The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1872-12-14
After the Burial.
[From the New York Tribune. !

cit is dOne." Earth to earth ashe
to ashes: dust to dust. To the deat
there remains rest, and to the livinj
the burden of life. Into the hands O
his servant God gave great possibili
ties. He took back to God grea
achievements. It did not need tn,
press and throng of yesterday tn,
mute mourning OF men and women O
all ages, and conditions, and avoca
tions, and religious faiths; the som
bre state of the funeral train whereir
the highest officers Of the nation bort
their part not less than the humblest
citizens; the great multitude Of peo.
pie who waited for hours under the
wintry sky only to bow their heads a,
their friend was borne past them te
his burial ;-it did not need all these
to show the: curiously wide signif.
canoe Of Horace Greeley's life.
/ The generation that most misses
him is the generation that he finely
touched to SO fine issues. Thirty
years ago two classes Of young men
awaited him. The first was made up
of farmers, mechanics, artisans; in
dustrious and thrifty fellows, strong,
honest, and capable, but coarse, nar-
row, and urcultured. To them the
Tribune came as the revelation Of a
life undreamed of. A life of books,
and art, and daily beauty. A life OF
noble thinking, and large action.
They knew labor to be their inevi-
table portion. They saw how it
might become their highest dignity.
Into prairie cabill and frontier hut,
and settlers saw-mill, and artisans
tenement went these vivid thoughts
Of new thinker, and k..ndled a wise
discomfort and better endeavor.
The second class was made up of
dillettante and delicate youth. They
did not like the smell nor the manners
Of the commonalty. They doubted,
after all, whether q paternal govern
ment was not the best for the masses.
Culture was their shibboletl,. Life,
at best, seemed a little botched to
them. They we're persons of the
most cultivated distaste. To them
came this same Tribune like the sound
of trumpet, like the blast of the
north wind. It was full of a rude
health and rustic honesty. 1t shook
them OF the narrow pedestals and
gave them the broad earth to stend
on. 1t taught them that the value of
culture was it's service to humanity.
From these two ranks Of men came
the first recruits of that great army
which Horace Greeley, more than any
other man, raised up for liberty and
rights Of all men e~ery where. The
time 3 coming when Napoleon and
Wellington will no louger seem heroic
figures in a peoples eyes, because tile
ideas they typifed will be seen to have
been base and selfish. And in that
day the dead journalist, detained and
misunderstood and ridiculed while he
lived, will come to taldy monumental
honors as the real hero, the human
exponent of the divine idea Of love.
1t is common to callhim "our later
Franklin" But that is to belittle
him. There is a likeness in the good
natured shrewdness, the practical wis
dom, the pithy speech, the wish to
benefit men in homely ways. But the
moral nature Of the pupil was inf
nitely broader and sweeler than that of
the master; aud while the aphorisms
of the older sage have a slight taste of
copper, a certain twO-penny ha'penny
morality and exactness, the frugality
aud abstemiousness which the younger
practiced only gave him the larger
means of charity, while saving for the
sake Of saving seemed to him only less
ignoble than spending for the sake of
spending.
More than to most men it was given
to him to see of the travail of his
soul and be satisfied. Yet the nation
is coming to understand that no sue
cess of his was SO triumphant as that
which, OH the fifth of November, we
all called defeat. To have educated
a people into such a stern and ligl
love of liberty, that, when it fancied,
however blindly, his feet to be turning
into strange paths, it should choose
to follow his great leadership, is such
glory as man might well spend him
self to win. There may be az end
now of the cruel taunt that his vanity
persuaded him to be candidate, and
that he counted on q love and conf
dence from the people which he had
never possessed. The universal grief
declares that not his most sangline
not he, himself, dreamed of
the real affection that went out to him.
Never able quite to keep pace with
him, the people had painfully strug
gled up to position from which, with
larger vision he had stepped to a
higher. When they seemed to deny
him, they were his truest disciples.
God permits us the high ends we set
but often changes the
means to better. Our leader, and
those ofus who followed him, believed
that his words and his works would
convince the people that magnanim-
ity begets magnanimity forgiveness,
and deeds meet for repen-
tance; and love the acts of love. We
see now that only his death could be
thus eloquent. Beside graves, men