Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1874-03-26

wish TO remind you that all the great INTEL
lectual development which the world has
ever seen has been reached at the cost of the
heart. "Where the treasure is" says the
Bible, there the heart will be Also" and
hence, when an old scholar of the dark
ages found his love of thought increasing,
he began to withdraw from the streets
and to find in some monastic cell all the
world that any longer remained in the
heart, and, though. the dark ages are gone
and the monasteries are dust, yet the
principle remains such that when the in
tellect WEEDS itself fully to certain paths OF
study and toll the heart soon sunders the
many sweet and beautiful associations of
the wide world, and casts its love upon
that realm only to which the intellect had
welded itself for better or for worse, for
richer or for poorer. 1t is an unconscious
sacrifice which genius is always compelled
to make, but 1t is no more visible on the
grave of Sumner than over the grave of
Mill in philosophy, or Pascal in meta
physics, or Angelo in art, or Cicero in law
and letters. 1t is written in all history
that life of thought is constant war
fare against life of cheerfulness and
love. Instead of recalling the marble
GOODNESS of past illustrious men as q
blemish or fault in their character, we
only indicate common fact, and we
would bury the defect forever under
offerings of gratitude that there have
come here and there souls which, for the
development of great, useful ideas, have
been able to abandon what we mortals, in
humber vale, call the varied pleasures
of life.
Turning aside now from this apology,
let us rejoice that IL 1t was the fate of the
lamented Senator TO live for only part of
earth and for only part of religion, that
it pleased him to live for so magnificent
part of both politics and religion as is
found in the words peace, justice and
liberty. 1t was not Mr. Sumner, you re-
member, who advised the partnership of
Bibles and rifles in the early DAYS of
Kansas. No, in all this forty years Of
public life, Mr.. Sumner stood by the
power of argument, of light, of Christian
civilization alone. His hymn was the
poets psalm of Peace:
Were half the power that fills the world with terror
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and
Given to redeem the human mind from error,
There were no need OF arsenals or forts:
The warriors name would be name abhorrcd,
And every nation that should lift again
Its hand against Its brother, on Its forehead
Would wear foreyermore the curse OF Cain.
In the pulpits of the whole land the
Gospel doctrines have for the most part
been applied to only individual welfare,
and chiefly to that welfare beyond the
confines of States, beyond the grave;
afraid for the most part to preach what
they called politics, and having to an
alarming extent such bad politics that 1t
was perhaps fortunate that they remained
silent even by theological mistake, the
Christian ministry had in the last genera
tions left the gospel Of nations to be
preached by the few disciples OF William
Penn and by such virtual Quakers as
Charming, and Whittier and Sumner, the
greatest of all.
Upon him there was no restraint no
creed, no policy, such as influenced Web
ster and Clay. No fear Of violence No
fear of public scorn, either from Boston
or New Orleans, ever held HIM in any
considerable chain; but from him, the
freest man our country ever had in its
| dark day, came the gospel of nations, In
all its Bethlehem beauty of truth and of
spirit.
t IH HE present and, more yet, III the
near future the pulpit will confess that
| Charles Sumner was the minister at its
altar in the dark days when il was afraid,
and in doctrines 10 the grandeur of which
| il had not the intellect, nor the courage,
/ nor the humanity TO ascend. Penn, and
| Claiming, and Sumner came in with that
| part of Christianity which belongs TO the
constitution of nations; and when we re-
member that grand, free, enlightened
| State Is the land in which the cross can be
reared with most success, the orators who,
| upon the field OF craftsmanship, apply to
| society the three Christian doctrines OF
peace, liberty, and justice mus; be con-
fessed to be standing very near the hottest
| ministers Of religion. As the church
| helped Mr.. Sumner, gave him hearts will
| ing TO listen to his long argument, so he
helped the church by sending back to 1t
men who evcrmore tried to combine the
character Of Christian with the character
OF citizen.
But Mr.. Summers attachment TO peace
was no more absorbing and unbending
than his devotion TO liberty. But liberty
is twin-sister OF peace, as bondage is the
companion of force. AS Franklin gloried
in saying, Where liberty is, there is my
country" Sumner equally gloried in say
ing, Where liberty is, there Is my party"
Down this channel OF freedom for white
slaves in Barbary and for black slaves In
America, he poured torrent Of eloquence
Tor twenty -nye years, stream OF argu.
ment which, gathering up the wisdom OF
Greece and Rome, the experience of En-
gland, the battle-shouts of Marathon and
Bunker Hill, the blest vision of the poets,
the longings of Washington and Jefferson,
and then bedecked with the flowers OF
gorgeous rhetoric growing up either bank,
moved along like an Amazon toward the
sea. Ii has been said recently by apublic
man that "Mr. Sumner surpassed all
statesmen in the love and study of the
right" 1t was this deep prepos-
session that led him TO espouse
the cause of the slave. Words which he
himself applied to Charming thirty years
ago return now to settle upon his own
forehead. Follow my white plume"
| said the chivalrous monarch OF France.
Follow the Right, more resplendent
than plume or orifamme," was the watch
| word of Sumner.
But all this long history you know
well, for In this hour, when death has
come to quicken our memory and love
| an hour which makes an enemy friend
that past--sll struggle for the slaves
freedom from the discord Of the Mis-
souri, Compromise down to the death