New-York tribune., 1872-12-02

papers.
Egz
FOICE OF THE PULPIT AND THE PRESS
We print this morning with kind OF
8 melancholy pride, perhaps the most remark
able recognition of excellence and usefulness
: in life which the demise of any merely private
y citizen has ever evoked. Now that Mr.. Greeley
! has left us, We begin to understand how
large, and, we may be permitted to say,
+ how honorable q place he filled in the
2 public mind and in society. If the reader
will be good enough to turn to our record of
+ the illusions made yesterday to Mr.. Greeleys
/ departure by the foremost clergymen of all
h denominations in New-YOrk, he will
| see a concurrent admission of the beauty
of Mr.. Greeley's character, which comes
from men professionally accustomed to make
| such estimates, and equally unaccustOmed to
make them according TO any low or loosely
liberal standard. Death always checks very
sternIy our frivolous and somewhat degrading
1 habit of superfcially rating distinguished men,
of criticising their conduct with vulgar IA
miliarity, of searching for mean motives
and of suspecting selfish intentions. The
pulpit yesterday considered our dead leader
8 with a calm sobriety, and made up a judg-
ment in which political differences, profess
sional jealousies, and personal animositles
d found no place. 1t is, we firmly believe, the
Judgment which viii stand of historic
record. 1t recognizes as fully and
as cheerfully as Mr.. Greeley's nearest friends
could have desired, both the goodness of his
heart for which most of all they loved him,
and the robust and ready vigor of his intel
lect, which nobody ever sincerely dis
puted. Not one preacher of yesterday failed
to discern the really Christian character
of the man; for though creeds may
widely differ, and though Mr.. Greeley's
theological opinions were not those
which are entertained by most of his clerical
eulogists, there is no religion worthy of the
name which does not admit the value of
noble work nobly done, and of a
beneyolence which embraces all man
kind. 1t is encouraging indeed, since it
strengthens our faith in all that is excellent
in human nature to find the true character Of
GOOD man admitted with such catholicity of
spirit. DuHng his whole career as journalist
it was often the fortune OF MIR. Greeley
TO be either misunderstood or misrepre-
sented. lie had his share of human
infrmities and he knew it, but selfshness
was not most certainly one of those
which fell to his share; nor was he the first
whose occasional asperities of manner have
concealed an almost feminine tenderness of
heart or whose boundless pity for theiweak-
ness of man has aggravated the turbulence
with which he sometimes upbraided
it, Fit was it that the pulpits should
speak kindly of one who scrupulously
kl, J;,,.n nj
and whose left hand knew nothing of the
largesse which his right so literally distributed
Fit also was it that in the churches notice
should be taken of the death of one who in
all his life never deliberately did one deed
which his conscience disapproved, unless we
are to except those frequent acts OF charity
which his heart prompted while his better
Judgment condemned them.
We print also this morning considerable
number of tho notices taken of Mr.. Greeley's
death by the newspaper press. 1t would be
ungenerous and ungrateful, it would be incon-
sistent with those feelings which the loss of
our chief has awakened in our hearts,
should we fail here and at this early
moment to acknowledge our sense of
the kindly consideration with which with
some unimportant exceptions) our bereave-
ment has been considered by our brother
journalists The death within comparatively
short period Of three eminent New-York Edit
ors, of men whose uncommon abilities con-
Quoted to permanent prosperity the newspapers
which their enterprise and honorable ambition
projected, may well remind LIB that life Is too
short to be wasted in unnecessary disputes.
Much which we are in the habit of saying of
each other, with careless prodigality of cpl
thet, and without sufficient heed of the literal
import of our words, seems, in the presence of
such death, to be unworthy of our own, or,
indeed, of any honorable calling. If Mr..
Greeley had been less fervent and positive in
his opinions and his convictions, if he had
been less devoted in mind and heart TO what
be believed TO be right and the truth, he
might often have expressed himself in words
more guarded and with something more of
conventional and parliamentary circumlocution.
He was himself accustomed to receive hard
blows, and it is no secret that he had habit of
returning them with liberal interest; yet no
one had more Of what the French call