earth be wrapped in a circle of
flames, he will look down on the raging sea of fire
without fear. There is a well of water within the
citadel which will not fail. The upright Christian
man, whether martyr or missionary, statesman or
soldier, looks down on weakness, pain, and obloquy as
contemptible. He has the bread and water which
should not fail, an undefiled conscience which gives
him invincible courage. Such was the inner character
which formed the spititual basis of that mountain of
mored strength. Iu his early days hid friends called
him Iron John." As time rolled oil his character
came to rely more and more on religious influences, his
gentler nature became developed, he submitted to fail-
ing powers and failing eyesight, and became each year
more prepared for the great change which at last
suddenly overtook him. "Farewell," the Dean ex-
claimed, "great Pro-consul of our English Christian
Empire! Where shall we look in the times that are
coming for that disinterested love, that abounding
knowledge of India like his? Where shall we find
that resolution, mind, and countenance, which seemed
to cry to us.
"This rock shall fly
"'From its firm base as coon as 1: ? '"

The sermon was heard by a very large and crowded
congregation, which included many of those who had
been present on the previous day. The tomb, marked
by wreaths of white flowers arranged upon it in the
form of a cross, was visited again by many of the
listeners.