New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-03-29
CHARLES SUMNER.
Tribute to His Memory by Rev. Myron
w. Reed.

u CHARLES SUMNER.
= Tribute to His Memory by Rev. Myro
+ w. Reed.
He that followeth after righteousness and mere
= hndeth hfe.-Proverbs twenty first chapter tweI
first verse;
The theme is Charles Sumner, and til
!, | text Is as read.
!. 1t is increasingly difficult to become
great man, for greatness is relative and pre-
sumes an average litteness. Socrates i
4 seen across the centuries, lonely figure
the one visible Of millions. Plutarch has t.
be patient and search diligently, and wide
and long, to recruit his battalion of heroes
But now the earth Is getting fat. Ever,
valley is exhausted, and it seems, and per
maps is, that the mountains are brough
low. Doubtless it is a leveling up, raisin.
OF the grade. Our common people are no
the common people of Judea, or of Greco,
or OF Rome. A man might be as tall to-day
as the tall man of the old time, but yoJ
could not see him so far. The printed word
and steam and lightning tend to make an
uneven world plain. The swamp being
drained lifts itself to the sun, and the tops
OF the mountains, blown against by the free
wind, are worn away. Who is the great man
OF today! 1t is an idle question. There are
a great many candidates; not one would
fail to get complimentary vote; no one
|
all eyes upon him in the Senate or on the
street think one might well despair
henceforth of becoming the great man.
What remains then! Let every man make
the most OF himself. The result will be a
peculiar difference and an excellence of
| kind, a new man in the world.
10 be that is perhaps ambition enough.
10 be excellent in his own place and wav
IS within the power Of every creature that
mas life. That is the best he can do. and it
| Is enough. One may easily fail in that.
| we are all men of whom more might have
been made. We have been waiting for
some workman to come along to draw us
| out and fashion us. Whereas the sufficient
workman and only one able has been, and
Is now close by, coiled lazlly in the breast
OF HIM who waits. 81 l have seen man
hunting for his spectacles, wondering where
they were, when he had them on
Now and then we see man who makes
the most, finds early what his faculty Is.
listens to it as the call OF God, which it is
power to do thing which ought to be done
IS election and predestination-and SO
does it, and so pleases God and his neighbor
and himself and is not afraid to die.
GOD SAYS to every man as He said to
Cyrus, "tor this purpose have raised thee
up" No voice in the night, nothing mys-
FERROUS. He gives him faculty and saws
nothing, hopes he is bright enough to train
and use the power that is given him. You
give child drum you, don't need to tell |
HIM to drum. Even blind Tom, almost an |
idiot, finds out what he was made for
creeps toward piano as soon as the parlor |
door is open. Thomas Mast early knows |
what he can do. So did Agassiz-he had |
an ear for harmony in the revelations of |
God, and he sat himself down to make us |
hear them too.
tween men is whether they attend their
own affairs or not
SO, no viewer, it may for a minute or two
seem to Pau! man is never ''born on. of
hue tlme,' but exactly in season, and there
is no untimely death.
OF course l assume that there is God.
He equips bis workman and sends him
INTO the world, and his equipment pro-
Dhesles his task and that it Is waiting for
lin. When the man with the saw arrives
he wood is at the door.
Along from 1859 to 1860 something had |
% be done-Heaven was weary of the com
,laint of the slave. it came up continually. |
[his. lshmael-child Of the bondwoman-
vas not to be and remain slave. The
'lan of Calhoun was not the plan. He ,
ould not be colOnized in anv desert place | ,
ut of the way of the fair-faced Isaac. The
Ian OF Henry Clay was not the plan. God '
card the voice of the child where he was /
nd said Arise, lift up the lad for will
make OF him great nation" !
That was the plan. That was the time !,
hen there must be some men TO helm
bout this thing. The hour and the men y
anne together.
1t needed men who believed in the "ioipt y
lterest which binds humanity together. in 7
ne duty OF respecting every mans part in "
fe, and OF doing justice to his efforts to i,
llhii that part'-Inen who would say, 1--WE h
elieve in the rights of every man to have
hat every man has, and to become what q
ny man is, on the same terms" He shall | q
Dt be hindered except by himself, and in | n
much as he has been hindered by others. +
> shall now be helped by others. If we | ii
i've delayed him with letters, now we will ] Il
isten him, lift him along, give him special |
tentlon, never cease give him special at. =,
ntion, until he is up with the column and -
n stand fair with the rest of US. Then, if "
Is IN him, he will keep up, and if it is not 'e
hun, II he is elected to struggle and fall ~,
mind, then. That is as much as was P>>
en-, or Is now, necessary for the men to g.
leve whom God wanted to attend to the 81
OF American slavery
mere were such men-men of conscience | ~
and the occasion of conscience u
others. ot
The old-fashioned conscience. mean. the
olce OF God in the breast" Not this new ov
lgled Ddrwinlan conscience. Nor this br
Ter new one OF the docto. S, lying perd, in ti(
grooves of the brain, or morbid in the z,
er Not these, bat the old one of John mr.
lox, the one that will not down by diet,
, one that troubled Cain aud made him Il
1 as il he ought to be killed. The one Rr
It was quick IN Paul. The one by virtue an
which the world swings around God, and
hout which stars will wander and fall Aft
into the blackness of darkness. There sol
re men who had this old fashioned mont do
Whittier was singing and Theodore Par.
was quoting the imprecatory psalms We
h a relish, warming up the American ow
Irch by telling how she christened the | w
ro: Thy name is Slave Il baptize thee is
the name of the gold eagle, the silver at
lar, and the copper cent. Amen.' no;
lie meant to draw the blood to the SIR. me
from the congested heart and he held tia
mustard on till there was a permeat of
= on the cheek, at any rate. L. {
'endell Philips flashed like a sabre, no | DIE
ries, but all thrusts. = 4 The
oveJoy made his voice to be heard. The Tai
'ade against slavery was preached by dea
OF original gifts, and these gifts were the
waited by mobs. Anybody can speak to lool